Inspiration
Desire & Struggle
Simple. My desire was to talk about how as followers of Christ if our faith isn’t contagious, we have stopped following the Christ written about in Scripture.
The struggle, as always, is to communicate without condemnation. I personally see my role as being compassionate, which allows people to open up, and then the Holy Spirit is free to convict when necessary. If you notice not once today did I use the word "evangelism". That was intentional. The moment you use the word, your work load as a communicator goes through the roof. Because everyone has an "experience" with evangelism and those experiences often only clutter the conversation.
Surprise
Anytime you pull people up on stage, you never quite know what is going to happen. To see people volunteering with such enthusiasm, pulling their friends on stage, and having fun was a real treat for me. That part of the talk was both a surprise and a delight. The other moment of irony is that I told a story once of a preacher who gave an entire talk on "David in the lions den" and of course, it should have been "Daniel in the lions den". The irony is that I may have given the media dept the wrong reference. I was speaking from Romans 1:2-7 today, with a real emphasis on verse 3, and I may have given them Romans 3:1. I will have to wait for the video to be uploaded to see, but if that is what I did, it will be priceless concidence.
Experience
I was a delighted to play a small role in the service today. When I see what our worship team did with Gospel Sunday – I was simply blown away. To know that there was first class ministry taking place from the nursery to our connections process, and everything in between, I was honoured to get to articulate the cry of our hearts. That as followers of Christ we both receive the generous gift of His life and then the urgent task of passing it on to others.
See you at the Superbowl Party tonight.
I would love to hear any stories of how you "take the extra step" either at Lifecentre or your church each week.
Resources
Audio can be heard here.
Video can be viewed here.
Notes can be downloaded here.
*Audio/Video are usually uploaded by Monday at the latest.
**If you have any questions in regards to this talk, please don’t hesitate to let me know.
Pastor Jason,
Today’s service was absolutely wonderful. Love your humour
It was great hearing about the different “styles”…actually it was just all great. Thank you for being you.
Have a blessed evening.
The message was awesome as usual! A group of us were sharing our thoughts at Gary and Katie’s lifegroup last week and we all talked about how annointed you are as a communicator. What a blessing.
I enjoyed learning the different styles and more so the “things to be careful of” that accompanied each style.
I was amazed to see people relating themselves to a particular style. That is neat.
Is there anyone else out there that has a hard time knowing which one they are like me?
Donna
As the different styles were being described, I noticed that none fit me exactly. There were two that had a couple of characteristics that I could recognize in myself but not enough for me to wear the label.
As long as God just directs me to where He needs me, wherever and whenever that may be, I will be happy to serve Him in any style He needs me to. I am certain that the style will be fitting to me and the person He places in my path.
I love looking at what happens with Peter & John in Acts chapter 4. Just a few weeks before, Peter is scared by a servant girl who has absolutely no power to threaten him. He actually denied he even knew Him. Come on; every one knew Him by then!! I’m sure Jesus was the talk of the town at the gathering.
Now (with the annointing of The Holy Spirit), he stands before the highest authorities in the jewish community and not only does he tell them he knows Jesus, the Son of God, he tells them *THEY* don’t even recognize the very God they claim to teach about. YIKES!!
Here’s where I connect with what you said Jason. You wondered if a Christian who is not contagious may be missing something.
Look at what Peter says in verse 20 when told he can’t speak of Jesus anymore…
“..we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” It’s like he was saying he couldn’t contain himself even if he tried. What about the things he had seen with his own eyes? Healings? Water changed into wine? Christ stilling the storm with just His voice? People raised from the dead? Standing in the very presence of long dead Moses and Elijah? Come on?! How do you contain that?! For goodness sakes, people here at the office run to tell each other when there’s a sale on at the Salvation Army Thrift Store in our mall!!!!
Peter has seen the very laws of nature completely tossed. It’s no wonder he can’t keep it in.
That’s my story. *I* can’t keep it in when people ask why I’m a Christian. Why I have a poster on my desk that speaks of my committment as a Christian. I *CAN’T* keep it in!!
He miraculously healed my son’s eye from a chemical burn that one doctor meant he would be blind! Mere weeks from needing to make plans for getting my left knee surgically replaced, God healed me instantly when the men of my Life Group laid hands and believed in God with me! He healed the broken heart of the little kid I carried inside me who somehow had come to believe he was worthless because of a brutal childhood that included the police and Children’s Aid! He brought my brother back into my family’s life after he had run for nearly 20 years! He allowed me to marry the most beautiful woman in the world and stay with her for 20 years now! My father who had called God a “Collossal Monstrosity” just weeks before, gave his heart to Jesus mere hours before he died! He lets me use these examples to encourage others to believe that He can and will do the same and more for them.
Go ahead, try to stop me!!!