God is Up To Something Great in 2017 at the Little Church on the Prairie and Lakewood Grace

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“Then Joshua said to the people, ‘Sanctify yourselves; for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you’” (Joshua 3:5).

At the closing of my annual review with the personnel committee and the session, I shared, “I believe we are in a fantastic place to see God do amazing things in our future. I believe the future is bright for the Little Church on the Prairie. I believe that the best days for the Little Church are still ahead of us.”

It’s normal for leaders to say such things about the organizations they lead.

But I don’t think this is just leadership fluff. I’m not just saying these things because I think it sounds like what leaders ought to say. I say these things because I believe this is where God has positioned us.

I believe the Little Church on the Prairie is perfectly positioned to see God do amazing things in the future. I say that based on these four factors:

  1. We are healthy

    I work with congregations in the denomination by coaching their leadership. I have seen many churches and worked with my share. The Little Church on the Prairie is one of the healthiest congregations around. We are not perfect. No church is. But we are healthy. We are able to love one another through difficult times. We name and call relational “violations” when they occur. We find Godly ways to disagree and find a way forward. The Little Church is a healthy congregation.

  1. We know where we’re going

    We have a clear vision of who and what we’re trying to achieve. We have a goal by 2016 to be a congregation of 600 worshipers in 3 worship services. We will continue to strive to provide excellent ministries to the Baby Boomers and Builders here at the Little Church campus. And we have launched Lakewood Grace at Harrison Prep to reach the millennials and generation X. We will continue to do this through excellent worship, FOCUS Groups, outreach/mission, and family ministries.

  1. We have fantastic people

    Most leaders say that their organization has fantastic people, and when you see how they operate and treat one another, it’s clear that there is much dysfunction. That’s not the case at the Little Church. Again, we are not perfect. But we recognize that. We are a church and a staff who say, “We’re faced with some challenges. But we’re in this together! Let’s figure out how to serve God and God’s people together.” That’s what makes the Little Church people such fantastic people. We know we’re going to work it out. And we will work things out together. We don’t bolt and run when things get hard. When things get hard, Little Church people roll up their sleeves and get to work.

  1. We are debt free, and we have a strong financial base

    The Little Church is very fortunate to have a working facility that is completely debt free. The recent success with our capital campaign where you pledged over $800k in the next three years, and your continued strong support for the yearly budget positions the Little Church in a strong financial position.

All these factors place the Little Church in an ideal position to see God do amazing things in our near future. But most of all, the best days are still ahead of the Little Church on the Prairie and Lakewood Grace because God is at work here. God is up to something great at the Little Church and Lakewood Grace in 2017!

In Christ,

Pastor James <><

Circumcision – Proof of God?

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I’m a guy. I have lots of friends who are guys. And one of the things about guys is that no guy likes having his stuff, you know…his most private stuff…messed with. When it comes to our most private part, don’t be messin…don’t be joking around. There are few things more painful than when our most sensitive area gets mishandled.

So what does any of this have to do with God?

Well, I’m reading through Genesis and I come across Genesis 17 where God reaffirms his covenant promise to be Abraham’s God and as a sign of that covenant, God wants Abraham, his sons, his descendants, and all males in his household to get circumcised.

Now, remember, before Genesis 17, no man had ever been circumcised.

I’m trying to imagine the scene when Abraham shows up around the camp fire after having a conversation with “God”.

“Um guys…” Abraham says hesitantly. “Well, you know God’s been talking to me for a few years now…and God spoke to me again…He says that we’re his people and that he’s our God.”

“That’s great Abraham,” says the guys around the camp fire.

“Well, there’s more,” Abraham says. He takes a deep breath. “You see, to show that we belong to God, God wants us to take a flint knife and cut off….”

Listen. At this point, there’s no amount of beer or whiskey or anything else on planet earth that’s going to make okay what Abraham is just about to share with his boys. There is no way that any man is going to think that taking a blade to his thing to chop off…yes, chop off…is okay.

Look! There’s no way that sounds like a good idea. There’s no way that sounds like any idea. That’s insane! What guy is going to think that that’s an okay thing to do?

That there is circumcision. That there’s a whole nation of guys who thought this was a thing to do proves only one thing…God spoke. God is real.

No way Abraham thought this up for himself and convinced a bunch guys around his campfire to do the same.

So yeah…I’m thinking circumcision is one of the greatest proofs that God exists and speaks to his people.

Faith and the Idolization of Individualism

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As Americans, there are fewer things we value more than our individualism.

This idolization of individualism has lead to a myriad of issues. One of the serious consequences of this individualism is putting the self at the center of what is and what is not true. In this highly individualistic culture, the self has become the ultimate determinant for what is true and what is not.

  • No longer do we accept a higher authority – God – as the determiner of what is right or wrong. If what God says doesn’t jive with me and my  experience, my personal experience trumps God’s standards.
  • No longer do we accept a shared-cultural understanding of social and moral norms.
  • What works for you doesn’t work for me. As long as what I believe and what I do doesn’t hurt you, who are you to tell me that what I’m doing is wrong?

One of the problems of this heightened individualism is that the individual experience is never sufficient for properly understanding the world around us.

We need the voice and the experiences of others. We need the wisdom and the value of others to help us to get a proper perspective of the world. Our understanding and our perspective will always be limited and incomplete without the voice of others.

I write all this because, it seems to me, the idolization of individualism has worked its way in how American Christians view our faith. We place our individualistic experience, our personal understanding of what God says above all other authorities. We have a hard time submitting to the understanding, teaching, and the authority of the church.

What we seek – the connection between who God is and who we are on a personal level – is not a bad thing. This is, in fact, a good thing. Who God is must make a difference at a personal level.

However, how we pursue this as individuals in a culture that has made an idol of individualism is the problem.

Faith, by its very nature is communal. Faith is never the possession of one. Faith belongs to the community. Faith is birthed in community. Faith is nurtured in community.

And it’s in community our communal sharing of life and faith that faith begins to make sense to the individual person. You take the individual outside of faith, and a faith experience apart from community is a mutation. Such faith is not what God ever intended.

Faith is birthed, shaped, formed, and lived out in community.