More than a forgotten element

If you are at all connected with the modern church and the rhetoric surrounding it you are most likely aware of the discussions concerning what is missing from our present body. Men and women inside the church have spouted many reasons things are not right, a lack of social justice, lack of community, too seeker sensitive. You have probably felt the same thing about the church at one point or another, and maybe you felt that one of the reasons already listed is the missing factor in the modern church. You are probably right the church is missing community, some churches are too seeker sensitive, and even social justice is sometimes neglected; but I am not sure that is truly the heart of the issue. I think if we look into the churches in the New Testament will we see community and social justice, but I think if we look deeper and compare our present church to the original body we will see that what we are missing is much more grave and tragic.

All of us have probably had the feeling something is missing but could we ever imagine the magnitude of what we are truly feeling? I don’t think we have, otherwise what is missing wouldn’t be. I believe (I am not the first to hold this opinion) that what the modern church is missing is the Holy Spirit. I think as Francis Chan calls Him, He is the forgotten God. Can you image that, forgetting the Holy Spirit? If we are just thinking about it, it seems impossible that we have forgotten God, but it seems true. How often do we think of the Holy Spirit as God? How often do we think of Him as a distinct person? How often do we think of Him as a member of the trinity? How often do we meditate on the concept that the Holy Spirit is living inside of us, God in us? How often do we think of Jesus words in John 14:7 when he says that it is for our good that He goes away so that the Holy Spirit might come?

Jesus called the Holy Spirit the comforter and counselor, imagine that! Jesus is saying that it is good that He leaves us so the Holy Spirit can be our counselor and comforter. If I were to ask if you would like to have Jesus standing by your side to comfort you and counsel you, you would respond with a resounding yes! Do we think of our relationship with the Holy Spirit in the same way? If we don’t it is time that we do, because Jesus said we could, and we should.

I always knew the facts about the Holy Spirit but when you truly meditate on Him and all He desires to do, it is mind blowing. I encourage you to spend some time meditating on the Holy Spirit and the role He desires to play in your life.

I believe that if the we were to recognize our need for the Holy Spirit and submit to Him than all the other things we feel are missing would show up in greater supply. The Holy Spirit deepens our love for the lost and for each other, He increases our understanding of God, and because of Him we can have a more intimate relationship with God. All things the modern church is missing.

Think and pray on this, and tell me what you are feeling.

Read these Bible passages and just ponder Him.

John 14,15,16

I Corinthians 2:9-11

Romans 8:16

Romans 8:26-27

Good Friday

This week as most of you know is Holy Week, the time from Palm Sunday to Resurrection Sunday where we worship Christ for the sacrifice He made for us.

Many people dont emphasis this week because they believe we should honor Christ and His sacrifice every week, and I agree, we should. But this week is beautiful, and many people spend more time meditating on Christ now than they will at any other time during the year. Which is a good thing no matter how you look at it, the more we think about Christ's love for us, the more it saturates our hearts and deepens our love for Him. Maybe if we spend more time thinking about Jesus during Holy Week, we will start to think about Him more during the rest of the year. I don't really know, but it seems to me many hearts are tender during Holy Week, I know mine is.

If you feel as I do about Holy Week Gospel Fellowship is holding a few events that you can come to.

Tonight Gospel Fellowship community church will be holding a prayer meeting I would love it if you would attend. It will be an awesome time to come and worship, meditate, and pray with other believers. We take time to recognize our dependence on Christ and on His sacrifice, and we worship Him for making it so willingly. This prayer meeting will be at 7:00pm tonight.

Also this Good Friday our College/High School team will be doing a service, nothing big just a small service to worship and focus on the crucifixion, again I would love for you to come. It will start at 6:00pm and generally ends at 9:00pm.

As always we will be having our worship Celebration on Sunday, this as always is a great place to come and fellowship, worship, and learn. Our service start at 10:00am and generally get over around 11:30am.

Even if you are not attending services through the week, I would suggest taking some time to just meditate and think about what Jesus has done for us so that we can have a real relationship with the Father. He expressed His love for us, we can easily express ours for Him by just thinking about Him more than normal. I am not saying that all He asks of us in return is to just think of Him, but it is a pretty good start.

