Scott's Thoughts: Sun, Sep 5, 2021
Total Reading Time: ~4 mins. Just 3 items this week.
Buy Your Daniel Bible Study Books in The Hub or Online Today! – There’s plenty of fodder in this Daniel Bible Study for your personal daily study and for use in Life Group, so buy a copy for $10 and follow along with the sermon series. (Btw, Logos Bible Software users, it is in Logos format. It's also in Kindle.) Again, friendly reminder, we’ll be choosing a few questions from the book for the Study Questions in the Sermon Guide, so even if you don’t have the book, between the sermon and the aforementioned questions, you’ll be plenty prepared for Life Group. Buy it in The Hub or at fccgreene.org/danielbook (and then pick it up in The Hub on Sunday or arrange to pick it up during the week at our Staff Offices at our Greeneville campus by emailing office@fccgreeneville.org. Each purchase funds 3/7 of a book for a Pillar Young Adult participant! (What’s Pillar? Check out fccgreene.org/ya.)
Some Personal Schedule Changes – Not that anybody cares much, but just wanted to let you know that starting this week we’re making some changes to my personal schedule. I’m mostly just letting you know how it affects some of the regular things we produce, post online, put on the app, etc., so the throngs of (perhaps two dozen?) people can adjust, mourn, etc.
Nobody could keep up with all of the aforementioned stuff when it was weekly anyway, so there will likely be relief from additional pressure from all involved in production and little weeping and gnashing of teeth from ST readers, MMM watchers, and Scott-production consumers, (i.e., ”the throngs.”)
“Unseen Workers” – In an Afton Guest Team Basecamp Heartbeat someone recently shared this devotional thought on the importance of the “unseen workers” that I wanted to pass along because it communicates well why maxim #4 in our Team Code is “We celebrate everyday boring faithful service.” (Click here for more about our Team Code, Heartbeat (under maxim #2 re being “praypared”), and Basecamp (under footnote #5.)) Look at how 1 Corinthians 12:27-28 communicate the importance of every individual member’s role in serving.
As Paul is emphasizing here, for the body of Christ to work properly, as God designed, it requires all the members’ gifts, which means all of them are important! Just notice in the next couple verses (1 Corinthians 12:29-30) how Paul further drives home this point by asking rhetorical questions that expect a negative answer.
The answer, of course, is no, not all do all these things, Paul's point being that only when all do their one thing can we together do all the things needed. Here’s how the devo said it:
Amen! “Unseen faithful workers” are as important as the seen ones, even beyond the context of our church. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how our emerging cultural and political climate makes clear that it is ultimately only those who show up faithfully and over the long haul who are the builders of institutions like marriages, families, companies, and churches that keep a community strong. It’s just math, and it applies to the unseen workers every bit as much as the seen. Even if your everyday boring faithful service feels unjustly unheralded, it is making a difference in helping keep your marriage, family, workplace, and our community strong. Since it takes everybody pitching in to make anything of value happen, thanks for showing up, even if “unseen!”
Buy Your Daniel Bible Study Books in The Hub or Online Today! – There’s plenty of fodder in this Daniel Bible Study for your personal daily study and for use in Life Group, so buy a copy for $10 and follow along with the sermon series. (Btw, Logos Bible Software users, it is in Logos format. It's also in Kindle.) Again, friendly reminder, we’ll be choosing a few questions from the book for the Study Questions in the Sermon Guide, so even if you don’t have the book, between the sermon and the aforementioned questions, you’ll be plenty prepared for Life Group. Buy it in The Hub or at fccgreene.org/danielbook (and then pick it up in The Hub on Sunday or arrange to pick it up during the week at our Staff Offices at our Greeneville campus by emailing office@fccgreeneville.org. Each purchase funds 3/7 of a book for a Pillar Young Adult participant! (What’s Pillar? Check out fccgreene.org/ya.)
Some Personal Schedule Changes – Not that anybody cares much, but just wanted to let you know that starting this week we’re making some changes to my personal schedule. I’m mostly just letting you know how it affects some of the regular things we produce, post online, put on the app, etc., so the throngs of (perhaps two dozen?) people can adjust, mourn, etc.
- Scott’s Thoughts and Great Questions Answered will rotate every other Sunday, starting today.
- Monday Morning Missives goes bye bye, (but we’ll keep existing ones on the website and app, for reference.) Also, I’m no longer going to be at re:gen on Monday nights.
- Starting with Brown Bags & Bibles this Tue, BB&B and Coffee Convos will rotate every other week. So we’re doing BB&B this Tue at noon, and CC next Wed, Sep 15, at 7:30p, then BB&B the next week, CC the next, and so on. Also, we’re going to have to move to a pre-recorded version of CC, so we’ll let you know the schedule of people ahead of time here on the biweekly Scott’s Thoughts so you can ask questions on the Connect Card (“Home” page on the app) and we’ll try to implement them during recording.
- Preaching at Pillar Young Adults remains on Tue nights, but on the nights I am scheduled to preach, they will rotate between having me preach live and showing the pre-recorded version.
- Sermons remain the same, with Campus Pastors preaching occasionally, as we’ve been doing.
Nobody could keep up with all of the aforementioned stuff when it was weekly anyway, so there will likely be relief from additional pressure from all involved in production and little weeping and gnashing of teeth from ST readers, MMM watchers, and Scott-production consumers, (i.e., ”the throngs.”)
“Unseen Workers” – In an Afton Guest Team Basecamp Heartbeat someone recently shared this devotional thought on the importance of the “unseen workers” that I wanted to pass along because it communicates well why maxim #4 in our Team Code is “We celebrate everyday boring faithful service.” (Click here for more about our Team Code, Heartbeat (under maxim #2 re being “praypared”), and Basecamp (under footnote #5.)) Look at how 1 Corinthians 12:27-28 communicate the importance of every individual member’s role in serving.
27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 28 And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.
As Paul is emphasizing here, for the body of Christ to work properly, as God designed, it requires all the members’ gifts, which means all of them are important! Just notice in the next couple verses (1 Corinthians 12:29-30) how Paul further drives home this point by asking rhetorical questions that expect a negative answer.
29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?
The answer, of course, is no, not all do all these things, Paul's point being that only when all do their one thing can we together do all the things needed. Here’s how the devo said it:
“Within the body of Christ, there are those who hold positions of authority. They are the leadership of the local church. … But tucked in there [in Paul’s list above in verse 28, sic.] are those with the gift of “helps,” who usually reside further behind the pulpit. They are the unseen faithful workers who do mundane tasks without receiving credit. They are the spiritual mechanics who work on the plane and whose labor is just as important as the pilot. We don’t see these wonderful helpers. But God does, and that’s what truly matters.”
Amen! “Unseen faithful workers” are as important as the seen ones, even beyond the context of our church. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how our emerging cultural and political climate makes clear that it is ultimately only those who show up faithfully and over the long haul who are the builders of institutions like marriages, families, companies, and churches that keep a community strong. It’s just math, and it applies to the unseen workers every bit as much as the seen. Even if your everyday boring faithful service feels unjustly unheralded, it is making a difference in helping keep your marriage, family, workplace, and our community strong. Since it takes everybody pitching in to make anything of value happen, thanks for showing up, even if “unseen!”
Posted in Scotts Thoughts