Expanding Our Borders

Isaiah 54:2-3, 2 “Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. 3 For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities.

A consistent theme in the prophetic call to God’s people is to make preparation for expansion. It is a promise of blessing in order that we might bless others. However, to receive this promise, we must in faith make preparations (changes) in order to make room for the blessing God wants to pour out.

I have spent the last couple of days in Northeast Missouri…about 25 miles south of the Iowa border. It is very rural and with lots of farms. Any farmer knows that you have to build a silo before you can harvest. Moreover, the size of your silo (or the number of your silos) depends upon how big you expect your harvest to be.

Jubilee has always lived with the expectation of a big harvest, and has sought to be the kind of church that has prepared for growth before it’s happened. This has meant we have:

1. Rented or bought facilities bigger than maybe we needed at the time
2. Developed and trained more leaders than we needed
3. Remained very flexible with our systems and methods of going about our mission.

Our hope and plan is to continue to “enlarge the place of our tent”, to lengthen our cords and strengthen our stakes.

This Sunday, December 6, the roughly 75 people that currently make up Life Church in Union, will officially come under the leadership of the Jubilee elders, making them a part of Jubilee Church. This is an exciting time…the family is growing!

The Nations Are In Our Basement

The call to go to the nations is clear. There are oodles of verses in the Bible that command us (Christians) to go "into all the world to preach the gospel" (Mt 28) or to be His witnesses "to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1) This is a command that should effect the ministry goals and plans of EVERY church.

One of the great advantages of living in a global society is that the call to go to the nations no longer requires you to get on a boat or an airplane. You do not have to look far to reach the nations because the nations have come to us. Within just a few miles of our Kingshighway building, there are dozens of languages spoken by people all over the globe. In recent years, south St. Louis city has experienced the biggest influx of people from Bosnia, Iraq, Vietnam and Eastern African countries. Some of you may or may not know that there is a food pantry in Jubilee Church St. Louis City Location's basement that primarily serves these new Americans.

My Action Track served there this morning by giving away donuts and coffee to nearly 100 people as they waited in line to receive their food. Everyone in my group was blown away by this experience to interact and befriend others from a different countries, listen to their stories and even pray for a few.

If you are a part of Jubilee, I would encourage you to check it out one Saturday morning. If you're in an Action Track in the city, encourage your track to serve there as a group.

Sharing the Gospel

Every Sunday, it's my aim as a communicator/preacher to shed light on the gospel. It may not be as direct as the "Roman Road" (Romans 3:23; 5:8; 6:23; 10:9-10; 10:13), but my hope is that everyone (Christian or non-Christian) walks away with a better understanding of the gospel.

However, this Sunday my hope is to be direct and take dead aim at explaining how God makes knowing Him possible. The friends you bring along with you (you are bringing a friend right?) will receive about a 35-40 minute explanation of the gospel of grace, and in doing so, my hope is also to provide you with a model of how you can also explain the gospel. Here's rough outline of my message that you can use:

1. "...(God) took on flesh and dwelt among us..." (John 1:14)

a. God became one of us to identify with our lives

b. He dwells among us to so we can really know Him

2. The invitation of salvation is for everyone (John 3:16)

a. People no one else wants to relate to

i. Samaritan woman (John 4)

ii. Woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11)

iii. Mary of Bethany (John 12:1-8)

b. People who are low on the totem poll (Peter, James and John - Luke 5)

3. Jesus came to show us truth and grace (John 1:14)

a. He is THE way, THE truth, and THE life (John 14:6)

b. We don't earn anything it's grace

i. unmerited favor

ii. through the death of Jesus

4. Sin deserves death (Rom 6:23), but by trusting in Jesus we get life

a. Why did Jesus die if he didn't sin?

b. He took our sin and we get his perfection! (2 Cor 5:21)

5. Now what?

a. We don't walk with a swagger as if we did anything (humility - Eph 2:8)

b. We don't loathe life as if we are still under condemnation (Rom 8:1)

c. We worship with our whole lives (Eph 2:10; Rom 12:1)

I'll see you and your friends on Sunday!

What is an Elder?

Read this great post about eldership by Rick Hein.

Another Jubileeite Gets Baptized

Nathan Deming is a student from Webster who connected with Jubilee last year through Latitude. He had quite a year with us as God really broke through in his life. He ended up participating in the Evangelism Internship in Chicago last summer. Currently, he is studying abroad in London and is attending one of our (Newfrontiers) churches in London called ChristChurch.

Check out his baptism from last week!

Nathan plans to return to St. Louis and Webster next semester.

I Hope Your Friendships Are Deeper than Andre Agassi's

Saturday afternoons are pretty intense sermon prep days for me primarily because it is non-stop from the time I wake up until the time I go to bed. So, I need little points of relief throughout the day and one of the most common is checking out the headlines on ESPN.com. This Saturday, the headline that caught my attention first was: "Ex-coach had 'no clue' Agassi was taking meth."

Here's a quote from that article by Brad Gilbert (Agassi's former trainer and friend): Because we (Gilbert and Agassi) hung out a ton, but that doesn't mean you ask things that are personal. As I read the article, I became deeply saddened by the reality of most people's relationships.

I believe that in a Biblically functioning church, relationships are intensely personal. Now granted, not everyone in the church will be best friends, but the ones you "hang out a ton" with, better be personal. How sad is it and unloving is it that we would never ask, "Hey bro, how are you doing...really?" That all we would do is gather together and watch TV, play board games, eat guacamole, but never be caring enough, be loving enough to make it personal. Recently, I had very good friend of mine asked me how I was doing in the area of spending time with my son. The long and short of it was that he was able to show me that I was, in fact, being inattentive with my son. Furthermore, this inattentiveness was resulting not just in a lack of relationship, but in a lack of discipline, which really is a lack of love that puts stress on my wife and will someday, cause my son to pay a bigger than expected price. I made the adjustment and things are much better because of good friends who ask personal questions.

With the backdrop of a hyper-individualistic and relationally desolate culture, the church must rise up and be different. We must be personal. We are in relationship with a personal God. The world didn't start with power by an isolated and alone God. It start with love and community within the triune God and out of that overflow, the world and human beings were created. Sin in your life will cause you to drift from relationships (real relationships), but as you draw near to God, expect (and inspect) that you will draw near to others as well.

Video Blog on Prophecy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSpqnQMdfW8