Rincon Mountain Presbyterian Church

I have recently been challenged in my thinking on this biblical concept especially in my role as pastor. I am often seen as, and can be led to think of myself as, the lead person in the work of the church here at Rincon Mountain. And in some ways I am the lead person. As I pray and read and think about the work of the church and the roles of all the believers, I have been called to discern God’s vision for us and to cast that vision among the body. As one who has been specifically trained for teaching and preaching the word of God, I am to lead by example and in instruction.

But my leading in these ways necessitates following or followers. Pastor Luke and I are no different than the rest of the body in that we are all to be making disciples. This calling is common to all in the church. We are all to make disciples as we all prayerfully speak the word of God to those around us. This is the truest sense of the priesthood of all believers. We have all been set aside to live holy lives and we do this as we all grow in discipleship. I need to feed on the word of God as I study it  and as I hear it taught and preached. As I grow I become a better disciple and I am better equipped to engage those around me by prayerfully speaking the word of God to them.

We are all part of the same mission team, equipping each other in the word of God in order  to better engage each other and the world with the the word of God.

It is critical when we begin to think about engaging others in our lives with the truth of the gospel that we 1) understand the gospel, 2) make it a practice to prayerfully “preach the gospel to ourselves” on a regular basis, and 3) prayerfully speak the word of God to others.

The ‘others’ to whom we should prayerfully speak the word of God begin with those we know best, i.e. family members and close friends. Most likely, if we have been believers in Christ for some time then these folks will also be believers. Some may be strong in their faith and others may need encouragement in their faith. Next, we can share with those who have already expressed some interest in spiritual matters or are curious about the faith claims of Christianity. Finally, we can prayerfully speak the word of God to those who are unbelievers.

I recently received a link to a blog that gave some great tips for how to begin to be more evangelistic. Here are the tips and the link. Start soon to put these tips into practice.

A Few Tips from J. D. Greear for Gospel Sharing

* I frequent the same places. People in our society don’t respond well to strangers, so I try to eat, drink coffee, buy gas, get my car worked on, and shop, etc at the same places. Relationship is not essential for evangelism, but it sure helps. At most of those places I mentioned people know me by name. Inevitably a chance comes up to pray for them, ask about their lives, invite them to church, etc. For example, several of the people from my local coffee shop have started to come to our church, and a few have become believers and gotten baptized. My mechanic has recently attended our church.

* Where relevant, I leave BIG tips. Especially if I know someone is having a bad day. I’ll jot a little note and tell them I’m praying for them.

* I ask people, sometimes, how I can pray for them. Most people don’t mind to be prayed for, and if they don’t want to talk, they answer shortly and I let it drop.

* I invite them to church. Over and over.

* When in a conversation, I use an acrostic I learned years ago to help guide the conversation. F- Family; I- interests; R- Religion; E – Evangelism. Yes, that can seem wooden, I know… but it can also help you move a conversation along. Sometimes in talking about religion I’ll say, “Do you feel like you have a relationship with God?” I get the most interesting responses back to that question. And usually, it provides me a chance to tell them my story… how I grew up in church but came to know God personally later. As I talk about how I came to know Christ, I make sure to give the Gospel along the way. People don’t like to be preached to, but they do like to be asked their opinions, and they do like to hear your story.

Here is the link to this blog: http://thecripps.net/a-few-tips-from-j-d-greear-for-gospel-sharing

“For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you remembering you in my prayers” Ephesians 1:15, 16

This past Sunday I preached on powerful prayer noting that in the verses above and those that follow in Ephesians 1, the apostle Paul shows that he makes it a point to practice powerful prayer. In verses 15 and 16 he gives ample reason for us to pray powerful prayers. In verse 17 he shows us the right recipient of our powerful prayers (the source of the power). And in verses 17b-21, he discloses the content of powerful prayers.

I recently read this definition of prayer: prayer is calling out to God to pour out the Holy Spirit upon us that his word would be made effective in our hearts. This is from the excellent book on the ministry of the church, The Trellis and the Vine by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne. The power of prayer is found in the one doing the praying when the Holy Spirit is present there. The power of prayer is found in the recipient of the prayers, the triune God. The power of prayer is found in the content of the prayer when they prayer is in line with Scripture (“thy will be done on earth…”).

I look forward to growing in the practice of powerful prayer and I look with great anticipation for the results of praying powerful prayer.

