Scott's Thoughts
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(More Than) A Few Misc Items
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Thanks for “Showing Up” for the All-Church Christmas Service at Tusculum University – Though I said this pre-sermon a couple weeks ago, I wanna give another special thanks to Tusculum University and Chad Grindstaff and his staff for letting us use their wonderful facility on Sun, Dec 22! It works really well for us to be able to gather there and it’s always a really great time together as a church. Also, thanks to so many who helped serve to make it all happen! The way we do church requires a lot of people serving on the team, so thanks for serving. And then, even if you didn’t serve, thanks for showing up! In our self-tailored world of personal playlists, material control, and constant options, showing up matters! This may offend some of you who live in the delusion that math and logic don’t apply to you, but y’know who God uses most and who gets to see Him in action?! Those who show up most! It’s like we say about the benefits of wonderful Christian fellowship and community—you don’t stumble upon warm and wonderful Christian fellowship and community, you create it! And while I’m slightly on a roll, listen friends, many of us need to stop expecting the benefits of something we’re unwilling to sacrifice to make happen. (The proliferation of exclamation points stopped quite abruptly there, eh?!) We need to stop expecting what we don’t help make happen. And it is God’s kindness and grace that we are a church crawling with bought-in servants who sacrifice to make things happen! Thank you for Serving on the Team!
Catalyst Has An App! – You can order on it, get loyalty points, etc. It’s pretty cool, actually, and worth downloading. I mean, it’s your church’s coffee shop! And it has its own app! Seriously, it would really help us if you would use it, tell others, stand on the street corner soliciting engagement in it, sing its praises on the socials, and basically make a good 25% of your life nothing but helping us make the Catalyst app the biggest thing that’s happened in Greeneville coffee history! (Ok, at least please download it, use it, and maybe even tell others? That would be really helpful.)
“Prayparing” for Guests God Wants to Send: Sermon Series Invite Cards — For many years we’ve handed out Invite Cards for the 2 weeks prior to new sermon series, to remind us to invite others to join us. It’s part of Helping People Find and Follow Jesus, and it’s a reminder that we are responsible for evangelizing our community and world. So grab a card on your way out, (or one may be handed to you), put in your wallet/purse, and pray for an opportunity to invite someone. You’d be surprised at how often such opportunities arise when you’re praying for and on the lookout for them! I had 2 moments just this past week, and now I’m out, so I’ll have to grab one this morning!
Church Planting Vision Trip to Colombia, Sat, Jan 18–Fri, Jan 24 — A few FCCers and folks from Longview Ranch (LVR) just went to scope out some church-planting opportunities and to help train dozens of Christians there (see H7 Story here) … and this coming Sat, Jan 18, 10 FCCers and Longviewites (Longviewers? Longviewees?) are going again to do more of the same. Travis Chapman, Next Gen/Residents Director, went last time, and this time Mark Liebert, Elder (from AFT), and Bob Radank, SGR Campus Pastor, are accompanying Matthew Nasekos and crew, and are doing quite a bit of teaching and training. (In fact, as they did with the first trip, they’re using resources we’ve produced and used. Cool, eh?! I mean, it’s just normal Biblical teaching, like we do, but it’s still cool, I think. Btw, Matthew’s an FCCer at SGR, is Executive Director at LVR, has extensive experience leading, and a big heart for, missions and mission trips, and he is coordinating these. Thanks, Matthew!) So please pray for them and consider donating (here, at fccgreene.org/colombia). The cost per person is $1,800 and we’ve received $1,741 so far. Above all, please pray for God’s leading as we seem to be developing some long-term relationship with the church there.
Men’s Retreat, Longview Ranch, Fri-Sat, Jan 31-Feb 2 – Yummy food. Being out in creation. Good time with the bros. Lots of fun. More yummy food. Fellowship ‘round the campfire. Going to sleep smelling like smoke and feeling good about a full day. And learning from God’s Word about the call for men to make disciple makers who produce Kingdom momentum and community strength. For more, and to register, and friendly reminder that sons/grandsons 13-and-older are only $25 with a paid registration, see the FCC app or fccgreene.org/mensretreat.
