Values

We've been going to different churches in the Sugar Land area looking for a church home. I've been checking out web sites of different churches to try to get a feel about what the church is like. One thing that I found is that the value statement of a church often reflects the character of a church.

What was interesting was that I compared the value statement of our church in Austin, Hope Chapel, with a community church in the Fort Bend area.

Here is a comparison of the value statements for the two different churches in areas of worship, discipleship, and evangelism/community outreach.

Worship
Hope Chapel exists to glorify God by: worshipping Him with passionate and thoughtful celebration of our common faith and life; asking Jesus, through prayer and intercession, to take His rightful position as Head of our church in tangible and supernatural ways; inviting the Holy Spirit's empowering presence to work in our midst.	On Worship We believe in expository preaching, which is “that method of proclaiming the Scriptures that takes as a minimum one paragraph of Biblical text and derives from that text both the shape and the content of the message itself.” We believe in music in worship. Music has the unique ability to express thoughts and feelings too deep for words. We believe in creativity. Audio-visual, audience participation, testimony, etc. can be effective means to communicate God’s truth. We believe in planning ahead to bring about a unified worship service with each part of the service adding to, not canceling, the worship theme.
Discipleship
By growing devoted followers of Christ, loving, accepting, and honoring individuals of all generations; challenging individuals to radical spiritual formation as disciples of Jesus to be salt and light in our world; equipping all believers in godly character, and in knowledge of the Word of God; releasing them in the gifts of the Spirit and in works of service; building a multitude of communities that encounter God, meet relational needs, minister to fellow believers, and invite unbelieving friends to know the transforming Jesus; modeling and equipping Hope believers for family life in a world that disintegrates families; validating a high theology of vocation that empowers Hope believers to touch their diverse worlds with the power of Jesus.	On Discipleship We believe in discipleship. People learn best in a mentoring relationship. God first, then people. People will apply the truth when they see it work in us. When people don’t apply the truth, they have not known the truth. We believe in accountability. We believe in the power of prayer. Prayer is one of the key ministries of the pastors and the leaders of the church. 4. We believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, without which nothing of spiritual value can be accomplished.
Evangelism / Community Outreach
Partnering with God's people to transform our city, and making disciples of all nations: articulating the Epic Story of the Gospel to our culture in creative ways; participating with other churches to transform our city; creating an environment for the expression of the arts within Hope that also becomes a creative outreach to the Austin community; assisting Hope believers in joining with other believers to glorify God in their vocational calling; reaching out with all possible resources to the university worlds of Austin, evangelizing and discipling students and faculty; serving and empowering the poor and disenfranchised; planting 'worshipping communities of God' wherever He may lead; sending and supporting a force of short, medium and long-term cross cultural servants to proclaim and live the full dimensions of the Great Commission; carefully stewarding and lavishly releasing our natural, human and financial resources for maximum impact.	On Evangelism We believe in cross-culture evangelism not only in the missions field but also here locally. God puts us here not just to evangelize the Chinese but the whole area for Christ. We believe every Christian, not just a few, can do evangelism, if given proper tools and motivation. People want to share their faith, and evangelism is an integral part of Christian life. We believe evangelism is not taught, but caught. It begins with the leaders. We believe that any community services we may have serve as contact points to create a “fishing pond” for evangelism. We believe in follow-up work for new believers. Every new convert should be contacted within thirty-six hours and taught the basic foundation of Christian life. On Community Ministry We believe that our community is the Fort Bend community, regardless of race and color. This is our home on earth and Fort Bend is our backyard. We will seek to serve this community and bring them to Christ. We believe meeting the needs of Fort Bend community through prayer, community service, Christian school, and helping the family. The church is here to meet needs.

Human Wisdom

Paul in 1 Corithians 2:13 writes:
This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.

We've been visiting different churches in the Sugar Land area. The preaching is some of the churches can be summarized as this: I preach with words of human wisdom.

What do I mean by this? The pastor comes up with a message he wants to convey. He comes up with a three point outline and then looks in the Bible for scriptures to support his three point outline.

The end result? A message preached by words of human wisdom.

This is a far cry from the scripture teaching principles that we learned from Hope 201. Hope 201 taught taking a piece of scripture and meditating over the scripture, not just a few minutes, but sometimes for weeks and ask the question: What is God impressing upon me with this scripture? What does He want to say through this scripture?

When we take a piece of scripture, meditate over it, and then seek God over what He wants to say, the results are completely different. There is a level of spiritual wisdom, maturity, and insight that cannot be achieved by human means alone. As Paul says: This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.

Be Still

Be still, and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10

I came across this about a week ago at a time when I felt disconnected from God. It was at a very busy time --- we were trying to find a house and had lots of stuff going on at work.

The words BE STILL and KNOW I AM GOD struck me. I felt disconnected from God. I was too busy to seek God.

Being still seems like a pre-requisite to knowing God. If we're too busy and distracted with things, we cannot truly seek God, to enter in his presence, and know who He is.

One thing I seek

One thing I ask of the LORD,
this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
and to seek him in his temple. Psalm 27:4

We went to Sugar Land Family Church today. One thing they emphasized through their worship is presence ... God's presence.

As the song, I Love Your Presence goes:
In the glory of Your presence
I find rest for my soul
In the depths of Your love
I find peace
Makes me whole

I love, I love, I love Your presence
I love, I love, I love Your presence
I love, I love, I love You Jesus
I love, I love, I love Your presence

Surrender

We were putting an offer down on a house in Riverstone. It was the first house that I really liked as much as the house we had in Austin after looking at around 40 houses in the Sugar Land area. I really wanted the house, although we did have some hesitations b/c it was a little further away than we preferred (10 mins to the freeway, 20 mins to work).

We prayed: God, we surrender this to you. If this house is good for us, then let the deal go through. If the house isn't good for us, then don't let the deal go through.

We saw the house on Sun; however, it was Wed before we were able to put an offer on it b/c we wanted our family to see it too. We put in an offer late Wed/early Thr morning. Unfortunately, they received another offer that same day.

I was a little on edge the entire day Wed b/c we offered a little lower and weren't sure if we were out of the game. I really wanted to house, but had to consciously surrender the entire house to Him.

The seller counter-offered both buyers late Thr evening. We accepted their counter-offer since there were two bidders Fri morning. Our agent knew the other agent and said the seller should accept our offer if the offers are the same. However, around Fri noon we were told that the other buyer offered full price after being told that the seller had verbally accepted our offer.

We had to make a decision on whether to up the ante. After discussing it w/ Grace, we decided to pass on the house b/c it was no longer a good deal. We could build a new house for the same price per square foot. We had given up on the house we really wanted.

Later on we found out that the other buyer was suppose to send the earnest money to the seller by Fri 6 P. That never happened. The seller then had a choice to either wait for the other buyer on a deal that they were starting to have doubts about or accept our lower offer.

At this point, I was finally able to surrender everything to God. I was ok if we got the house or if we didn't.

We found out late Sat evening that the seller accepted our lower offer. The entire process was a good lesson in learning how to surrender to God.