Discovering MCRH - Part 1 - LEARN

Introduction - New Series

We are starting a new 4-part series here today at McCleary Rock Harbor. This series is going to be beneficial in many ways. Not only will we continue to learn rich biblical truths that will help us to continue to live the best life for Jesus but we will also be gaining some practical understanding about the church - both the global church abroad as well as our church, McCleary Rock Harbor, and how all of that fits together. Furthermore, this is also going to serve as a membership “class” so to speak. At the end of this 4 week series, anyone who wants to commit (or re-commit) as members of McCleary Rock Harbor will have the opportunity to do so.

We will be walking through what it looks like to be a growing and thriving Christ follower and local church member. I am excited to kick this series off with all of you!

I want to start this off by asking this question:

What is Membership?

Being a member of a church isn’t just about joining a club to be one of the cool kids, although that is an added benefit ;)

But in all seriousness, this series we’re doing is called “Discovering McCleary Rock Harbor” and in this we are going to be talking about who we are as a church and why churches in general exist.

Traditionally, churches have membership classes that can be anywhere from one day, to actual classes over a period of months. There is no right/wrong way to have membership “classes” .

I choose to err on the side of being practical by doing it in such a way that what we cover and learn about is given in doses that are challenging but not so much data overload that we don’t retain the important information being taught. See - I remember years ago, 17/18 years old, I sat through a church membership meeting that was 4 hours long on a warm, Sunday afternoon in a corner classroom of the church that didn’t have any air conditioning and I was closer to sleep than I was to awake :) I hope this serves as an exciting time for all of us to learn about how great it is to be able to come together as the church in McCleary and to make a difference in our community and world through what Jesus has made possible!

For those of us who are members of the church, it serves as a refresher and reminder as to what we are committed to.

For those who are not yet members, it provides biblical and practical teaching as to what it means to be a member, why we should be members and, once members, how to be a fruitful member of this local church body.

Reading throughout Scripture, it becomes evident that local church bodies were intentional groups of believers who gathered together as a church.

We just finished studying Philippians. Recall the opening verse, Paul penned this to “all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons.” This shows that churches were officially assembled groups of people and that they had structure and purpose. That is denoted by overseers/deacons - showing that they have a “governmental” structure of how things work.

1 Corinthians 1:2 says “To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:”.

Take note of those words - the church of God in Corinth who, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul highlights the reality and the importance of local churches who are part of the church around the world. That’s what we are! We are uniquely placed, called and gifted by God to reach our community and that is AWESOME!

Local gatherings of God fearing people isn’t anything new. Remember when we were studying Acts, Jews would setup synagogues in cities as they were needed.

This is very practical from a reach perspective. We are called to be together, to learn together, grow together and go together. That is our purpose statement: Learn. Grow. Go! We are positioned best to reach McCleary better than a church from somewhere else. A church in Seattle isn’t going to be able to effectively minister to people and equip the saints for ministry in McCleary from all the way up there.

Today we are going to be focusing on the Learn portion in a few moments, but to help give some more support to churches and members, 1 Corinthians 12 points that out well. In this, Paul is discussing how there is one body but many members and the members are all different. Verse 18 of 1 Cor. 12 says “But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. If they were all one member, where would the body be? But now there are many members, but one body.”

Paul is pointing out the fact that God created us as individuals, yes, but as individuals that need to come together in order to make the most out of the individual gifts God has given to each of us in order to be most effective. We’re better together, right?

So throughout this series, we are going to be covering each of the 3 pillars of our purpose/mission statement: Learn, Grow and Go and then we are going to wrap it up with “Commit” — more to come on that later

I wanted to start out this series by sharing our story!

McCleary Rock Harbor – Our Story

Prior to 2018 - a history of pastors and people who loved the church. We are grateful for the history we have here. We have amazing people who have been here for many years and are pillars of faith in this community.

January 2018 - we started here as campus pastors of Evergreen Christian Community McCleary. I want to share some of the cool things God worked out leading up to this point.

We had been in and out of ministry with some, moment of honesty, difficult times on staff at some churches. I DO NOT share that to cast any negativity towards those churches nor do I bring it up to try and bring anyone down. I DO share this to be honest and real. It is important we don’t try to veil reality. EVEN THOUGH we went through our share of struggles, God still worked in us and through us in many mighty ways and I am grateful for those things.

