Circumstances

Over the last few weeks, I have preached a couple of times on the temptation to rest on our circumstances.  It's really not intentional, but we all slide into the role of being a victim of our circumstances.  If things are going great, we're feeling good.  If things are going bad, we're in a bad place.

We're tempted to structure our lives on our careers, families, finances, health or circle of relationships.  None of those things are bad things.  But can I make a promise to you?

Your circumstances WILL change.

Maybe for the better, maybe for the worse.  Life has ups and downs.  If your joy and existence is dependent upon the things of this world, you are bound for disappointment.  I believe this is the source of the malaise so many are living in today.  We are building our lives on the things of this world.  This isn't to say that life won't bring us happiness and pleasure.  And it isn't to say that life won't get us down sometimes.  What I mean to say is that the foundation of our lives, the true source of our joy, the rock upon which we stand must be something that is never changing if we are to weather the storms and keep our heads about us in the good times.

God WILL NOT change.

He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.  He is faithful.  In the valley, he walks with us.  In the good times, he celebrates with us.  In the pit of sorrow, he weeps for and with us.  But His love is never ending.  Circumstances CAN'T take that away.  Circumstances can most certainly take away all that we thought was secure in this world.  But it can't take away His love.

So are you counting on circumstances?  Don't set yourself up for disappointment.  Stand on the one who transcends the circumstances of life.  People of faith in something -- someone -- not of this world.

Sunday Preview & Thought for the Week (7.21.16)

I hope you've had a great week.  Can yo believe summer is almost gone?  It's flying by.  We're also nearing the end of our July series "Family Movie Night," as we've got TWO more Sundays left.  This week, we'll be watching a little Inside/Out and talking about what real joy is all about.  There's going to be some great music and fun at all our experiences, so I hope to see you there!

Also, continue lifting up our One Way Student Ministry this week as they finish up community mission work and head to Panama City Beach on Friday.

Thought for the Week
"So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober. " 1 Thessalonians 5:6

Do you know that feeling after you sleep for a really long time and you get up and it takes a while for everything to start functioning right?  Like you can't hardly make a fist at first.  Or, have you ever been woken up from a deep sleep, only to be completely and totally disoriented?  I think that's us Christians sometimes.  I think we put just put our faith to sleep.  We don't exercise it, practice it, keep it alert and ready.  Then, when we need it, we are disoriented and week.  We are not ready.  I believe this is born out of the false idea that faith in Jesus is ALL ABOUT saying a one time prayer, that it is an one time event.  Jesus never ever said, "Say a prayer and you'll be saved."  He said, "Follow me."  Actually, he said, "Deny yourself.  Pick up your cross.  And follow me."  In other words, put this faith to work.  If you shelve your faith, you won't be alert, ready and sober for what life throws your way.  You'll stagger around and be defeated by sin and temptation (again).  That's just what the enemy wants from you.  It's also really easy for us to 'wake up' our faith on Sundays or when we're around Christian friends and let is sleep other days of the week.  It's a dangerous practice.  You never know when you're going to need your faith to be alert and ready.  What are you doing to practice your faith, make it stronger, and empower it?  What are doing to keep it alert?  If you don't, it might just go to sleep.  The danger?  Sometimes we don't even know we dozed off.  Wake your faith up and practice it.

In Christ,

Carter McInnis
Lead Pastor 

Beyond Understanding

Let's face it, we like order in life.  We like to have everything under control.  We like to calculate and plan and prepare and set our calendars.  And we want to know just what God is doing.  Recently, I was reading the story of Samson's birth.  Samson was a judge over Israel, and his birth is one of many miraculous birth stories in the Bible.

His parents are encountered by an angel who declares to them Samson's pending birth and gives this special instructions about how to nurture and raise him to be the leader God has created him to be.  They invite the angel to stay for dinner and Samson's father asks the angel his name.  This is his reply:

He replied, “Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding." (Judges 13:18)

It's a profound notion.  You can't even understand my name.  You couldn't dream of understanding everything else going on in the heavenly realms.  When you meet a person with a unique name, it might take you a few minutes to pronounce it right. You might ask them what it means in their family or in their language, and they tell you.  It all makes sense then.  You understand they are from a unique family or culture, but you eventually get it.  This angel was from a culture, a realm, a world, a place, an existence that you and I can't understand.

