Author: Believers Church

January 19, 2019 Believers Church

River Falls Ministry News

Read the latest news from Jesus Fellowship of Believers community ministry and Street Level UWRF campus ministry in River Falls, WI.

Street Level Student Magazine

Over the course of the last few years of ministering on the UW-River Falls campus, we’ve tried several different methods and outlets. For example, one of our most consistent outlets has been a River Falls-specific version of “Word on the Street Magazine”. WOTS, as it’s called, began as Street Level outreach to the UW-Stout campus many years ago. It has always sought to offer readers a challenging perspective on culture and Christianity, as well as offering a regular place to serve.

Similarly, in River Falls the magazine offers an opportunity for students who want to step up and out to do something for the Kingdom. We’re thankful for the common goal it provides a small team of us to work in unison for each issue. In addition, it keeps us “getting out” in the community – at the moment we regularly distribute at 9 different locations in town. Soon, we’ll release the next issue which will have several pages of content from River Falls writers.

Sunday Evening Bible Study

Our Sunday evening Bible study continues ahead each week, meeting at 5pm followed by a meal. We’re currently moving through the book of James, in which we are discussing how to “test” the quality and legitimacy of our faith. For example, last week we read how there is a vast difference between the world’s wisdom and God’s wisdom. James makes it clear that it’s our choice as to which wisdom we pursue. There never seems to be enough time to talk through everything a chapter presents to us each week. However, we do our best to cover the central issues of Scripture and echo it’s invitations and challenges.

What’s Upcoming

On the near horizon, the Spring semester begins here at UWRF. In other words, the town will get busier and louder, and we hope the ministry does as well. Additionally, we are planning to make a substantial shift in our ministerial approach in River Falls. As we pray and follow the Lord into this change, we would ask also for your prayers for discernment, direction, and clarity. More news to come!

River Falls Ministry Online

January 13, 2019 Believers Church

Starting in 2019 JFB Duluth will be seeing an interruption to our regularly scheduled programming. This change will be seen in a couple different ways during our Wednesday evening services. The book of Psalms is split into five separate books and for the past several months we have been working our way verse by verse through the second of those books. In that time we have seen God bring David and the other Psalmists to the highest of highs. We have also seen the lowest of lows. We’ve seen times of great joy, satisfaction and comfort but also severe desperation, anxiety and hardship. You can expect all of this when following God’s lead.

Moving forward we will continue to have nights going through scripture, doing as the apostle Paul and “not shrinking from declaring the whole counsel of God.” We will still have times to discuss and put into practice what we are learning. But we will also have some additions in order to change things up a bit.

Unlocking the Mysteries in Genesis

Every third Wednesday in 2019 we will be going through a video series and discussion looking at the start of it all: Genesis. The questions that the book of Genesis answer are some of the biggest questions ever. They are issues with some far reaching implications. These are questions that deserve thought. We must not assume that we are already believing the truth without some actual thought and concern for why we believe what we believe. If we do so, we are doing ourselves a great disservice.

Many Christians believe in creation for the same reason that many atheists believe in evolution. At some point in their lives someone told them that it was the truth. They didn’t think about it and were not convinced of its validity in their own mind. They simply listened and did as they were told. We need to be thinking Christians. Christians with real answers to real questions. This series will help us with that.

Getting out of the Building

Every once in a while there are months with five Wednesdays rather than the usual four. This year, in addition to the Genesis video series, we are going to take every fifth Wednesday as opportunities to be thrown out of our routine.

God commands to “not forsake gathering together.” We are supposed to be together. We are supposed to have church regularly, week after week, month after month. I’d go so far as to say that it should be a routine of ours. But God is greatly concerned that the regular gathering together that we are commanded to do can easily turn into empty religious routine. It can become a full schedule, but void of life and void of real Christianity. Now this is a matter of the heart. This cannot be avoided by a simple change of schedule, but sometimes a change in our routine is just enough to wake us up if we are thoughtlessly engaged in an autopilot routine.

