Category Archives: Faith In Action
The Back Stories
On Faith in Action Weekend our church makes an event out of serving our community by planning multiple projects, taking pictures, doing a music video, & celebrating what we can accomplish together when we make ourselves available. It makes for a good story, but I’m one that always digs for the back story. I never trust the opening line. Here’s a few back stories:
- Single moms & widows living in a local multi-housing complex struggling to make ends meet & overcome past pain. Serving them through keeping their grass cut & other household chores that are easy for us, difficult for them.
- A disabled single mom goes through a house fire. Through Faith in Action volunteers have put a new roof on her house, painted & made repairs on her house, and Sunday we prepped it for fresh paint. Hoping our next Faith in Action weekend at the end of the summer will include putting in new flooring in her totally renovated home.
- Every Nursing Home has residents that have no local family support. They seldom get visits. They go without many personal items that could make them more comfortable. Sunday volunteers took care boxes to them & let them know that they are not alone.
- The family of a Parkinson’s patient who can no longer walk had to call the local Fire Dept to lift him down the steps, to get him to doctors appointments, etc. Last Saturday volunteers installed a wheelchair ramp at the home easing the hardship on the family.
- 41% of current inmates had a relative in jail. 25% of current inmates had a dad in jail. Through our Family Day Block Parties on Faith in Action Weekend we provide a fun environment for dads to connect with their kids & we celebrate those who have completed our Recovery & Re-Entry Course or earned their GED. A favorite moment of mine from this past week was seeing a son asking his dad about the certificate he received.
- Sharing the Gospel at the jail always leads to conversations about new life in Christ. Sunday, a lady came up and said that three of her sons had died due to drugs & violence. She has one son left. He completed our course last week. She asked for prayer that she could get past her anger at God and trust Christ.
These are relationships that Bridge Church has developed because of intentionally looking for back stories of need in our community. One person said it like this, “The problem with the Church today is not that we don’t care about poor people. The problem is that we don’t know any of their names.” Are we looking for the back story? Are we developing relationships so that our Faith is more than an event, but relationships that will lead people FROM where they are, TO where God wants them to be?
Christianity started as a Back Story – peasant girl in a back ally of Bethlehem. Jesus lived his life as a Back Story – a carpenter turned Rabbi. After his death & resurrection the Gospel spread as a Back Story – ordinary people scattering, sharing, serving, & living like little Christ. Miracles happen in the Back Story.
“Gaze” – A Few Faces of Community Transformation
This weekend was our quarterly Faith in Action Weekend. Bridge Church takes one weekend each quarter to scatter and serve around our community. A verse that jumped out at me as I prepared for the weekend was Act 3:4, “And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John.” This was speaking of a crippled man along their path. Wasn’t an entertaining site, but needed the attention of some Spirit-filled Christ followers. Many faces around our communities need our gaze. Here’s a few faces that struck me from our FIA weekend.
Joy! Elderly man suffering from Parkinson's gets a wheelchair ramp on his home meaning he no longer has to call the Fire Dept when he has to get out of his house.
Pain. A local inmate in Celebrate Recovery attending a Family Day Event. He's ready for change.
Dust. A disabled single mom went through a house fire. Volunteers sanding & prepping the interior for new paint get dusty.
Who or what has your “gaze”, your attention right now?
“Hey Dad, when’s the next Faith in Action Sunday?”
Four times per year, our church scatters instead of just gathering for worship to do restoration projects across our community. It’s a weekend emphasis for what we want our daily lives to be as missionary servant living out life In Christ, On Mission, 4 Others. This weekend will be the 8th FIA Sunday. It’s an opportunity to add to the story of our lives intentionality, radical generosity, and faith in action.
My 9-year old Jack has been doing FIA Sunday’s & other community service projects for the last 3 years and it’s exciting to see 
how it’s shaping his heart and attitudes about life & church. The Sunday after our FIA weekends, he starts asking, “Hey Dad, when’s the next Faith in Action Sunday? And what’s the projects?”
