God’s glory – Pastor Dave Daye

“Passionately God-Centered” – Core Value #1 of Orchard Community Church

October 26, 2011 1 Comment

Last Wednesday I introduced the importance of the Core Values for Orchard Community Church saying they were like “Guard Rails” that keep us on track on our mission.

The first Core Value of Orchard Community Church is to be “Passionately God-Centered” which is further explained:

We are passionate about putting God at the center of everything we do as a church and as individuals. We strive to draw attention to the greatness of God and to glorify Him in what we do, say, think and plan. We will be bold in declaring our love for God, giving thanks for His many blessings and making known and remembering what He has done. (1 Chronicles 16: 8-12, 23-26; Psalm 115:1; 1 Corinthians 10:31)

The idea of “putting God at the center” might be best understood as keeping God at the center. He IS the center, the focus, the purpose, the reason for, and the ultimate goal of our lives and our church. To say that we want to put him in the center is to admit that we often put something else in His place and we are seeking to give Him his rightful place back in everything we do.

Keeping God first may seem like a no-brainer for a church, but it is actually very easy to mess this up. It is so easy to put people first instead of God. Putting people first seems like such a good thing. We want to help people. We want them to be loved. We want them to hear and accept the gospel through any means possible. We think that when we put people first we are helping them, but we are leaving unchallenged the main idol of our day – ourselves. We are a poor substitute for God’s glory and grace. Our culture teaches people to live their lives focused on themselves. The Church must teach people to take their focus off of themselves and place it squarely on God.

Have you ever seen someone on a street pointing up? What do you do as you walk by? You look where they are pointing! This is the importance of being God-centered as a church. It means that when people look at us they will see that we are pointing to Someone beyond ourselves – we are pointing to the Almighty God who sent His Son to die on the cross to save us from our sins.

This means that our ultimate goal is to display the glory of God in everything we do and that we will do this in God’s way, not ours. Jesus said that the “first and greatest commandment” is to “Love God” and the 2nd greatest is to “love others” (Matthew 22:37-39). The order is absolutely crucial because the truth is that when we do not keep God first in everything we do we will always love people less than we should.

As a church, we will be “Passionately God-Centered”. This is the first, and most important Core Value of Orchard Community Church.

photo by Flickr user dziner

the Church and the Word

Power of the Gospel

October 12, 2011 3 Comments

The Mission Statement of Orchard Community Church is “We exist to make and become fully devoted followers of Christ through the renewing and transforming power of the gospel for the glory of God.”

This is the last of three posts on the Mission Statement of Orchard Community Church. The first was about the Glory of God and the second was about being Fully Devoted Followers of Christ. This week I want to look at the idea of the “renewing and transforming power of the gospel.”

In Romans, Paul writes “I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). Do we really believe this today? There are a lot of Christian books out there on how to improve yourself, your marriage, your job, your church, and your children. Many contain very helpful advice. Often pastors preach sermons about these things as well. My fear is that maybe, just maybe, underlying all of these ideas is the basic (and very wrong) assumption that we must change ourselves. Sometimes I get the feeling that believers in Jesus Christ have lost the idea that the gospel is powerful to change us and have instead assumed that we must rely on our own good intentions, programs, and efforts. We seem to scratch and claw our way to small changes on our own instead of relying on the monumental power that is available in the gospel.

How powerful is the gospel? Like Paul said in Romans 1:16 – it is the power of God. Ephesians 1:19-20 explains that this is “his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead…” Did you catch that? The power of the gospel is the same power that raised Christ from the dead! If you are a believer in Christ, that is the power that is at work IN YOU! The difference this power makes is the difference between life and death – “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

As a church we are not worried about having the best programs or techniques. Our worship services won’t wow you and our use of technology certainly won’t blow you away. Our coffee is OK and the preaching is probably average. But what we have is greater than anything you will ever find in the world – the power of the gospel. Our teaching isn’t about improving ourselves – it is about dying to self and accepting the new life that is only available through the gospel.

The power of the gospel renews us. It is an ongoing recreation of who God made us to be in the first place. It is a hope and a strength beyond any situation in this life. It is a renewing of strength not by improving us, but by substituting God’s strength in the place of our weakness.