When I asked our congregation at a recent meeting if they could tell me the vision of our church not a single soul raised a hand. Now I’m sure that many were just a little nervous about declaring the vision of the church in front of so many people. Others exercised their humility and did not want to impress others with their obvious grasp of the vision. No, those are not correct. The stark, sad reality is no one knew the vision of the church.

Wow! That told me a lot. It told me that I was not doing my job as primary vision caster of the church. It told me that our vision was too complex, too simple, or too confusing. It told me that our church was floundering for lack of vision. Those are hard things to admit when the responsibility lies right in my lap.

Fortunately, our leadership at RMPC recognized that this was the case going into that meeting. We were prepared to launch a new, challenging and exciting vision for our church: EQUIP TO ENGAGE. We are excited about how this simple phrase captures what we have been good at to this point, EQUIPing, and moves us forward in where we need to grow and flourish, ENGAGing.

I will share with you some of the ideas we talked about in the congregational meeting on Oct. 25 and, in the coming weeks, continue to outline what this vision means for our church. Also, I will be taking the month of January 2010 to preach on the vision of the church.

Here is some of what we talked about on October 25:

Former Vision statement: to develop a community in Tucson that knows Jesus Christ and makes him known for the purpose of building up godly families. We have done well at the first part ‘knows Jesus Christ‘ and admit that we struggle at doing the second half ‘makes him known‘ at all.

Rincon Mountain Presbyterian Church is not a destination. Our body is a catalyst for transformation through the gospel. Our body catapults people out into the community to practice gospel transformation. We have lived up to our name: Rincon or ‘corner’. Now it is time to get out of the corner and into the community.

The new and exciting vision of RMPC is summed up in three words:

EQUIP TO ENGAGE

RMPC is committed to Gospel transformation through living as:

• His Voice – the strong ministry of proclamation and instruction in the word of God
• His Body – the intimate ministry of connection, fellowship, and care
• His Hands – the active ministry of service and mercy to the city of Tucson through word and deed ministry; and
• His Feet – the sending ministry of mission & outreach both locally and globally

Some of our commitments:

• We are committed to gospel transformation through gospel proclamation and gospel saturation.
• We are committed to increasingly intimate expressions of fellowship and care within our body.
• We are committed to collaborative work in the city and globally.
• We are committed to being a church of open doors. We want no closed doors.

The sermon series in January 2010 will focus on the four ways we are called to live out gospel transformation: His voice, His body, His hands, and His feet.

If you’re into indie music and love excellent music then here is a good place to go and check out:

http://www.theblackatlantic.com/

Enjoy!

In his book, This Momentary Marriage, John Piper describes western culture in this fashion:

“…where the main idol is self; and its main doctrine is autonomy; and its central act of worship is being entertained; and its three main shrines are the television, the Internet, and the cinema; and its most sacred genuflection is the uninhibited act of sexual intercourse.”

It is within this culture that God’s design for marriage is not only under attack and losing ground daily. But it is not a losing battle. God’s design for marriage will endure to the end of this age. He gives us his strength and his might so that we can stand firm against the schemes and forces arrayed against the church, the home, and the marketplace.

Piper maintains a strong emphasis throughout the book mentioned above on the way the union between husband and wife reflect the union between Christ and his church. This Pauline doctrine has been integral to my marriage counseling–both pre-marital and in crisis–and Piper’s instruction has served to undergird that even further. It is an excellent book and I would have every husband and wife and prospective husbands and wives read it.

This is one of my all-time favorite hymns. The message is beautiful; the truths are transformational. It is the gospel. Written by Horatius Bonar in 1861 it appropriately follows Amazing Grace in the new Trinity Hymnal.

Not what my hands have done
Can save my guilty soul;
Not what my toiling flesh has borne
Can make my spirit whole.
Not what I feel or do
Can give me peace with God;
Not all my prayers and sighs and tears
Can bear my awful load.

Thy work alone, O Christ,
Can ease this weight of sin;
Thy blood alone, O Lamb of God,
Can give me peace within.
Thy love to me, O God,
Not mine, O Lord to thee,
Can rid me of this dark unrest
And set my spirit free.

Thy grace alone, O God,
To me can pardon speak;
Thy pow’r alone, O Son of God,
Can this sore bondage break.
No other work, save thine,
No other blood will do;
No strength, save that which is divine,
Can bear me safely through.

I bless the Christ of God;
I rest on love divine;
And with unfalt’ring lip and heart
I call this Saviour mine.
This cross dispels each doubt;
I bury in his tomb
Each thought of unbelief and fear,
Each ling’ring shade of gloom.