Last year on FIA Sunday, we were working on the home of a disabled single mom who lives near a church that had just gone through a new building campaign. As we drove by he asked in the innocence of an 8-year old mind, “Dad, why is that church so nice and Ms. _____ doesn’t even have running water?” Now I know that particular church does great things in our community & that every church can’t do everything but we’re working together, but I was proud that my son had begun to note in his heart, “Isn’t it about the needs of the world instead of about me? And my church?” I’m glad that my conversations with Jack about church have delved a little deeper than, “Did you have fun today at church?” and even, “What did you learn in church today?” But we’re learning that with intentional efforts to get our children into “points of contact” with people in need, they can get it & be shaped & changed & even make a difference in the lives of others as we serve together.
Many Christian parents would probably say that they don’t want their kids to grow up as Christian consumers or as self-centered narcissists. But what are we doing intentionally to help them develop an others focus? Telling Bible stories & going to church IS a powerful thing. Do that! But are we living out those stories in our own way with our families? Are we teaching our kids to apply the stories they hear talked about?
Faith in Action weekend is an opportunity for our families to serve together, apply the Word of God, get our hands dirty, & teach our kids what the Christian life is all about with more than words, but actions. This weekend, I’ll have Jack with me as we build a porch and clean up the yard of an elderly widow and share the gospel with her neighborhood through a Block Party. He’ll also be beside me as we go to our local jail and throw a block party for inmate kids and share the gospel there. I’m looking forward to his next questions.
You can join us this weekend to put your Faith in Action. We’ll meet at 9am at the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Maritime Museum on Sunday for breakfast a time of devotion & prayer, then scatter to serve. Check out our projects at bridgenorthshore.com/faith-in-action. Everybody can serve!
Here are a few other ideas for families on mission together:
- Volunteer at local food banks.
- Find needs in your local neighborhood.
- Make bake goods or crafts for local nursing homes.
- Invite people into your home & talk about life & God.
- Take a Family Mission Trip & find a mission project to do one day wherever you go on vacation.
Discipleship = Relationship + Mission
One way we see New Testament Christianity framed in the ministry of Christ is in the connection between relationship and mission.
Mark 3:14 says,
“he (Jesus) appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him (RELATIONSHIP) and he might send them out to preach (MISSION).”
Then speaking to his post-resurrection followers, Jesus says in John 20:21-22,
“As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you (MISSION). And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit'” (RELATIONSHIP).
Then before ascending to heaven, he gave his followers their marching orders for the rest of time in Matthew 28:19-20,
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (MISSION). And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age (RELATIONSHIP).”
To be in RELATIONSHIP w/Jesus, means to be listening to His voice through regular time with Him and to be empowered by and dependent upon His presence and not our own strength. To be ON MISSION w/Jesus means to continue His work of teaching, proclaiming, healing, having compassion, and sending (see Matthew 9:35-38) and walking in obedience to Him.
We must have both to have a robust, growing, multiplying faith and church. At times in my life, I’ve lived with one without the other. Emphasizing only relationship meant for me becoming a Sunday morning Christian. Making Christianity only about knowing the Bible and being at Christian events. Eventually RELATIONSHIP will dry up and Christianity will become RITUAL and RELIGION. Our relationship with Christ, will lead us to be ON MISSION with Him. Charles Spurgeon may have said it best when he said, “Every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter.”
I’ve also emphasized MISSION at the expense of RELATIONSHIP in my Christian life, leading to frustration and near burnout as I try to do God’s work in man’s strength, or legalism as I try to DO MORE for God, SO THAT I can be an acceptable Christian. His Mission can only be accomplished in His power. It was that power that turned the frightened, locked away disciples into a missionary force that turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6). And only Christ makes us ACCEPTABLE to God. There is nothing more that we can do to deal with our sin or the worlds. Christ finished the work. Our only task now is intentional obedience, surrender, and dependence upon Him for this mission.
So, are you in RELATIONSHIP w/Christ? If so, are you ON MISSION w/Christ in this world? Healthy disciples grow as these two collide. Church leader, does your church provide opportunities for developing a healthy relationship with Christ as well as opportunities to be on His mission in the world?
