thrive community

Grace. What a powerful word. It’s even more powerful to those who understand the depth of its meaning from personal experience. The great exchange where weary souls can finally rest.

It is finished. Three beautiful words. They, too are words of rest but are also words of beauty that, once understood, will release joy and worship. The great exchange where weary souls are finally free.

Rest and freedom are the fruit of a life that understands the “good news” that Jesus spoke of. For some reason, the fruit of the “good news” in most churches actually looks like bad news. I know the words are spoken the same, but the end result in their parishioners lives looks nothing like rest and freedom.

You see, most people who profess to follow Jesus are not really free. There is an unconscious enslavement to a lifestyle of “proving their worthiness to God” and have yet to realize they don’t need to anymore.

What we don’t realize is that God is more excited about this idea than we are (Eph. 1:5). Yet our tendency is to keep working to get His “thumbs up” for our inferior attempts so that, by some means, we can get Him to like us more. We are enamored and distracted by our own efforts, hoping they will draw God’s favorable attention, all the while He’s trying to get our attention by pointing to the cross.

What we have here is a failure to communicate, and I don’t think God is the one who needs a better hearing aid on this one.

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I met with a few people today who are interested in being small group leaders. It was refreshing to hear their hearts as well as their different perspectives on what they see as ministry. Our goal as a church is to help people get freed up to be themselves and help them to see how they can serve others with their gifts and passions, where they are.

Leah is helping us create a singles group. After our official, “blessing of the pastor” meeting, we got a chance to talk with her and get to know her a little better. She grew up Catholic and didn’t even think she would ever be back in church. She’s growing in her walk with Christ and has a great passion to create a family for single people and help them belong. As she shared her story, I could hardly keep still, or quiet for that matter. God was stirring me and encouraging me as she shared about her journey, her coming to Jesus and following after His call.

As you might have known, I started jabbering away. Being around an excited Christ follower with a willing heart and a blossoming faith is like smoking crack to this preacher man (though, I, myself have not tried it but I hope the religious people will follow my analogy without legalistic judgement!). I would rather be around a raw, vibrant, passionate Believer than a settled, bland pretender who can talk a good game of Bible trivia, does “Church” well, but their life shout out to the world around them with a resounding…”BORING!”

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This Christmas holiday has been very busy and fast paced for me this year. With a little down time this Christmas night, I’m reminded of the narrative in the bible where the Wise Men (or Magi) that came to worship Jesus, the Christ child (Matt. 2:1-12).

These men got to see Jesus face to face. What an incredible blessing and honor to witness the Messiah first hand. Many believe that these men left this encounter with an even greater trust and passion to worship God and be a witness to the coming of his Son, Jesus, the promised Messiah.

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