The Points of Connectivity part 1

CONNECTIVITY - THE ACTIVITY OF CONNECTING

Review the mission - Connecting people with Jesus for life

Review the values - who we are and what values we base our church on

Now, we move to our vision. Our vision is the “how” we accomplish the mission and the vision is based on our values.

These are the 5 points of connectivity.

They are modeled off of the example of Jesus’ life and the depths of relationships that He has during His life on Earth. He is the perfect example and we believe that the healthy Christian life will have these levels of relationships in their life because Jesus had these levels of relationships.

So, let’s look at them through the example of Christ and how we as Connection Church strive to provide opportunities for everyone to have these levels of relationships in your life.

The first level of relationship that Jesus had was with His Father. But our for layer is through the Son, Jesus. Because through Him, we have access to the Father.

1 - Christ

Luke 9:18 ESV

Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him. And he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”

Luke 5:16 ESV

But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.

We see in Jesus’ live, He made it one of His top priorities to get alone and pray with His Father on a regular basis. These are just two examples, all over the gospels Jesus made a point to spend time with His Father.

Jesus put time with His Father and obedience to the Father above all things.

John 5:19 ESV

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.

John 12:49 ESV

For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak.

Jesus’ life was commited to spending time with the Father and obeying the will of His Father.

Now, Jesus our mediator, our great high priest. And because we have Him as our high priest

Hebrews 4:16 ESV

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Jesus has provided the path and we must follow His example and make time with the Lord and obeying His commands at the top of our priorities!

In our pursuit of Christlikeness, we must all join together as a church to pursue this together. As a church, our relationship with the One will always been our top priority. And that aligns perfectly with our mission statement.

Our first priority is connecting people with Jesus. So, we will pursue the one together.

3 - Confidants

Luke 9:28 ESV

Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray.

The next level of relationships that Jesus had was His inner circle of Peter, James and John.

We see in multiple places Jesus specifically spending time with these 3 men.

The Mount of Transfiguration

When Jarias’s daughter was raised from the dead

Deeper into the garden of Gethsemane

Jesus spent special and select times with these men in particular. He showed them more miracles and truthfully, He showed them aspects of who He is. They knew Him more deeper and more truly than the other men.

We call this layer of relationships confidants.

And the way that we as Connection Church provide this depths of relationship is through D-Groups or discipleship groups.

A D-group is a closed group of 3-5 people of the same gender that commit to meeting once a week or so for at least a year. The leader of these d-groups take these people into a deeper level of relationship. Here honest and trust are fostered. Its a place of security where prayer is specific and intentional.

D-groups are a depth of relationship that is meant to go deeper and be help accountable for your relationship with the One.

Some here are already in D-groups. I am currently leading one. Up at Wayne st, a church of 500ish, they currently have 80 plus people in D-Groups.

I love D-groups. For me, I have been held accountable to study and apply spiritual disciplines to my life. They have changed my life. I also have built some pretty amazing relationship in them. As I talk about them, names and faces are coming to mind. I love DGroups.

If you are interested or have questions about d-groups and how to possibly get into one. Ask me! We are looking at getting these fired up down here!

12 - CONNECT

Luke 9:1 ESV

And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases,

The next level of relationship that Jesus set the example of is a little bit larger. Jesus chose His 12 disciples to teach, invest in and share life with. He spend long hours with them, sent them out, went on mission with them, served with them. These men were people that Jesus shared and walked through life with.

At Connection Church, we seek to provide this level of relationships through C-Groups or Connect Groups. This is our term for the Sunday School class or life group.

Connect groups are an open groups without a time limit. Sometimes they can be seasonal or through a specific study. Sometimes that can be centered around a specific demographic. Sometimes they are open to all ages and demographics.

The point is to take your relationship with people in this church to a deeper level. To encourage each other, to support each other, to pray and study together. To EAT together!!

This is where families grow together and love each other.

Short testimony about what connect groups mean to me.

Discuss the relationships that started (Akers, even Zach and Heather York) and the call from the Lord that brought me into the ministry.

I can’t encourage you enough to get involved with these.

Pastor Eric has asked me to meeting with him this week to discuss the details of the plans for connect groups. I respect his leadership in this. So, we are planning to announce these groups next week.

120 - CONGREGATION

Acts 1:14–15 ESV

All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. In those days Peter stood up among the brothers (the company of persons was in all about 120) and said,

Hebrews 10:25 ESV

not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

This is an obvious reference to the church congregation gathering together.

The church service where we all gather together is vital to a healthy walk with Christ. There is a line of thinking that has started to get into the minds of Christians and that is that its not required to go to church on Sundays to be a Christian. And I say that its not a requirement but a finger or an eye on its only is not being properly fed or provided for. Its not being used for its purpose. Its not being utilized for the body of Christ.

Ephesians 4:11–16 (ESV)

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

So, you’re telling me that you don’t see the benefit in joining together with other believers?

