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GROWING together in Christ – Part 2

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By Larry Short

At Elim, affinity groups and community groups are the primary place where we practice the “one anothers” of Scripture and walk together to hold each other accountable to become more like Jesus. Moving people into healthy groups and mentoring relationships is key to achieving the second part of our vision: “Grow Together in Christ.”

Last week we focused on what it means to grow “Together.” This week, we look more at the nature of growth itself, and especially what it means to grow IN CHRIST. And yes, once again we are offering a special treat to everyone who clicks the following link, reads this week’s Last Word in its entirety, and follows the specific instructions you find therein. Enjoy!

Growing together in Christ will occur, to some extent, on weekend worship services and in class-like child and adult education contexts. But at Elim we’ve discovered that Sunday morning is not enough! This growth will occur most effectively in the context of affinity groups or community groups … smaller groupings of like-minded individuals from within our Body who commit themselves to gathering together regularly to pursue a deeper and healthier Body Life commitment to growth in Christ. It is in a dozen such groups in this church (and I am including, in addition to community groups, affinity groups such as the M&Ms, YAMs, women’s Bible study, MOPS, etc.) where the real growth, the practical application, occurs. Where people know each other more intimately, submitting themselves to the leadership of their shepherd-teacher(s) as they seek to work out together what it really means to become more like Jesus, our Master Shepherd-Teacher.

We are blessed to have a majority, more than 60%, of our attending church members and friends involved in such groups. But we also recognize that the remaining 40% are missing out on a key component that will heighten your chances of “finishing well” in this Christian race. As we as a church embrace our vision statement of “Know God, Grow together in Christ, Go and serve South Hill and Beyond,” we will be thinking carefully not just about those three components, but the all-important transitions between them. If weekend worship services are where we come together to know God better, we will also be using them to encourage you to take the next step and transition into a community or affinity group where you can really begin “growing together in Christ.”

And we recognize that not everyone will find a group where they feel they completely “fit.” Perhaps you work evenings, and can’t find a group that doesn’t meet in the evenings. Or perhaps you have struggled all your life, due to the fact that you are left-handed or double-jointed or talk in a funny voice. What should you do?

Here’s an idea: Start one! We want to be very intentional about raising up and training new group leaders, and we would love to work with you on creating a group to help facilitate growth together in Christ for people who may be just like you (left-handed, double-jointed, funny voice talkers with evening jobs).

Without groups of people who are committed to walking the Christian life together, our strategy as a church will never be successful. We need each other! And most of all, we need Christ, which is the final and most important part of this second line in our vision statement: “Grow together IN CHRIST.” For Christ did not launch out on His earthly, heavenly-Kingdom-building ministry alone, but surrounded himself with a concentric team of God-seekers, in order to walk the journey together with them. Not only did He have a large following of disciples (estimated at about 500 during his earthly ministry), and a smaller team of 12 apostles, but even a smaller yet and more tightly-knit inner team of 3 disciples, to whom He entrusted His most intimate and amazing moments and experiences (such as the Transfiguration).

Which speaks to mentoring, another key part of “growing together in Christ,” wherein smaller groups of 2 or 3 individuals work to establish and hold each other accountable for spiritual growth, and learn from each other … but, alas and alack, we are out of time and space! (Of course, we have enough space to provide you with another email link for Martin … CLICK HERE to submit an email with “DOUBLE YUMM!” in the title, then be sure to claim your prize on Sunday!)

So, the last word of this Last Word is: If you are not yet in an affinity group or community group or mentoring relationship at Elim, we offer you two choices: 1) Get in one! 2) Start one! The status quo is unacceptable. We must be growing together in Christ before we can hope to do what He is calling us to do … GO and serve, South Hill and beyond! Tune in next week, for more on that.

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Growing TOGETHER in Christ – Part 1

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By Larry Short

At Elim, affinity groups and community groups are the primary place where we practice the “one anothers” of Scripture and walk together to hold each other accountable to become more like Jesus. Moving people into healthy groups and mentoring relationships is key to achieving the second part of our vision: “Grow Together in Christ.”

When we were first married, Darlene and I lived in a small condominium in Southern California. We had very thin walls so we got to know our neighbors well. Nathan, our first child, was born while we lived there, and he was a screamer. I felt very sorry for our neighbor to the east, whose bedroom shared a wall with our nursery.

When our baby was crying, her strategy was to turn her TV set up to a louder volume to drown out the noise. Which is partly how we became aware that she enjoyed listening to a number of big-haired evangelists who were broadcasting their services for the benefit of all the pagans.