Friday Night Mission Teams

Yesterday, Friday, Gospel Fellowship had its fourth official College/High School mission team. We launched our "living room" and had our worship and conversations in there. It was an awesome time. I taught on learning to pray from the Psalms, which kicked off a short series we are doing on communing with God. Next week I will teach on worship than Bible reading and finally fellowship. Each week we hope to be able to practice all of those things in our group and foster a love for them so that we begin to do it every day.

Love to see you all their next week on Friday the schedule is on the side of the blog <-------------------
Check it out!

GF mission team

The church I attend has just opened our college/career mission team to High school students. We had our first official meeting after the joining last week and tonight will be the second. The first event was awesome and I am expecting an even better showing tonight.

Last week I had the pleasure of leading our group and I talked about enjoying God, tonight I again get to lead and we will be talking about being fathered by God (has zero to do with the book). If you are in College or high school and have nothing to do tonight I suggest joining up with our group, its a ton of fun and we will be going out after the devotional to spend some time together. There is a few links on the side of the blog to our church website the address is all over it.

Check it out, hopefully I will see you there tonight.

Listening to a message at Gospel Fellowship on Baptism. What it is and what it is not, my pastor is wearing board shorts, some black under armor shirt, and tivas. There will be a baptism, the tivas are not normally his attire

Notable comments:

"a bath and a red ribbon will not make a pig a poodle."

I should probably put my laptop away before my girlfriend's eyes bore through to my brain.

Leadership Evaluation: Jason Epps

For my Introduction to Evangelism class I had to interview a church pastor/leader and write an evaluation on their leadership. Below is my evaluation of Dr. Jason Epps my pastor, mentor, and friend. I hope while reading this you take the image of a biblical leader I have presented and use it to view the leaders in your life. Be sure you are submitted to a leader who leads consistently and biblically a leader who sees others before themselves and acts upon that. If you are not involved in a ministry with a leader who can positevely answer these questions I encourage you to find a ministery that is, and check out www.gospelfellowship.com.
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1. Are you leading “Consistently and Biblically?” To answer this and the following questions I interviewed my teacher, mentor, and pastor Jason Epps. He planted Gospel Fellowship the church I now attend. A few years ago I began going while the church was meeting in his living room. However, I met him when he was a teacher and campus pastor at the private Christian school I attended.
“Jason do you feel you are leading “Consistently and Biblically?” As always Jason mulled over the question I had presented to him looking for the most accurate and honest answer. After a short span of time Jason answered, “Yes.” Following a short period of silence I asked Jason to elaborate on how he could be so sure his leadership was consistent and biblical. He explained to me that he has strived to glean every aspect of his leadership from scripture and that even deeper than his efforts, God’s word has worked to mold him as a leader. Jason continued to show me this through specific examples; from the way he ministered, the lifestyle he lived, and the way the church operated. The Bible is the grounds for all activity at Gospel Fellowship like it is in his life, the church operates as a Christian should seeking the lost, teaching/training, and sending. Also he went on to say that no one is above the law of God’s word, everyone is held accountable. He believes it would be a disservice to be anything else. Consistency is shown in the doctrine the church and Jason are established on, a belief system coming solely from the Bible. It was no easy thing establishing ministry belief systems. It is something he studied for years before he ever started the church. But he knew when he had prayed and studied them through that they came from God’s word and he could bet everything upon them.
Reid says on pp. 333 that leadership is defining reality, and that is what Jason does. By basing his life on the study of the Bible he has been able to stand strong on his convictions, and hold himself and others to God’s law.

2. Are you leading with “Confidence in God’s Call?” When Reid is talking about Timothy’s enormous task I can’t help but think of Jason. Living in Utah presents obstacles to church growth that few churches in other states will face. We live in an active mission field dominated by the Mormon religion. Evangelism is tough and growth is slow. Jason knew these things when he started Gospel Fellowship, but growth isn’t the point, fulfilling Gods call is. Like Timothy, that is what keeps Jason strong.
Problems don’t just come from the outside though and like John Morgan’s story that Reid talks about on pp. 328, Jason has felt his share of criticism from inside the church. He told me that, it is the hardest thing to endure animosity from the same people you are trying to serve and love. It becomes much easier though when you are able to rest in God’s call on your life. If you are leading biblically, you can be assured your doing what God asks of you and that’s all you can do. We must remember that Jesus did the ultimate action of service and still is not accepted by many. His action is not voided by the response of the people, Jesus death and resurrection is still a sweet victory if only two percent of the world accept Him.

