Does God Really Exisit?

Within a post-Christian America, many more are asking the question "Does God really exist at all?" In this short video you will get a snap shot that will help give 4 explanations of God's existence.

Bobby Conway, a good friend and fellow church planter part of our network Fellowship Associates interviews Alex McFarland, the President of Southern Evangelical Seminary on the topic.

I encourage you to look into some of these videos for answers that will lead to further study, questions and investigation.

Suggested Resources:

Books:

The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Tim Keller

Ten Most Common Objections to Christianity: By Alex McFarland

Tools for Evangelism

Explore A 3 week study exploring, some of life's most profound questions. By Robert Lewis

Gospel Intentionality

God wants to use more ordinary people to do more of His extraordinary work in our world. In the video we find inspiration and perfect picture of what success should look like for Imago Dei Community Church. People living on mission, people incarnating the gospel. People joining God in the good for the city. When we- people of God bring the gospel message of hope and love to the people of our city we win! That's success. When we as a church empower a movement of people to bring gospel intentionality to their home, their work, their communities and their city. That's living on mission! That's the picture of success.

Recently I was a guest preacher and taught on the subject of living with Gospel Intentionality. I preached from Acts 1:1-11. My outline was basically Acts 1-5 tells us that Jesus is Lord. Luke (the author) develops a conclusive argument to his friend that Jesus is in fact Lord,the risen God in the human flesh, having showed himself after his death to people for more than 40 days, sharing meals building his relationships, teaching truth and preparing them for mission!

Luke continues in verses 6-11 to explain how Jesus gave his followers a basic command...Go, "Be my witnesses to all Judea all Samaria and to the ends of the earth."They were to take all that they had learned and put it to action! Jesus was leaving them to carry on his mission. Little did they know that this little seedling Christian community would later become the most influential force in the Roman Empire By 310 AD this Christ community had grown to more than 20 million followers strong!- Which is before Constantine, I might add! You can learn more about how to live with gospel intentionality by listening to my recent sermon titled Jesus is Lord and Jesus says Go. You will need to look around on the website to find it but it's there!

So where does God have you right now? Where are you working?

Imagine what could happen if you saw your work as a ministry to serve others, seeking the benefit of others?

What would happen if you lived in your neighborhood with gospel intentionality living like Jesus in a continual pattern of truth, relationship and mission?

What about your city? What's God doing in your city? What could you imagine God wanting to do through His people- the Church there?

Education & City Transformation

Waiting for Superman is an exciting new movie that's coming out telling the story of America's struggle within education. America is #1 in producing confident kids, but #25 in Math! Many of our schools across our country have turned into drop out factories and once a student drops out they are 8 times more likely to go to prison.

As a Pastor who cares for the city, I encourage all to consider how they can invest into public schools in their own cities. I have personally witnessed the power and transformation of good families and churches working to bring about change in bad schools.

In my own high school back in Little Rock, AR several churches and families came together to invest their time and resources into a poorly performing, gang infested, drug hub high school. The result was nothing less than total transformation over 5 years. It soon became a highly performing educational opportunity for our students of our community.

I dream of Imago Dei being a church that seeks the good of the city, partnering with others to invest in schools for future generations. Not simply being a church that declares the gospel on Sunday morning's from the pulpit but a church that demonstrates the gospel from the pews - people actively engaged in their communities, serving the needs of the city for the good of the city.

Being Missional

Characteristics of a Missional Church- Keller

Adoption: A Picture of the Gospel

This video is from Aaron Ivey a friend of mine who has helped the church engage the need to be the church and adopt! He is a Worship Leader from The Austin Stone Church.

Personally, as I have looked at scriptures I have been more and more compelled to seek to do what God did for us. Adopt! I want my life to exude the gospel and I want to extend that love to as many as possible! I think when we look at the scriptures we see adoption as one of the best ways we could demonstrate our love for God and do what he has done for us. God took us in. He invited us into his fellowship, making us part of the family (Eph. 1:4-5, Rom 8:15, 9:4).

I want to encourage you to join me and pray about adoption. Consider with ours this possibility. Why? Because children matter to God and church is to enage the needs of our cities. Today there are thousands of young men and women who will go through life in foster care but never have a father or mother unless we the church takes action and does what the Father did for us. Pray with me and ask Jesus if he would have you adopt or foster. ---Ryan

Community Pastor: David Rice

David and Micah Rice moved down from Missoula, Montana in early November and are excited to be serving with Imago Dei. After meeting close to ten years ago serving in a ministry together they have loved working side by side in various ministries all over the country and on a short-term overseas missions trip. Married in 2007 they have spent the last 2 years in Montana where David worked into full-time staff with Outdoorsmen Church. In that time he had the privilege to be licensed as a minister of the gospel. Micah an RN, is taking a career break to settle and prepare for their first child due in early February.  Read more about them at http://www.ricejourneys.com/

The Gospel: Jesus Forgives Story

I had a powerful vision one time. It was 1999. I was living in Waco, TX at the time. I was a new Christian and had moved down there to be with my crazy new Christian friends. We all had traded in our Guns n Roses and Nirvanna CD's for Keith Green and Jars of Clay.

We were x-druggies and thugs that had all come to know Jesus in a powerful way that changed our lives. We all had a mission. #1 Know Jesus More and #2 Help others know him too. Why Waco? It had nothing to do with the nut job David Keresh that started the cult.

I was there for adventure. My buddies were going to Baylor, and attending an happening college ministry where students were trained and sent all around the world to plant churches. It was this time that I learned the necessity to rehears the gospel to myself.

I was struggling with the sins of my pasts, feeling the guilt and the shame of all the girls I had done wrong, the people I mistreated, the hateful and hurtful things I had done.

At that time I was attending a community college near by, working at Italian restaurant (which was a joke b/c I was a pathetic waiter and couldn't keep peoples orders straight) and I was very involved in our local church. The point is...I was busy. In the midst of all this I was struggling with my past and wondering what God was doing in me for the future.

During an afternoon of prayer and study time in Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology I asked the Lord if there was anything holding me back from growing spiritually and he told that there was! He showed me that I was holding back Christ's work on the cross for me. I was failing to trust and believe that Jesus payment for my sin was sufficient and effective (Rom 5:8, I Pet 3:18).

I had bought into a false Gospel. I believed that I had committed too many sins to be completely accepted and secure. I had not trusted the scriptures at the core of my being that Christ's work on the cross really did serve as a payment for my sins and made me right with God. (Romans 5)

The Gospel says that Jesus work on the cross satisfied the wrath of God, serving as a propitiation for our sins and because of this God has nothing but love for his children. It's Christ's sacrifice that makes us right and keeps us right! The Father loves you and me so much that he sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins I John 4:10. and make peace between God and man (Romans 5)

What's ironic is that we Christians forget that the gospel should be everyday. It should be part of our ongoing sanctification process not just a one time event at Salvation. The Gospel has got to penetrate the heart an ongoing basis or else we fall to dead religious practitioners. It's the message of grace. It's by grace we are saved and grace that keeps us saved. (Ephesians 2:8-9 and Titus 3:5)

-Pastor Ryan Rice
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