The Perfecting Church

This year’s esteemed panelists will shed light on ways the “Drum Major Instinct” has led to the many disparities and inequities the pandemic and recent political turmoil unveiled, while highlighting the fact that "Everybody can be great because anybody can serve,” as Dr. King famously concluded.

In any partnership, it is imperative we agree on terms. We have heard repeatedly this week “words matter.” As believers, this is not news (life and death are in the power of the tongue) but prayerfully, in the course of the recent and coming messages, we are seeing with more acuity how this Truth matters to you and me.

Could it be that while Donald J. Trump and other nationalist leaders like him were being sworn into office around this country and the world, God was beginning a campaign of His own to make our hearts childlike again? A campaign to show that man apart from Him does not know what greatness is nor have the ability to make anything or anyone great. While man is at work foolishly trying to make himsel...

Greatness and glory are synonymous with God. Some have no desire for greatness or glory, others are obsessed with it. God has purposed us for glory, His greatness to be seen on our lives. He intends for us to be great because He is — and we‘ve been called to collaborate with Him.

Tonight, we begin a journey by stepping into the grace of God that will challenge, shape and guide us throughout this year. The one word that captures what God is saying and revealing is collaboration. There’s so much packed into that one word. Tonight we begin unpacking, as God begins pouring great grace into us — His Church for Collaboration 2021.

It’s true we can’t move forward while looking behind. But often those things behind were preparing us and revealing to us what will be needed ahead. So we look back, but with the awareness that we’re being prepared to press on. The first year of this new decade has shown us much and prepared us for much more.

Beginnings are important to God, you can never ignore them with Him. After all, the first four words of the bible are, “In the beginning God…” Beginnings are often choreographed to help us understand the scale, scope and intent of God’s work, if we just look closely. This is the case with the beginnings of the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ. He started in the manger…now we’re here.

Jesus is not satisfied with us simply no longer being oppressed. Jesus came to commission us, to set others free from oppression. It will never be enough for us to be free from oppression, we must also embrace our calling to set others free. Our on-going freedom is rooted in our on-going freedom fighting. We have been set free and sent forth into the anti-oppression work of Christ.

Since the Garden of Eden, the Kingdom of Darkness has sought to destroy the plans and purposes of God in the earth. As ambassadors of Heaven, our eyes must be opened to recognize the unseen forces working to subvert the will of God. And like Jesus, we are anointed to destroy the works of the devil. We are commissioned to be Troublemakers on behalf of the Kingdom of Light!

Oppression has been a devastating reality on this planet since the Garden of Eden. Oppression began when Satan willfully took a place and position of rulership belonging to God and His representatives agreed to it. All oppression is rooted in Satan causing and exploiting spiritual brokenness between God and His image bearer, mankind. Jesus came to cause good trouble — healing the brokenness and re...

In these dark and perilous times the church must learn how to see and how to function in the grace to open blind eyes. Blindness is a frequent theme in the bible, mentioned directly over 75 times and indirectly throughout the Old and New Testament. Jesus was anointed to bring recovery of sight to the blind and His body, the church is called and anointed to do the same.

Jesus came proclaiming the gospel — the good news of His Kingdom — entering a broken fragmented world and our broken fragmented lives. God’s solution for a world held captive by the inhumane grip of orphans fighting for significance and permanence through empire building, political systems, caste systems, and resource hoarding was and is the gospel. When the Kingdom of God enters our lives and thi...

Since the fall of mankind in the Garden, God has sought to restore His children to relationship with Him, standing up for the poor, marginalized, oppressed, imprisoned, sick and brokenhearted, and standing up to the people, policies, systems and devil causing them. This is the very reason Jesus came, delivering us from the consequences of sin and the systems erected upon them, modeling for His Bod...

The Gospel of the Kingdom was the good news Jesus preached. His Kingdom coming had profound impact, reconciling and restoring mankind back to God, ushering in a Kingdom way of seeing God, seeing others and seeing ourselves. The Kingdom of God coming, first and foremost, was and is good news to the poor.

The good news of the Messiah's coming — the Promised One — ushers in good trouble. It upsets the status quo when the One who owns it all, rules it all and controls it all, comes to redeem and reconcile it all. And the gospel of the Kingdom has come to upset the existing state of affairs. Jesus and His body are anointed to bring trouble — Good Trouble.

Jesus has many names that reveal His character and the nature of His ministry; the Lamb of God, the Author and Finisher of our faith, the I Am and the King of Kings are a few. Although it’s not explicitly in the biblical text, Jesus has another name that is equally true about His character and the nature of His work — The Great Emulsifier. Jesus’s life and cross bring things together that are oppo...

In light of it all and in the face of it all, don’t forget the sovereign God — He sees further than we can see; He knows in ways that surpass human understanding; He loves with a depth that exceeds our love; and His eternal purposes go beyond our temporary lives in the earth. God

You may be feeling challenged, overwhelmed, stressed or even depressed by the current affairs in our society. Trusting God and remaining faithful when He initiates or allows difficult situations to accelerate His purposes is essential for the believer.

The Sovereign God has promises ordained for each of our lives and for each promise, there is a process of manifestation He has determined. Though it often differs from that which we would have chosen ourselves, we can confidently trust in the Master’s process for His masterpiece.

Life from an eternal perspective causes us to see and experience day to day in a profoundly different way. Things that seem insignificant are significant and things that appear to be of little value are the key to it all. Like a good cook knows not to throw away the scraps — life from an eternal perspective reminds us not to judge useless, what others wish they could forget or just get beyond.

Life with the sovereign God brings moments and seasons where it appears He's for someone or something other than us. In fact, there will be times when everything happening seems to prove, God is against us. The eternal truth of the matter is, God is absolutely for us. He’s just for a version of us that is united with and yielded to Him. Because we were made by Him, for Him and unto Him, the best v...

Kitchens are places of preparation and transition. Kitchens are where raw ingredients are made into finished products. Kitchens can be messy. Often, it seems the best chefs, have the messiest kitchens. With a focus on the end product, they give their greatest attention to the outcome, the end point, not the messy and often difficult details along the way. We live chopped lives with messy kitchens.

The glory of the triune God is that He is diverse yet one. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are distinct and unique yet completely united as One. We are made in His image male, female, every culture, every ethnicity and we reflect His image and glory when we are united. Our division denies the glory of God and leaves men, women, black, white other cultures and nations fighting f...

What if our purpose in life was inseparably connected to our response to the evil and adversity we face in life? So often we believe our purpose is wrapped in ascending to some adversity free experience in this world, but that view isn’t consistent with scripture. The question isn’t will experience evil and adversity, the question is do we believe our faithfulness to God’s ways and words will deli...

We tend to struggle with the unknown, grey, and in-between. We want to know what God is doing and we want the details. But the truth is we can’t handle the full picture. We wouldn’t want it. We wouldn’t understand it. We wouldn’t pursue it. God never tells us all we want to know about what He’s doing. So we must learn to trust Him in the midst of chaos, suffering and difficulty — knowing He’s good...