October 2008

Why Plant A New Church?

Come As You Are — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:30:23 +0000

Compelling Data for Church Planting in America

Come As You Are — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 20:46:49 +0000

Here are some statistics that demonstrate the need for starting new churches in America. Take a look at a map of an area of a world where we would expect the growth of Christianity to be low. Then take a look at North America! God has called us to take the good news to all areas of the world. America is now one of the largest mission fields in the world. If you want to be part of reaching the lost in our part of America, and of Wisconsin....please join us!

Praying Scripture

Come As You Are — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:48:20 +0000

As followers of Christ, we all desire powerful prayer lives. Richard Burr in his book Developing Your Secret Closet of Prayer writes: "One's spiritual life will never be above the practice of one's private prayer life." I have found this to be very true! Our ultimate goal in the Christian life is to have an intimate relationship with God through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Prayer, along with other spiritual disciplines, is a key to entering the holy of holies. One of the ways of doing this is through praying the Scriptures.

Every word in the Bible was inspired by God. The Scriptures represent God's heart. If we want to know what God thinks, how He feels or what His will is, we simply need to read His Word. Praying the scriptures is merely reminding God of what He said. Isaiah 55:10,11 says, "My Word will not return to me void, but will accomplish the purpose for which it was sent." God's word is a book of His promises and He wants us to take Him at His Word.

Scripture praying is the practice of using God's Word as the foundation for shaping our prayers to meet with Him personally, and to pray for others. It is communicating with Him in His own words. Scripture praying is putting equal emphasis on the Word and on prayer. It is realizing that prayer is a dialog between the Lord and ourselves.

So many times we do not have the words to adequately express our thoughts, feelings and emotions. God's Word allows us to express all of these things in keeping with His heart. Praying Scriptures can effectively express our heart's desire for following Him. When we allow God's Word to be the vehicle of our prayers, it is capable of declaring deep inner desires and thoughts.

Let's start with reading Psalm 34. Pray this Psalm to God. Starting with praise & worship will prepare your mind to focus on God. Here is an example on how to pray verse 1: "God, I WILL extol and praise You at all times. Your praise will always be on my lips. I praise you for sending Christ to die for me, I praise you for your love for me and my family, I praise you for all you are doing in my life." Then, continue with the rest of the psalm.

Let's start praying Scripture!

Pastor Dick

Technical Difficulties

Come As You Are — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 23:20:35 +0000

Due to technical difficulties, Sunday's podcast was not able to be made this week. We're working on the problem. Hopefully we'll get things up and running by next week. The goal is to have each week's podcast available on the Wednesday following Sunday's message. Thanks for your patience!

Ambassadors for Christ

Come As You Are — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:21:16 +0000

I was recently reading an article written by Van Sanders on the internet. He was identifying the factors that were present in the first church in Antioch. The growth of God’s kingdom in the book of Acts took place before the existence of institutional churches that characterize our North American culture. But this doesn’t mean that the growth factors found in Acts can’t be related to establishing a missional church today. Here in our region of the world, we must be reminded that only as we experience the spiritual dynamics of the church at Antioch will we be able to participate in a missional church.

Please read Acts 13:1-5, 13:49, 14:21-23 and 14:26-28, and begin to pray that we will become like that first church in Antioch!.

Here is what Sanders writes: “A missional church understands its purpose for existence in light of God’s missionary nature as revealed in Christ’s mission to redeem and create one people from all people groups for His glory. Missional churches realize that effective ministry flows out of their identity with Christ as His ambassadors to a lost world. Churches that are missional emphasize that what a church does flows out of what it is in Christ. Being precedes doing.”

Doing without being leads to developing “programs” that often fail to encourage personal and real approaches to reaching unchurched people. Like the church at Antioch, prayer and fasting, worshipping God, using spiritual gifts, and depending upon the Holy Spirit is what characterizes a missional church. Missional churches hear and obey the call of Christ to be missionary in all we do as we trust Him to use us to reach friends and family with the good news of Jesus Christ. I believe that underlying all of these is a focus on the Kingdom of God. In such an environment, rapid multiplication of believers and growth in the church is most likely to occur.

As we keep our eyes on Jesus and follow God this week, let’s pray and fast, worship God, use our spiritual gifts, and depend on the Holy Spirit. Please pray for one or two people/families to invite to the service this Sunday. Then, pray for the courage and boldness to invite them! We can trust God to grow His church one individual, and one family, at a time!

Let’s ALL be ambassadors for Christ!
Pastor Dick

Message Podcasts

Come As You Are — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:13:48 +0000

If you missed the message because you were volunteering in KidzKorner, teaching SuperKidz, or just happened to be out of town and missed a service... you can now download each week's message. Go to Message Podcasts on the sidebar, choose the message you want to hear, download it onto your computer or MP3 player....and you're set to go.

CELL Groups Starting Very Soon!

Come As You Are — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 23:29:09 +0000

Cell groups are essentially our small group Bible studies. We will be starting our CELL groups very soon. Here is a short explanation about the CELL Groups at CenterPoint. To learn even more, just click on "CELL Groups" on the sidebar.

CELL Group Mission Statement

CELL groups exist to build a God-centered community by facilitating spiritual transformation and discipleship of fellow Christians. This transformation is extended to those who do not know God through invitation into authentic Christian community .

C.E.L.L. Defined

The C.E.L.L. acronym is vitally important to what we do because it reminds us of what we are trying to accomplish. We should all be familiar with what it stands for because it casts the vision for our groups.

C —Commissioned by God

E —Encountering Christ

L —Living Lives of Compassion

L —Loving Communities

All that we do in CELL group can be summed up by one of these four categories. These categories function in two ways. First they describe what our groups are intended to accomplish: a place where we can reach the lost, help the hurting, foster a sense of community identity, and be in the presence of our Lord. Second this acronym reminds us of what should regularly occur in our groups. If we lose sight of even one of these four components, our groups will neither be what they are intended to be nor will they accomplish what they are intended to accomplish.