Micah 6:8

I am going to blog on something that I am passionate about - passionate worship! Bishop Schnase wrote a book on the  5 practices of fruitful congregations , I will be blogging on it the next few weeks, starting with worship. The five practices are radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional discipleship, risk-taking mission, and extravagant generosity. When we discuss these five practices, the adjective is as important as the word itself! To be a radical, world changing church, we must have radical worship. So what is worship? A lot of people think that its about a feeling or emotion that we receive when we sing the songs we like, or hear a sermon that we enjoy. Others say it is where they connect with others on Sundays (or other days of the week). DA Carson says  “Worship is the proper response of all moral, sentient beings to God, ascribing all honor and worth to their Creator-God precisely because he is worthy, delightfully so.”  So we will feel powerful ...

I love the song "Reckless Love" by Corey Asbury, you can listen to it here if you wan t. The idea that God has this incredible, reckless love for us that seeks us out relentlessly absolutely captures the idea of how God's grace is at work in our lives long before we even know it! Each week in our communion liturgy we are reminded, "Christ died for us while we were yet sinners, that proves God's love toward us (Romans 5:8)!" If you do not yet follow Jesus, know that God is pursuing you. In my life, God was with me through the hardest period of my life, from 3 - 5 years old.  I had just been put in a home, the Pythion Home in Weatherford, and I was broken because my biological parents would give me up for adoption. And yet...God was with me, comforting me! It was only much later that I understood that God was the rock that saved me from despair.  There is a problem with this song, something that I think teaches an unhealthy idea about God's relation...

Bob Goff, popular Christian author says, "Simply put, love does." We are people of the Great Commandment of Love God, Love others and the Great Commission of making disciple's of Jesus Christ. This is why our mission statement is to make disciple's of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world!  Our vision is to love our community by helping it heal both spiritually and physically: practicing invitational evangelism and love focused service! By 2030 we believe that God is calling us to spend as much on people outside of the church (through mission and evangelism) as we do on our own church. We also believe that every person should be living out their call by God to serve others. Each and every follower is uniquely gifted and called by God to loving service. We will equip our partners to serve, imagine a community of believers, empowered by God to change the world! We sense a specific calling to help families heal whatever brokenness that they have: fort...

It is great to be back from all of my travels, after going with our youth on mission trip and then a short journey to Ohio for the Central Texas Conference. It is time to continue to share about our 2030 Vision. Another pillar of the vision is that we will be a leader-making church. I have been impressed with the number and quality of leaders at Rockbridge! God is doing something special with this community. We want to continue that trend and even enhance it! Every follower of Christ is given spiritual gifts, and I believe one of the five spiritual callings from Ephesians 4:11: Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Shepherd, and Teacher. Our goal as the leadership at Rockbridge is to enable each partner and regular attender to find their gifts and to empower our people to lead new ministries and, when the time is right, to even start new campuses and churches. God wants us to make an impact on our community and our world and by empowering every person at Rockbridge to serve in their gifts, ...

Disciple-making is what we are called to do as followers of Jesus. In his earthly mission, Jesus took a unique group of men and women (the twelve disciples plus the other people who followed him) and allowed them to sit at his feet so that they could learn what it meant to be his followers. We are called to be disciples who make more disciples! Throughout my life, I have had person after person share their life with me so that I could learn what it means to follow Jesus. In college, it was a man named Gary who mentored me in my relationship with God. I would not be the man, the pastor, the leader I am today without his guidance in my life at that important stage. That is what we need to do for each other. The  first part of our vision is that we will be a Disciple-Making Church . We derive that from Matthew 28:16-20 where Jesus gives the mission of the church to make disciples of all nations! Here is what that looks like Rockbridge will be a disciple-making factory...

This is my second blog on Vision 2030: the vision that God is giving us to fulfill our mission at Rockbridge Church! Before we get into that I wanted to take a moment and look at that mission: Boom, That's IT! It is simple, to the point, and poignant. This mission statement is one we share with our tribe, the United Methodist Church, the question is where is it's origin and what does it mean? This mission statement is derived from Jesus himself when he addressed the disciples at the end of the Gospel of Matthew before his ascension: "Therefore go, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:19-20)."  The disciples' mission given by Jesus is the same one we have today: to be disciples who make more disciples. We are not looking simply to make non-belie...

