Go and Remember the Gospel
Periodically we’ll take advantage of the blog to describe in further detail why we do what we do. Up today: why we say, “City Church, Go and Remember the gospel,” after every worship gathering. We are forgetful people. We regularly forget God’s grace. We regularly forget his mercy and goodness. We regularly revert back to either our own ways of trying to please God in order to gain his acceptance (religion) or we revert back to the pattern of sin and self-fulfillment thus making ourselves gods of our own narcissistic world (rebellion). We are a forgetful people. We have to be reminded...
Read MoreSpiritual Anorexia
Thanks for the answers posted on this blog and Facebook to the quesions I posted a couple of weeks ago. They were thoughtful, gracious, and helped me think better about this subject. Now, I’d like to humbly offer some of my observations and opinions. First, let me answer my own questions. 1) Can you really be a Christian if you don’t know the gospel? No. I think Romans 10:13-17 is pretty clear. The good news, the word of Christ, is absolutely necessary to be a Christian, for salvation. In fact Paul uses the phrase “Obey the Gospel”. I find that phrase odd. The gospel is...
Read MoreThe Two Questions I Ask People…and the Questions They Raise.
Two questions I often ask people are “Who is Jesus and why do you care?” In the south, I have expected to find a level of nominal Christianity: People that claim to be Christians simply based on a cultural affiliation or the fact that they go to church, or because they know they are neither Jewish nor Muslim…so it seems like the only other option for a theist. But I’ve been relatively surprised at the number of “practicing Christians” that confess Jesus as their Lord, have been deeply involved in church activities for a long time, even people that regularly...
Read MoreInto the World: Our Prayer for an Utterly Counter-Cultural, Multi-Cultural Culture
“Who are you trying to reach?” I get that question from Christians a lot. I understand the thought behind it. People want to know if we are focusing our efforts to share the gospel a particular way with a particular people. I also understand that (statistically speaking) churches will generally reach people within 7-10 years of the leadership. For us, that means 23-40 year olds. I get that people are going to be attracted to particular kinds of music, lifestyles, culture, etc. So, I am not surprised that, up to this point, City Church has mainly connected with white college students,...
Read MoreWhy “Gospel-Centered” Instead of “God-Centered”?
This past Sunday, we began a new preaching series for the month of January called “Identity”. What we hope to do this month is explicity introduce/remind everyone of our vision. We want to be clear about who we are and what we believe God has called our church to be. To summarize our identity, we call ourselves a gospel-centered, missional community. This past Sunday (1/1/2012) we began with the foundation of our church…gospel-centrality. I have often encountered people that have asked, “Why would you call yourselves a gospel-centered church instead of a God-centered...
Read More4 Ways I’ve Grown in 4 Months
I preach a lot about the way we change not only when we first encounter Jesus, but also as we continue to remember, rehearse, and meditate on the gospel. I’ve found in these last four months since I moved to Murfreesboro to plant City Church that there are four ways that God has really grown me. Joy- There are so many opportunities to experience joy in our lives that we miss daily. This happens when we get so caught up in our own personal agendas that we miss the work of God happening all around us, in our own lives and in the lives of people we know.Leading a church has allowed me to watch...
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