I also share that for some context. As a result of some of those difficult life experiences, I wasn’t sure when/how/if we would be in ministry again in a non-volunteer basis. I wanted to be faithful and obedient to God but I’d be lying if in those moments that I wasn’t a uncertain about stepping forward into ministry again because of the past pains.

In 2015, we moved up to Olympia as I was hired in IT at a credit union in Shelton and that is when we started attending Evergreen. I prayed and talked with God. I made a commitment to serve where I could and if that was what He had for me, being a committed volunteer, then I was going to do that to the best of my ability. I also prayed and laid it down before God that if He wanted to take that and make it into something more by opening up a door to vocational ministry again, that I would trust Him and walk in faith.

I did a variety of things at Evergreen: prayer ministry, young adult ministry, tech ministry, men’s ministry and when they launched their Centralia campus, I went down there at the launch to help serve on the team there - primarily running the tech booth but also helping on the worship team from time to time in addition to the setup/teardown each weekend. After half a year, we came back up to the Olympia campus and that Fall, Pastor Jim at Evergreen approached me as I was walking into a Wednesday night service “I want to talk with you” haha.

We met a few days after that and he asked me if I would consider coming on as the campus pastor in McCleary at the first of the year. We prayed and discussed it as a family and responded to Jim and the team saying yes. This was also around the time that we found out Josh was on the way :)

So in January of 2018, we came on staff here at Evergreen. We started pouring into our kid’s and youth staff, investing in our community, having mid-week Bible studies, etc… in addition to the campus pastor responsibilities on Sunday mornings

Fast forward a little over a year, Evergreen decides that it is time to return ministry to the heart of McCleary so a pastor who lives there can teach, lead, etc…

In 2019, we do a silent soft-launch on Father’s day where I started teaching here full time while we started to put together plans on how to carry out the transition.

With a lot of help from our network staff, we officially launched in September of 2019 becoming McCleary Rock Harbor!!!

When we started that September off, we were starting from scratch financially. Evergreen took up an offering for us that was about $1500 which helped us get a copy machine, logo design and cover some fees for our production software to get us started, but otherwise, we started from scratch. It was a step of faith and let me tell you: God provided massively.

Of course, not very many months after we started, 2020 hit. Church doors were closed and everyone went online.

A few cool things happened during this time.

Our network has a program called “Minute Man” where churches/businesses/people donate money to a specific church in the network for a quarter of the year. Our turn was in 2020. We initially palnned on using that money for cosmetic upgrades and other things around the premises

However - our needs shifted quickly and we needed a camera and equipment to be able to record (and eventually stream) our services.

Slowly but surely we started to get this equipment and put together online services here. It was a lot of work at first because we would record each segment of the service (worship, then the message, and Chris and Vicki would record a portion and send it in and I would stitch it all together and then publish it) and we would all watch together online.

June of that year, we had gotten some more equipment and we welcomed people back into the building and did our first live stream service.

We eventually upgraded our sound board and added a second camera and through are where we are today.

God provided both the finances and the volunteers to help make things happened and we are so grateful for His faithfulness!

Another cool thing that happened is when the church’s doors were closed to the public, we had record giving coming in. That tapered off a bit in later months but it was so cool to see God’s hand of faithfulness on us in that season to see the highest months of giving come when we literally had no one in the building :)

The latest incredible news of God’s faithfulness just happened this year.

We had been praying about our building. Evergreen gave us a killer deal - $28 a month for renting the building with the opportunity to buy it at a great price down the road if we so desired.

As time progressed, we were torn because we didn’t want to have any debt. We didn’t want to make a down payment and then have a large monthly mortgage. But we also wanted to have the building be ours so we could start making improvements, upgrades, changes, etc… over the year

Prayed with a fellow pastor

Met with him

He was going to reach out to Evergreen and the network eventually to get a pulse on the situation

Prayed with our Bible study group on the next Wednesday night

The next Tuesday, Evergreen calls me and says the elder’s met and voted yes to give your church the building. Yes: GIVE. Outright.

