Speaker: Pastor Sam Murphy

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What do you value? If one looks long enough, it is generally not difficult to see what we value. Values are reflected by us personally, as well as, by our families, in our businesses, and even through our ministries and churches. A watching world can quickly see what we value, and it is our goal as a ministry to live out 3 core values; the first of which we will look at this week. In Scripture, the Apostle Peter understood the importance of living in a way that reflects what we value as believers.

Commissioned by Peter, but written by Silvanus, this was a letter that was penned in Rome to Christians throughout Asia Minor (modern day Turkey). These mostly non-Jewish Christians were being persecuted by others in their communities and Peter was attempting to encourage them amid this.

Big Idea: 3 characteristics that make our ministries Christ Centered  (1 Peter 2:1-12)

Speaker : Pastor Sam Murphy 

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At one time or another most all of us have seen, or maybe even given, a heart react to a message, picture, meme, or gif. However, when we dropped that heart, did we really “love” it? Or was that just our knee-jerk response at the time? Now we had other options of course, such as the laugh, cry, angry, smiley face, thumbs up, etc, yet we went with the heart, because we needed to convey something stronger than a simple “like”. In the world of reacts, the heart typically conveys only one thing – love. In the realm of humanity, however, we know that people can “react” with more than just love in their heart. But should they? Even more importantly, should those that claim to be followers of Christ have options for how they react with their heart?  

3 kinds of “heart reacts” from 1 John 3 (1 John 3:11-24)

Speaker : Kendra Connor 

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Our vision as Christ Centered Community Ministries, and as a church is, “Helping others live Christ-centered lives” Last week we saw as Jesus cast a vision for us in regards to others, as he called his first disciples to be fishers of men. This week we will see Jesus cast a vision for us, his current disciples, and how we should live, or…. BE. We were given the vision to be fishers of men, we know we are to GO and teach, preach and reach but how are we to BE as we GO? The Beatitudes describes for us the vision Jesus had for how we are to live our lives, they describes characteristics that should be evident in those who claim him as Lord. And that is what we will see in Matthew 5 , that the beatitudes represent Jesus’ vision for us, his disciples.   

What is Jesus’ vision for how we should “BE” as His disciples?  Matthew 5:1-12

Pastor Sam just completed a message series on mission. He shared the mission of the church, and C3 Ministries as a whole, and shared how we can live out that mission. Over the next two weeks, Kendra and I have the opportunity to share about vision. In 2022, the leadership of C3 Ministries developed a vision statement for our ministries. The vision statement is “Helping People Live Christ-centered Lives.”

Vision statements declare current and future objectives of an organization. Vision statements are set in stone, and can change over time. These statements align with an organization’s mission, values, and community. Whatever role you hold within the organization, you would share the same vision.

Luke 5:1-11 shows us 3 things we learn about vision casting from Jesus calling his disciples.

Speaker : Pastor Sam Murphy 

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Our mission is to build a Christ-centered community by preaching, teaching, and reaching our community through Christ-centered ministries.”  

Jesus wants us to build a Christ centered community through making disciples. The word disciple in the GK means, “learner, pupil”. But Jesus wants us to know that becoming a disciple is not just a conversion experience and learning some bible. It is a process that must be taught and modeled by other believers.

Big Idea: 3 directives given in the commission to make disciples   (Matthew 28:16-20)

Speaker : Pastor Sam Murphy 

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Our mission is to build a Christ-centered community by preaching, teaching, and reaching our community through Christ-centered ministries. As we began this series this year, we started on the path toward organic discipleship. If we are going to teach others what it means to obey Christ, we first must reach them. Then, once we have reached them, we must proclaim the good news and share our faith with them.   

Paul’s mission was also to build a Christ-centered community through the church where Timothy was left to pastor. One of the calls used to do that was preaching the word. We, like Timothy have a call to preach the word. Today, we are going to see what preparations we must make to accomplish this call.  

3 Preparations we must make to fulfill our call of preaching (sharing).   2 Timothy 4:1-5

Our mission is to build a Christ-centered community by preaching, teaching, and reaching our community through Christ-centered ministries. One of the practical ways that we are going to be seeking to build a Christ-centered community with intentionality this year, is through a focus on natural discipleship. Natural discipleship is discipleship that while it might be structed in a concentrated way (i.e. a discipleship study or mentoring relationship) it is more experienced through daily living and wholistic spiritual growth. It is for this reason that we are changing up the preach, teach, reach order in our series this year, and instead starting with reaching people first. If we do not reach people, we cannot preach Christ and teach them to obey his teachings.

Background: in 2 Timothy, Paul was going to die soon in prison and wanted to make sure Timothy knew what things were most important in life and ministry. He wanted to Timothy to reach others and shared with him some decisions he must make to expand his reach.

Big Idea: 2 decisions we must make to expand our reach (2 Timothy 1:6-12

Speaker : Pastor Sam Murphy 

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New year, new you? Join us as Pastor Sam starts our new year by sharing a passage in God's word about Gideon. God wants to use you like He used Gideon in the new year tune in to see how you can be ready!

Speaker : Pastor Sam Murphy

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At this point in life, I thought I had seen all there was to see when it comes to Christmas. But there I was, in Menards, looking for Christmas lights when I saw them: Christmas Tree Scent Sticks. Little sticks, that smell like fake pine that you hang on your tree. And smell they do! According to the instructions all six sticks were hung from the tree and the living room began to smell like pine. Chemical pine. The odor lasted for a short while and then was gone. But for a brief time, the living room smelled kind of like Christmas, and it was pleasing. Just like lights and decorations [point to tree], the Bible has something to say about scent as well. Today, we will look at God’s Word and see what it has to say about the importance of aroma.

Background: In these Pauline epistles God gives us a theology of smell. As with the last two messages we’ll begin by looking at Jesus as our model.

God’s word reminds us of the importance of aroma.

(Ephesians 5:1-2; Romans 12:1; 2 Corinthians 2:14-17)

Speaker : Pastor Sam Murphy 

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A Christmas staple in many households this time of year is the Charlie Brown Christmas. The movie does an amazing job at teaching us not only the true meaning of Christmas, it also showing us the power of genuine love and the right decorations. When we have the right ornamental decorations, our Christmas Trees end up looking beautiful. In the same way, when we adorn our lives biblically, getting beyond the superficial, we look beautiful to God and others as well.  

 Background: Just like last week, we will approach a theology of adornment by first considering our model and example Jesus Christ. Then, we will explore what that should mean for us as we see that: God’s word reminds us of the importance of adornment.  (Is. 53:1-3; 1 Pe. 3:3-4; 1 Ti. 2:8-10; Ti. 2:9-10)