The Christian life is meant to be lived, not just believed. Throughout his kingdom ministry on earth, Jesus invited all people (even some very unlikely candidates) to follow him by spending time with him and taking on his way of life. We're exploring TNC's 5 Core Practices and everything starts with our relationship with God in following Jesus under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Listen in as we're reminded of what it means to Follow Jesus.

SLIDES/RESOURCES--

// SCRIPTURE FOCUS: Matthew 9.9-13

// TNC CORE PRACTICE 1: We commit to be with Jesus to learn from Jesus how to live like Jesus in our everyday life.

// ANABAPTIST CORE CONVICTION 1: Jesus is our example, teacher, friend, redeemer, and Lord. He is the source of our life, the central reference point for our faith and lifestyle, our understanding of church, and our engagement with society. We are committed to follow Jesus and worshiping him.

// OUTCOME 1: To follow Jesus is to be transformed.

// OUTCOME 2: To follow Jesus is to walk with him in your everyday life

// Jesus follows you. Into your circles... Into your places...

// "To be a disciple of Jesus is to choose to do what Jesus would do if he were in your shoes." (DALLAS WILLARD)

// OUTCOME 3: To follow Jesus is to share the table with the lost, lonely, and left-out...and to find Jesus there.

// "Sacrifice -- the purity impulse -- marks off a zone of holiness, admitting the 'clean' and expelling the 'unclean.' Mercy, by contrast, crosses those purity boundaries. Mercy blurs the distinction, bringing clean and unclean into contact. Thus the tension." (RICHARD BECK in Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality)

// OUTCOME 4: To follow Jesus is to let his priorities become your priorities

// OUTCOME 5: To follow Jesus is to follow him with others.

// Jesus offers us two invitations every day: "Come to Me" and "Come Follow Me"

One of the Hebrew words for blessing means "to kneel." So what does it mean to "bless" God? What might it mean when we ask God to "bless" us? Spend a moment with us reflecting back on the ways that God has blessed you this year and ask him to bless you each step going forward. Follow along with the document attached.

How much time this season have you spent worrying? If we boil it down, most of our worry is rooted in fear. God comes to us with an invitation to faith in the face of fear and worry. Why should we trust him? Because God doesn't just promise his unending love, he proves it. God enters in to our darkness and fear in order to transform it. He is God-with-us. Look to him and let him prove his love in the presence of fear.

SLIDES--

// SCRIPTURE FOCUS: Isaiah 7.10-16

// CORE IDEA: God doesn't just PROMISE his unending love, God PROVES it...

// "I thought about you the day Stephen died and you met me between my breaking / And I know that I still love you God, despite the agony...

There's a few of them that tell me your cruel / But if Stephen were here he'd say it's not true..." (JOHN MARK MCMILLAN, "How He Loves")

// CORE IDEA: God doesn't just PROMISE his unending love, God PROVES it...JESUS is the proof of God's love. "God with us" in our fear, darkness, & brokenness.

// "Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss / And my heart turns violently inside of my chest / And I don't have time to maintain these regrets / When I think about the way / That He loves us..." (JOHN MARK MCMILLAN, "How He Loves")

// "GOD WITH US"...IN JESUS, THE WORD MADE FLESH: Matthew 1:20b-23, Luke 2.10b-11

// GOD DOESN'T JUST PROMISE HIS UNFAILING LOVE, HE PROVES IT: Romans 5.8, 1 John 4.9-11

// Look to Jesus and let God prove his love for you.

You'd be hard pressed to find a more dramatic "Before and After" than what we find in Isaiah chapters 34 and 35. Isaiah paints a picture of a renovation far beyond any dreams of a simple restoration -- a desert bloomed, a people healed, a wilderness transformed. Creation responding in joy to the renovation of the rubble of Israel's homeland. It's a glimpse of joy that is out of place in a dark season of history. God will come to turn on the light in our darkness. So how will we respond to our Renovating King?

SLIDES--

// SCRIPTURE FOCUS: Isaiah 35

// Isaiah has a glimpse of joy that is out of place in a dark season.

// Isaiah paints a picture of a renovation far beyond any dreams of a simple restoration -- a desert bloomed, a people healed, a wilderness transformed.

// The deeper our longing, the greater our joy when God renovates our situation.

// What if we really believed that God was the most joyful being in the universe?