When we asked, our neighbor informed us that she did not bother attending worship at any of the fine gatherings in our community. Instead, she pointed to her TV set. “That’s my church,” she said.

Do you ever wonder why we bother to gather TOGETHER as believers? Why Scripture admonishes us, “Forsake not the assembly of the saints?” After all, we have God’s Word. Everything we need to know is right there. And in this modern age, with internet, radio and TV broadcasting, we have plenty of other ways to connect with teaching, worship, etc. Why bother joining a body of believers and assembling with them regularly? What’s to be gained?

For that matter, if God reveals Himself through nature, as well as His Word, why not seek out a monastic life of seclusion, taking your Bible and your favorite worship tape and seeking God each week on the beach or on the slopes of Mt. Rainier?

Scripture refers to Jesus’ Church as “The Body of Christ.” Singular. At Elim, we recognize fully that we are just one small part of a larger Body. Not only is it a worldwide Body, with millions of fellowships meeting together in hundreds of countries, it extends (both directions) throughout time. The author of Hebrews tells us we are “surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses,” believers who have been translated to glory after “winning the race.” Christ has one Body, and we are all in it, together with them. We also bear a significant responsibility to the believers of the future, those who are yet to come, to keep alive the flame and fan it so that it is burning brightly when they join the fold. (So that we, too, may one day be in that great “cloud of witnesses.”)

Like the Body of Christ, the human body has discrete subunits. There are various limbs, structures, and organs that have different functions, contributing to the health of the whole. And even within each organ, there are billions and billions of discrete cells. And even within each cell, there are further discrete components.

But one thing that marks a healthy, functioning Body is connection. I don’t know about you, but the different parts of my body spend a lot of time together! Those cells all work hard to performing their respective functions as an interdependent part of the whole. Blood cells flood muscle cells with oxygen and other nutrients, which in turn take their signals from nerves to pull against tendons and bones and other muscles in just the right way and sequence for me to type these words. All these different components depend fully on each other for health and survival.

Sure, individual cells may die, and the Body goes on. You can even remove a kidney and survive … but how many of us want to? If everything is working together as it should, we really like to keep all our parts intact. (I kind of like having two kidneys, personally.)

The second part of our vision statement says: “GROW together in Christ.” Growth is another phenomenon that marks a healthy body.

But what kind of growth are we talking about? Is growth simply an expansion in numbers, the addition of cells? There are times in every body life when this is important, and certainly it is vital to build muscle and exercise our brain capacity and replace cells that are dying. But as we all know, growth can also be dysfunctional. Obesity and resulting diseases such as heart disease and diabetes are in epidemic proportions here in the U.S. Another form of uncontrolled or inappropriate growth is cancer, and next to heart disease it is a primary killer.

There’s another kind of growth, and it’s the qualitative kind of growth we should experience as we mature. We all should be gaining and practicing skills, eating healthy, learning more, taking our vitamins, exercising, and growing in health and happiness and contentment and peace and wisdom. It is the qualitative as opposed to the quantitative side of growth.

While “GROW Together in Christ” does not ignore the quantitative side — yes, as a healthy church we will probably be adding numbers as we reach out and serve those around us and invite others in to partake in this Christian life with us — the qualitative side is what we are most concerned about. As believers, are we being transformed into the image of the Christ we follow? Are we making real, measurable progress in our spiritual health? And are we doing it together — a dynamic we frequently refer to as “Body Life,” wherein we are admonishing, exhorting, and challenging one another (in the positive sense, iron sharpening iron); stimulating one another to love and good deeds; exercising our spiritual gifts in interdependent trust and mutual submission to one another?

This sort of a Body Life dynamic cannot be created by a TV program or a website. Facebook in all its glory is no substitute for the local church, for the real-life interactions in which we see Christ in each other and grow toward what we see.

Next week: What sort of growth are we talking about? Is this just all about increasing our numbers? Tune in for another treat. Oh, and to everyone who has gotten this far and emails Pastor Martin to tell him so, we are bringing a special treat for you this Sunday: One of Tomina’s ultra-delicious cinnamon rolls! All you have to do is click here to email Pastor Martin with this single word in the subject line: YUMM!

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Knowing God

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By Larry Short

Our new vision statement has three parts:

KNOW God,

GROW together in Christ,

GO and serve, South Hill and beyond

In these next few editions of “The Last Word,” we’re going to look at our new vision statement, and how it (and the strategy which will guide our efforts over the next 1 – 3 – 5 years) has been informed by the “Reveal” survey instrument which we took a year ago this month.

