January 4, 2020
Believers Church
Pastor Mark shares the wisdom of Proverbs in this sermon as it pertains to people and relationships. Perhaps you will discover something about yourself and others that might change the way you do life and relationships in the future.
To watch other sermons in this series, visit this page.
For the audio of this sermon, visit this page and click on audio.
For more sermons by Mark Driscoll, visit his website.
January 1, 2020
Believers Church
Ok…so I’m a bit uneasy. Perhaps knowing that fact does little to endear myself in the hearts and minds of my church brothers and sisters. I guess I feel like as the Pastor that I am supposed to be the bastion of enduring strength.
As I look out “across the river” at 2020, I wonder now where we are to go from here. Is it our destiny as a church to plod down that well-paved road of religion in America? It’s not that I am disappointed in how far we have come over the past 30 years as a church. Nor am I saddened by the lack of advancement into the territory of the enemy. It’s really not that at all. In fact, the journey has been extraordinary! Yes, bumpy for sure, but what a ride!
It’s more of a trepid feeling of the future, really. The idea that it would be very easy now to settle into a spiritually comfortable rocker on a porch somewhere and wait for Jesus to come pick us up. But I also have a real sense that there is more to do. MUCH more to do really! Maybe it’s my age and strong desire to finish well, but I don’t want to rest and I still have fight inside me. But is that how my church family feels?
Over the past year it seems on various levels and multiple platforms that God has been questioning us as to our personal and individual lifestyles. We’ve talked a lot recently as a church body about simplicity and priorities, but has His message gotten through? After all, the pull of the world is strong, and our tendency will always be that we deserve our comforts and possessions. So we indulge and we accumulate. And over time…subtly and quietly we start to look just like the world. We dress the same, drive the same cars, listen to the same music, and watch the same movies. We raise our kids the same… (failing at the same rate), our marriages are the same, our vacation time is the same, our houses look the same, our time and priorities are spent the same. Most of all, just who is our model? Because most often the ‘bar’ is set by the next guy in the pew beside us! 2 Corinthians 10:12 (NLT) speaks of such saying “But they are only comparing themselves with each other, using themselves as the standard of measurement. How ignorant!”
Somewhere along the way…if we are under the belief that we are actually still in the game, we have to stop and evaluate. And most of all, be honest with ourselves…
There are many “mirrors” that we can utilize in scripture for this task. One of which is in Luke 7…the story of Jesus’s visit to the house of the Pharisee. Jesus was “in the house” but it wasn’t the Pharisee who was receiving the kudo’s… it was a woman who had every reason to see herself us the last in line for the attention of the Son of God. Verses 37 and 38 tell us that “she brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil… and stood at His feet behind Him weeping. She began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil.”
I wonder how long it has been that each of us have put ourselves in her shoes? No, not philosophically, but in reality! How long has it been since you embraced such a radical manifest of love toward our redeemer? Or maybe…there is no ‘radical’ left in you? Do we remember…like that woman, the magnitude of what we were forgiven of? Have we embraced a soft “suburban-style” faith?
Recently Vice President Mike Pence’s gave the commencement address at Liberty University where he warned his audience they’d leave Liberty to live and work in a country that doesn’t particularly like them:
“My message to all of you in the Class of 2019 is — derives of the moment that we’re living in today. You know, throughout most of American history, it’s been pretty easy to call yourself Christian. It didn’t even occur to people that you might be shunned or ridiculed for defending the teachings of the Bible.
But things are different now. Some of the loudest voices for tolerance today have little tolerance for traditional Christian beliefs. So as you go about your daily life, just be ready. Because you’re going to be asked not just to tolerate things that violate your faith; you’re going to be asked to endorse them. You’re going to be asked to bow down to the idols of the popular culture.” [Vice President Pence via The White House]
Sadly, Christianity as a movement has largely already “bowed down to the idols of popular culture.” We have essentially made ourselves comfortable in a world that is ok with your faith as long as you don’t open your mouth about it. Are we ok with simply “fading away?”
“Give me one hundred men who love only God with all their heart and hate only sin with all their heart and we will shake the gates of hell and bring in the kingdom of God in one generation.”
— John Wesley
Pastor TIM
December 28, 2019
Believers Church
Who doesn’t love field trips? Getting outside of the classroom (so in our case, the house!) to explore, learn, and grow through hands-on activities with friends is a highlight of school for us. But as a homeschooling mom who isn’t great at dreaming up, planning, and executing excursions on my own, I am especially thankful for our homeschool group.
We have packed in a lot of adventures already this fall. Sometimes we all pile into the church van which is always fun. The kids feel a bit like they are riding in a school bus, and it is somewhat akin to playing the game of sardines, especially when you consider there are typically 5 or more car seats involved! Here are a few highlights from the semester.
On a hot Tuesday in September, we caravanned over to Willow River State Park and Nature Center in Hudson. After hiking around a bit, we had a geocaching lesson with one of the park naturalists. She taught us how to use handheld GPS devices and led us on an excursion where the kids successfully found two caches! We enjoyed a picnic lunch together and then hiked to Willow Falls. The waterfall was beautiful and the mist refreshing on a hot day!
In October, we packed into the church van and drove south to Alma, WI to visit Castlerock Museum. What an impressive place! We saw arms and armor from as early as ancient Greece to the early modern period and even got to try on chain mail!
