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One of the purposes of the church is to help us remember the Lord’s faithfulness and kindness to us when we are unable to remember ourselves. Throughout history, God has called his people to take proactive steps to “remember together,” and we should be no less vigilant today to set up milestones, reminders, and celebrations of God’s goodness to us as individuals, families, and as the Church.

Worship has long been embraced as one of the primary functions of the gathered Church. For some, the concept and practice are so familiar that they lose meaning. For others, various obstacles, confusion, and doubt get in the way of fully engaging in worship. And still others do participate happily in worship, but misunderstand its Object and purpose. The true worship God desires is a response to his glory, and the scriptures tell us that glory is not something distant or unapproachable, but that it is revealed openly in Jesus. Worship then, is about Jesus, exactly as he is. It is a loving response to the one who loves us fully, not a detached submission to a distant God. Understanding that gives us a clearer sense of why our engagement of worship with the Church is important, not only as obedience, but as a reminder and encouragement to ourselves and one another that Jesus is real, good, and God’s beautiful revelation of who He is and how much he loves his people.

We must acknowledge and even lament the darkness and difficulty in the world around us and in the worlds inside of us before we can truly experiencing the joy of the Good News ourselves, much less credibly speak it to others. But that struggle is not the whole story. In the midst of even our most desperate moments, Jesus enters as God’s response – the fullness of God with us, among us. In Him we discover the Good News that seems impossible: that while the darkness is so real that it almost ends us, God miraculously arrives in Jesus with another reality – one that is at first invisible, but that ultimately overwhelms what we see with life and light and hope and love.

Telling the story of our life, including the scars, brings glory to God, life to the church, and hope to the world.

Many of the Psalms speak of and to God in ways that we would resist and even rebuke in many corners of Christianity these days. We should stop that, not only because of what we find in the Psalms, but also because most of us are well acquainted with the places of pain, emptiness, and desperation that seemed to inspire the psalmists’ words. To be people of Good News in a broken world, we first must be people who are willing to acknowledge and speak of the suffering, tragedy, boredom, shame, and sorrow in the world around us and the worlds inside us.

Scripture and Society both tell us to be a “Good Samaritan”… but what does that mean? Doing our daily good deeds is certainly acceptable to God and a fitting way to live like a Christian, but is there more? As we press into and unfold the story of the Good Samaritan that Jesus told, we find a deeper calling and firmer challenge. Jesus is after more than good behavior, he desires for the scope of our vision and the posture of our hearts to be transformed.

Hear about life on the ground in Ghana as Chris Field interviews missionaries Clint and Hailey Askins.

The last of three weeks exploring some basic theology of the Church – what is it and why does it exist? This week we focus on the communal nature of the Church, paying particular attention to what kind of community the local church is made to embody.

The second of three weeks exploring some basic theology of the Church – what is it and why does it exist? This week we look at the Church as both a sign pointing toward God’s future for the world and a partial embodiment of that future in the present.