Hello all! Sorry for the brief hiatus on the blog, but life has been crazy lately. Over the next few weeks, I am going share about the visioning journey we are on at Rockbridge church.  Why a vision? Proverbs 29:18 says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." Simply put: to succeed in our mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, we need a good, clear, concise vision that sets us on the path.  We have seen countless organizations fail to survive when the world changed for one reason or another because they were not able to adjust their vision to a changing landscape. Our landscape is changing, has been for a while. Here are some facts: 1. Fewer and fewer people feel like they should be in worship on a Sunday morning. In the Austin area, 18 percent of people choose to worship each week. We need to be a church that lets people know that the best life lived is one following Jesus. 2. Most churches are in decline because the...

So its mock draft season for the NFL and I wanted to have a little fun so I am doing a Bible Character mock draft! Fun? Sure. Sacrilege? Maybe. My buddy Evan Duncan and I did this draft together and we included only characters that are fully human and not divine. Hope you enjoy! Pick 1 (Evan): Mary - Mother of our Lord. She was an activist and revolutionary. Knew her scripture and trusted God - even when it meant virgin birth, being a social outcast, and watching Jesus die. Pick 2 (David): Moses - led God's people out of slavery, sent the plagues, cool staff. Got to hang out with God and was given the law. Pretty great all around leader, versatile. Pick 3 (Evan): Paul. Early career character issues but turned it around to be the greatest missionary of all time. Opened the door for all to enter. Real student of the game. Pick 4  (David): Abraham - Father of nations, faithful. Has some character issues but showed strength overcoming them. Known worldwide for his ...

One of the exciting events that I inherited at Rockbridge Church is Be The Church Sunday. For outreach and mission we shut down the campus doors and go be the church in the community. What a great and wonderful idea! We served all over Cedar Park and Leander and Austin: filling homeless bags, repairing fences, and other work projects. It was a great weekend of work and thank you to everyone who helped plan and lead these projects. Check out some pics from the weekend:

Today we begin a 21-day challenge to grow in our faith at Rockbridge Church. I hope if you have not already signed up that you will join us tonight at 630pm for our first session! John Wesley, an Anglican priest, was the founder of the Methodist movement and he taught the church to consider 21 question to make sure they were focused on God and God's call on their life. This week we are discussing an upward focus on God in our lives. Here are the questions we will be looking at tonight: 1. Is Jesus real to me? 2. Am I enjoying prayer? 3. Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscience uneasy? 4. Did the Bible live in me today? 5. Did I disobey God in anything? 6. Do I pray about the money I spend? 7. Do I give time for the Bible to speak to me every day? In John chapter 15, Jesus tells his disciples, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vineyard keeper...Remain in me, and I will remain in you...If you remain in me and I in you, then you will produce...

We had a fantastic day of worship and connection with different mission organizations! Thank you for pledging to pray, give and go! Our partners stepped up and committed $12,695 to be given to mission organizations plus a deep commitment to prayer and action. If you have not made a faith giving pledge, you can do so here . I had a partner ask me after worship, what we are going to do now, after this big mission launch. The goal is two-fold: 1. We want you, our people to get out and serve in missions. Hopefully, you signed up to volunteer with one of the wonderful organizations that we had at our event. Soon we will have a place on our web page and on our Mission Cross (by the donuts) where you can sign up with great organizations. If you have an organization that you would like the church to partner with, then please email mission@rockbridgelife.com and tell us about that organization! 2. We also want to use the funds that you give in the best way possible. Rockbridge will s...

On Sunday at worship with Rockbridge Church during our Mission Celebration, we are going to ask partners and regular attendees to commit to a faith promise giving for missions. We believe that we are called to the mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, and this faith promise is one part of how we do that! The fact is that there are amazing mission organizations that are greatly impacting the world that we want to partner with. We will select faith-based organizations that will use nearly all of your gift to go directly to serving a need by a person locally, regionally, or internationally. These organizations are ones that are committed to taking care of both the physical and spiritual needs of a person. A faith promise is a financial commitment to missions based upon the conviction that God wants to give that amount to missions; an amount not necessarily dependent upon known resources. This is about trusting God to give through you! A fai...

