Sunday Recap (3/4/2007)

Great day! Great energy! Great crowd ... how 'bout the 9:00 service at 411!! It's filling up and freeing up seats at our prime time service (10:45) for guests!

This was predominantly a message for our church attenders and regulars as we concluded our series, "Off Road". As of now, we know we had 2 people receive Christ today which is AWESOME despite the fact that we were challenging our people (insiders) to share their God-story with others.

I Peter 3:15 tells us to "be ready" to share the hope we have in Christ with anyone and everyone but to do it with gentleness and respect. We focused how we share this story and how to be ready:

1) Understand barriers
There are barriers that keep people from experiencing Christ and the community of the church. We talked about five: shame & guilt, personal pride, perceived irrelevance of the church, Christians, and religous check-lists (versus a relationship with the living God).

2) Be proactive with people.
Using John 4 and the interaction Jesus had with the woman at the well we talked about seeking to engage people in easy, natural conversations that can be used to bring up spiritual matters. Jesus gave her acceptance, grace, and love. He asked a non-threatening question.

Read Matthew 5:13-16 and discussed that we all have a platform with which to engage people in salt & light interaction. Salt preserves and influences; light penetrates and points out a path. Salt and light is the role Christ has given us.

3) Share our story.
Every Christ-follower has a before & after story. We talked about how to share the difference Christ has made in 45-seconds or less. Be real. Be natural. Be clear. Be concise. Don't use 'churchy' language. Don't tell 'weird' God stories. Just tell the simple story of what Christ has done in your life.

4) Share God's story.
God's story has 3 essential elements: 1) God loves us -2) Christ chose to pay our sin debt/penalty -3) The choice is ours whether or not to receive His payment.

5) Do you have a story?
We challenged folks here to look honestly at their own story and where it intersects with God's.

We closed the message by breaking 'glow sticks' around the theatre. First, we let the middle schoolers and then the high schoolers. Then we did it by zip code and occupations. The theatre gradually lit up with individual lights ... representing where we have been strategically positioned by God to share His story.
120 people in Acts 2 took Jesus' salt & light analogy seriously ... what would happen if everyone at Rock Bridge did the same??