Scott's Thoughts
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Just some miscellaneous items worthy of note today.
The Occasional Thank You
Every Sunday, when I drive to one of our campuses, there are always cars already in the parking lot. Why? Because there are faithful FCCers who are “praypared” (à la Team Code maxim #2) to serve with their hearts and hands and it is an encouragement to me every time! Now, granted, plenty of folks show up later to serve and are no less “praypared,” but I mention the early cars in the lot because it symbolizes the whole. Every single week—not just every Sunday but literally every day of the week—there are hundreds of FCCers who faithfully serve on the team, even when it’s hard, to help us effectively minister God’s Word to build up the body, engage our community, and preach good news to the lost. So, just wanted to make sure to give another of the occasional Scott’s Thoughts shout outs to those who serve so faithfully. It not only blesses many around you; it blesses and encourages me. Thank you.
Easter Invites, Promo, And Publicity, Oh My!
As we’ve said a number of times in the last few months, we are working to make 2026 “The Year We Recapture The Value Of Inviting People To Church.” In that vein, and as we are only four weeks away from our all-church-combined Community Easter Service at Tusculum University’s Pioneer Arena on Sun, Apr 5, at 10 AM, we’ve got quite a bit of Easter promo in the works, most of which begins next Sun, Mar 15. (Yes, ‘twas a run on(ish), but I ain’t got time to fix it.) So we’ll be posting a brief invite video on the socials that we’d like you to share. We’ll also have both Easter Yard Signs and Invite Cards for you on Sun, Mar 15. Yes, as relatively annoying as it may be, we want as many willing (and unwilling) FCCers to share the invite video, post a Yard Sign, take and pray over an Invite Card (or 3), and to put that orange FCC sticker on your car window (to encourage church attendance and proper driving—boom, two birds with one sticker.) Anyhoo... help us out, please. As much as I personally theologically mostly loathe many church marketing tactics, I’d rather we use some relatively mild promo to help get folks to come hear God’s Word at FCC than send them to a lot of other places. Yeah, I said it—it’s entirely reasonable to invite people to church. If it means a sticker on your car window or a sign in your yard, both of which are routinely noted as means God uses to get folks to visit us.
Did You Know… ?!
… that our Catalyst Coffee went on our recent Colombia trip and made the front page of The Greeneville Sun?! For more, see:
Every Sunday, when I drive to one of our campuses, there are always cars already in the parking lot. Why? Because there are faithful FCCers who are “praypared” (à la Team Code maxim #2) to serve with their hearts and hands and it is an encouragement to me every time! Now, granted, plenty of folks show up later to serve and are no less “praypared,” but I mention the early cars in the lot because it symbolizes the whole. Every single week—not just every Sunday but literally every day of the week—there are hundreds of FCCers who faithfully serve on the team, even when it’s hard, to help us effectively minister God’s Word to build up the body, engage our community, and preach good news to the lost. So, just wanted to make sure to give another of the occasional Scott’s Thoughts shout outs to those who serve so faithfully. It not only blesses many around you; it blesses and encourages me. Thank you.
Easter Invites, Promo, And Publicity, Oh My!
As we’ve said a number of times in the last few months, we are working to make 2026 “The Year We Recapture The Value Of Inviting People To Church.” In that vein, and as we are only four weeks away from our all-church-combined Community Easter Service at Tusculum University’s Pioneer Arena on Sun, Apr 5, at 10 AM, we’ve got quite a bit of Easter promo in the works, most of which begins next Sun, Mar 15. (Yes, ‘twas a run on(ish), but I ain’t got time to fix it.) So we’ll be posting a brief invite video on the socials that we’d like you to share. We’ll also have both Easter Yard Signs and Invite Cards for you on Sun, Mar 15. Yes, as relatively annoying as it may be, we want as many willing (and unwilling) FCCers to share the invite video, post a Yard Sign, take and pray over an Invite Card (or 3), and to put that orange FCC sticker on your car window (to encourage church attendance and proper driving—boom, two birds with one sticker.) Anyhoo... help us out, please. As much as I personally theologically mostly loathe many church marketing tactics, I’d rather we use some relatively mild promo to help get folks to come hear God’s Word at FCC than send them to a lot of other places. Yeah, I said it—it’s entirely reasonable to invite people to church. If it means a sticker on your car window or a sign in your yard, both of which are routinely noted as means God uses to get folks to visit us.
