For one of my classes last semester, I had to define what the local church is.  Fo the fun of it, I thought I would share with you what my definition came out to be.

This definition is heavily based on Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears, Vintage Church: Timeless Truths and Timely Methods (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2009), 38. I took a considerable amount of time studying the different elements of their definition and added where I personally thought it might be lacking.  Since I am a member of Mars Hill Church, I wanted to stay as close to Mars Hill Church’s definition of a church and only tweak it a little bit.

The local church is a community of confessing and covenantal believers of Jesus Christ who are organized under Biblically qualified leadership. They regularly gather physically for preaching and worship, and scatter in the unity and power of the Holy Spirit to carry out the mission of God by evangelizing and caring for people everywhere. They observe the Biblical sacraments of baptism and communion, and are disciplined to maintain the purity of the church in order to live out the Great Commandment and the Great Commission to the glory of God.

What do you think?  Would you change anything?  Do you have a working definition of the church?

We ended yesterday with the following definition to answer the questions, “What is a Disciple of Jesus?”

A disciple is someone who is on the path to becoming like Jesus by the grace of God through the power of the Holy Spirit.  As the disciple becomes more like Jesus, they find their identity in Jesus and image Him by worshiping God with all their lives, living in gospel community with other disciples, and going on mission to make more disciples of Jesus.

Let me break down this definition a little bit more.  As the lead singer of Aerosmith, Steven Tyler, sings in his song Amazing, “Life’s a journey, not a destination.”[i] Being a disciple of Jesus has no ultimate connotation that you have arrived in any way.  You see in the Apostle John’s gospel that those who were called disciples were simply on the path to being made into the image of Jesus.  Some only took a few steps, whereas some followed Jesus to their death.  The reality is that being a disciple of Jesus means that you are on the path, following Jesus.

Now like most journeys, there are going to be points of interest along the way (salvation, joining a church, special callings in your life, etc.), but these aren’t the ultimate focus.  The ultimate focus of a disciple is Jesus himself.  A disciple isn’t marked by their experience, knowledge, actions, or expertise.  A disciple is marked by whom they are following.  For a Christian, that is Jesus himself.  Our ultimate goal is to be transformed into the image of Christ.

This isn’t by any merit of our own.  The fact that we are disciples of Jesus is strictly by the grace of God.  It is through the blood of Christ that we are called to be His disciples.  You see this over and over again in the gospels when Jesus called his disciples: they were not called base on merit.  There was simply Jesus’ call into their lives to “follow me.”[ii]

Our growth and progress as we follow Jesus is also nothing for us to boast in either. Sanctification doesn’t happen because of our own will, but by the power of the Holy Spirit.  The Apostle Peter encourages some exiles of gospel in 1 Peter 1:1-2 by telling them:

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood:

May grace and peace be multiplied to you.[iii]

We are called by the grace of God and sanctified by the Holy Spirit to become more and more like the Son of God…Jesus.  This is what it means to be a disciple.

My definition of a disciple ends with the sentence,  “As the disciple becomes more like Jesus, they find their identity in Jesus and image Him by worshiping God with all their lives, living in gospel community with other disciples, and going on mission to make more disciples of Jesus.” 

As a disciple is being transformed into the image of Christ, there are some clear areas in the life that will be transformed.  Disciples will begin to find their identity in Jesus, worship Jesus with all their life, live in community, and be on mission to make more disciples of Jesus.  That is the out powering from who the disciple is.  These are the actions of a disciple. Over the next few weeks we’ll focus on each one of these more.  Until then, I pray that you grow in your walk with Jesus.

[ii] Matthew 4:19, Matthew 8:22, Mark 1:17, Mark 2:14, Luke 1:3, Luke 5:27, John 1:43

[iii] (ESV)

I’ve been reading through C.J. Mahaney’s book Humility with my friend Alf and it has been really good. We both decided that we needed to cultivate a little humility (ok a lot) in our lives. This book has been transformational. C.J.’s insights have opened my eyes to really see how much pride is really in my life.

In the last chapter we read, C.J. wrote about looking for God’s works of a grace in our lives and those that are around us. He talked about how Paul was able to see good things in the church at Corinth even though they were more screwed up than a peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich (my illustration not his). He talked about how only a truly humble person can see the work’s of grace in those that are messed up.

This hit really hard to home for me. I have to admit that I’m a pretty critical person. I’m not very big at looking for the grace in others lives and definitely not in my own life. I’m usually the first person to find faults and then exploit them through veil of sarcasm.