I want to understand all that God is doing in my life and in the world.  I don't.  I can't.  My knowledge and scope is soooooooooo limited.  That leaves me with lingering questions:  Am I going to trust and follow even if I don't fully understand where I am going?  Am I going to 'lean into' Jesus even if I can't fully see where, exactly, I'm leaning?  Am I'm I going to take my next faithful step even if I'm not sure what the step after that looks like?

I am convinced this is the course for people of faith and a critical step in becoming a disciple.  We so deeply want it all to make sense and have the next 5-10-20 years planned out.

We can't.

Because we don't know where this is going.

And even if He told us, it is beyond our understanding.

For we see dimly what will one day be clear.

But it's not for now.

So will you just go?  Will you stop planning and just take the next faithful step?  That's my task.  I don't understand it all, Lord, but I'm willing to walk with you.  Because though it doesn't always make sense, I trust YOU more than the best-laid plans of mice and men, namely me.  Could that be your prayer today?

Sunday Preview & Thought for the Week (7.16.16)

Hey Church!

It was an awesome week at KidsGames.  We had about 80 kids each night, and what a blessing it was to minister to these little ones in our community.  Thanks so much to all our volunteers who made it an awesome week!

This Sunday, we'll continue our series "Family Movie Night" and we'll learn some lessons from the move "Up."  It's going to be a fun day.  Bring a friend and come ready to experience Jesus!

Thought for the Week
"Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?"  Luke 12:25

I worry about terrorism.  I worry about the election.  I worry about our country.  I worry about my children.  I worry about the economy.  I worry about my health.  I worry about our church.  I worry about the future.  I worry about the unknown.  I worry about the community.  I worry about the people who don't know Jesus.  I worry.  Can we all just admit it:  we worry.  There's not one of us who doesn't worry something or someone.  We worry because we don't have the answers and there are no certainties.  But worry is actually a lack of faith.  Worry reveals where our security resides.  Worry reveals that we don't trust God.  Worry does no good.  It only increases anxiety and makes our mind imagine a world in which God won't show up.  But God WILL show up.  God WILL be with us.  And God DOES love us.  There are serious problems in the world and in our lives.  Serious things that raise our level of concern.  What would it mean for you and mean to trust God and have faith that He walks with us instead of worrying?  Worrying won't add an hour to your life, but it sure can make them more miserable.  Let's live in faith and trust.

In Christ,

Carter McInnis
Lead Pastor

Wisdom From Above

16 For where envy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every kind of evil. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peace-loving, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without favoritism and hypocrisy. 18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who cultivate peace.

                                -James 3:16-18

This little passage in James was what I felt led to share with our church yesterday.  In Godly wisdom, there is no favoritism, which pretty much covers up all the '-isms.'  No racism, ageism, class-ism, sexism, denominational-ism, or any other -ism you or I could scheme up.  There's just not.  It. Is. Not. A. Part. Of. God's. Wisdom.

Instead, the kind of wise life that God promotes among His people is one that sows fruit of righteousness that cultivates peace.  Is everything you are doing sowing righteousness and cultivating peace?  Every article you share online?  Every comment you make?  Every thought you think?  Every conversation you have?  Every action?  

Probably more than anything else that I pray for myself, I ask God for wisdom.  I want to be wise.  This is a part of what God's wisdom, from above, looks like.  Without this kind of wisdom that serves others, loves peace, offers mercy and is gentle, we get a world that is self-absorbed and envious of one another.  And we get disorder and every kind of evil.  I don't want that.  I want to be wise.  Let's you and I together seek to be wise this week in how we act, speak, and love.

Thought for the Week (7.8.16)

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit,

    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 Blessed are those who mourn,

    for they will be comforted.

5 Blessed are the meek,

    for they will inherit the earth.

6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

    for they will be filled.

7 Blessed are the merciful,

    for they will be shown mercy.

8 Blessed are the pure in heart,

    for they will see God.

9 Blessed are the peacemakers,

    for they will be called children of God.

10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,

    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:3-10

34.  That's what I was thinking about this afternoon.  I was doing some projects around the house; one of those was a project I'd promised my eight year old when we moved in nearly seven months ago.  It was a good day to stay busy because thinking about the world right now is simply painful.  I don't have any answers.  