The fifth Wednesday in January we are going to split up into groups and go out for dinner somewhere in the Twin Ports. This not only shakes up the routine but allows us to casually share a meal together while discussing God and what He is doing. It is another opportunity for us to engage in real communion together. And we will get to be out in the community together. (also who doesn’t like a good cheeseburger)

I don’t know if it okay to write or not… but Wednesday nights have always been a favorite for me. They have been ever since the first Wednesday service I came to at JFB Duluth. It was a Dinner and Book Study night. We read “Radical Together” with the whole group around some pushed together tables. I sat by Matt. We ate tacos. I felt like I was at home, like I was where I was supposed to be, and like God was doing something. Let’s see what He will do with these Wednesdays at JFB Duluth throughout 2019. I’m looking forward to it.

-Pastor Jesse

January 10, 2019 Believers Church

Does love come easy? Should love come easy? No and no. It doesn’t and it shouldn’t…of course not. Right? We’re smart people; we know this. Love takes work, love is “tough”; love hurts! There’s nothing easy about it! Every good Christian knows that Jesus Christ is the epitome of love, and His whole life shows us just how hard love is going to be. We would never expect love to be effortless. We need to love like Jesus, and we are ready to do it! (Theoretically).

In reality, however, our working definition of love is often quite different. Our approach toward relationships betrays a defective understanding of what real love is. We believe that love can be hard, seem tough, and feel painful, but we operate in a way that says love should be easy, exhilarating, and pleasant. We avoid love when it requires too much work, and give up on it if it’s too difficult. We expect love to find us, rather than making any effort to go and apprehend it. When love hurts, we trade it away for a cheap substitute that you can simply “fall” into. We prefer a kind of love that springs up in a moment and makes us feel a certain measure of fleeting delight.

(I’m starting to wonder if we’ve confused love with serotonin).

Priceless love is seen in history

The Bible unveils a mysterious kind of love that seemed to be common among Christ and His Apostles, yet seems to elude modern man. It’s a kind of love so foreign to most of us that we don’t even know what to call it. We mislabel it as “loyalty, commitment, or discipline”, when it’s really none of those things. It’s more, far more. It’s real love. It’s a love so strong, it overpowers the natural instincts of self-interest, self-preservation, and pride. It’s a love so precious, it’s fought to be kept. It’s a love so great, it often gets the one who has it killed.

This is the kind of love that put Jesus on a cross and buried Stephen beneath stones. Love is the real reason that John the Baptist died as young as he did. Love is how James & Peter ended their lives. These guys loved to death, and the love they had was anything but easy, exhilarating, or pleasant. Their love hurt. Theirs was tough. If these men wouldn’t have loved, they wouldn’t have died. None of them. Certainly not like they did.

You’ll know you have real love when neither torture nor death is able to make you trade it away for a certain measure of fleeting delight. You know its real love when it gives up its own life for the sake of somebody else. These guys had love. Earnest love; costly and priceless.

Serotonin shouldn’t be getting the credit for a eulogy like theirs.

Kill the man, confirm his love

Extraordinary love wasn’t the only thing these martyred men had in common. They also had incredibly ferocious enemies. Their love for Christ was deep enough to incense those who had none. Curiously, however, the unstoppable opposition & violence of their foes became the very means by which the extent & sincerity of their love was confirmed. Practically speaking, a love that’s never challenged is a love that’s hard to see, and a love that’s unwilling to die, is a substandard love. Love comes into focus with ever-increasing clarity only as the hatred & hostility against that individual intensifies. Nothing proves the quality of love like dying because of it. Therefore, no one on earth can test the quality of your love better than your enemy can. The properties of genuine love are best revealed in the fiery furnace of animosity.

Aside of Christ, one of the best illustrations of sacrificial love that we have in Scripture, is that of the Apostle Paul. He was a polarizing man. Some loved him, but many hated him. He was harassed, persecuted, and eventually killed, yet still managed to love in spite of it all. He had love for Jesus that exposed latent hatred in others, but didn’t flinch when that hatred rose up against him. Instead, he loved them in return. He wrote, with utmost sincerity, about his personal desire to trade places with the unsaved Jews and go to hell in their stead (Ro.9:2-5). The same men who made Paul the target of their loathing became the target of Paul’s love. Sadly, this kind of love is hard to find, even among Christians.