The first part of our vision statement (“KNOW God”), which we will focus on this week, sounds incredibly simple. Our vision is to KNOW God. Sounds like a good, very basic goal for a church, right?

But in reality, I think this part of the vision statement is one of those things that truly is much deeper than it appears at first glance. We often act as if we think that “knowing God” is simply a matter of “knowing more about God” … or perhaps, put another way, believing specific truths about God. But Scripture assures us that when it comes to believing truths about God, that is not the whole story. James 2:19 says: “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that — and shudder.” Believing that there is One God is a fundamental tenet of Judaeo-Christian faith (Deut. 6:4). It’s a good thing to believe there is one God. But it’s not the whole thing. Believing God is One is not the same thing as knowing God.

Jeremiah 9:23-24 says:

“This is what the LORD says: ‘Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares the LORD.”

Truly knowing God is not a philosophical knowing … it is a relational knowing. Many people may know about my wife, that she is a wise and wonderful woman. But they do not know her in the way that I know her, in that unique covenant love relationship that we have as husband and wife. When we truly know God, He also knows us. We understand His character. We seek His desires. We seek and respond in obedience to His leading. We allow Him to change our lives.

For us here at Elim, the primary tool for knowing God is our weekend worship service. In it we submit ourselves to God, saying to Him, “We want to know You!” All the elements of this service … worship, teaching, tithing, prayer … fit together for the purpose of helping us to know God better, to deepen our relationship to Him.

We consider this FUNDAMENTAL. That means, it’s the first thing that we do, the most important thing, before all else. Knowing God must lie at the foundation of everything else that we do: of growing together in Christ, and of going and serving, South Hill and beyond. If we do not first know God, we should not proceed with those other worthy goals. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200!

Please allow me to challenge you today. Can you say in all honesty, “I know God!” I don’t mean, do you know everything there is to know about God? None of us do, none of us ever will. We do not have the capacity. We will spend eternity exploring the delights of God’s character, and will never tire of it. What I mean is this: When you stand before Christ at the final judgment, what will He say to you? Will He say to you, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world” (Matt. 25:34)? Or rather, will he say, “Depart from me, I never knew you.” For, ultimately, knowing God is being known by God. It is a two-way relationship.

Because knowing God is a relationship, this also means we MUST be willing to invest in the relationship in order to see it grow. The Reveal survey says we are very weak in such important spiritual practices as daily Bible reading (only 21%), prayer to seek guidance (31%) and confess sins (29%), and reflection on Scripture (a mere 17%). If only one out of five of us is seeking to hear from God daily, can we truly say we are growing in our knowledge of God? I would challenge us to greater fervency and passion in our pursuit of knowing God! Such effort should not be confused with good works; rather, it is a demonstration of a sincere faith. Hebrews 11:6 nails it on the head:

“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

Reveal also revealed some other interesting things about us as a congregation. It revealed that we know much ABOUT God. We embrace the right doctrines. For instance, 97% of respondents embrace the doctrine of the Trinity. However, this percentage seems to decrease as you start moving the knowledge from head to heart. For instance, only 71% of respondents placed high value on the statement, “God is personal.” Only 66% placed high value on the statement, “Christ is first.” Only 64% expressed value and understanding of their identity in Christ.

Reveal showed us that we need to make the important transition from being primarily a “head” church, to a “heart” church as well. Knowing God is not simply knowing doctrine, not simply knowing about Him. Knowing God is having a personal and life-changing redemptive experience with the Creator of the universe.

This is our primary vision for the members of this church, that we would know God and be known by Him. If there is some way that we as staff, ministry leaders, pastors, and elders can help you in your journey toward knowing God more fully, please talk with us today and let us know what that is. We promise that we will drop everything to help you make this vision become a reality in your life!

NEXT WEEK: Growing together in Christ. What role do small groups play in our church? How can we grow together in our common identity as believers, children of God, who are committed to Christ’s will for our church and our lives and who are growing into that commitment on a daily basis? How will we transition believers from worship services, where they are getting to know God, into small groups, where they are growing together in Christ?

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Monday’s Freezing Night

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By Larry Short

I wanted to provide an update on our second “Freezing Nights” project, which took place last Monday evening.

We hosted 26 local homeless guests here in our facility, offering a warm place to sleep, good food, and a listening ear. This ministry is being undertaken in conjunction with the work of the Puyallup Homeless Coalition.