This hit home the other night after church when I was getting a few drinks with my friends at the Copper Lounge. We were all praying for my friend Carl (yes in a bar…and the waitress said it was beautiful) and Carl in turn started to pray for all of us at the table (he’s a great guy like that). He started praying about the miracle that was about to happen in my life and thanking God for the every day miracles in our lives.

It struck me at that moment that God is about to work a miracle in Shannon’s and my life. We’ve been in a little bit of denial that we are going to actually have a kid, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen (place you bet here ). This entire time of Shannon’s pregnancy and the upcoming birth I have been blind to the grace that God has been working in our lives. I have been blind to the miracle that is about happen.

God’s grace is blatantly obvious and I have been blatantly cold to what He is doing. I haven’t been aware of the way that He has sustained us during this time. How He has given us strength. How He has given us rest. How He has provided. How He has been there with us every step of the way and how He will be with us to the end. My eyes have been blind, but now I see (that’s kinda catchy…someone should write a song).

It’s funny how even though we don’t acknowledge God’s grace He still decides to work in our lives. But now that I’m able to see the miracle that is at hand, I have a new sense of excitement that has come over me. I’m waiting for a miracle and that my friends is going to be great thing to see.

This is just a quick post to give you and update on the baby.

Shannon had her regular appointment yesterday with our Midwife.  Things are looking good with the kid.  We got the results back from our last ultrasound and everything looks normal.  He is growing at a normal rate and Shannon is doing fine. Shannon is starting to get a little bit of a tummy, and she is able to feel the baby moving (he’s not big enough for me to feel him move yet).

We are also interviewing a couple of doula’s on Friday (tomorrow).  If you don’t know what a doula is, you can read about it here.  They are awesome!  Thanks for everyone’s prayers and thoughts during this time in our lives.  YOU ROCK!!!

If you haven’t noticed, I made some changes to my website. To the naked eye it might look like I just changed the look of the website around a little bit. But I actually gutted it and started from scratch. The last two days have been pretty crazy.

This all started a few weeks ago when I was talking to my friend Dave Ortega about my blog. You see I had been messing around with my blog for a little over a year now. Dave encouraged me to really take it seriously. So I decided that I would (hence all the posts over the past few weeks). The only problem was that the back end software (Joomla) I was using for the site previously wasn’t made to do blogging (it did the job…but it wasn’t designed for it).So I decided it was time for a change. So I did some research, and switched to WordPress. The past two days I have been spending a fair amount of time uninstalling the old software, installing WordPress, converting the databases of posts, and editing the posts. So far I have been really happy.

There were some small glitches in the process though. I lost all my old comments (there weren’t that many so I’m not put out that much) and I lost some of my posts. If you notice that there is a post that is missing that you really liked, let me know and I will try to recover it for you. There are a few (my BTotD’s) that I’m going to recreate in the upcoming weeks, and I can add your’s to the list. Just leave me a comment.There are also some new features to this site which I hope you enjoy. Let me know what you think. I know so far I’m falling in love with my new site.Come back tomorrow…because we have some big news about the baby….yeah it’s what you think.

So it has been a little while since I posted my first Beer Tip of the Day. So, I thought I better put up another one. Things have been a little hectic and nobody really responded to my first one. I’m also going to add a new feature to the BTotD…homework. So if you like what you are reading let me know and I’ll try to do these more often. So here is today Beer Tip. There is a certain way that you are suppose to pour beer into a glass.

In the last BToD, I told you why you need to drink you beer from a glass, but how are you suppose to pour your beer into that glass?

Good question!!! Here is how:

1. Hold you glass at a 45° angle.
2. Pour your beer aiming at the middle of the wall of the glass.
3. When the glass is half way full, turn the glass to a 90° angle.
4. Continue to pour the beer until the glass if full.

See a video here.

This will give your beer the right mixture of air and beer releasing all these wonderful smells that come along with great beer. These are some just general steps and each glass and beer are a little different (I don’t turn my glass to a 90° angle until the glass is 3/4 full). It will take a little bit of practice, but you’ll get it down.

Homework: Commit to pouring your next 6 beer’s in a glass and seeing how much the flavor changes.Until next time, enjoy your beer.

So yesterday was the largest snow day in Albuquerque in history (well that’s what they said on TV). I’m glad my parents got in before the started closing all the roads. Right now it seems that every road is closed in NM. I-40 is closed basically across the whole state. I-25 is closed. NM 60-84 is closed from Ft. Sumner to Clovis. You can read the whole story here. Read the rest of this entry »