Pastor's Corner: WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?

  [*This week's message is more topical for the occasion, next week we'll return to our study in Mark 1. SN ] Mother’s Day 2022: Missional Moms Introduction :  Gloria Furman, in her book Missional Motherhood , said, “ When you become a mother, you don’t leave your role as an ambassador for Christ behind. Not at all. Our motherhood is a part of God’s mission .” We’ve spoken a lot over the last year and a half about our part in the Missio Dei, the Mission of God. God has called every believer to have a part in that mission, and it begins with that small group of people he has put around us. For a parent that includes the teachers and other parents at school, coaches and parents at the soccer game, and above all, the innermost circle of our mission field is our family. No one will have a greater impact on children than a Christian mother. The BIG Idea : A Christian mother can mirror the love of God, bringing comfort and hope to her family and beyond. And so we’ll start w...

  Discipleship 101: Messenger Service Mark 1:2-8 Introduction : In Brazil, important documents are delivered around the city of Sao Paulo by messengers on motorcycles, “ moto-boys ” they are called. Most of them are on small motorcycles that can zip between the lines of traffic, so they can make their deliveries relatively quickly, but it is dangerous work!  A pedestrian, a car mirror, an opened car door, a pothole, it doesn’t take much when there is so little space between cars and the bikes are moving so fast, for something to go really badly! In the city of Sao Paulo, rarely does a day pass without someone dying in a motorcycle crash.  Yet the messengers have their work to do, they know the risk, and they continue.  They have counted the cost .        We too have been entrusted with a message, and sent out. We’ll see in Mark, a call to discipleship, an invitation to believe in Jesus, and to follow Him. We’ll also see that Mark d...

  Discipleship 101: The Good News and the Mission of God Mark 1:1 Introduction : We started over the last two weeks our series in Mark, but, for Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter, we jumped ahead to the ending of Mark. Do you start at the end when you read a book? Well, maybe… but not today! Today, we begin at the beginning .   Some famous first lines in literature sound familiar: “Call me Ishmael...” from  Moby Dick  by Herman Melville. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...” from  A Tale of Two Cities  by Charles Dickens. Here’s a tough one, [you may find it a bit transparent…] “I am an invisible man” from  Invisible Man  by Ralph Ellison (1952). The most famous and recognizable “beginning” in all of literature may be the opening words of the Bible, Genesis 1:1, “ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth... ” For the Jews, the opening words of the Biblical books were even more recognizable, since they also s...