The power of the gospel transforms us. No one can come to Jesus Christ and accept the gospel (the good news of His death, burial, and resurrection in our place for our salvation) without being changed. You cannot add Jesus on to your life like installing an app on your phone or adding him to the already crowded list of priorities in your life. Transformation is a total change – a complete tear down and rebuilding of who you are. After all, minor improvements on a condemned building might make it look better, but it is still destined to fall apart. This transformation comes as the gospel redirects our lives, redefines our priorities, and renews our will to conform with God’s perfect will.

As a church, we will trust in the power of the gospel in everything that we do. I believe this will make us better parents, employees, leaders, stewards of our money, and everything else in our lives, but not because we are simply improving ourselves in small ways. It will be because God is at work in us through the power of the gospel for the glory of God.

How have you seen the power of the gospel at work in your life? How can we continue to demonstrate the power of the gospel in our individual lives and together as the Church?

photo by flickr user Shane Woodson

Extras

6am

October 4, 2011 No Comments

alarm clock It’s 6am and the sun has not come up yet. My wife and kids are still sleeping. It is very still, except for the sound of the furnace waking up. I wonder what the day will hold?

Father, help me take everything in this day and use it as an act of worship to you. I want to do more than just get things done. I want to live in prayer and worship. It is easy in the stillness of now to say this, but soon the battle will begin to get little eyes to open and little feet to move. In the rush, may my children know that I love them and, more importantly, that you love them. Then, as I stare at my long list of things that I should do today, may I see each one as an opportunity to point others to your infinite grace. May I grab hold of each opportunity and recognize the choice inherent in every moment to either rely on my smallness or to point to your greatness. May the alarm be my call to worship each day.

Amen

the Church and the Word

Pulling Together – the Mission of Orchard Community Church and the Glory of God

September 28, 2011 5 Comments

Imagine 2 children on the same little league baseball team. One set of parents hopes that the coach of that team will turn their child into an all star – whether he or she has the talent or not! The other set of parents hopes their child will be part of a team where everyone has fun, gets equal playing time, and learns good sportsmanship. Same team. Same coach. Same bat and ball. Same rules. But vastly different ideas about what the team is supposed to accomplish. That coach cannot possibly satisfy both sets of expectations and is in for a long season!

Orchard Community Church decided to write out a mission statement before they hired a new pastor. They also came up with a list of Core Values to communicate what is most important to this church. As the new pastor, I am extremely grateful for the work that was done to help the church pull together in the same direction. Over the next few weeks I will use Wednesdays to communicate and explain the mission statement and core values of Orchard Community Church. It is my hope that this will help us at OCC to pull together with common purpose and direction.

Mission Statement of Orchard Community Church: We exist to make and become fully devoted followers of Christ through the renewing and transforming power of the gospel FOR THE GLORY OF GOD.

To state a mission is to live with an end in mind. It is an expression of a hoped for destination. This focus becomes a unifying idea that allows us to evaluate everything we do against this all encompassing mission. The end of the mission statement is really the most important – “for the glory of God.”

Why do we exist as a church? There is a lot of pressure on churches to make people happy. Often people come to church to be affirmed and to feel good. But the church does not exist for the people. We exist for God. Saying that everything is “for the glory of God” may seem trite or overly grand, but it is absolutely essential because it provides the appropriate direction and boundaries for everything we do. If we reach hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands with the gospel but do so in ways that do not promote and display the glory of God then we have failed. If we form a fellowship of close friends and families who love each other but ignore God’s glory then we have failed.

For many people, the ends justify the means. For the church, the end is the means. We don’t just do everything for the glory of God, it is the glory of God at work in and through us that accomplishes all things. It is the display of God’s glory in lives lived together focusing on Him, saved by Him, and doing all things for His glory that changes other people. It is God’s glory that demands our worship. It is God’s glory that drives our discipleship. It is God’s glory that should be the goal of everything we do.

God has given us everything we need in Scripture to understand how His glory is displayed among His people. We must be students God’s glory displayed throughout Scripture so that we can pull together as a display of God’s glory in this world on His terms, not ours.

How does understanding the mission of the church first and foremost as being for God’s glory help us to evaluate what we do? Maybe we can get some conversation going in the comments to discuss this together.