When we come together, I even as the pastor, I am built up, I grow us in knowledge and the love of Christ. I feel more unified that I have all of your joining me on mission. I am encouraged and it honestly fires me up for the mission.

As a church, we are striving to be prep rally’s or concerts. We are striving to be a place where we can gather together and come into the presence of the Almighty God and practice for heaven when we are all going to be together worshiping at the feet of Jesus.

We believe in freedom in worship. I honestly, don’t care about order of service or making sure I get my preaching time. When we get into His presence and the Holy Spirit is poured out on His people in a fresh way, I would never hinder what the Lord wants to do.

Something that you need to know about us. This honestly should be one of our core beliefs.

We do not change the Word of God to fit tradition. We change tradition to fit the Word of God.

If its in the Word, we are not afraid to implement it and experience it. But there is something to be said about the great traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation. There is something great about the song that generations past have sung and been changed by. There is something great about reaching back into the history of the church or even the early church and experiencing the traditions that have passed down from generation to generation.

They should be honored and respected, as long as they do not contradict the Word of God.

One day, I am going to have to stand before the Father and give an account for how I led you and this church. I’m honestly going to be held to a higher standard. I can’t use the excuse that “it was tradition”. I can only stand on the firm foundation of Jesus Christ and the Word of God.

Amen?

Now, to have this church service, to have what we do on Sunday mornings take a lot of teams of people. Its a good deal of work and there is a good deal of people that do things and set that you might not even know are there. And for almost 4 months, its just been them. In fact, a few of our teams have lost some people and are going to be losing more people soon.

So, we need your help in serving the church. We call them S - Groups or serve groups. Next week we are going to be more specific in the mission of serving together but I want to mention the teams.

Kids

Welcome

Worship

AV

Security

Leading or hosting C-groups

Trailer team

Right now, we are covered in most of these areas but as we grow, which I believe the Lord is going to do this year, we need more people trained and in place.

My same 3-4 guys have been loading and unloading that trailer every week for 4 months. I would love to start a rotation for those guys.

5,000 - COMMUNITIES

Luke 9:14 ESV

For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.”

This is referencing Jesus relationship with the communities that He reaching, healed, fed, and ministered to. All of the other levels of relationship that Jesus had was to foster and grow believers. This level is where Jesus advanced the Kingdom of His Father. It is here that the lost were found. It was here that the blind recieved sight. It was here that the outcast of the communities were recieved. It was here that the woman at the well met Jesus. It was here that the hungry were fed.

It was here that the light of Jesus shined the brightest.

He set this as an example to us that our mission and our goal has to be to advance the kingdom.

In fact, Jesus before He ascended into heaven told His disciples.

Acts 1:8 ESV

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Jerusalem - Cities

Judea - Country

Samaria - Continent

We when build teams to go on mission to any of these levels of relationships we call them M-Groups or mission groups.

As a church, we strive to reach all of these layers of people.

Thursday around lunch time, a group from this church is in Richland Elementary school packing bags for children to take home food so that they might have something to eat over the weekend. We have been doing that weekly since we got here. I want to see that in many more schools. That one way that we are reaching this city.

Yesterday, we have 11 of you show up to give food to over 300 families. It was a lot of work but its so wonderful to serving side by side with you being able to bless people in this community.

We as Connection Church have partnered with missionaries Ryan and Mary Rose who are serving in a ministry to reaches out to international students in Boston, Mass. They are reaching people for Christ that are in turn going back to their home counties and being missionaries there!

We have a number of international ministries that we partner with, not just financially.

We partner with Shalom Baptist Church in Guatemala City, Guatemala. In fact, we just had a team return from there and they are sharing some testimonies at the Columbia campus this morning.

We also partner with Hope for the World. They are an organization that ministers to Albania and the Balkin region. We have send people for a 6 month mission and shorter term mission trips there. In fact, Randy Parker and his family have been partnered and serving with them since 1999.

And we are going back this year. Pastor Eric is leading a team in June. Mr. Randy and I are co-leading a mission trip to Schoder, Albania in July of this year. We are hoping to build a team of about 15 to go. So, if that resonates with you, please talk to myself or Mr. Randy.

So, our M-groups serve strive to serve our cities, country and continents.

So, I am going to ask the band to come up.

I know, that this has been a very informational message today. I get that. But its it a cool vision for a church? I think its clear and easy to see how its biblical, and how its practical.

But here is my prayer, that you would get busy with the activity of connecting. Its my job to provide the ways and organize the different levels of connection. But I can’t force you to take part. I am trying to provide the water but I can’t force you to drink! You have the responsibility to get to these things and get connected.

Another thing, please show us grace and patience. We are young and we don’t have a lot of people that are stepping up to lead yet. So, a lot of this is falling onto a few of us. I am trying to find ways to meet everyone’s needs and preferences. But can we be honest, we are not fully functioning yet. But we are striving for it. You see this is where we want to go and I want to provide you with all of this things and levels. but that is not easy yet. But we WILL get there! I believe it. So, be gracious and patient with us.