This is a post from the Acts 29 North America Director Matt Adair that we thought was great and wanted to share with you: Our life as a church is not limited to our gatherings each week, but the heart and soul of our church takes place when we gather together for God to convince us that he loves us. Here are five ways to transform your Sundays: 1. Take Out The Guesswork Show up every Sunday. Is there ever a week that you don’t need to hear and see and taste and touch the reality of God’s covenant love for you? If you’ve never settled how often you and your family should be part of our weekly gathering, let’s settle it here. Show up every week. Make it a priority. Plan when you’ll be away. Make those times away the exception rather than the norm. 2. Get Ready Show up hungry and rested. Cultivate a real life with God by reading your Bible and praying every day. Love the people God puts around you. Get 7-9 hours of sleep on Saturday. Wake up with time to get ready [and arrive early]. The pursuit of loving God and people will make you hungry. Resting well will help you see and hear how much God loves you. 3. Remember That People Need You One mark of maturity in a church are men and women who know that they add value by their service and their presence. There’s a change of heart from asking ’what’s in it for me?’ to asking ‘how can I help?’ Spiritual grown-ups walk in every week looking for ways to help people follow Jesus, whether that’s serving on a volunteer team to showing up early and staying late in order to take an interest in the lives of other people. When you show up, we’re better for it. When you’re gone, we suffer. 4. Leave It All On The Field There are too many Sundays where my work as a pastor and all the joys and sorrows of my life distract me from the work of worship. I know that I’m being changed by the love of God on a Sunday morning when I listen to what God is saying to me and respond in body and soul with joy, rest, courage and generosity. How do you express joy, contentment, courage and generosity in your best moments? That’s what you are striving to display when we’re together on Sunday. 5. Pray Ask God to powerfully convince you – and everyone else – that God loves them. One of the things that I love about the Scriptures is that God’s consistent message – that he loves us for his glory – is articulated in different ways from multiple perspectives. He is never content to just say ‘I love you’ – he sets aside time every week through different texts and tunes to convince you what is always true and what we find so difficult to believe. The primary work of the church is to follow Jesus by listening and responding to Him. We gather together to build a life based on his love. The choices we make to help each other know how much He loves us will not be wasted.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 18:37:20 +0000