Cheap love is priceless in our culture

The American church is full of people who will never have the chance to love like this. The reason being, they have no enemies. The love they have for Jesus isn’t deep enough (or visible enough) to incense anybody, and, as a result, no one really opposes them. They get along with everyone. Nobody actually hates them, and, consequently, no one is truly loved by them. Christians in this way, aren’t much different than the world. They go on loving whoever they like, giving their life in small increments, only to those who love them in return. They don’t polarize like Paul and they don’t enrage people like Stephen. They’re nice. All men speak well of them, and Jesus doesn’t like it.

A love so strong, it overpowers the natural instincts of self-interest, self-preservation, and pride…a love so precious, it’s fought to be kept

What would it take for us to love like the people we read about in Bibles & biographies? What do we need in order to live in a way that makes our love more than merely emotional, but visible, so that the whole world sees it, and “knows that we are Christ’s disciples”? Is love like this even possible for people like you and me, or is it only given to guys like Paul & James?

Be assured, it’s not God’s desire that love be withheld from anyone. He doesn’t have a limited supply from which He rations it out only to His favorites. Love like this is available to anybody, in great measure, but it comes at a cost. Real love is expensive. Very expensive. Love like this requires becoming the target of animosity & attack. It will mean suffering injustice, receiving opposition, & enduring persecution. And for that to happen, we’ll need the help of our enemies. We can’t do this without them. If you have no real enemies, it’s impossible to fulfill Christ’s command to love them. And if you only love Jesus secretly, you’ll never have any real enemies. This is where it all begins. Only when we’re hated by the world for our undying, undeniably visible love toward Christ will we have a chance to love like this.

Therefore: Love Jesus passionately, and love your enemies unflinchingly…

(And don’t blame serotonin for what happens next).

  

January 7, 2019 Believers Church

The powerful message that calls us to follow Jesus has never changed. The classic writings of Bonhoeffer’s “Cost of Discipleship” is still very relevant for today. 

Background

Bonhoeffer was surrounded by lukewarm pastors and cultural “Christians” that supported Hitler. To most people in the established German Lutheran church, security and wealth had become more important that God’s Word and faithfulness to Him.

In prison, he was separated from those who, like him, trusted God. Compromise was not an option. He put all his trust in God just as Moses, Joseph, David, Paul and many others did whose faith were deepened when totally separated for God alone.

Cheap Grace

  “The Cost of Discipleship compels the reader to face himself and God in any situation. Bonhoeffer speaks of “Cheap Grace”: preaching forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession. “Cheap Grace” is grace without discipleship. “Costly Grace” is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. “It’s costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.”

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January 1, 2019 Believers Church

Well, that was fast! 2018 was here and gone overnight it seemed. The church, and its pastor, is another year older and a year closer to home. I don’t know that I have gained any wisdom like that of Solomon, but I have garnered some of the same attitudes and cynicism.  Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 1:9 that “History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new.” Yes old king…there really is “nothing new under the sun!”

After nearly 30 years a part of this fellowship, I have noticed that time so often has a way of repeating itself. I often remark from the pulpit that life is so very fast and fleeting…that we all get but “one pass” through it…and we need to make our time count, with zeal and thankfulness. What I usually get back is “blank stares” of seeming “blank understanding.” You know that body pain you felt this year that you never felt before? That’s what I’m talking about.  Ahhh, “tick-tock, tick-tock….”

As Paul sat chained in a Roman prison, waiting for his imminent execution, he wrote to Timothy saying “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.” (2 Timothy 4:6–8)

Paul was confident as he neared the end of his life that he had finished well. Sadly, however, just a few sentences later he had to write concerning one of his coworkers saying “Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica” (2 Timothy 4:10).

So two men who had ministered together — Paul and Demas — mentor and mentoree, both finishing very different than the other.  One endured and finished the race and looked forward to the crown of righteousness. The other man peeled off, deserted his mentor, and was never heard from again. Demas was apparently a promising young man with a promising future, yet as far as we know he did not make it to the end. May we note that the stumbling point was that Demas “was in love with this present world.” Yes…that’s the killer punch…that’s the toxic poison that gets us every time.