This weekend, our church will hold our second Faith in Action Sunday of 2012. Every time there is a 5th Sunday in a month (four times per year) we take the weekend and provide opportunities for people to be on mission in our community. It’s been a great way to emphasize sending and mission among our community of disciples. Check out more info and our Faith in Action itinerary at bridgenorthshore.com/faith-in-action.
A Little Faith in Action This Week
This week we’ll be partnering with Covington’s Boy & Girls Club to paint their new building on Columbia Street in Covington. The
Boys & Girls club has never had it’s own facility in Covington and now they will be taking over the former Habitat Restore. A great location near the West 30’s, but much work is needed. Come by this week if you can give some time to painting and demolition. The Covington Boys & Girls Club provides a vital service to a neighborhood with many latch key and fatherless kids. Opportunities to tutor, mentor, volunteer in other ways abound.
We’ll also be partnering with the new mixed income apartment complex called
The Groves at Mile Branch in the West 30’s for an Outdoor Movie Night. Hoping to provide a fun night for residents to connect and cultivate relationships. And the Groves management hopes to use its state of the art space to help kids in the entire neighborhood.
We’ll also continue our Bus Stop Buffet’s, serving through giving away breakfast bars etc. at several multi-housing communities.
“What if we took the teachings of Jesus seriously and didn’t water them down?” [VIDEO]
Sara’s Story. One of my favorite moments from the Verge Conference.
A few months back our church parked our trailer in a neighborhood under revitalization while we helped with some painting and home repair projects. The next week we got several lectures from Christians about how dangerous it was down there and how we should be careful. Sara’s question gripped me! “Who’s fearing for the safety of these kids?”
What would it look like for you to take the teachings of Jesus seriously and not water them down? Are we too concerned about our safety and comfort to reach out to people who need the Gospel and need real-time help? What if…
Saved, but NOT Sent
I’ve been pretty good at keeping up with email for most of my digital life, but lately my “Draft” box is filling up. That means I’ve started an email to you but I got distracted before I was able to complete it. If you’re waiting on an email from me, SORRY! These messages are SAVED, but NOT SENT.
Incidentally, I believe this describes many of us Christians in today’s Western church. We have been SAVED by God and put ourselves into the DRAFT box of church membership, but we’ve not seen the opportunities or necessity to be SENT by God into the world to used BY Him and FOR Him. Many Christians today are SAVED, but NOT SENT.
SENT is a key word in the Story of God. By nature God is a SENDER:
- He SENT Abraham away from Ur to find a promised land
- He SENT Joseph to Egypt to save his family from famine
- He SENT Moses to Egypt to rescue the Hebrews from slavery
- He SENT Judges to Israel to fend off enemies before the days of the Kings.
- He SENT Prophets to call the people to repentance and lead the people during the exile.
AND THE CLIMACTIC MOMENT:
- He SENT Jesus to die for the sins of the world and defeat sin and death through the resurrection.
- Luke 4:18, “He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind…”
- John 17:3, “this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have SENT.”
- 1 John 4:9, “In this is the love of God was made manifest among us, that God SENT his only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.”
And He’s continued SENDING:
- He SENT the Holy Spirit to empower the church for ministry and multiplication.
- He SENT the Apostles to start a Gospel movement around the known world. Apostle actually means “sent one”
And continue through 1,000’s of years of Church History and you’ll find yourself in a long list of people that God desires to be SENT into this world for His Glory.
We are SAVED TO BE SENT into the world for His glory.
- John 17:18, “As you SENT me into the world, so I have SENT them into the world.”
- John 20:21, “As the Father has SENT me, even so I am SENDING you.”
- Romans 10:14-15, “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?t And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are SENT?”
So God sees the needs of the world and His response – HE SENT YOU AND I. We are God’s response.
So are you living SENT? or are you content with SITTING and watching others? Is your church a SENDING church or a SITTING church?
This weekend Bridge Church finished up a series of messages called Core (get the series and their Intro Videos here). It’s all about SENT Living and this week’s message we’ll talk about some practical ways to Live Sent.
