Proclaiming a Knowable God – today we end our series by coming back around to the instruction Jesus gave us to be witnesses to the ends of the earth. How can we proclaim a knowable God to people who have no sense of who God and no desire to be “religious?”

For years the Church has grown and pushed passed their boundaries only to experience conflict. A lot of this conflict arises when new needs are discovered. Think about our personal growth. Conflict arises in us when we need to start eating different foods, when our bodies change, when we begin to be able to make decisions for ourselves, and when we finally crave more and more independence. Today as we continue our series on “Acting like the Church” we are going to look at growth and conflict and how we are called to meet it.

•Where Everybody Knows Your Name – That was the opening to a long running sitcom called, “Cheers” about the lives of workers and patrons of a Boston bar. I played the opening because the theme song really gets to the heart of what people are looking for. It states: “Sometimes you want to go, where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came; you want to be where you can see, our troubles are all the same; you want to be where everybody knows your name.” The characters on Cheers went there because they found a sense of community, a sense of belonging. People seek out places to belong: bars, clubs, social groups, even gangs. As Christians we believe the Church should be that place, but for a lot of people it hasn’t been.

The Book of Acts is a continuation of the Gospel of Luke (it was written by the same author). So in the first chapter Jesus is still on Earth after the resurrection. According to Luke these are the very last words Jesus spoke to his followers before returning to heaven. As you can imagine the people there paid close attention to everything Jesus said, but these words in particular seemed extremely important.

We are taking the month of July to hear testomonies from lay person as to , "Why They Do What They Do"'. Tonight , Jaime Cross talks about his faith journey.

We are taking the month of July to hear testomonies from lay person as to , "Why They Do What They Do"'. Tonight , Rachel Brace talks about his faith journey.

We are taking the month of July to hear testomonies from lay person as to , "Why They Do What They Do"'. Tonight , Curtis "Bubba" Kasten talks about his faith journey.

We are taking the month of July to hear testomonies from lay person as to , "Why They Do What They Do"'. Tonight , Tom Hosmann talks about his faith journey. Jeremiah 29:11

For the last six weeks we’ve been talking about fishing. When Jesus called his early followers he told them that they were going to become “fishers of men.” Jesus promised that a transformation would take place in each of them, and they would go out and fish for people, sharing with them the Good News Jesus the Christ shared with them.

Mark Tells us what we need to know and what we need to do to fish for people. Using just one verse.