I tell our Bible study the next night. I also talked with that Pastor that next morning. He hadn’t talked with them yet.

Talk about a God story, right?

The paperwork has been signed and the building is ours. With ZERO debt. God is so good.

I know our church’s recent history a lot better than our pastor history but I know God has been faithful in all seasons and in different ways and I fully believe for Him to CONTINUE proving His great faithfulness to us over and over again!

So that is a snapshot of our church history and ultimately again of God’s faithfulness.

I wanted to open this series up talking about our history because it is an incredibly important aspect of who we are as a church and is an essential part of being a committed member to know why we are here, how we get here, the obstacles and changes that we made it through and thrived. God is so good. I am grateful.

Let’s shift gears now to the LEARN part of our message.

Our statement: Learn. Grow. Go! is, is, as I’ve mentioned before, “cyclical”. It isn’t a first you learn, then you grow, then you go and then you’re done type of thing :)

No - we, as Christ followers, should ALWAYS be active in our learning, growing, and going.

Learning is an important attribute of our faith because in it we recognize 1) that we need to be taught and that 2) Jesus is the greatest teacher we could ever have. In recognizing that, we know that by ourselves, we are unable to learn everything that we need to learn. It requires laying down the things we might try to “teach ourselves” things which are outside of the scope of what God wants that learning to look like in our lives and in turn, humbly receive the teaching of Jesus through His Word and how that needs to be applied to our lives.

We are going to cover some practical things about learning in regards to how it is setup within our church as well as biblical teachings that set the foundation for how we need to learn.

Let’s go ahead and read today’s passage and then we’ll dive in!

Let’s read: 2 Timothy 3:16-17

2 Timothy 3:16–17 NASB95

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

Big Idea:

Learning is a vital discipline that leads to fruitfulness in the life of a Christ follower

Pray

Learn: The Practical Side

What does learning inside the church look like?

You’ve likely heard this word a lot discipleship / disciple. This is our fancy word we use to designate the spiritual learning we as Christ followers go through in life.

The word “disciple” comes from the Greek word mathetes (mah-thhee-tees)

The term disciple referred specifically to a person (or people/disciples) that would follow a rabbi/teacher in order to learn from them. The teacher would instruct, teach and disciple them by modeling to them in every day life how to live a proper life.

A disciple was not a pupil in the sense where they went to class for a few hours each day to learn something, took the weekends off, and then went back to school the next week.

No, disciples were in very very close relationship with their teacher. They lived life together and, as a result, the disciple learned great things from the teacher because they had a front row seat to see how their teacher makes real life decisions in real time!

Today, we have been given the Word of God which teaches us important things from the beginning of time, creation of the world, the moment sin entered into our reality to the promise of a Savior and the birth, death, and resurrection of that savior all the way to the end of time when our Lord and Savior returns to take us home.

You might be thinking “that’s a lot to learn” - and you’re correct. But here’s the deal: we aren’t meant to become experts on it overnight. We are meant to spend time with Jesus in close proximity to Him as His disciples today by regularly being students of Him by studying His Word which was given to us.

Areas of Discipleship within the Church

Adults - the main church led discipleship program for the adults takes place on Sunday mornings during the weekly sermon but we also do this through Bible studies, which we’ll talk about in a moment as well as different programs and resources we make available to the church (books, journals, RightNow Media)

Kids - this happens primarily on Sunday mornings during our kid’s classroom times where they learn Bible stories and do activities to emphasize and help them commit to memory the things they have learned. We have a great curriculum that helps put together a solid offering of discipleship methods for our kids.

Youth - this happens primarily during our youth group nights. We have been on a bit of a hiatus but are going to be re-introducing our youth ministry soon to take place twice a month on Sunday evenings. More to come on that soon.

Bible Study - seasonal mid-week studies focused on specific topics / series - this is a time of deeper study and reflection on the Word of God

RightNow Media - this is like a Netflix catalog of Bible studies and other Christian video resources which includes great kids and family learning shows. We make this available to everyone in our church. It is free to you, if you want it, just go to www.mcrockharbor.com, hover over “Learn” and click “RightNow Media” and you can create your very own account to use as much as you want. It works on phones, computers, Smart TV’s, tablets, etc...