What are some ways that you’ve know people to Live Sent? How have you lived sent in your world? What are the implications of being SENT by God on our daily lives?
A great book on Sent Living is entitled Live Sent by my good friend Jason Dukes. Check out info and some of my big take away’s from the book here.
Viral Faith happens at the Dinner Table
“Pray that the Master’s Word will simply take off and race through the country to a groundswell of response” http://bible.us/2Thess3.1.MSG
In my last post I talked about 4 elements of Viral content. God’s design for the Gospel was for it to spread virally as we see in 2 Thess 3:1. Here’s one practical thing you can do to in this regard: have dinner with some friends.
One way the gospel spread in the New Testament was “house to house.”
- Acts 2:46 (NASB) “day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart”
- Acts 5:42 (NASB) “every day, in the temple and from house to house, they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.”
- Acts 20:20 (NASB) “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house”
For the New Testament Church this was out of necessity – they had no buildings – and conviction – practicing hospitality was a core practice (Romans 12:13, Hebrews 13:2, 1 Peter 4:9). But there’s also a strategic advantage to using our homes and hospitality to spread the Gospel. There’s just something significant and sticky about sharing a meal with others that’s unforgettable and life changing. We tend to let our guards down around the dinner table and open up our lives to an extent that relationships are propelled forward and opportunities to share the gospel are cultivated. That may be why Jesus made this a core practice of his earthly ministry. One of my favorite post by Stuff Christians Like author Jon Acuff was about this:
What an ineffective communicator Jesus was by our modern standards of platform building. He could have spoken to hilltops of thousands of people each night, but instead he wasted time at dinner with a handful of tax collectors and strangers.
Want to change the world? It’s easy. Have a long, time-wasting, friendship-generating dinner with someone.
Alan Hirsch said it this way in his book Untamed:Reactivating Missional Discipleship:
If every Christian household regularly invited a stranger, or a poor person, or a work colleague into their home for a meal with the family once a week, we would literally change the world by eating!
Sounds like fun to me! Allow your home to be more than a refuge from the world. Use hospitality and meal making as a platform for your faith in Christ and a way to build relationships that will lead to the gospel spreading. So, pull out the favorite recipe’s, clear off the dining table, open up your life, invite a neighbor over, and go viral w/your faith.
I Don’t Want to Be a Drive-by Disciple
A few years ago, I was a busy pastor driving to the church 2-3 or 4, OK 5-6 nights a week for meetings, events, or to open the door and micro manage others meetings and events, when God opened my eyes to something. All of a sudden I noticed people out in their yards, coming home from work, and some even waving at me. Then I started noticing homes that were substandard and people walking on the side of the road and people living alone w/o relationships. God opened my eyes to the fact that I was DRIVING BY the needs of my neighborhood and community to get to my busy schedule of ALL GOOD and MOSTLY necessary church activities. I had essentially become the Levite and Priest in the story of the Good Samaritan, passing by the beat up guy with mega needs for the sake of my busy schedule and the opinions of others. I realized that I had become a DRIVE-BY DISCIPLE. I repented and ask God to help me live life on mission beyond my church’s calendar and property lines.
Matthew 9:36 says that Jesus “SAW the crowds.” Can you see those around you? Their needs? Their lifestyles? Their value to God? Their potential through Christ? In my area, when I looked around I saw 76-90% that are not attending church more than once per month if at all (96% not attending SBC churches). And the number that I’m driving by on my way to church is increasing every year. I see a growing number w/o hope leading to an ever increasing suicide attempt rate and people who are daily recognizing their pursuit of pleasure and ease is a facade. I began to see widows and elderly with no one to take care of their simple household issues. I began to see the multi-housing facilities and parks that takes me a few seconds to DRIVE-BY, but house 30o-500 lives in need of the Gospel.
In Matthew 10:5, Jesus responded to what he saw by SENDING his disciples on mission. He’s done the same today. WE ARE sent not to church, but into the world to give, to love, to share, to serve. Being a member of a church is an important part of life on mission, but it must not be a substitute for responding to and serving the needs around us as disciples, individually and corporately.
