Decorah Covenant Church

This fall you’re going to be hearing a lot about our small group and home group ministry. Why? Because we see our home group ministry as foundational to our church’s mission—to be and make disciples of Christ, foster life-changing community, and extend Christ’s love and compassion by participating in what God is now doing in our community and world.

Being part of a small group is so important for our progressive growth toward Christ-likeness. We are not to live the Christian life on our own. Being connected in a small group of people committed to this pursuit is of incredible value to our own spiritual growth and transformation.

After all, God is in the business of transformation. We are not to stay the same; rather, each of is called to be transformed by the power of God into the image of his Son. Our small group ministry is one of our primary efforts to create an avenue for this life change to occur.

The vision for our small group ministry is to provide multiple avenues for building relationships that encourage progressive growth toward Christ-likeness. We realize that “one size doesn’t fit all.” But we also see home groups as the foundation of our small group ministry and a core element in our vision to help people grow.

Our home groups seek to be more than Bible studies; they aim to be welcoming, authentic, extended families that seek to encourage spiritual transformation while at the same time being outposts of God’s love through our commitment to G.R.O.W. (which stands for God’s Word—shaping our actions and lives, Relationships—nurturing our growth in the context of spiritual friendships, Obedient Living—using our gifts in witness and service, and Worship—interacting with and experiencing God through participating in what he is now doing).

Home groups are one aspect of our effort to live life together with God and each other—not just on Sundays but throughout the week. Through our home group ministry we hope to encourage everyone to be a living sacrifice in their everyday eating and sleeping, walking and working life. This is what true worship is all about.

Growing as disciples of Christ doesn’t happen without effort or community. So get connected in a home group by signing up on Sunday or talking to one of the home group leaders right away.

Pastor Matt

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“Do you want to get well?” Jesus asked a man who had been ill for 38-years (John 5:6). After the man responds, Jesus continued, “Well, then, get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”

My question for you today is not “Do you want to get well?”; it is “Do you want to grow?” Do you desire to take your faith to the next level, to grow deeper in the way and character of Christ? Like the man in the story, Jesus is not going to make you grow without your consent and cooperation.

Each of us needs to consider our own answer to this question. We need to take responsibility and make plans for our own spiritual growth. This fall at Decorah Covenant Church we are going to provide and encourage multiple opportunities for growth – but ultimately the avenues you pursue, or don’t pursue, are up to you. The opportunities are there, but you have to want and choose to grow.

So this is my challenge: If you feel the Spirit of God nudging you to follow Christ with greater intentionality this fall, don’t ignore the prompting. Take some initiative. Get involved with a home group (they’ll be starting the week of September 9th), connect with a men’s or women’s accountability or small group, attend our Sunday morning formation classes, or simply find a friend who you can meet and pray with regularly to help keep you on track. These are just a few possibilities.

Spiritual growth is not rocket science; but we are not meant to travel our journey of faith alone. We need both God and others to grow and flourish in life.

For some, being a part of a small group may be an intimidating thought that may really stretch you. For others, you’re ready for an even greater challenge. If you’re serious about experiencing God in a deeper, more intimate way this fall, send me an e-mail with “Grow” in the memo line to DCCoffice@gmail.com and I’ll share with you about an exciting 12-week discipleship opportunity that you can be a part of if you choose.

Pastor Matt

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Thanks to the help of one of our church’s computer experts, our church website is now hosted at DreamHost. I’m giving this a plug because non-profits (churches included) get free web-hosting for life. An incredible deal!

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Many of us value prayer but don’t feel like we know how to pray. If you need direction in this area, like most of us do, there are some very helpful, concise articles that give practical guidance on prayer here: How to pray/other resources .

Praying daily written prayers can also be a helpful tool. But in “reading” the prayers that someone else has written, it is important that we are not just going through the motions; we must make these written prayers our own. If we do, the daily prayers, largely based off the psalms, found here at The Divine Hours can be of incredible value.

One Last Prayer Resource:

• Lectio divina

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To learn more click here or the above ad.

Some Disturbing Facts about Slavery:
• 27 million people are in modern-day slavery across the world*
• There are more people in slavery now than during the trans-Atlantic slave trade*
• 800,000 people are trafficked across international boarders each year*
• 50% of all victims are children*
• 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked into the U.S. every year
• 91 cities in the United States report cases of trafficking

*Source: www.amazingchange.com/statistics.html

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Church Canceled Feb. 25th!