Kids Min Family eXPerience (“Family XP”), Sat, Feb 8, 10-11:30a, at the GVL Campus – So… long, slightly painful, but eventually positive story short, we are small potatoes for the super cool kids summer camp we’ve done a few times—Pine Cove City. Frankly, post-Covid they’ve had to downsize and focus on churches where the relationship means kids end up going to their summer camps (and that’s not us. They almost exclusively work with huge churches compared to us and we convinced them to stick with us for the last couple times.) So this means we are no longer going to be able to do PCC, which is sad because it was… so… daggone… good. But… our Kids Min and Next Gen staff got their heads together and came up with “Family eXPerience”—every-other-month(ish) events like family movie night, date night for parents (while kids are corralled and do fun stuff with our Kids Min leaders), parent/marriage focus/training with our Marriage Ministry, outings to cool places/events, etc. The vision is to continue to come alongside parents and families to create wholesome and edifying experiences for them. We want to be a church that doesn’t just take care of kids on Sundays (and Mondays, at re:gen and Re|engage), but that encourages, cares for, and strengthens kids and families. More detail at fccgreene.org/familyxp.
Last Week’s “Greatest Question Answered” re “Is It Necessary for a Person to be a Baptized Believer to Partake in Communion?” – Just a few more words and thoughts re this. (Here’s the link to the GQA itself. I’m probably gonna go in and do a little more cleaning up, clarifying, and prosifying of things so the content may change a bit.) Throughout all of church history, Christians have had a Scriptural mandate to determine as-faithfully-as-possible who is part of the church and who isn’t—who is in and who is out. This isn’t being difficult; it’s just Bible. Jesus Himself taught this. The apostles further defined it. Numerous New Testament passages address it. And while Christians have had different views of what constitutes “membership” in the church and/or being “baptized,” believe me, whatever tradition you grew up in ain’t the whole story (including me!) and all churches have had to determine the lines for such questions. We’re just trying to faithfully do the same so that we are on the line of the truth as best we can determine—not legalistically above it and not licentiously below it, but on it. Interestingly, for some context, and even though a few have wondered if we’re being too “closed” in our approach to the Table, the Elders and Pastors have long known that we have much more of the opposite problem—people who assume our Table is far more “open” that it should be. These folks assume they’re part of the body of Christ and are saved when they may not be. Not only that, but in the span of 2 weeks, we’ve had a good 10-12 people approach us about becoming baptized because we raised the issue.
Updates re Preaching Plans – The coming months will look like this:
2024 Annual Report, Annual 7 Habits Survey, 2024 Giving Statements, 2025 Budget, Elders Update Letters – Sheesh… must be a new year. The 2024 Giving Statements and 2025 Budget are being sent along with an Elders Update Letter this week. 7 Habits Survey link is fccgreene.org/renew. The 2024 Annual Report, which is super cool, tons of information, and an encouragement to me, is available in hardcopy at any campus this morning and in digital form at fccgreene.org/2024annualreport. Or you can get pretty much all of said info on the app, available at fccgreene.org/app.
Catalyst Has An App! – You can order on it, get loyalty points, etc. It’s pretty cool, actually, and worth downloading. I mean, it’s your church’s coffee shop! And it has its own app! Seriously, it would really help us if you would use it, tell others, stand on the street corner soliciting engagement in it, sing its praises on the socials, and basically make a good 25% of your life nothing but helping us make the Catalyst app the biggest thing that’s happened in Greeneville coffee history! (Ok, at least please download it, use it, and maybe even tell others? That would be really helpful.)
“Prayparing” for Guests God Wants to Send: Sermon Series Invite Cards — For many years we’ve handed out Invite Cards for the 2 weeks prior to new sermon series, to remind us to invite others to join us. It’s part of Helping People Find and Follow Jesus, and it’s a reminder that we are responsible for evangelizing our community and world. So grab a card on your way out, (or one may be handed to you), put in your wallet/purse, and pray for an opportunity to invite someone. You’d be surprised at how often such opportunities arise when you’re praying for and on the lookout for them! I had 2 moments just this past week, and now I’m out, so I’ll have to grab one this morning!
Church Planting Vision Trip to Colombia, Sat, Jan 18–Fri, Jan 24 — A few FCCers and folks from Longview Ranch (LVR) just went to scope out some church-planting opportunities and to help train dozens of Christians there (see H7 Story here) … and this coming Sat, Jan 18, 10 FCCers and Longviewites (Longviewers? Longviewees?) are going again to do more of the same. Travis Chapman, Next Gen/Residents Director, went last time, and this time Mark Liebert, Elder (from AFT), and Bob Radank, SGR Campus Pastor, are accompanying Matthew Nasekos and crew, and are doing quite a bit of teaching and training. (In fact, as they did with the first trip, they’re using resources we’ve produced and used. Cool, eh?! I mean, it’s just normal Biblical teaching, like we do, but it’s still cool, I think. Btw, Matthew’s an FCCer at SGR, is Executive Director at LVR, has extensive experience leading, and a big heart for, missions and mission trips, and he is coordinating these. Thanks, Matthew!) So please pray for them and consider donating (here, at fccgreene.org/colombia). The cost per person is $1,800 and we’ve received $1,741 so far. Above all, please pray for God’s leading as we seem to be developing some long-term relationship with the church there.