Every time there’s a 5th Sunday in a month, our church takes a Sunday – Faith In Action Sunday – to take care of needs we’ve been DRIVING BY for three months. It’s an intentional way for us to encourage life ON MISSION FOR OTHERS and take our message to the world beyond the church walls.
Join us for Faith in Action Sunday in 2012 – January 29th (more info and project list here), April 28th-29th, July 29th, and September 30th. Better yet, open your eyes to the needs around you. Look around as you drive to church this weekend. See the crowds, have compassion, realize that if you’re a disciple Jesus has sent you to this place for this time.
This Faith In Action Sunday we’ll be taking care of a few elderly widows needs, throwing a block party for inmate families at our local jail, painting a house in a neighborhood that’s undergoing revitalization, and more.
Here’s a great list of dozens of ways to be On Mission in your neighborhood, workplace, or community.
Serving on Sunday, part two
A trend in church life is congregations taking a Sunday and scattering throughout the community to serve. Most are doing it once a year. A few, like the church I’m part of, are doing it once per quarter. I’ve heard of at least one church doing it once a month. This week I saw an article about Rick Warren’s southern California mega-church Saddleback, taking a weekend called Good Neighbor day. I don’t think this is for every congregation and I don’t know that the congregation I lead will do it forever, but I think that a Faith in Action Sunday can be a powerful tool of cultivation in church and community.
A few weeks back I mentioned three reasons why to do it from the book Barefoot Church: Serving the Least in A Consumer Culture by Brandon Hatmaker. Here is a bit of the reasoning and strategy behind Bridge Church’s quarterly FIA Sunday’s.
- The end goal of faith-filled disciples and missionaries. The Great Commission’s call is to make disciples. As a second journey church planter I begin to ask myself and others: “If I really wanted to make a disciple what would I do?” and “What was the greatest tool for spiritual growth in your life?” The answer was most often, ” Relationships and serving.” I was often disappointed when people didn’t recall my beautifully illiterated sermon as causing a spiritual growth spirt, but pointed to relationships with other Christians and ministry/mission opportunities as the greatest catalyst for growth. So, we begin to pray about how we could structure for relationships and mission, which led us to the idea of taking four Sunday’s a year for Faith in Action. Let me say: this is not a church growth gimic and definitely NOT a good strategy for church growth. If you’re goal is more attenders, DON’T do it, but the goal of producing faith-filled disciples who see themselves as missionaries caused us to rethink strategy and structure for serving a bit radically and non-traditionally.
- The other 60%. Alan Hirsch and Dave Ferguson write in their book On the Verge, that around 60% of the population is outside of the church’s reach. That the majority of churches are fishing out of the same pond which includes about 40% of the population. I’ve found this to be a trend in the area where I live and serve. A segment of our population is not attracted by or will most likely not be influenced by our current forms of church. What can we do to reach these people? One answer: Go to them. And as one part of an incarnational strategy of engagement in the hardest to reach areas, we seek to take church to them four Sunday’s per year. Somebody once said that to reach people nobody is reaching you need to do things nobody is doing. In our community we have some amazing churches offering professional worship music, incredible preaching by some unbelievable communicators and men of God, and a full service ministry menu for every day of the week. So we’ve got that covered. Our niche is to be the ground troops moving into difficult areas, bringing the gospel and making disciples/missionaries as we go. Faith in action Sunday serves as a great tool in this regard.
I’ve written about some reason NOT to do this here. In the next two posts on this subject, I’ll take on some of the frequently asked questions and criticisms for Serving on Sunday, like:
- It subverts the importance of preaching the Word of God.
- It hurts church growth by making things awkward and uncomfortable for newcomers, visitors, and the disconnected.
- “We can’t go a Sunday w/o taking an offering.”
- It promotes a liberal agenda of social action.
- “I can’t imagine how we would find enough for everyone to do around our community.”
- Some good ones offered here by Kevin DeYoung.
Then lay out a plan for putting together a Faith in Action Weekend, whether it’s on Sunday or not.
Lane Corley 