Identity Series Q&A

Engage

When people do not accept divine guidance they become disconnected.

Friends Movement Vision

A youth driven church renewal movement of the spirit and word opening hearts and minds founded on a prophetic vision.

Emerging from A prophetic word - a vision and it is discipline -

instruction, guidance, correction that molds our character, serves as boundary when it becomes lived and passed down.

It serves to not only instruct but correct, etc. We don't have to make it up. It puts us in a state of good order so we function in the way God wants; the way that is right. Prophetic words don't pamper but are truthful.

Proclaiming Christ to the state church and other existing sects that met.

Characterized by a sense of mission and discipleship in small groups meeting in homes that would multiply when they got too big.

Early history of confronting and proclaiming Christ to the Church of England, to political and legal powers and rulers and religious sects.

Theology

Conversion - lives need to be transformed through a new birth experience and a life-long process of following Jesus.

Activism - the expression and demonstration of the gospel in missionary and social reform efforts.

Biblical Authority - a high regard for and obedience to the Bible as the authority for faith and ministry.

Centrality of Jesus’ Crucifixion - the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross made possible the redemption of humanity.Guided by the spirit

Call to action (Repentance)

When God’s people do not accept a prophetic vision, we become disconnected from what had captivated our hearts.

Societal status

Turn inward

Rule following

Fear driven

No longer a movement but a monument

Relationship

You don’t accidentally farm unless you want weeds. Relationships must be intentionally cultivated.

Belonging to the Body of Christ

Body - the church body is living; we're to be alive because we’ve been made alive for a promised permanent future and eternal destiny.

What it Means to Belong

Belonging means being able to say: these are my people.

Belonging means participation.

Belonging means giving and receiving value.

Belonging means being a member/part/element.

Who Belongs?

Diverse body made to take in the things of God.

All nationalities/ethnicities, social classes. All were made to drink if the spirit.

Comprised of believers who are not to be thought of by the conventional categories, labels: ethnicity, social status, etc.

Who function differently and when each part works the way it’s supposed to, the body grows and builds itself up

18 - We're not put together haphazardly

We are brought together as God chose by the pouring of his spirit over us.

I Can’t Opt Out

I Can’t dismiss Someone I Think is Weak

I Participate

Courage

It Takes Fierce Courage to Step into the Future

Fierce - furiously active, determined to embrace who we’re called to become

Are We Ready?

We can be hand picked, groomed and still not prepared

Doing Flows From Being

To step into God’s promises, engage the discontented, and cultivate belonging means this:

We might not know what we’re doing or how to do it

but God is calling us to grow and move into a new arena

and it has more to do with who we are becoming (because we’re not there yet) than any skills, knowledge or abilities we might have.

It’s Scary

Requires Vulnerability

Overcome Shame

Be Courageous

Courage is not something we muster, create.

We become courageous from the source and his promises.

Every pace your foot will walk is what I have given you.

The places where God goes with us today and the places we walk that he has given us is the emotional and spiritual ground humanity gave up in the Garden.

How to Fiercely Embrace Who We Are to Step Into Our Future

Give it All You Have (by becoming who God says you are)

Become: Keep moving/growing (don’t get paralyzed)

Show up when you can’t control the outcome

Be vulnerable: Work on emotional health

Take chances.

Giving all we have requires trust - it is a courageous act.

Stay on Point and Focused on the Mission

Meditate and Reflect on God’s Instruction and Do It

Move Forward in Attitude and Action

Give Effort and Take Chances

Listen and learn, identify blind spots, build bridges.

Choose courage over comfort.

Brave people are never silent around hard things.

We have a responsibility to show up in our faith community joyfully and wholeheartedly, and bring our whole hearts and selves.

No Fear, No Discouragement

Becoming new sounds exciting…until it isn’t. Going on a new adventure sounds exciting (for some) until you run into a problem you can’t fix.

Discouragement is ready to step in.

Discouragement - Unhappiness arising from a loss of confidence in one’s own abilities, in the reliability of God or in the power of the gospel.

Humility

Disunity Will Strike a Movement of God

Check Your Heart

Attitudes

Rumors

Groups

Leveraging to gain an advantage

Ambition

Rivalry

Cultivating Unity

Same Mind, Love, One Thinking

Humility - the Pathway to Unity

Humility is an attitude of mutual love, considering others better than ourselves, choosing to serve rather than hold onto a position.

In our relationships with one another, The one mind/attitude/thinking is to be the same mind as Christ.

Humility of Jesus: The obedient submission to his Father seen in his willingness to become a human for humanity's sake, his freedom from self-interest and his willingness to serve others.

Model After Jesus

Cultural Awareness

Paul’s Pattern

Synagogue - Jews and God fearers

2. Anyone he met in the marketplace. First to the Jew then the Gentile (everyone else).

He was a student of the culture wherever he went. Observed, learned.

He spent time with people of all walks in every place in the city - synagogue, marketplace - with anyone who happened to be there. Including the philosophers (academic).

Paul’s Response to People Being Deceived

Distressed

Engaged Them

Reason with people where they lived

Became a student of their culture

Connected the Gospel with their Culture

Connected the good news with the language of their religious system.

Their philosophy, way of thinking, popular religion - Took advantage of unknown God to proclaim who the unknown God is.

The job of a missionary is to express the gospel in terms that would be intelligible to the hearers without changing the essence of the message.

How to Become Culturally Aware

Live confidently in our wildly diverse world. The Bible shows us how.

See our every day work as worship

Liturgy - public work

To modern, privatized Christians, worship too easily connotates escape from the world and a removal from public life. We’ve given up that for which we were created.

Accept that God is Calling Enemies into Community Alongside us

Cross into Secular Boarders With the Gospel

Awareness and Engagement of the Christian Cultures with Societal cultures is not an option.

Penetrate multi Secular cultures with the culture of the Kingdom

The church is culture: it is a system of language and other things that make sense of the otherwise chaotic and unrelated events in our lives.

The Christian narrative is my core story; the code of my life. LIVE OUR STORY.

UNDERSTAND WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE FOR SOMEONE TO ENTER OUR CULTURE

Q&A