Scott's Thoughts - Sun, Jan 7, 2024
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(Apologies for links that make getting back to this ST post a slightly frustrating process. We’re annoyed, too. We try to avoid that, but it’s beyond our control.)
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from FCC Staff and Elders!
A Pot Pourri of Miscellany
Why I Often Say “What We Do Here Matters”
(Apologies for links that make getting back to this ST post a slightly frustrating process. We’re annoyed, too. We try to avoid that, but it’s beyond our control.)
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from FCC Staff and Elders!
A Pot Pourri of Miscellany
Why I Often Say “What We Do Here Matters”
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from FCC Staff and Elders!
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I’m well aware this is quite late, and I think ‘twas said in maybe an FCC mass text and even with a picture in the Weekly Pulse email, but we are thankful for each of you and are privileged to serve Christ the King together. We look forward to being on Team FCC with you and to Helping Greene County Find and Follow Jesus throughout 2024!
- 7 Days of Prayer — This week, from Sunday through Saturday from 7-7:30p, our Residents are leading us in a time of prayer that is a helpful reset at the beginning of a new year. Each evening consists in 10 minutes of a devotional thought from one of our Residents about one of our 7 Team Code Maxims (fccgreene.org/teamcode) and then he or she leads us through a time of prayer.
- Christmas Candlelight Service at Tusculum — I think it’s really important to occasionally do all-church events like this. It’s so encouraging to be with 700+ FCCers (and quite a few guests) to sing God’s praises together! Tusculum was a great venue for us. Bigtime thanks to the many staff and volunteers who pitched in to make it all happen! Btw, you can take your signs down if you want, but FWIW, the Catalyst Mobile part still applies, if you wanna be weird and keep promoting our Christmas Service in order to help promote “Catalyst Mobile.”👇🏼
- Catalyst Coffee Mobile “Soft Launch” is This Week! — Our trailer is basically complete! The trailer will be a drive-thru that we can also use as a walk-up at events. And starting tomorrow, for those going to 7 Days of Prayer, Re:gen, and Re|engage, show up early because Catalyst Mobile will be there selling drinks! I’m saying to show up early because we wanna be careful to ensure it doesn’t become a distraction for the ministry programming going on. In fact, they’ll be there Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights. Go to catalystmobile.org for more details and to download the app, which you can use for ordering at the trailer as soon as tomorrow night!
- 2024 Budget & 2023 Annual Report… Ugh! — My apologies, (I feel like all I ever do is apologize all the time), but because of a couple reasons, we’ve been unable to get the Annual Report done yet. However, we finally, actually, and truly are just a couple/few days away from going to print. Also, we’ve been planning on making the 2024 Budget available at the same time as the Annual Report, (which I know full well needn’t happen at the same time, but I’m stubbornly sticking to that plan because they should go together!) Btw, the 2024 Budget is a decrease of almost $50,000, from $1,149,712 (2023) to $1,100,000 (2024). (Dunno the total 2023 INC v EXP quite yet.) We’re working hard to run a lean machine and the Staff are to be commended bigtime for their flexibility, willingness to cut some things, and for being all-in because they love this church!
- Sorry I’ve Been Lax on Scott’s Thoughts — Not that anyone’s been holding their breath, but in our multisite environment, it’s helpful to have a consistent source that helps ensure we’re all on the same page in terms of vision and staying updated on things not covered in our normal comms outlets. Frankly, and I’ve told staff this a number of times, things work better when I’m consistent with ST, not because I’m the one writing it but because I think it actually is valuable in keeping us all on the same page. Plus, I like doing it. But things this past 8-9 months (or since 3 campuses, or since as far back as I can remember being in ministry) have been frenetically crazy and basically entirely unmanageable for me. And getting just one ST blurb posted usually involves quite a few moving and often disparate parts that require lots of administrative time to get into an integrated whole. Anyway… Sorry it hasn’t been consistent. I’m working on saying no, which would help with… all that… but I’m super not good at it.
Why I Often Say “What We Do Here Matters”
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Of the many things I think Covid revealed about Christians in America, a few are germane here.
What was previously a slow erosion of the local church’s importance to the average Christian in America has become an avalanche of losing out on the joy of gathering with and growing through the body to find encouragement and strength for the Christian life! So for the last couple years, as part of my pre-sermon welcome and banter, I’ve regularly made the point that our Sunday worship gatherings are (more) important (than most have believed them to be), saying something like, “What we do here matters,” or and the significance of “showing up” for the sake of personal, family, and community growth.
Straight up, you cannot do the Christian life with the victory, courage, and power you, your marriage, and your family need if you’re doing it without the consistent connection of the local body.
What we do here matters! If you think you can do this life well enough by yourself and without the body of Christ that is the God-designed environment for your encouragement, strength, and growth, you are in direct conflict with the witness of Scripture that not only speaks over and over of the importance of habitual assembly but whose contents were almost entirely directed not to individuals but to the local church! Contrary to how so many Christians think about the direction of their lives, God is not primarily interested in pandering to and blessing your vision for your life if it doesn’t include a love for His people for which He sent His one and only Son to die! What we do as the gathered body of Christ each week matters and it shouldn’t be dismissed or ignored.
- We have taken the establishment and propagation of Christian faith, morality, and truth for granted.
- We have misunderstood and taken for granted the foundational role of the local church.
- We have bought into the unbiblical and technologically enabled modern foolishness of personal autonomy, material control, and anti-institutionalism.
What was previously a slow erosion of the local church’s importance to the average Christian in America has become an avalanche of losing out on the joy of gathering with and growing through the body to find encouragement and strength for the Christian life! So for the last couple years, as part of my pre-sermon welcome and banter, I’ve regularly made the point that our Sunday worship gatherings are (more) important (than most have believed them to be), saying something like, “What we do here matters,” or and the significance of “showing up” for the sake of personal, family, and community growth.
Straight up, you cannot do the Christian life with the victory, courage, and power you, your marriage, and your family need if you’re doing it without the consistent connection of the local body.
- Psalm 22:22, 25; 107:32; and 111:1 all summarize what is taught throughout the entire Bible, that thanksgiving and praise are expressed most poignantly in the context of the “congregation.” This isn’t because it can’t or shouldn’t be expressed elsewhere but because that’s where such thanksgiving and praise is most pointedly expressed and modeled in a person’s life.
- Acts 2:42 says they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
- Hebrews 10:24-25 say that we should stir up one another to love and good works, How?! By ensuring that we are not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but rather, that we should be in the habit of encouraging one another!
What we do here matters! If you think you can do this life well enough by yourself and without the body of Christ that is the God-designed environment for your encouragement, strength, and growth, you are in direct conflict with the witness of Scripture that not only speaks over and over of the importance of habitual assembly but whose contents were almost entirely directed not to individuals but to the local church! Contrary to how so many Christians think about the direction of their lives, God is not primarily interested in pandering to and blessing your vision for your life if it doesn’t include a love for His people for which He sent His one and only Son to die! What we do as the gathered body of Christ each week matters and it shouldn’t be dismissed or ignored.
Posted in Scotts Thoughts