Men’s Retreat, Longview Ranch, Fri-Sat, Jan 31-Feb 2 – Yummy food. Being out in creation. Good time with the bros. Lots of fun. More yummy food. Fellowship ‘round the campfire. Going to sleep smelling like smoke and feeling good about a full day. And learning from God’s Word about the call for men to make disciple makers who produce Kingdom momentum and community strength. For more, and to register, and friendly reminder that sons/grandsons 13-and-older are only $25 with a paid registration, see the FCC app or fccgreene.org/mensretreat.
Kids Min Family eXPerience (“Family XP”), Sat, Feb 8, 10-11:30a, at the GVL Campus – So… long, slightly painful, but eventually positive story short, we are small potatoes for the super cool kids summer camp we’ve done a few times—Pine Cove City. Frankly, post-Covid they’ve had to downsize and focus on churches where the relationship means kids end up going to their summer camps (and that’s not us. They almost exclusively work with huge churches compared to us and we convinced them to stick with us for the last couple times.) So this means we are no longer going to be able to do PCC, which is sad because it was… so… daggone… good. But… our Kids Min and Next Gen staff got their heads together and came up with “Family eXPerience”—every-other-month(ish) events like family movie night, date night for parents (while kids are corralled and do fun stuff with our Kids Min leaders), parent/marriage focus/training with our Marriage Ministry, outings to cool places/events, etc. The vision is to continue to come alongside parents and families to create wholesome and edifying experiences for them. We want to be a church that doesn’t just take care of kids on Sundays (and Mondays, at re:gen and Re|engage), but that encourages, cares for, and strengthens kids and families. More detail at fccgreene.org/familyxp.
Last Week’s “Greatest Question Answered” re “Is It Necessary for a Person to be a Baptized Believer to Partake in Communion?” – Just a few more words and thoughts re this. (Here’s the link to the GQA itself. I’m probably gonna go in and do a little more cleaning up, clarifying, and prosifying of things so the content may change a bit.) Throughout all of church history, Christians have had a Scriptural mandate to determine as-faithfully-as-possible who is part of the church and who isn’t—who is in and who is out. This isn’t being difficult; it’s just Bible. Jesus Himself taught this. The apostles further defined it. Numerous New Testament passages address it. And while Christians have had different views of what constitutes “membership” in the church and/or being “baptized,” believe me, whatever tradition you grew up in ain’t the whole story (including me!) and all churches have had to determine the lines for such questions. We’re just trying to faithfully do the same so that we are on the line of the truth as best we can determine—not legalistically above it and not licentiously below it, but on it. Interestingly, for some context, and even though a few have wondered if we’re being too “closed” in our approach to the Table, the Elders and Pastors have long known that we have much more of the opposite problem—people who assume our Table is far more “open” that it should be. These folks assume they’re part of the body of Christ and are saved when they may not be. Not only that, but in the span of 2 weeks, we’ve had a good 10-12 people approach us about becoming baptized because we raised the issue.
Updates re Preaching Plans – The coming months will look like this:
- Jan 26–Mar 30 – Hebrews: The Supremacy of Christ, Part 1: The Exalted Son and a Rest for the People of God (1:1–4:13)
- Hebrews will end up being 35 weeks long.
- Details at fccgreene.org/hebrews.
- Apr 6–Apr 13 – New City Catechism, Part 2: Christ, Redemption, Grace
- We will begin to slowly finish our 52-week series, which we are going to insert here and there when we need to round out the calendar.
- Q21: “What Sort of Redeemer is Needed to Bring Us Back to God?” (Isaiah 9:6)
- Q22: “Why Must the Redeemer Be Truly Human?” (Hebrews 2:17)
- Details at fccgreene.org/ncc.
- We will begin to slowly finish our 52-week series, which we are going to insert here and there when we need to round out the calendar.