I thought about my son, Walker, and the 34 he's wanted on his wall for months.  It's his number.  Every sport in which he's gotten to choose his number, he's 34.  It's one of my nicknames for him.  I'll just shout, "Hey, 34..."  It's because he's named after my childhood hero, who made #34 famous in the early '80s stalking goal lines across the South -- Herschel Walker.  He's named after a black man.  It wasn't just that he was a sports hero.  I also respected the way he carried himself beyond the field.  That he is African-American was and is inconsequential to me.  That was the name I wanted for my boy.  In college, I repented of a racist spirit and never looked back.  We started a church 11 years ago that has become a place for all people, all races.  African-American, white, Hispanic and Asian people worship together nearly every Sunday there.  The chair of our Trustees is African-American.  Twenty years ago I decided I'd never consider the color of someone's skin an issue ever again.  That's why the pain of this week is real.  I feel the pain of my minority brother's and sisters.  Pain that I know I've never really felt because of the color of my skin.  I don't know where to start.  I also have some of my deepest friendships with those in law enforcement.  My college roommate who became one of my best friends is in law enforcement.  I can't imagine the pain the law enforcement feels when they are demonized because the actions of few and live in fear that someone will retaliate on them.  I don't even know where to start.  

I also know that I don't know a lot. I don't know the details of the situations that escalated this week because I wasn't there.  What I do know is what Jesus preached in his most famous sermon.  I know the world is broken and needs His truth.  And it needs more than my prayers.  It needs my prayers, but it needs more.  It needs you and I to be peacemakers, to be pure in heart, to thirst for righteousness.   When we see injustice, to make peace.  Where there is the temptation for impurity and ugliness, to seek to have a heart that is pure.  Where there is unrighteousness and sin, to hunger and thirst for what is righteous.  It's not all we can do, but it's the most important thing we can do.  We must -- MUST -- live out these words of Jesus in our corner of the world.  IF we did that, we'd change our neighborhood, our town, our county, our state, our country and maybe even our world.

On Politics, Faith and Who's Right

Just as we've celebrated our nation's birthday again (can you believe in a mere 10 years we'll be 250 years old -- that'll be a great party!), I soberly remember that we are almost exactly four months from perhaps the most contentious election in U.S. history.  This Friday will be the four month marker to November 8th.  The glow of the fireworks and our unity in red, white and blue will soon fade to mud-slinging and name-calling.  I wish it weren't true.  But it is.

Pastors hold an interesting place in the political spectrum of America.  I lead a congregation and seek to reach a community that is surely comprised of Democrats, Republicans and everything in between.  My goal in ministry is never to sway votes because earthly elections seem so small in the face of my eternal calling.  I'm trying to sway people to Jesus, not Trump or Clinton or whatever local leader that's up for election.  That doesn't mean I don't have opinions.  I just kind of pride myself in the idea that you'd have to have a crowbar to get them out of me.  My political opinions are my opinions, and they're not much helpful to my cause as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus.  Moreover, I'm increasingly convinced that I am grossly ill-informed and uneducated as to the depths of most political issues.  I am inclined to not have strong opinions about things in which I know my knowledge is limited.

I am greatly concerned about the next four months, though, as it relates to the Body of Christ.  I am troubled at how we might portray ourselves in these next four months.  Church, can we please be the Church, at it's best, this election season?  Can we live Proverbs 13:3,

"Those who guard their lips preserve their lives, but those who speak rashly will come to ruin."

If you are not a Christian, that's still some pretty good advice.  If you're a Christian, it's in the book.  We're supposed to do it.

A key concept for me to recall is that most of the political issues that any of us get all hot and bothered about are very complex.  I recently starting reading John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage.  In the foreword, his brother, Robert, says that any democracy exists "in the struggle for solutions which are very rarely easy to find."  John Kennedy later writes, "There are few if any issues where all the truth and all the right and all the angels are on one side."

It's why speaking rashly comes to ruin.  When we sit an think things through, we can at least see other angles to the story.  Our 'side' in a political debate almost never has all the right on its side.  We'd do well to recognize and admit that.  We can understand that it's very complex. And we understand a bigger picture.  For the Christian, the bigger picture is eternity.

Church, convincing someone to vote for your candidate will not secure their eternity.  Convincing someone to follow your Christ will save their soul.  But you and I won't do it with words.  I'm not saying it's not an important election.  I'm just saying there's something far more important at stake on which to focus our energies, so let's guard our lips.

*John F. Kennedy. Profiles in Courage.  New York:  Harper Collins, 2003.