Easter

This is our first Easter together as a community doing church in a new way. Our leaders have been fasting for this weekend and for our church. Many are inviting their friends. Here is what people who come can expect.

· God will be there. He says we will seek him and find him when we search for him with all of our hearts (Jeremiah 29:13). We have been asking him for weeks to move in our Easter service and we believe he will.

· Eternity is on the line. Some will attend for whom eternity weighs in the balance. People used to go to gladiator events to watch people die. We go to Easter services to watch people come alive.

· Easter is about now! It is not just about going to heaven when we die because of the resurrection. Heaven is the presence of God. Jesus died so that we could taste heaven now. He died to begin a whole new age and the restoration of all of creation now. Easter is relevant to business, art, education, justice, marriage, family, everything! Everything we do is a part of God’s new creation begun in Christ.

· Its’ the best party in town. Easter is the super bowl of celebrations. Saturday night we will celebrate reconciliation with God, the fact that the Lord of our world and universe has been named and he is Jesus, and that the pressure is off. We do not have to suck everything we can out of this life because it is the beginning not the end.

· Our kids and students will get in the rhythm with us. What if the highlight of the year for our kids was Easter rather than Christmas? Christmas gets a few pages of ink in the New Testament. Easter gets pages and pages. It is clear that Easters is more important to God than Christmas. What if we trained our kids, now, to think and feel this way?

Let’s pray like crazy this week and lets invite everyone we know. And let’s come prepared to celebrate the greatest and most hopeful event in the history of the world!

Serving the Homeless

As a Denver church we serve together once a month. We are serving 150-200 homeless people tomorrow. From a financial perspective and a church growth perspective this is suicide. You miss an offering and you miss a worship service that could build momentum. So why are we doing this?

Because our mission is to worship God, grow together and serve the world. We live in a fast paced society and if we do not take something off of the normal church schedule, such as a worship service, then many who would serve will not serve because of a lack of time.

Because we grow when we serve. Jesus told us that the greatest among us will be the servant of all (Matthew 20). Serving others is a spiritual practice that moves our hearts from self-centeredness to other-centeredness. Serving therefore makes us more like our teacher – Jesus.

Because we see Jesus when we serve. Jesus said, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.” A friend of mine visited Mother Teresa many years ago. He told her he wanted to see Jesus. She put the head of a man with AIDS in this lap and said, “Meet Jesus.” He was never the same after that and now leads an organization that helps the poor all over the world.

Because it costs us something. One of the words for worship in the Bible is liturgia. It means “service.” We worship God when we serve. King David once said, “I will not sacrifice to the Lord, my God, burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” Serving others is an act of worship that requires sacrifice. It is deep worship.

Because this weekend is Palm Sunday. We remember that Jesus road into Jerusalem to save those on the margins of society as well as those at its center. Most of those who laid palm branches before him were poor. We will celebrate Palm Sunday weekend by ministering to those Jesus spent the majority of his time with.

Because it makes us feel good. Few things are more satisfying in life than having someone who has had a hard life look you in the eyes and say, "thank you for taking the time to listen to me." What a great feeling!

Why go to a worship gathering?

Do you ever wonder if you should go to a worship service at a Denver church or just bag it? Can I give you some help with that? Below are five reasons it is better to go than play hookey.

1. It’s not about you! I think Rick Warren said something like that in the first line of The Purpose Driven Life and it became one of the best selling books of all time. It is a relief to know it is not about us. There is something really freeing about that. When we worship with others we realize our life is about God and blessing the people he has placed in our lives. It is not about us. That is so freeing!

2. You feel more a part of things. When you don’t go you lose touch with people, the vision of the church and you start to wonder if people care about you. They do care, but like you they are super busy and it is easier for them to let you know they care if you are there.

3. You grow. God has this surprising way of speaking to us if we just show up. Even if the music is uninspired and the message weak God often tailor makes a moment for us in a worship service that helps us grow. Why does he do this more than in other places? God can meet us anywhere but he is particularly fond of meeting us in gatherings of people focused on seeking him together.

4. Your kids need the consistency. If you have kids they need the consistency of being with other kids and teachers if they are going to experience community. It is not about dropping them off and getting a Bible lesson. Their growth depends on developing relationships with other kids and adults who love them.

5. You are creating a legacy. It takes everyone to make a church a church. Just showing up creates energy. That energy goes beyond us. We can go to church because 2,000 years ago Jesus showed up. After that his disciples showed up. After that those who became their disciples showed up. If we will show up future generations will be the better for it.

Restoration 2.0

This week Restoration is going to version 2.0. We have been experimenting with some different rhythms of gathering to worship and serve and have learned a few things.

We have learned -

1. We love to serve. I have heard this again and again from people. We even have kids telling their parents they love Restoration because they get to serve! In the next two months we will do a Denver Easter feast for the homeless and an extreme makeover project on a house. We now serve on the last Saturday of the month. Maybe we will call it “Service Saturday”? We are also doing a weekly feeding on Thursday mornings. Over time we will have projects every week.

2. We like to be together. We will begin to worship weekly, except for Service Saturday (told ya – catchy heh?). This will give us more opportunities to be together and build momentum as a community. We have had a number of people showing up only to realize they came on the wrong week. Our new rhythm will be much more memorable.

3. We need growth communities. We will launch 17 of these in March. These communities made up of 8-20 people will round us out as a community that desires to see the image of God restored in us all. We will have growth communities for people in various stages of spiritual maturity, spiritual explorers to highly loving Christ followers.

4. We could really use a Family Life Director. I was prayer walking the neighborhood where we gather for worship. As I went by house after house I sensed God saying “you reach these people through their kids.” The sooner we can hire a great FLD and Youth Leader the better so that we can make these ministries fun, warm, inviting and deep.

Bring on Restoration 2.0!

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