In addition to hosting nearly twice as many guests, there were the following other contrasts to our first event, two weeks’ earlier:

  • Almost twice as many volunteers participated, and we were substantially better organized.
  • We had a more intentional focus on evangelism. Bob Hedge shared pocket New Testaments (courtesy of the Gideons) and sat down and chatted with those guests willing to talk with him about the Bible. Brian Holthe (our new coordinator) shared his testimony during a pre-breakfast devotional. And Bob Walsh and I were privileged to lead our guests in worship in the sanctuary for nearly an hour on Monday evening.
  • Where our first event was pretty quiet and uneventful, this event was quite different due to an altercation that had occurred between some of the guests at one of the pick-up points. Several individuals were seriously inebriated, which created some unique challenges for the evening and late night shifts.

I want to thank all the volunteers and donors whose efforts and prayers made this event possible. (We really felt the impact of your prayers, especially between about 11 p.m. and 1 a.m.!) I don’t have space here to list everyone (and would probably miss someone anyway). But you know who you are … and you are deeply appreciated! I believe the heart of God is pleased by this very rubber-meets-the-road ministry to our community. I have no doubt you will someday hear His “Well done, thou good and faithful servant!”

I also want to thank the children of this church, who created beautiful and thoughtful cards for each of our guests. We placed these in lunches. What a great love offering!

So, what’s next? We are debriefing with Freezing Nights leadership (and other churches) next Tuesday on how to help moderate the behavior of some of the more disruptive individuals. We have committed to them that we will host the group one Monday night per month. Our next Freezing Nights is therefore scheduled for two nights after Christmas, on December 27.

Please continue saving warm clothing (especially socks); gently used top sheets, towels, and wash clothes; personal (hotel-sized) toiletries; used Christian books and Bibles; and other items for this ministry, not to mention food. You can bring these items any time during regular office hours to the church office, designated for “Freezing Nights.”

In addition, please pray about joining with us on December 27 to pray for this ministry and serve our guests in whatever way you can, even if by simply “being present” with them and providing a listening ear.

Thank you!

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Uncomfortable

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By Larry Short

If you knew exactly what you could do to make Jesus happy, would you do it?

I think the answer to this question is much clearer, and simpler, than most of us realize. We think: Oh, I know. I need to read the Bible more. Or pray more. Or share Christ with my neighbor more.

All these things are certainly needed. But Matthew 25 gives a very different twist in answer to this question. And I think it’s one that makes us a bit uncomfortable. (At least it makes ME uncomfortable!)

In this chapter, Jesus is telling parables about the Kingdom of Heaven. But suddenly He stops speaking in parables and begins to give a very direct prophecy about a phenomenally significant event that will surely occur at the end of time. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne,” Christ tells His disciples. “All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.”

To the sheep Christ will say: “‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

This apparently surprises both the sheep, and the goats. They sheep say, “But Lord? When did we see you hungry and gave you something to eat?”

You know the story. Christ responds: “When you did it to the least of these, my brethren, you did it unto me.”

And, in case you’re wondering … you don’t want to be a goat. You want to be a sheep.

Who are “the least of these?” The question is a little like the rich man’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” The “least of these” are anyone who is vulnerable. Children, for instance. Anyone who suffers injustice, anyone disempowered. Anyone who is poor! Scripture assures us, over and over again, that the poor occupy a special place near God’s heart.

At Elim we are rejoicing because this week this church took a huge step forward in serving the poor, in serving Christ. You probably remember Monday night as a night of wild weather. We listened to the wind howl as we tried to sleep, and many of us experienced hours of power outage. Fortunately, though, we all remained warm — and indoors.

Many here on South Hill aren’t so fortunate. Due to economic and other pressures, we have a growing homeless population in our midst. Imagine spending Monday night out sleeping under a bridge, or under a makeshift tent (with branches coming down all around) near the river?

So, Monday night we were privileged to partner with a local organization known as “Freezing Nights.” Starting November 1, this organization arranges churches who are willing to host homeless guests, under very controlled circumstances. More than a dozen Elim volunteers helped turn our facility into a warm, welcoming and safe environment for local homeless, participating in the program, to spend the night. These volunteers spent time listening to and getting to know these people better, helped them set up and tear down cots, and prepared and served snacks, a hot breakfast, and sack lunches.

Several of these volunteers say that the experience was life-changing, and that they will never look at the poor the same way again.

Our participation with Freezing Nights was a pilot, or a test, and we are currently debriefing with the Outreach Team and with the Puyallup Homeless Coalition to determine whether there will be any ongoing involvement for us. But one thing is clear: Reaching out to and serving the community around us is something that God is calling us to do, here at Elim! Living the Gospel is not simply sending missionaries to the furthest corners of the earth. It is also about making life sacrifices so that we can build relationships with and share Christ’s love with people who need Him, here at home.