- Apr 20 – EASTER: TBA
- Apr 27–Jun 13 – Exodus: Freed to Worship and Serve
- These 8 weeks will finish our 62-week series.
- Details at fccgreene.org/exodus.
- Jun 22–Sep 28 – Hebrews: The Supremacy of Christ, Part 2: Our Great High Priest and His Ministry (4:14–10:31)
2024 Annual Report, Annual 7 Habits Survey, 2024 Giving Statements, 2025 Budget, Elders Update Letters – Sheesh… must be a new year. The 2024 Giving Statements and 2025 Budget are being sent along with an Elders Update Letter this week. 7 Habits Survey link is fccgreene.org/renew. The 2024 Annual Report, which is super cool, tons of information, and an encouragement to me, is available in hardcopy at any campus this morning and in digital form at fccgreene.org/2024annualreport. Or you can get pretty much all of said info on the app, available at fccgreene.org/app.
(Couple More) Quick Updates (Since A Few Weeks Ago) Re Giving to Local Relief Efforts
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We’ve received almost $47,000 in donations for flood relief. Wow—that’s great, y’all! Interestingly, $15,000 of that has come from friends outside of FCC and Greene County. To date, we have only been able to wisely give away $27,000 because, as it turns out, relief is slowed by various legitimate concerns and constituencies like insurance, federal and state monies and agencies, and the exigencies of construction companies, building supplies, and weather/winter, but please know that we are wisely ensuring that 100% of donations go to front-line local needs. So far that has meant $5,000 to an FCCer who pretty much lost everything, $5,000 to the family of another FCCer who lost their house, $20,000 to an FCCer whose construction company has taken a lead role in helping rebuild (and who has done so by faith, paying out-of-pocket to help since the very beginning), and $2,000 to Longview Ranch, to help pay for food and housing for those who have come mostly from out-of-state to help with relief efforts and for a few mucking supplies for volunteers working on houses in Mosheim around the camp. For the remaining $20,000 (and whatever else is donated), we will be giving that to at least these 3 aforementioned folks ASAP, which at this point also means when needed and wise. In other words, in situations like these some things have to go in a certain order to ensure they’re done correctly and so we are waiting a bit for those details to emerge before gladly passing on those donations! Thank you so much for pursuing generosity—we’ll letcha know more ASAP!
Also, if you’ve missed ‘em, here are five H7 Stories we posted about these efforts: Oct 12, 19, 27, Nov 3 and 17. An H7 Story is a weekly post where we “Tell the story” of God’s work in the lives of our people, (even in tragedy.)
Also, pt 2, it’s worth continuing to keep in mind that some are still struggling with the aftermath, awaiting answers, and needing our help and prayers. So please continue praying.
Also, if you’ve missed ‘em, here are five H7 Stories we posted about these efforts: Oct 12, 19, 27, Nov 3 and 17. An H7 Story is a weekly post where we “Tell the story” of God’s work in the lives of our people, (even in tragedy.)
Also, pt 2, it’s worth continuing to keep in mind that some are still struggling with the aftermath, awaiting answers, and needing our help and prayers. So please continue praying.
Some Everyday Observations About Life
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The danger in a title is giving it life it doesn’t yet deserve, like it’s a column I’m going to regularly offer. Having said that, I s’pose “Scott’s Thoughts” is no worse than “Some Everyday Observations About Life,” and since no one’s setting their alarms nor making personal declarations based on its publication schedule, we’re probably safe with so extravagant a title here. So no promises this shows up in a future edition of ST, (especially since it’s barely 3 bullet points. Sheesh—never should’ve started.)
- The modern ease of access to—and speed of—communication, information, travel, and logistics mean people now depend on being able to do or decide anything in real time. That sounds great and all, and there are plenty of wonderful benefits to modernity, but everything is now an emergency all the time.
- Re the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Dec 2024: In a sense, I ‘get it,’ there are reasons to be frustrated about ‘the healthcare system’ and ‘evil capitalistic greed.’ But in light of emerging evidence about the shooter, his motivations, the circumstances, and social media responses heralding the murder as heroic, it is clear to me that heinous violence is the biggest sellout thing anyone can possibly do. The ones grinding day after day through thorns and thistles to care for people as best they can despite their own concerns and struggles are the ones fighting the battle. Murderers have given up.
- Just a restatement of something I said earlier that I’ve been repeating to myself for the last 3 weeks: Stop expecting the benefits of something you’re unwilling to sacrifice to make happen.
Posted in Scotts Thoughts