November brought us downtown for a tour of Westconsin Credit Union. It’s fun for our kids to see church friends in their work environment. Danielle H. and another employee led us on a tour through all the departments with scavenger hunts in hand. Some of our favorite parts were getting to operate the pneumatic tubes at the drive-up windows and playing coin bingo!
We gathered together in December for a woodworking lesson with Tavis, where each child built their own birdhouse – just in time to use as Christmas gifts! Skills like hammering, measuring, and tracing were learned by some and practiced by all.
Last but not least, we snuck in an extra December lesson on the human body while Matt was in town. He introduced us to Organella (ask one of the kids about her!) and taught us about what our organs do. We also got to make lungs using paper cut-outs, straws, and sandwich bags! Matt tied it all together by sharing 1 Corinthians 12:27. We are each part of the body of Christ and have an important role to play, just like each organ in our body has an important job to do!
On behalf of all the families who participate in the homeschool group, we are thankful for all of these learning opportunities and especially for all of you who helped to make them happen!
December 25, 2019
Believers Church
Merry Christmas from the Philippines! Read the latest Shofar Mission Cebu update to see what God is doing in the Philippines.
The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of preparing for the next team to arrive. They will land in just a few days, then we’re in for an excursion around the island for Ministry Training Institute and Women’s Discipleship Classes. We’re excited for them to arrive and ask that you’d pray for those we’ll be ministering to! As always, we are seeking to build the Kingdom and bear fruit that remains. In addition to the classes, we will be doing some advance work for the 2020 teams, teaching a few Exploring Creation Science classes, and hopefully installing new antennas for Street Level Radio.
Over the past few weeks, we wrapped up the semester and the Discipleship Explored series at our weekly Street Level Ministries meetings. We also had a movie night with the students before we all went our separate ways for Christmas break. Even though classes ended a few weeks ago, we have been able to spend a lot of time with the students through Word on the Street Magazine service, meeting up for lunch, and even surprise visits to the office. God continues to knit this little community together, and we’re eager to see who He’ll put in our path next semester. Please pray for the students to remain close to God as they return to their families for a few weeks, and to come back refreshed and ready to participate in His mission on their campus.
Would it be an oxymoron to say that things keep evolving in the world of Exploring Creation Science? Well, even though classes aren’t in session right now, that doesn’t mean things have slowed down at all. Over the past few weeks, there have been various meetings with school administrators to plan schedules for the next semester. God has even opened the door for lessons to be taught for the first time at a public high school! With that comes a variety of new challenges. Lessons are being adapted and developed to answer questions and challenge students who may be very skeptical of our God’s good design in creation. If you’re curious to know more, visit the new webpage for this branch of Shofar Mission!
December 22, 2019
Believers Church
Winter is now back. Nehemiah has been busy keeping our church warm during these cold days. We utilized a Saturday and several work nights by removing and replacing window screens and storm windows. Other projects included working with all four of the window air conditioner units by removing and storing them away until next summer. Next we added some plastic here and there and even did some work to keep our gutters from freezing up. There has also been an upgrade with one of the furnaces because the old one simply wore out. Perhaps the biggest improvement was modifying and installing a new stage door on the west side of the church. It replaced the old original door which was looking quite weathered. Hopefully, that will help cut down on those nasty cold winter drafts we get in the sanctuary.
Other projects that we have finished this last summer/fall would be installing showers and drains in our new church campground shower house. We performed some servicing to one of the washing machines in the Street Level house. There was a little component added to the coffeehouse trailer that helps assist how smoothly the water flows out of the tap. Gotta have good water pressure in there right? The cleaning closet next to the ladies’ room was reorganized, painted, and upgraded with new shelving and a door header. Nehemiah installed a new air conditioner in the third level of the church to help keep it cool up there on those hot summer days. Lastly, the coffeehouse kitchen exhaust fan motor was also replaced. That’s one of Nehemiah’s fortes in our fellowship. Replace, maintain, and improve the materials God has blessed us with.
Over the next several months Nehemiah is planning to renovate another bathroom in the Street Level house. One bathroom has already been renovated this last winter. We are currently working on finishing up some bookshelves for the front entrance of the church. There is some landscaping, tuck pointing, and other plans for this upcoming spring as well. Nehemiah is thankful to serve our church flock as well as our Lord and savior Jesus. He’s the reason all of this even takes place. Have a Merry Christmas and enjoy celebrating the birth of Jesus.
December 19, 2019
Believers Church
Find the latest news from the JFBelievers church plant and Street Level college ministry in River Falls, WI.
The semester finished out this week with a Christmas party. It was a chance for the students to have fun and fellowship during a week of finals. We participated in worship, bingo, and Matt from Duluth joined us and lead us in a short devotional.
The majority of the students that are a part of Street Level go home for winter break, so we will not be meeting for the next few weeks. January 28th is when our first meeting of second semester will begin.
On Sundays, we continue going through the book of 2 Corinthians discussing things like what Godly regret is and being generous with what God has given us.
Some other things we did included a holiday pot luck, and Brittany and Laura joined us for one of the studies while back visiting from the Philippines. We hope to do some community outreaches during the next month.
This has been the month of fellowship with pot lucks and parties. We also had our Third Place holiday pot luck at the coffeehouse. There were a number of people that joined us from the community. We even met some new people.
This month in the coffeehouse we started serving our new winter drink special the pistachio mocha and hot chocolate. We also have had some additional merchandise that was carried back with the last missions team available. We continue to have regular customers and meet new people.