// No one goes into a room to "turn on the dark." God comes to us to turn on the light. Where are you longing for God to show up and turn on the light?

// My hands are too weak... (My work). My knees can't walk... (My walk). My heart can't take it... (My worry).

// My hands are too weak...God will strengthen. My knees can't walk...God will support. My heart can't take it...God will save.

// JESUS IN LUKE 7.22 (NIV) -- “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor."

// Happiness is puddle jumping...Joy is ground water

// FREDERICK BUECHNER (The Longing for Home) -- "Joy is home...God created us in joy and created us for joy, and in the long run not all the darkness there is in the world and in ourselves can separate us finally from that joy, because whatever else it means to say that God created us in his image, I think it means that even when we cannot believe in him, even when we feel most spiritually bankrupt and deserted by him, his mark is deep within us. We have God's joy in our blood."

World Peace -- is it impossible? Too good to be true? Almost. Human history proves that we need something beyond our own capacity to experience true peace in this hostile world. An ancient prophet saw a glimpse of a King who could actually bring a peace that covers every square inch of earth. But, where we have failed, God's Spirit will succeed. In fact, it's the Spirit of God who breathes possibility into impossibility, renovation into devastation, and peace into chaos. We'll explore 4 radical images of peace and 4 reminders for our everyday situation. When we glimpse God's vision of peace, we can dare to believe that His peace is possible even when it seems impossible.

SLIDES--

// SCRIPTURE FOCUS: Isaiah 11.1-10

// CORE IDEA: The Spirit of God breathes possibility into impossibility, renovation into devastation, and peace into chaos.

// IMAGE 1: Branch

// REMINDER #1: If you look close enough, there is always a sprout of new life to be found.

// IMAGE 2: Balance

// REMINDER #2: Don’t JUDGE (on appearance or hearsay), DISCERN. Don’t ASSUME (what others think, feel, or need), ASK.

// IMAGE 3: Safety

// REMINDER #3: Bring God’s future PEACE into the PRESENT TENSE.

// IMAGE 4: Awareness

// REMINDER #4: Stay AWAKE to the MIRACLE of this moment

Advent is here and we are catching glimpses of God through Isaiah's visions of a King and a Kingdom. In our first week we see God's dream for God's city on earth as it is in heaven. The challenge, of course, is that our cities don't much look like this. But hope doesn't let the darkness of how things are overshadow our vision of what will be. Isaiah's glimpse at God's city is also an invitation for us to walk in the light of tomorrow today. (This message was a part of our 5th Saturday family worship gathering so you might hear some interaction from the Neighborhood Kids!)

SLIDES--

// Hope doesn't let the darkness of how things are overshadow our vision of what will be.

// CORE IDEA: Isaiah's glimpse at God's city is also an invitation is to walk in the light of tomorrow today.

// SCRIPTURE FOCUS: Isaiah 2.1-5

// Can we see a world where God will be THE God and God's way will be THE way?

// How would people's lives be different in a city with God at the center?

// "PALAS POR PISTOLAS" (2008) by artist Pedro Reyes

// Can we see community in place of division? Can we see building up instead of tearing down? Can we see peace instead of war?

// Can we LIVE in community in place of division? Build up instead of tear down? Bring peace instead of war?

// ISAIAH 2.5 (NIV): "Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord."

When Jesus heals 10 lepers on the margins of society, 90% of them kept on walking away from Jesus and back to their lives. Sometimes it's so easy to be happy for the gifts that we forget to thank the Giver. This is why it's so important to stop and say "Thanks" for who Jesus is and what Jesus has done. What does Jesus mean to you? When was the last time you told Him? When was the last time you told someone else about what Jesus has done for you? There's no time like the present. Allow yourself to stop, be surprised again, and say "Thank you."

SLIDES--

// FOCUS SCRIPTURE: Luke 17.11-19 (Common English Bible)

// In our story tonight, the Samaritan "Foreigner" is the example, not the enemy.

// Jesus is present in places we feel uncomfortable.

// Jesus is approachable for people we keep at arm's length.

// Jesus is merciful to those with nothing left.

// Jesus is surprising to all those who put him in a box.

// What’s more surprising -- the fact that this one outsider returned to praise God and say “Thanks”? Or the fact that 9 others didn’t?

// Jesus is sending us with a story of gratitude to tell.