Breaking down the passage:

All Scripture - Inspired by God

In the Greek, this says “pasa graphe” - which means all Scripture and says all Scripture is inspired by God - that literally means God-breathed. Theopneustos - breath from God. IN verse 15, we see Paul reference “the scared writings” that the people have known since their childhood and here her uses a different Greek word for “writing” in graphe. Verse 15 was grammata. Without getting too deep into a discussion on the nuances, what Paul is saying is that all of the Scripture - God’s Word that is written/documented - it is inspired by Him because He BREATHED HIS LIFE into it. When this was written, this would have been referring to the OT Scripture.

In other words, the written word of God may have been physically written by human hands but it was divinely inspired and brought “to life” from God’s own breath.

These words - all Scripture is inspired by God play a specific role here within the passage. Paul is essentially saying - hey guys, God’s written Word to us, all of it, was inspired by God Himself because He breathed His life into them. And SINCE all Scripture is inspired by God.... it is PROFITABLE or useful. It is beneficial.

Is profitable for...

What is profit? In the simplest of terms, it is something that is above and beyond where something started at, right? If I were to give you all 5 dollars each and said go buy $5 worth of fruits and vegetables and then turn around and sell all of that for $10, that would be a profit if everything was sold. Anything returned greater than that $5 would be profit, right?

Paul gives us a list of everything Scripture, the Word of God, is profitable for. That means, throughout the study and LEARNing of Scripture - God does what in our lives? Through Scripture, this list of things find fruitfulness, growth and profit to these important aspects of our lives!

You see - God is always interested in finding ways to help those who follow Him grow and He provides everything we need to make that growth possible by teaching us. We just have to be ready and willing to listen and learn, amen? He wants to help you grow in all of these areas in order to have a very fruitful life for His Name’s sake!

So, let’s go through this list:

For Teaching

This word for teaching refers to instruction, “didaskalia”. It specifically refers to teaching that comes from a master or rabbi and that which is taught like doctrine, teachings and precepts.

This teaching would refer to your important and general every day life teaching. The kinds of things that Jesus would have taught His disciples about life. Imagine sitting in a classroom with a teacher or sitting on the ground with Jesus as He teaches a parable, etc…

So Paul here is stating this: The written word of God is PROFITABLE for teaching. Meaning it is something that is greatly beneficial for others to learn.

With learning, what is generally required? Someone to teach it to others, right?

This is why we have Sunday sermons, this is why we have classes for our kids, why we have Bible study, etc… because it is USEFUL/BENEFICIAL/PROFITABLE to us as when we learn those things, we learn important things that help us greatly in life.

I in fact just got back from my planning/prayer/prep retreat as I worked on getting the next 12 months of things prepared for our teaching calendar because I want to do my absolute best to make sure we all have the best opportunity to learn from God’s Word because it is a vital part of our spiritual enrichment.

We as Christ-followers should be lifelong learners, amen? And in this, let me be clear, I am not saying I’m the only one who can teach you. That’s why we bring missionaries in, that’s why I invite Chris to teach us (who does a great job!), it’s why we have our midweek studies, our Take 5 videos, etc...

And hear this: All of this is to prepare you to also be able to help teach others - not necessarily from a stage or a classroom but a neighbor who is going through a rough patch in life and needs to be encouraged. The teaching we receive from God’s Word should permeate throughout our lives!

For Reproof

Paul says that it is also profitable for reproof. What does that word mean? Some translations put rebuke here instead of reproof. This word means to put to proof, to test, to convict.

What this means, therefore, is that the written Scripture is profitable to us in this way: it serves as a measuring stick of sorts. It also means to detect, to lay bare, to expose. This is meant to do so in order to expose, to put to the test not to ridicule but to show us areas we may be lacking in, areas we need some work in, areas we don’t quite measure up to where we should.

Let me speak to that for a moment. This word goes hand in hand with the next one we are going to discuss and is a necessary first step. But I want to speak to something that might be an internal struggle for many of us. This reproof, this test, this measuring stick of sorts by looking to Scripture for how to live does not mean we use to smack the Bible over peoples heads or even our own heads for that matter.

