The "Good Life"

Southern California is one of the most beautiful, idyllic places in the nation. Where we call home is sought after by people around our country - even world! We may forget that from time to time, or even take it for granted, but it’s true.

Case in point: Members of my family live just west of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. In their town, today’s high is 38 degrees, the low is 18. Need I say more!?

Our proximity to the beach and year round sunny days have led Southern Californians to be intoxicated with the good life. But Christians are called not to the “good life” as defined by the world around us, but the good life as clarified by Jesus. As he says in the Gospel of John, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (10.10)

The past few weeks, we’ve been exploring the initiatives our leadership are currently focused on: Leadership Development, Reaching the Next Generation, and Renovating our Campus.

But there’s one more: We want to develop a church-wide process of discipleship. We want to be “built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4.13-14). We want to be like “a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither - whatever they do prospers” (Psalm 1.3).

This long-range goal inspires our year’s focus, to go “Deeper Into Community and Further Out in Faith.” As we’ve said, we want to be a church of not only “rows” (where we worship together) but “circles” (in which we share life, fellowshipping and growing together as disciples of Jesus Christ). As we’ve seen in the Gospel of Luke, it’s no mistake that Jesus called unto himself 12 disciples!

In earlier centuries of our nation’s history, most sermons were devotional, motivational, or topical three-point messages followed by a poem! That is until C.I. Scofield, publisher of the Scofield Reference Bible, influenced the evangelical world to use Sunday morning messages not merely for motivation, but to teach the Word of God. We seek to do so each Sunday morning, but believe that one hour a week is not enough to become mature in Christ. We need not only a row, but a circle, a squad, a tribe!

Are you connected in a mid-week Life Group? If not, contact me or Paul. We’d love to get you connected so you can start living the good life!

Pastor Curtis