Tuesday, September 27, 2011

I Love My Church - part 4

The 'church' isn't supposed to be a place where we come to rest and then leave to go about our own business. It is a place where we come to find rest and renewal and then go out to do God's work in the world.

At Live Oak, we want to be a place where people can come to worship, pray, have fellowship and then be sent out into the world to be the hands and feet of Christ. We want to live out our call as God's people on a daily basis, not just a few times a year or once a week. To that end, we are encouraging folks to see themselves as people who are 'sent' by God into the world. It is not just the 'pastors' who are called and sent by God but everyone who believes in God. Everyone who professes themselves to be a Christian is called and sent by God into the world to do ministry.

We will talk more in depth about it but for now, look over the following acronym (BELLS) and start praying that God will help you incorporate it into your daily life. These practices will help you intentionally bring the grace of God into your life and the lives of those around you.

Bless - bless someone three times during the week through a phone call, note, or a kind word. One person in the Christian community, one non-believer, and a spare.

Eat - Go intentionally into three meals this week to share some aspect of God's redemptive love. Your family dinners might be a good place to start for one of them. Again, one person within the Christian community, one non-believer, and a spare.

Listen - Spend one hour a week listening for God's call on your life.

Learn - Read and learn during the week about something that will enrich your life and your walk with Christ.

Sent - Remember that you are sent by God. Each day ask yourself these questions: "Where did I see God working and join with Him today?" "Where did I see God working and ignore Him today?"


I am looking forward to seeing how BELLS changes me and the way I interact with people in my life. If you have a great experience with this, please let me know!

CS

1 comments:

Anonymous September 28, 2011 at 9:57 AM  

I love this acronym ! I want to share that I did the Listen one this past week better than I normally do (when I pray, I usually do all the talking and I don't listen for God). I've been working on forgiveness lately (giving and receiving). Because I was in a more listening place, I heard two messages from God about forgiveness - 1) that I have to forgive, even if the person didn't ask for my forgiveness or apologize; and 2) that I need to stop talking negatively about the incidents, because I need to forgive, and griping about the event means that I haven't forgiven.