I am very excited that we are hosting a Mission Celebration on March 18th this year at Rockbridge. Serving in the community has always been a passion of mine! There is a reason that Micah 6:8 is my theme passage! God requires us to act justly, to love mercy and walk humbly with our God. That means to me, at least in part, that we are called to serve our communities and that bringing God's kingdom means the poor, the oppressed, the suffering, and the hurting in our world are priorities for the church to help. So on March 18: We are going to have local, regional, and international mission organizations here at Rockbridge so that you can see where you are called to serve! My goal and vision for missions at the church is for everyone to participate in some way serving outside the walls of the congregation. There should be something for everyone. We are looking at being missional, with our hope to be part of God's healing mercy both spiritually and physically. Ephesians 2:10 te...

Confession time: I didn't post last week on Chapters 16-20 because I ran out of time. So I want to apologize and I hope you will forgive me. I also hope that reading through Luke has been a blessing to you, as it has to me. So, without further ado, here are my thoughts on Luke 21-25. A Poor Widow's Offering and the Temple's Fate Luke 21:1-28 We often hear about the widows offering in stewardship sermons, but there is another side to this other than her incredible generosity. A woman gives to the temple but yet there is more going on here than at first glance. This is where our chapter and verse systems actually hamper our understanding. In the previous chapter, during the same conversation, Jesus talks about legal experts who cheat widows out of their homes and then we have the story about a widow giving everything to the temple. Part of the point is that the whole system is flawed and rather than drawing people to God it is being used to exploit others. Then Jesus beg...

Continuing our journey through the book of Luke! Jesus teaches us how to pray, verses 1-13 Luke shares his version of the Lord's prayer, and it's pretty similar to the one we find in Mathew. The focus is still the same: 1. God is both father, yet is holy and other than this world. It is important to remember that God can be both of these things, because, well God is God. 2. We need to trust God with our past, present, and future: forgive our sins - past. Give us each day, our daily bread - present. Lead us not into temptation - future. 3. We are told we need to ask for forgiveness and to forgive! This is a key part of God's design for the world. The Sign of Jonah, verses 29-32 This seems like an odd story, what is the sign of Jonah that Jesus is talking about? Jonah was in the belly of some sea beast for three days and nights. This part is foreshadowing Jesus death and resurrection. It is also a condemnation of the Pharisees who will not repent and turn to God bec...

Shall we continue our journey through the gospel of Luke? Luke 6:1-11 Jesus Stirs Up Trouble This is a quite remarkable passage as Jesus, a Jewish man, challenging the law about the Sabbath, "Why are you breaking the Sabbath law?" Is what the Pharisees ask him (Pharisees were not an official part of the priesthood but were focused on keeping the law. They believed that the reason the Roman's were oppressing them is that certain folks were ignoring the laws. This is one reason that Jesus makes them really angry). The point here is that Jesus cares more following God and having a heart for God than the law itself. Our cautionary tale today is that we need to focus more on following Jesus than on fulfilling what we think is 'religious.' Luke 6:12-16 Jesus Choose the disciples Just want to take a moment that before Jesus makes a big decision before he chooses his team, he spent the whole day in prayer! We should definitely model this practice of going to God bef...

Last week I challenged people to read the book of Luke over the next month, and I am very excited about that! I am now realizing the challenge, however, of blogging over 5 chapters of the Bible! I am going to hit some highlights, feel free to comment below if you have thoughts or questions. First of all, Luke is actually book 1 of a saga that also includes Acts! Many people call it Luke-Acts because it was probably meant to be read as one continuous story (hmm maybe we should read acts together next...).  Chapter 1 "I have also decided to write a carefully ordered account for you, most honorable Theophilus." Theophilus is probably an honorific and it means friend of God or beloved of God. It is debated whether the book is written to an actual person or to all believers whom Luke is calling friends of God. The story of the birth of John the Baptist recalls stories in the Hebrew text that are similar such as Sarah and Abraham with the birth of Isaac (Genesis 18)...

A new year and a new challenge! In addition to getting back on track with my blogging, I am adding in a challenge for you and me. At Rockbridge Church, we are in the middle of a sermon series "The Bible Doesn't Say That" where we look at some popular Christian sayings that are not a part of scripture. That got me thinking that we need to spend more time in scripture so that we know what is actually in scripture! So here is my challenge and I will be participating too: read the gospel of Luke over the next month. I will be using my blog to discuss a portion of it each week with you (on Tuesdays). I believe in starting with a gospel (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) because they are the foundation of everything that we believe as Christians. If you would like to read along, here is your reading plan: By January 30 - Chapters 1-5 By February 6 - Chapters 6-10 By February 13 - Chapters 11-15 By February 20 - Chapters 16-20 By February 27 - Chapters 21-24 I am excited ab...