// QUOTE from Martin Copenhaven in "This Odd and Wondrous Calling" -- “As I am about to leave, there is something I want to tell you. I want to tell you what Jesus means to me. I want to share my belief that everything depends on him. I want to urge you to learn from him. I want to assure you that you can lean on him in times of trouble. I want to ask you to listen to his words of challenge. I want to tell you that I believe that you can entrust your life to him. I want to affirm that he is Lord of this church, and that in his name you are freed to love one another and empowered to share that love with a hurting world. I want to profess that, though once people could not look at the face of God and live, now we are invited to look at the face of God in him, in Jesus, and live as we have never lived before. He is Emmanuel, God with us, God with us all, whether we are together or apart. That’s what it’s all about."

// QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: What has Jesus most been for you this year? When was the last time you told someone about something God has done? When was the last time you told someone about what Jesus means to you? What does Jesus mean to you?

Before the 10 commandments, before the 603 other laws, before a Temple or a sacrificial system or a monarchy...there was a Voice. There was a Voice calling and leading a newly liberated people. The Voice is pulling them along like a gravitational force toward life. But in those early days, the Voice must be heard in the wilderness, far away from comfort, rest, or quick-fixes. The Voice that called an ancient people known as "The Ones Who 'Pass Over'" is still calling us to take a step toward living water.

SLIDES--

// SCRIPTURE FOCUS: Exodus 15.25-27

// CORE IDEA: This is the challenge of trusting in the in-between: to be a people who listen to His Voice & walk in His Way.

// The in-between is exactly what God's using to form us.

// What if real trust is only shaped by life in the wilderness?

// Is my circumstance in the in-between the *only* reality? Or is there something deeper at work?

// Obedience to God must always be rooted in relationship with God.

// QUOTE (Referenced but not read in the message) by THOMAS CAHILL in "The Gift of the Jews" -- “If God--the Real God, the One God--was to speak to human beings and if there was any possibility of their hearing him, it could happen only in a place stripped of all cultural reference points. Where even nature (which was so imbued with contrary, god-inhabited forces) seemed absent. Only amid inhuman rock and dust could this fallible collection of human beings imagine becoming human in a new way. Only under a sun without pity, on a mountain void of life, could the living God break through the cultural filters that normally protect us from him…We cannot know how many Sumerian businessmen God may have tried to speak to before Abram heard his voice. Nor can we know how many Hebrews, engaged in building Egyptian cities like Ramses, may have heard a troubling voice before they flicked it away like a fly and returned to their bricks. But Moses, building on the cherished ancestral stories of a God who spoke to men, is able to add new definition and concreteness of detail to this revelation--of a God who leads his pilgrim people, refusing to desert them despite their appalling limitations.”

// The Hebrew understanding that the Law not just the way of life but the way to life.

// God doesn’t cause all things but God does work all things toward good.

// The only way to survive in the wilderness is to camp near the water

Many of us live our lives feeling like we're "in between." We're not where we've been but we're not yet where we want to be. The in-between isn't always fun, but the in-between does form us into who we're becoming. Nowhere in Scripture is this more evident that in the wilderness wanderings of the newly-birthed tribe of Israel. They're in between the initial rescue and the ultimate rest that was promised. In the meantime, however, all they see is desert, dehydration, and death. But what if real trust, gratitude, and maturity are only shaped by our "wilderness" experiences? What if there is another reality beyond the reality you're experiencing in your present circumstances? Isn't that worth exploring in the in-between?

SLIDES--

// SCRIPTURE FOCUS: Exodus 15.22-25

// CORE IDEA: We live of our lives in between the initial rescue and the ultimate rest.

// REFLECTION: What are your "If-then's" or your "Will-when's"? What's unrealistic about judging yourself against the "5-year-more-mature" version of you?

// What if real trust is only shaped by life in the wilderness?

// Generations of the faithful attest to the 2 greatest factors in formation: Great LOVE and Great SUFFERING.

// God is responsive -- giving us what we need when we need it( and he never runs out of what we need).

// ISAIAH 41.17-18 (NIV) -- “The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. But I the Lord will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs."

We officially became The Neighborhood Church in November of 2016. Listen in as we share stories of what God has done in our midst as we've followed Jesus together. You'll hear from Pastor Adam, Karla Kemper (Preschool Ministry Director), Robin Riddel (Elementary Ministry Director), Jason Knight (Student Ministry Director), Tobi Brooks (Deacon), and Amy Conn (Deacon).