Gulf Coast Community Church Podcast – St. Petersburg

"The church is not just a club of Christians who gather to express their praise and worship of God. Rather, the church is a called people, gathered to encounter and be shaped by God into a ‘peculiar people.’” (James K. A. Smith)

This term “peculiar people” is often joked about and certainly far too often applies in the way the jokes imply. But what does it mean to be a peculiar people and what makes us such people? I offer that it is the “fellowship of the Holy Spirit” (2 Cor. 13:14).

This week we will explore what it means to be a Spirit-formed community from 2 Corinthians 13:11-14 where Paul speaks of “the fellowship (koinonia) of the Spirit.” What is the koinonia of the Spirit? Why is it so transformative?

These last 3 weeks have been wearying for most of us. Houses flooded, roofs damaged, fences down, power out, food lost, waiting for gas for hours if you can find it. And then there’s the help you need and others need. The sense that you aren’t doing enough and can’t do anymore.

For the believer, this can pile onto plenty of other things that feel like defeat. Is there any let up? Is there any victory?

The last ACT in the book called Acts, which is a quarter of the book, makes our last few weeks (and even long term weariness) seem like a picnic. Paul has so many reasons he could be discouraged and yet he clings to the promise that He will arrive at the destination the Lord Jesus has for him.

Join us in worship as we take a break from our series and allow the message of Acts 27-28 speak to our own circumstances and give us hope in the midst of what might otherwise be discouraging circumstances.

Ephesians 4:1-6

I am a fan of impressionist paintings. Author Malcolm Gladwell explains how the impressionist painters became a movement.

It “didn’t begin because one genius took up painting impressionistically and, like the Pied Piper, attracted a trail of followers. Instead, Pissarro and Degas enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts at the same time; then, Pissarro met Monet and, later, Cézanne at the Académie Suisse; Manet met Degas at the Louvre; Monet befriended Renoir at Charles Gleyre’s studio; and Renoir, in turn, met Pissarro and Cézanne; and soon enough everyone was hanging out at the Café Guerbois, trading ideas and egging each other on, and sharing and competing and dreaming, all together, until something radical and entirely new emerged.” (Malcolm Gladwell, The Bomber Mafia)

That may help us grasp how it is that the church is to bring the kingdom of God to manifest itself in communities all across the globe. When we gather, we each bring something to contribute, and in that sharing of our bits and pieces of the whole, encouraging one another, “something radical and entirely new” emerges. That “new” thing is the work of the Spirit, the Kingdom of God.

Join us as we continue our series Becoming a Spirit-Formed Community as we examine the role of the Spirit’s empowering with various gifts in the life of the church.

A lot of the focus in modern discipleship is on the individual. There are exceptions, of course, but rarely is discipleship taught primarily as a community project. It’s a team sport, not like an aerobics class or a zoom class, but like a baseball team or a football team.

In an aerobics class, it may serve me to be in a class for I might feel more motivated with the group. With baseball, or football, I simply cannot play it without the rest of the team. The church is like the latter and therefore discipleship (training for godliness or Christlikeness) must primarily be a group activity. “Practice the way you play.”

The early church sometimes spoke of gathering on the 8th day of the week. Of course, the last time I checked, there were only 7. But that is the point. What did that term signify for them? How does it inform the purpose of our gathering? How does our gathering inform the rest of our lives?

Join us as we explore some of the symbolic and visual aspects woven into the church’s worship and how they impact the rest of our lives.

Churches are much noisier than libraries, and for good reason. Libraries are filled with words but are absolutely silent. Churches have less words, to be sure, but are much noisier. And they should be.
Since the beginning, the Church has held the spoken, sung, and heard Word as an essential part of its liturgy (public worship). A lot has changed since then, but maybe nothing more significant than the invention of the Gutenberg press.
The transformation from a speaking and listening culture to a writing and reading culture has dramatically changed things. As Marshall McLuhan quipped, “The medium is the message.” If the medium is the voice, but it changes to a page, it affects the message.

Join us in worship as we explore the significance and necessity of speaking and hearing God’s word in community.

We, the Church (and the church), are a royal priesthood and holy people. To be a priestly people, a holy people, our first obligation is to the God we serve. As a priestly people, our first obligation is our worship of God together. As a holy people, we must keep that worship pure.

Worship of the Triune God is the primary difference between the church and any other organization (though there are surely many secondary and tertiary differences). Without this worship, the church would not be the church. To be the church is to be a worshipping community; who we are is defined by worship.

God forms His people into His image in worship by His Spirit through the means he has given us. There are 3 things we must consider in examining and exploring our worship: tradition, liturgy, and charismata.

Join us as we explore how our worship is central to our becoming a Spirit-formed community.

Text: 1 Cor. 13

Themes: Love vs. individualism and selfishness.

All I wanna do is go the distance … so I’ll know I’m not just another bum from the neighborhood.
Rocky

Is the church of the Lord Jesus “just another bum from the neighborhood”? If we listen to the world we might think so. If we listen to believers at times we might think so. But it’s a lie; a lie which can only be overcome by an amazing truth about the church.

Paul’s letter to Ephesians is a masterpiece concerning whom we, the church, are. I use church without the capital “C” because Paul wasn’t speaking about the church as some kind of universal, invisible community, he is speaking about the church that gathers. The one that has to bear with one another, forgive one another, and work hard to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

And what Paul says about the church would be outrageous if it weren’t true. In Ephesians he paints with royal brushstrokes. With seemingly every stroke of his brush, he points out our royal connections and calling.

Join us in worship as we continue to explore what it means to be a royal priesthood and holy people in the message titled Putting the Royal in the Priesthood.

Have you ever heard (or even said, like me) “Justice is the act of giving people what they deserve, while mercy is the act of not giving people what they deserve.” There is some truth in those words, but it is not a full, Biblically informed definition of either justice or mercy.

Since justice and mercy are at the heart of what God requires of us as human beings (Mic. 6:8), having a more Biblically informed understanding of these is vital. Most of us are very familiar with the notion of justice as what is due to someone, but less familiar with justice as what is due from someone.

This Sunday we will continue our series Becoming a Merciful Church as we explore what is at the very heart of God’s call to us as human beings, especially as the new humanity being formed in Christ.