I realized how important this relationship-building was when I watched a young man named Greg (and I’m changing his name to protect his identity) interacting with Brian Holthe. Greg was newly homeless, only about two weeks on the streets. A victim of severe depression resulting in a prior suicide attempt, he had been recently cast out by his family and by his fiancee. He was clearly very troubled. Brian, who himself has survived a near miss with homelessness and relational disappointments in his past, sat and listened to Greg’s story, and shared with him the hope that Christ had brought into his own life situation.

It was clearly a divine appointment. What Greg needed was the hope that Brian had. And fortunately, Brian was there! And he was eager to share.

I don’t know whether we will continue to host “freezing nights,” or not. I hope so. But I do know that we need to continue to share Christ’s love and hope with people like Greg. In so doing, in reaching out “to the least of these,” Christ’s brethren — we are in truth doing it unto Christ.

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Two generations

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By Larry Short

The Young Adults Ministry is launching into a study of 1 and 2 Kings, following up on our recent study of 1 and 2 Chronicles. 1 Kings starts with King David, at 70 years old, burned out on his deathbed. David, the quintessential man’s man, began his ministry as the official King of Israel at 30 years of age. His life before then was lived in the school of hard knocks. His exploits were the stuff of legend.

Sociologists talk about a variety of “generational” benchmarks in our society. You have Generation X, Baby Boomers, the Y Generation, etc. But biblically, in any given lifespan you see basically two generations, and two key functions of people living successfully within those.

Generation 1

The first generation is 0 to 30 years, and it is marked by training and preparation. Jewish men were not considered fully “adults” until age 30. That is when they were permitted to enter their fulltime ministry vocation. Even Jesus was relatively obscure for the first 90% of his life (until age 30).

In most cases the first 30 years were considered preparation and training for a life of service, leadership and ministry. Even if they were married earlier, young men were apprenticed or mentored while in their late teens and early 20s. And 30 was a significant benchmark in their life. Jesus began his public ministry at 30.

Generation 2

While Gen. 6:3 caps 120 years as the span of mortal man’s days – a number which is still pretty much considered an upper limit despite significant advances in medical technology – elsewhere Scripture assigns “three score and 10” as a normal human lifespan. Our average lifespans today are slightly longer than that, but still, most consider those few years leading up to age 70 a good time for retirement!

So if the cradle to age 30 is considered training for life, what do those of us who are somewhere between 30 and 70 supposed to consider this second generation? I think this is a question that we struggle with. We divide it up: times when we are raising children, when we become empty nest and perhaps focus on our career, and when we wind our careers down and try and enjoy retirement.

But from a biblical perspective, this “second generation” of life is much simpler. It’s about service. People who have found what God has called them to do realize the key to a happy, purposeful and fulfilled second generation is service, ministry and leadership: whether of our families, our churches, our business/career colleagues, our communities, or our Lord. And hopefully all of the above!

Too many of us live our second generation simply for ourselves, accumulating things that we think we need to keep us happy and comfortable after we retire. There is nothing wrong with preparing for the future, but in light of a God who tells us “do not worry about what you will eat or drink, or what you will wear,” we must hold such things loosely, and seek to cling instead to the true priorities of service: how we can most effectively invest and use the gifts, talents, energies, time and abilities that God has given us to serve Him, and to serve those around us.

Darlene and I tell the Young Adults that if they are not yet 30, they are still in training for service. For most if not all of them, this training involves getting a real taste of what it is like to serve others. I am thankful that Elim is investing heavily in children, in youth, and in young adults, training them for service.

And when they turn 30, they get the boot! Well, not literally, but that is the point when they are expected to turn in their training wheels for something bigger, something riskier. They need to figure out what God has created them to do – and start doing it, in service of Him and others.

How about you?

Where do you fall? If you are older than 70, perhaps you can relax a bit. We still need your wisdom and mentorship, we need to hang around you so the fragrance of your life will rub off on ours. And hopefully it will be our privilege to serve you in the midst of your retirement and to celebrate the service accomplishments of your life!

If you are 30 to 70, like me, you should be in the middle of what God has called you to do, to serve Him and others. We may change gears many times during those years (God knows I have), but hopefully those changes will be with the goal of being a more effective instrument in His hands.

If you are under 30, you are the future of service! We will invest in you, and we will expect that you will be prayerfully considering how God wants you to apply yourself to the task at hand.

Take an example from David. At 70 years of age, he was burned out and exhausted by a life full of adventure as a friend of God, as a leader, a warrior, and a servant of others. He didn’t rust out, he burned out! And you and I are the richer for it today.

Are we leaving that kind of legacy for the next generation?

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