3. Do you lead in “Humility?” “Tough question.” He says after pondering for a moment. I like the response John Morgan gave on pp. 330. It defines nicely the way Jason leads. Jason’s definition of humility has changed my life, and seeing him live it out has enforced its power. Jason ministers and leads worship at our church without complaint, which with an injured vocal cord can make any other vocal action of the day difficult. “Humility is just seeing other people as more important than yourself and having a willing spirit to serve,” Jason says. It’s hard not to be humble though if you are constantly on your face before God. Seeing and being reminded of God is an easy way to be humble and stay humble.
Humility is about focusing on others and allowing yourself to not be the hero every time. If you are serving the next thing is to focus on others, spend time with your congregation and put the spot light on them from the pulpit. It is easy to use examples from your own life when ministering. It is better to use a story from someone in the church that has overcome a similar situation. You can never train other leader unless you are humble and it would be impossible to grow a church without the leaders you have, to be humble.

4. Are you leading others to “Greatness for God?” To this question Jason just looked at me and replied “yes”, and said his example was our relationship. The quote Reid used of Goethe on pp. 331 is more than appropriate for the way Jason sees people. Just like Jason said my life is the perfect example, Jason saw me for what I could be and thankfully not what I was. As with me, he has worked tirelessly with many others to mentor them and bring them closer to God. He reminisced a little about the different stages of my growth with him, and we talked about the process of fostering patience. Everyone is called to great things in God, but few are willing to fight to get there, Jason hopes to foster patience so they can reach that greatness.

5. Are you leading by the “The Strength of your Character?” That’s tough to judge for Jason. He tries to lead by example but whether or not his character is leading is up for others to decide. It is important that your character is molded in the image of Christ, then people can and will follow. Striving to have a strong character is just part of pursuing God though, and Jason feels it is important that people remembers he struggles like they do. Ministers are often put on pedestals and if they fall people leave the church or worse Christianity, but that is not what should happen. Pastors are men and yes they are held accountable, but temptation is not always easier to overcome just because they are pastors.
Jason told me its important to live out beliefs for this reason, if a pastor teaches evangelism but is never seen evangelizing, the church wont become an evangelizing church. Reid discusses it on pp. 333 when he says if pastors are sincere then their burdens will become the burdens of the church. Jason’s life reflects his belief in that principal, if you preach a message you have to act on it.

6. Are you leading by “Equipping other Leaders?” Reid describes two forms of mentoring on pp. 329. Formal mentoring works like Jesus mentoring the disciples, a leader teaching a group in the church. Informal mentoring is more of a one-on-one setting that happens more at random. Jason mixes both actively. He has an established leadership team he mentors, but also spends a large amount of his time meeting with people to mentor them one-on-one. It is absolutely important to equip leaders; it is part of the great commission and often goes neglected. Jason’s strategy is for everyone to have a mentor at Gospel Fellowship. He understands it might be impractical, but it would be effective.

7. Summary of the interview. Interviewing Jason was a good opportunity to pick his brain on tough questions and see the thought behind the way he lives, and understand many of the decisions I have seen him make. I feel encouraged knowing how much so the centerpiece of Jason’s life is Jesus. I also was able to glean understanding that I can apply to my life and strategy as I pursue the ministry.
Jason’s understanding of humility and the role it plays in Christianity and ministry is one of the major things I want to make sure I apply to my life. Humility is a subject that is easy to preach but difficult to apply, but Jason has found a way to explain it to people. Along with teaching humility, he lives it in every part of his life. It is a burden of his, and it has become one of the churches as well. It speaks volumes of Jason when you spend time with the people he has actively mentored over the years. They all exhibit humility.
The strategy Jason has for mentoring inside of the church is another thing I want to make sure I study and keep within me so I can apply it in my own ministry. Everyone at all times is being mentored and mentoring. There will always be someone I can impact positively for the Lord. A church mentoring and training like this would inevitably grow spiritually and numerically.
Interviewing Jason was an awesome opportunity to ask questions I wouldn’t have thought to ask, but always should have. I gained insight and was encouraged by the honesty and sincerity of my pastor.