Did You Know… ?!
… that our Catalyst Coffee went on our recent Colombia trip and made the front page of The Greeneville Sun?! For more, see:
Upcoming Sermons
After Hebrews, we’ll do 3 more weeks of New City Catechism leading up to Resurrection Sunday at Tusculum University on Apr 5th. Those Study Guides are available today at all campuses. Then, as part of making 2026 The Year We Recaptured the Value of Inviting People to Church, we’ll do a 5-week series in the book of Jonah called "Salvation Belongs to the Lord,” then a fairly theologically revolutionary 5-week series on “What’s New About the New Covenant,” which will have some really cool connections between the Old and New Testaments. (Hint: When it comes to the relationship between the Old and New Testaments/Covenants, there is both continuity and discontinuity.) Then, we will cover the first 10 weeks (of 35 total) of “1 Corinthians: Living As God’s Holy People In A World That Still Thinks Like Corinth,” with a few ‘Recapture The Value Of Inviting People To Church’ weeks in “Selected Psalms: God’s Heart For The Nations”. So thems the plans that will basically take us through the rest of 2026.
Recent (And Not So Recent) Theological And Sociocultural Thoughts You May Have Missed
In case you’ve missed ‘em, I wanted to bring everyone up to speed on our latest (and not latest) theological and sociocultural pubs from Scott’s Thoughts, Great Questions Answered, Brown Bags & Bibles, Elders Position Papers, and sermons.
After Hebrews, we’ll do 3 more weeks of New City Catechism leading up to Resurrection Sunday at Tusculum University on Apr 5th. Those Study Guides are available today at all campuses. Then, as part of making 2026 The Year We Recaptured the Value of Inviting People to Church, we’ll do a 5-week series in the book of Jonah called "Salvation Belongs to the Lord,” then a fairly theologically revolutionary 5-week series on “What’s New About the New Covenant,” which will have some really cool connections between the Old and New Testaments. (Hint: When it comes to the relationship between the Old and New Testaments/Covenants, there is both continuity and discontinuity.) Then, we will cover the first 10 weeks (of 35 total) of “1 Corinthians: Living As God’s Holy People In A World That Still Thinks Like Corinth,” with a few ‘Recapture The Value Of Inviting People To Church’ weeks in “Selected Psalms: God’s Heart For The Nations”. So thems the plans that will basically take us through the rest of 2026.
Recent (And Not So Recent) Theological And Sociocultural Thoughts You May Have Missed
In case you’ve missed ‘em, I wanted to bring everyone up to speed on our latest (and not latest) theological and sociocultural pubs from Scott’s Thoughts, Great Questions Answered, Brown Bags & Bibles, Elders Position Papers, and sermons.
- ”What Should I Look For In A Church And When Should I Leave One?”, a still-slowly-emerging booklet on which I’m still-slowly-working. Sections completed thus far:
- Essentials? Conviction? Opinion?
- What Church are we Talking About?
- The Church Defined: A Called Out People Always Rediscovering its Purpose as Redeemed Witnesses to the Kingdom of God
- The Essential Marks of a Biblical Church
- (1) Grace-Empowered Gospel
- (2) Expository Preaching
- (3) Christ-Centered Worship (recently completed, late 2025)
- (4) Disciple-Making Strategy
- (5) Regenerate Membership
- (6) Sacrificial Community
- (7) Gospel Proclamation
- (8) Community Engagement
- (9) Other Things Worth Noticing
- “Parent Celebrations and Baby Dedications”
- “Why Don’t We Highlight Things Like Deaths, Holidays, Birthdays, or National Events in Our Worship Services?”
- “Theology is Pre-Political”
- “The Cure for Political Violence and Cultural Decay is Not Politics”
- (Longer Than Normal) Great Questions Answered Posts/Booklets
- (Relatively Shorter Than The Booklets) Great Questions Answered Posts
- Titles And Links On The Way…
- A good two dozen more are on the way when Scott gets to them throughout the morrow, Mon, Mar 9. They cover topics like abortion, women in ministry, homosexuality, immigration, the role of government, etc.
Posted in Scotts Thoughts