I do not pretend to have some magic answer on this issue. But I do know that our walk in Christ cannot ever be static… cannot ever be “level.” Unless we are growing, maturing and advancing today in our discipleship and faithfulness, we are most assuredly slipping backward! We are fighting or we are retreating. We must be more and more in love with Jesus, or we will fall more and more in love with this world.

And so very many folks have ignored those warnings until it was too late and are now essentially wandering around Menomonie like spiritual derelicts… no place to go, no place to call home, and nothing to do accept clutch white-knuckled to their pride. It’s a sad thing to watch as their lives melt away and all that is left is a memory of what used to be! But I do not speak of such with any kind of elitist attitude or an incredulous spirit, but rather with a personal “fear and trembling,” as I know I too must continue to “work out my own salvation.” (Philippians 2:12)

What will 2019 hold for you personally? Will you broaden your world? Reaching out beyond your comfort zone and take on new challenges and therefore new blessings? Pastor John Piper says that he has come to the conclusion that there are four fundamental actions that a person can take to help them finish well. They are:

  1. daily time of focused personal communion with God
  2. daily appropriation of the gospel
  3. daily commitment to God as a living sacrifice
  4. daily firm belief in the sovereignty and love of God

Note that the key word here is “daily.” That’s appropriate, because whenever we speak of time, there is no tomorrow, just “today.” 

My desire for JFB as well as all the souls who make up its community is that we boldly step into the next year… excited and zealous to live large for Christ, and always packed and ready to catch that final flight home…

Php 3:13  “No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead…”

Pastor Tim

December 28, 2018 Believers Church

Exploring the Art of Socialization

“Aren’t you worried about socialization?”  This is probably the most common question most homeschooling families get asked.  What people really want to know is: “How will your child grow up to be a well-behaved, socially-adept, contributing member of society if they don’t know how to interact with others?”.  They assume that because they aren’t interacting with twenty to sixty of their same-age peers on a daily basis, they won’t learn the art of social interaction. They will forever be labeled “socially awkward”.  

Children Imitate Their Parents

First off, let’s ask the question. How much of social-adeptness or ineptness in a growing child, teenager or young adult mirrors their parents?  I mean, let’s face it, we all know public school children or adults who attended public school that tend to fall on the socially awkward side of the spectrum.  Children imitate their parents and so socially-awkward homeschooled kids often also have socially-awkward parents. This could be true of any other character trait that is passed on from parents to children.

Comparing the Hours

Second, the average homeschooler puts in about 25 hours a week in their studies.  This leaves ample time for other activities and events in the community. On any given week, the homeschoolers of JFB spend around 10-15 hours involved in activities outside their house. This includes church services, fellowship times, and our group’s recess and other events.  I’d like to note here that these 10-15 hours are mostly in situations that are parentally controlled. They usually involve same-age peers AND toddlers, teenagers, college students and everyone else on up.

Let’s compare this to the 35 hours a week a public-schooler spends at school.  That’s 1,232 hours a year in situations that aren’t at all controlled (bus, recess, lunch) or controlled by a teacher(s) with a worldview that’s most likely opposite of the parent.  As a result, this would also include spending a significant amount of time with other children whose behavior would be considered quite lacking, social skills included.    

The Most Important Thing

Certainly, there are many homeschoolers who spend most of their time at home that end up lacking in social skills.  A question you should ask is if it is the homeschooling that is causing the social issues? Or could there be other factors that are contributing to the social behavior of the child? Above all, are social skills really the most important aspect of a child’s life anyway.  Isn’t the state of their heart towards God the most important thing?

A big part of our kids’ social development is through our church.  Many of you have taken the time interact with the kids. You sometimes correct them (when needed), teach them and pray for them. A child can learn a lot through multi-generational friends. Thank you for being a big part of the kids’ lives and our lives!

Making the decision to homeschool is not something to take lightly. If you have interest in discussing this or anything from this article please contact us at homeschool@jfbelievers.com. You could also just come talk to me.

-Tiffany