Due to extreme weather conditions our Sunday services (Feb. 25, 2007) and Sunday school classes are canceled tomorrow morning.

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This coming week we will be starting a new sermon series entitled: Questions I Was Afraid to Ask

The topic of our first week is the Bible, the sacred text of our faith. In the Covenant church we hold the Holy Scriptures to be the “Word of God and the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct.”

This is a given. But simply because this is at our foundation does not mean there are not questions about why this is the case. Not surprisingly, though, some may be afraid to broach such questions as the ones we will explore on Sunday–questions such as:

Where did the Bible come from?

What’s the big deal about it?

And can it be trusted?

Come join us Sunday as we explore these questions and seek some answers.

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This come from Howard Snyder’s website via Church of the Exiles:

The following ten “Theses on Renewal” from Liberating the Church summarize my most basic convictions about the nature and calling of the church—and what is needed for its renewal. In more recent books I have
amplified some of these points and added other accents (for instance, the importance of a Trinitarian perspective), but virtually everything I have written on the church and the Kingdom of God is contained at
least embryonically in these ten theses:

• The fundamental crisis of the church today is a crisis of the Word of God. The church must recover the full dynamic of the Word, not just as Scripture, but as God-in-communication, especially through the written Word of Scripture and supremely through the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. This is another way of saying the church must recover a consciousness of who God is.
• Behaviors and structures in the church reflect fundamental concepts in the church’s self-understanding which often remain unarticulated.
• The church is essentially the community of God’s people, not primarily an organization, institution, program, or building. This is a distinction of fundamental importance because it is linked to the basic models of the church which Christians employ.
• The experience of salvation is incomplete and not fully biblical without genuine experience of the church as the community of God’s people and agent of the Kingdom.
• The most dynamic and prophetic thing the church can do is first of all to be a worshiping and serving community.
• Every believer is a minister, servant and priest of God. Every believer is called to ministry, and all God’s people must be equipped to minister.
• Every believer receives grace for ministry. Therefore spiritual gifts must be identified and employed to God’s glory.
• Leadership grows out of discipleship. Where careful discipling is lacking, leadership cannot be biblical and a crisis of spiritual leadership results. Worldly qualifications for leadership replace biblical ones.
• The church’s concern for and identification with the poor are sure signs of its faithfulness to the Kingdom and are often signs of fundamental renewal.
• In North America today a vital, biblically faithful church will be a countercultural community living in tension with the non-Christian elements of society and marked by a lifestyle that is distinctively Christ-like and Kingdom oriented.

Howard A. Snyder, Liberating the Church: The Ecology of Church and Kingdom (InterVarsity Press, 1983), 17-18.

via The Forgotten Ways

Technorati Tags: Howard Snyder, church health, church, theology

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The following quote by the late theologian Stanley J. Grenz gives insight as to why theology in the church is so important. It is also why the integrity of church leaders must not be compromised in order to see “results”:

“Solid theological reflection is crucial in the practice of ministry, understood both narrowly as the work of ordained leaders and in the wider sense of being the whole life and mission of the people of God. Actually, today the chief rival to ministering from a theological base is engaging in the practice of “church” by means of a pragmatic outlook, that makes decisions largely if not solely on the basis of a consideration of what “works.” In the long run, however, the pragmatic approach is self-defeating, simply because it transforms the community of faith into an institution whose chief end is not the glory of God and the fulfillment of a divinely-given mandate, but survival. The long-term health and viability of the church demands that its leaders and people return again and again to the forming and informing vision of what the community of Christ is called, mandated, and empowered to be by the Lord of the church. Above all, I would add, we are called to be a people who embody in our life together and in our relationships to all humans and even to all creation the great narrative of the biblical God, the one who has come to us in Christ and now empowers us through the Holy Spirit poured out in our hearts and in our fellowship.”

via

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A quote from Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton:

“God utters me like a word containing a partial thought of himself. A word will never be able to comprehend the voice that utters it. But if I am true to the concept God utters in me, if I am true to the thought I was meant to embody, I shall be full of God’s actuality and find him everywhere in myself, and find myself nowhere. I shall be lost in God.”

via

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