I praise the God of grace;
I trust his truth and might;
He calls me his, I call him mine,
My God, my joy, my light.
‘Tis he who saveth me,
And freely pardon gives;
I love because he loveth me,
I live because he lives.

While on my second week of study leave this year, I was sitting in a coffee shop on 2nd Avenue, the main north-south thoroughfare in Gallup. I noticed several students from a local high school walking around with band instruments and others with American flags and realized they must be getting ready for a parade.

In actuality, they were getting ready for a parade to be preceded by the 2nd Annual Veteran’s Day Celebration. The celebration was held right outside the cafe on the grounds in front of the McKinley County Courthouse. The celebration included an opening prayer–addressed to Almighty and Gracious God and closed in Jesus’ name, the singing of the National Anthem, the Pledge of Allegiance, a speech by a city councilman and the recognition of a World War II Veteran who parachuted onto Corregidor Island in February of 1945.

It was a great small-town demonstration of patriotism and honor.

To top it off, sitting in the crowd was a good friend of mine from High School. He also went to Dordt College with me and we roomed together in Las Cruces during my first year of teaching after college. He is also now in the first year of his third term as District Attorney for McKinley County. After the Ceremony he took me on a tour of his office(s). He’s a strong Christian man in a demanding secular job. His parting words to me were, “Pray for me. Pray hard for me.”

Below is my summary of a recent discussion that the Session at RMPC had regarding the inclusion of a greeting time during the worship service. The questions at hand are, “Is it biblical? Is it God-centered? Is it appropriate?” I reiterate here that this is my summary of the discussion. Individual Session members may want to clarify or add to what I have written. Here is my summary of our reasons for continuing to include a greeting time in the middle of our worship service.

1. Corporate worship by definition involves elements in which our vertical relationship with God and worship of him find expression in the horizontal relationships we have within the covenant community.
2. Greeting others within the body of Christ is a biblical mandate. However, Scripture does not mandate that this only take place in the context of worship.
3. Care should be taken by all attendees to greet and welcome all with whom they come in contact on Sunday morning. Again, this should not happen only in the context of the worship service and it could even more fruitful if it occurred before or after the worship service.
4. Care should be given in all greetings before, during and after the worship service to not allow our greeting to become idle chatter. The well-being of the saints should be at the heart of any questions asked and the knowledge of the grace of God should be at the heart of any prayer or blessing we extend.

The Session wants to emphasize that the purpose of our greeting each other–which ought to be reflected in the content of our greetings–is the exaltation of God and the edification of the saints. We want to encourage worshipers to keep the greeting worshipful through ‘other’ focused greetings and to purposefully and intentionally seek out those who are new.

Theologically speaking I suppose I would have to answer this question by saying that I am Presbyterian by God’s providence and grace. Defining ‘presbyterian’ might be a better place to start. In its simplest form, ‘presbyteryian’ means ‘elder ruled’ or run by elders. It refers primarily to governance in the church.  The word presbyterian comes from the Greek word for elder. It is a representative form of government in which knowledge of the flock by the elders is assumed. It secondarily speaks of theological positions.

I grew up in a church that utilized a presbyterian form of government and when I graduated from college and began my first search for a church on my own, out from under my parent’s direction, I naturally gravitated to a church with a presbyterian form of government.

As a pastor in this denomination I willingly and eagerly subscribe to the governance position that our denomination holds. In other words, I sign my name to a document saying that I believe that the presbyterian form of government is the form best represented in the Bible. And I do so without hesitation or pain of conscience. What I grew up knowing through my parent’s direction is what I have come to embrace myself.

Why? Because it is biblical. Exodus 18 shows Jethro instructing Moses in the need for a plurality of elders in order to stave off death by overload of duties. Was that mere pragmatism or divine instruction? Since it is recorded in Scripture I would say both. Acts 15 describes the first church council. At this council, elders from surrounding churches came to discuss and deliberate upon the biblical answers to current issues in the churches. Paul speaks to the elders from Ephesus in Acts 20 and encourages Titus to appoint elders in the churches he establishes on Crete.

I have to admit that there are times when I don’t like being presbyterian. I do not like being associated with all presbyterians. There are many flavors of presbyterianism. Some are more rigid in their governance and views of worship than I think is biblical or godly. Others are too liberal when it comes to social issues and are completely wrong in their outright rejection of the authority of Scripture. I guess I’m like most people who want others to hold views that are similar to mine. That would definitely be easier but I know it would not be best. I need those to the right of me to keep me from going left and I need those to the left of me to scare me enough to keep me from going left.

Anyway, that’s why I’m a presbyterian.