You should always ask this question first when self-evaluating or helping someone else evaluate/reprove/test in this context: Is the way I am doing this “profitable”, is it “beneficial”?

One thing I think that Christians/churches/pastors (not all of them by any means, but some) have made mistakes in is forgetting that this reproof needs to be something done in a way that is profitable. The purpose of reproof in this context is NOT TO TEAR DOWN BUT TO BUILD UP! We as Christians should never expose someone’s shortcomings in order to help them dig deeper into the hole they’ve gotten themselves in.

It should only be used to build them up, to lift them up, and to help them benefit from what they are seeing in Scripture to model their life after.

For Correction

Again, this next word “for correction” should be directly tied to reproof. We’ve made correction a bad word in our society. This is a very sad reality to me. We’ve tried to make it look like you have failed if you ever make a mistake in life. Do yourself a favor and don’t listen to people like that. Every person in this world has flaws and shortcomings. That’s life. That’s normal. Don’t listen to that attitude in life. Again - they aren’t trying to build you or others up but they generally are doing this from an anxiety or lack of confidence in that individuals’ own life. Pray for those people. Love those people. But don’t let them be your teacher.

Correction is vital. I try to live by the mantra of “I can’t fix anything that I don’t know is broken”. At work, if someone comes up to me and says “have you fixed the account for that person?” Well, no, because I didn’t know it was broken until you just told me :) It is natural for us to have to be reproved and then corrected. We should want this. We tend to shy away from it because it can be hard, awkward, uncomfortable and often times because we believe those lies told in our culture that make us feel like we’re the only one who needs to learn, who needs to be reproved, who needs to be corrected. But that is not true. We all do. While those areas we need to be corrected in may vary in extremity and definition, we are all still works in progress and we should all desire to be constantly learning and improving. And that is a GOOD THING as long as we are seeking Jesus and asking Him to help us learn in those areas! Just like with our own families, we need to be both nurtured AND corrected in order to truly learn things and that is a positive thing when done right.

For Training in Righteousness

I love this. This word, as I just hinted at, is about training up - instruction upbringing and refers to the education, training up and nurturing of children. Paul says that the Scriptures are profitable to train us up in righteousness.

That means God’s Word nurtures us. What is nurturing? It is all about making sure someone has what they need. God’s Word to us brings us spiritual nourishment and wisdom. Learning through Scripture nourishes our lives spiritually and “trains us up in righteousness”.

What does that infer? That we can’t become righteous on our own but God through His Word to us will help us learn the things we need to learn in order to grow in our righteousness. How cool is that?

Now, Scripture is profitable for all of these areas but why? So that we can be ..... next slide

So that.....

Adequate and Equipped for Every Good Work

Adequate - to be qualified for a function, to be made capable. God teaches us, through His Word. When we learn from His Word, when we are His disciples - He makes us adequate. Alone, we are inadequate. That isn’t a diss on anyone, its simply the reality of the state of every man: without God, we are incomplete, inadequate. But He came along and qualified and prepared us to be able to do good with our lives.

Equipped - this means to equip or furnish completely. Some translations view these two words as the same, but they are not. They intersect, for sure but they are not the same.

God first makes us adequate and then He equips us with the tools to do good works. Now that your life has been changed by me, let me now give you the gifts to help bring others to righteousness as well!

Next Steps

Here’s the deal - knowledge is NOTHING if not applied in action. Knowledge without action is just bits of data taking up temporary residence in our brain cells before leaving.

Simply put - let’s pray this: God, will you help us to learn and help us to want to learn and help us to take what we learn and use it for you!

God wants us to learn from His Word, from the Scriptures, in order to do good works that point others to Him, plain and simple. That is what bringing glory to God with our lives looks like!

God, will you help us to be made adequate in your righteousness and will you then supply the tools, gifts, and timing for EVERY GOOD WORK YOU ARE GOING TO CALL US TO DO FOR YOUR NAME!

God has great plans for you. If you’ve felt inadequate, it’s because your eyes weren’t turned upon Jesus and what He can make possible both in your life and through your life. Run to Him today and ask Him to create a hunger and thirst for His righteousness and to live your life to the fullest for Him.

God, will you teach us. Thank you for choosing us to be your disciples. Guide us, now Lord, we pray.