Serving Single Moms in Need: Car Wash 10/09/10

You're invited to join a small group of community and church leaders for a special car wash fund-raising event to help single moms in Need.

As a Pastor who cares for the needs of my community, I can't say enough how huge this need is in our city and even more so in our apartment community! After living in our apartment community for only a short time, my wife and I have been burdened to see the great numbers of single moms with little support. These strong willed women work long hours often holding two jobs trying to make ends meet; many even go to night school in hopes of a brighter future! We together can give some grace and give our time!

We as a church want to help. We want to give to those in need in our community by serving! This fundraiser is one of many in our local community that will go to help single moms in need. Umom is local organization in our city committed to the moms in our city! All the proceeds from this car wash will go to Umom. All Checks should be made out to Umom!

Details: This Saturday 10/09 at 9am-12pm you are invited to gather with us for a great cause to wash cars for single moms in need! $5 donation minimum. Bring some towels for drying cars and I would wear some flip flops! Bring a car and I will give you the best wash it's ever had!


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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?

Grassroots Gospel Movement: Cells Groups

Our vision is to catalyze a grassroots gospel movement in our city. We are working to develop a culture where every believer is a leader! We are reminding others that the command to make disciples is for everyone (Mt 28:19) not just the professional pastors!

We will be fostering a missional DNA in the life of our leaders and church. Worship, mission and fellowship are Imago Dei's basic DNA building blocks.

We want this DNA to exist in the life of every leader and at every level of church's structure. For example, our smallest structure of the church is a “Cell Group.” These groups consist of 2-3 people and meet weekly for an hour for the primary purpose of fellowship.

Cells groups foster
• Fellowship- will be fostered in through our accountability with one another.
• Mission- we will gather to pray for those in need.
• Worship- we will gather to discuss the scriptural insights we have gained.


Our prayer is to see these Cells grow and multiply meeting throughout our city: in coffee shops, play grounds, parks, lunch rooms, offices, college campuses, high-schools etc.

Cell Groups
• Meet weekly wherever they want for 1 hour
• Composed of 2-3 people
• Multiply when the group grow to 4-5 people
• Not Co-Ed
• Review scriptural insights from weekly readings
• Ask accountability questions, sin is confessed
• Prays for salvation for those whom don't know Christ.
• Require members to be desperate for Jesus
• Requires members to be faithful to process

As you can see christian fellowship with one another is the primary DNA building block of these Cell Groups. Still these groups have elements of worship and mission as well! The reading God's word and the praying for Salvation for the lost completes the missional DNA that we believe is important for a gospel movement. Our prayer is to see these Cells grow and multiply meeting throughout our city: in coffee shops, play grounds, parks, lunch rooms, offices, college campuses, high-schools etc.

Yes, we will begin to gather in communities as the Lord grows our number, and yes in time, I believe we will come together in for a larger Celebration Service.

But the health of our church will come when ordinary people begin to rely more of the extraordinary power of God's word. When they use their gifts for ministry. We have got to raise the need to make disciples if this is going to happen, equipping and establishing cells throughout our city is our first step!

Church Purpose & Philosophy -Part 1

We are a church that holds to missionary posture not only for the world, but also for our city!

We function as missionaries to our communities and city, creating and cultivating faith communities in various sub cultures and people groups throughout the city. We are a missional church and people committed to the proclamation and incarnation of the gospel to and through culture.

We are a church that is re-positioning herself as the sent people of God, taking up apostolic-missionary roles within the body Christ, to equip believers and establish faith communities and churches.

•We hold to a missional identity: We see the church as the sent people of God to declare and demonstrate God’s righteousness for all peoples of the earth. We find continuity between the church and Israel, in their election and calling to serve as a light to the nations. We are the people continuing in the redemptive narrative of God’s people on earth.

• We apply missiological principles to our local community: We are not content in fulfilling the great commission in Mt. 28, by sending money to Africa, rather we will want to help start a church in an African Refugee community right in our own city. We commit to using similar terms, principles, and practices that are common to theology of missions, which is known as missiology.

• We embrace a missional theology: We believe that missional theology should be rooted to the Trinity. Mission is woven into the character and nature of God himself. Within the trinity, we see that God sent his son, (cf John 3:16). The Father and the son send the spirit, (cf. John 14, and Acts 2). Finally, we see that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit send us, his people, to proclaim the message of the kingdom.

5 Habits of Movement Minded Leaders

taken from "The Forgotten Ways Handbook p.145" - A Practical Guide for Developing Missional Churches.

1.Continually seek to transform vision into a movement focus and feel

2.Strategically structure organically for reproducibility

3.Creates a culture of permission to dream, try new things & experiment.

4.Calls followers to a covenantal requirement for every person, group or church to regularly multiple their ministry for greater influence.

5.Has accurately applied the appropriate management style that best fits the culture and context in which the leader is working.

Resource http://www.theforgottenways.org/

The Gospels: "This &%$# is Rocking my World."

Over the course of 4 years I have been prayerfully engaging in a conversation with my friend John (fictitious name) about Jesus. John is in his late 40’s and has spent most of his life out of the church. John embraced a theology that included all people into salvation as long as they were good loving people. Buddhist, Hindu’s, Mormons, New Agers and Christians all the like could find salvation. Jesus was NOT the only way. John believed like many, that all paths lead to salvation.

I listened to John’s compassion for people. He argued that the Bible actually supported his views and complained about Christians being hypocrites, lacking love and compassion for the needy.

I found common ground with John by agreeing that many of his heroes such as Gandhi and Buddha were men who did good things. After building a safe ground for honesty and openness about different religions and our disappointment with the church and the different leaders, we agreed to get back to the basics and read the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) about Jesus.

I challenged him to study the Life of Christ. Thankfully, he is a veracious reader. He read day and night about the words and works of Jesus, by studying a Harmony of the Gospels. I will never forget the night he called me. “Man this shit is rocking my world, Jesus is a bad ass dude! I never knew this stuff existed!” I didn’t shake my finger and say, “I told you so.” I kept supplying resources, time and encouragement for self-guided discovery while God began cultivate His heart by His grace.

Today John is a different man, He has yielded his life to power of the gospel and it’s message. He is sinner saved by grace (Eph 2:8-9). He’s pursuing truth and recognizes that there is only one road to salvation (John 14:6). He talks about the peace he has in knowing Jesus He acts as if he was lost and know found. He isn’t in the church yet, but he loves Jesus and knows his word better than many of my Christian friends.

The gospel is an un-reckonable force that knows no bounds. Young and old, the gospel is the power of Salvation for those who believe. The truth of God’s word sets people free. Jesus is alive.