Stories that Lift Up Hearts: Pastor’s Easter Notes for May

Stories that Lift Up Hearts: Pastor's Easter Notes for May

When I was a child, it lifted my heart to hear my parents sing. Beautiful harmonies spilled from their hearts mostly at worship and on car trips. My father passed in 2014, but their voices still endure, resounding together and lifting  up my heart to this day. 

Uplifting enduring songs like that are sung in many different ways. 

Recently, longtime CtK member Paula McMullen passed. She and her late husband, Ray, faithfully lifted up Jesus Christ through their weekly prayers for and financial contributions to our congregation for decades. Even now, their voices still endure, resounding together and lifting  up our hearts, as Ray and Paula remembered our congregation with a very generous gift in their will to support our continuing work of lifting up Christ and His saving work. 

Years ago, when longtime CtK member Ruth Goodwyn passed, she and her late husband, Ed, who had faithfully lifted up Jesus Christ through their weekly prayers for and financial contributions to our congregation for decades, continued to sing and lift up our hearts, as Ed and Ruth remembered our congregation with a very generous gift in their will to support our continuing work of lifting up Christ and His saving work. 

There are others we could name whose uplifting gifts still resound. 

Such enduring gifts can take other forms. For example, it is an enduring and uplifting gift to have thought about and to communicate your wishes and provisions for your passing. Do you have a written living will? Do you want to be cremated or buried? Have you already paid for a cemetery plot or a niche in a columbarium? 

What's most uplifting with such is your testimony as to why you have those wishes and why you made those provisions. Do our plans communicate that we want to help our loved ones to grieve well now in Christ? And do our plans communicate that we want to help our loved ones to live well for the rest of their lives in the hope and comfort and the wisdom and stewardship of Christ? 

Is our last will and testament a testimony to our faith in and valuing of Christ Jesus's saving work and everlasting provision for us and for all who would believe? And is it a testimony to our desire for those who survive us to be encouraged in Christ, whose death on the cross included a prayer for Father God to forgive us and a provision for Mary and John to look after each other as family?

What songs are we singing in the way we live our lives with others and manage our resources with our thinking? What song are we planning to be sung when we pass? 

I'm grateful to God for the witness and example of those whose songs in life and death continue to lift up our hearts with Christ. 

Christ is risen! And there are ways for us to testify to it in our lives and in our deaths. 

I'd be honored to meet with you and talk about any or all of these things as I did just a few days ago with one of our households at their request. 

Let's keep singing an enduring and resounding song of Christ together! 

Your Brother and Servant in Christ,

Pastor Chris 

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The DNA of a Disciple Making Movement

Imagine a day when disciple making is the norm for the local church! Everyday Christians engage in relationships with people (inside and outside the church) so that they can show the love of Jesus and help people to trust and follow him. Churches are known as disciple making places, where Jesus-like people are created. And pastors are evaluated by the people they raise up and the disciple makers they have made in the Spirit's power. Jesus' message AND Jesus' methods dominate. What would it take? I would like to suggest the DNA of a movement.

1. The Gospel is our message – this Good news is focused on Jesus and his death, burial, and resurrection. All who respond to salvation are also called to discipleship, no exceptions, no excuses (1 Corinthians 15:1-8; Mark 8:34-38). The gospel we preach and believe dictates the kind of disciples we are and the kind of disciples we make. If we attempt to make a Christ-like disciple from a non-discipleship gospel we will fail [A non-discipleship gospel is one that does not include discipleship as a natural part of the message and expectation]. Historically, many have called this Biblical response to the Gospel the "Gospel Imperative."

2. We are Compelled to be and make disciples of Jesus. We believe Jesus Christ is supreme and worthy of all devotion, worship, and emulation – and disciple making is a natural and necessary life responses to Jesus. With laser focus, it was Jesus himself who made disciples who could make disciples… and then Jesus commanded us to do the same (Matthew 28:16-20, John 20:21).

3. Jesus is the model (for life and ministry).  Jesus showed us how to live life and how to make disciples.  We seek to emulate his method and model. As the sinless second Adam, He was man as God intended man to be.  He then told us, "do what I have done" (John 14:12) and "walk as I have walked" (I John 2:6).   Paul understood this when he said, "imitate me as I imitate Christ" (I Corinthians 11:1). Discipleship demands us to "follow" the resurrected Christ, and "imitate" the priorities and patterns of the incarnate Christ.  We prefer to use the expression "Disciple Making" over "discipleship" because the former is closer to the words of the Great Commission and the latter is often mischaracterized (Matthew 28:18-20). We like the expression "Jesus model of disciple making," as a summary of what we do.

4. Love is the driving motive.  The Great Commandment precedes the Great Commission. 

And there's more. Tell me if you'd like to hear more.