CBF Christmas Offering

This year the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's (CBF)national and international mission focus is on addressing poverty in Arkansas and church starting in China. Christ Church participates in these efforts every Christmas through giving financial gifts through the CBF Offering for Global Missions.

Last year, we gave to build three water wells in India. This year, our gifts will go to support CBF field personnel around the world who are helping be the presence of Christ in places many of us may never go physically. Watch this video and learn more about the vital work going on in the United States and around the world through the CBF Offering for Global Missions.

Habitat For Humanity Build Begins

Christ Church has partnered with Wilshire Baptist Church, Cliff Temple Baptist Church, Union Cathedral, and First Baptist Farmer's Branch on a Habitat build in west Dallas. See the update below from Minister of Missions Wes Keyes at Cliff Temple. It was a record-setting start!

From Wes:
Wow...just wow. I can't say how much of a blessing it was to see over 40 folks come together and begin to build a house. I was blown away by our togetherness, construction acumen, and overall speed at which we worked.

If you haven't heard it already our lead builder from Habitat, named Scooter, claimed that we set a new record (for him at least) for amount of worked completed on day 1 (we actually left the build site around 2:30). That's just awesome!

So awesome in fact that I say we do it again this Saturday! See you guys and gals there!

If you have any questions regarding schedules, food, drink, etc, please don't hesitate to ask. Thanks again!

Grace and Peace,

wk

Current Sermon Series

What difference does being a follower of Jesus make in your life today? Much emphasis is often placed on the individual salvation of the soul and the afterlife. Yet it is difficult to read the Gospels and believe that the main point of Christianity is “to go to heaven when you die.” Jesus’ teaching about what he called the kingdom of God reveals that life in Christ is not first and foremost about life after death. Neither does the gospel mean that we agree with abstract theological propositions in order to qualify to go to heaven when we die. The gospel invites us to live a new way of life—here and now. Following Jesus means there is a true and genuine “life before death.”

This sermon series explores what it means to experience “life before death” and live into the Lord’s Prayer that God’s “kingdom come and God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Join us this Sunday for Life Before Death.

Serving Others at The Well Community

Christ Church will be worshiping with The Well Community on Saturday night, August 22nd at 5:00PM. Christ Church will also provide the evening meal beginning at 6:00PM.

The Well is a faith-based provider of mental health services to low-income people experiencing mental illness. The Well seeks to provide a life-giving community of peace, love, and hope.

The Well currently meets in the facilities of Cliff Temple Baptist Church. CTBC is located in north Oak Cliff, just south of downtown Dallas.

Meet new friends and learn more about this vital ministry. Please join us for a great night of worship and fellowship--Saturday, August 22nd.

New Sermons Posted

All the sermons from the Lenten series, "Cross Words," have been posted at www.ChristChurchRockwall.org/sermons.htm, including the Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday sermons. If there are any you missed or would like to hear again, have a listen. And send a link to your friends.

Grow in Your Faith This Summer

Current Book Study

Currently on Tuesday nights a group of guys are meeting to talk about Parker Palmer's "Let Your Life Speak." It is a book full of wisdom about finding one's true calling.

Beyond economic ups and downs, many of us seek to have careers and jobs that give us a sense of purpose and that expresses something significant about who we are. When our "role" matches up with our "soul," we can move from simple having a job to finding our vocation (our true callings).

Here is a snippet for you today:

"I first learned about vocation growing up in the church...But the idea of vocation I picked up in those circles created distortion until I grew strong enough to discard it. I mean the idea that vocation, or calling, comes from a voice external to ourselves, a voice of moral demand that asks us to become someone we are not yet--someone different, someone better, someone just beyond our reach.

It is a notion that made me feel inadequate to the tak of living my own life, creating guilt about the distance between who I was and who I was supposed to be. Today, I understand vocation quite differently--not as a goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received. Vocation does not come from a voice 'out there' calling me to become something I am not. It comes from a voice 'in here' calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God."

• In what ways is Palmer's insight about vocation similar or different to ways you understand vocation?

Serving Others at Rockwall Boys and Girls Club

Last month (April 18) a group from Christ Church volunteered at the Rockwall Boys and Girls Club's Spring Carnival. We weeded flower beds, planted fresh flowers, and mulched.

We were invited by Common Art to help beautify the Club grounds. Common Art is a partner with the Boys and Girls Club of Rockwall. Common Art exists to promote arts through a safe and loving environment in the Rockwall community. Many volunteer opportunities are available now, so be sure to go to their website and find out how you can be involved in the lives of local youth in Rockwall. Christ Church members are welcomed and encouraged to become regular volunteers through Common Art.

Thanks to Carol, Pat, Alison, Pete, Jolene, James, Sharon, and Andrew for representing Christ Church on this special day.

Sermon Audio Posts

Two recent sermons from Christ Church have been posted in the Sermon Archives on our website. To access them, click the links below. More sermon audio coming soon.

3.8.2009 - 2nd Sunday of Lent
Mark 8:31-38
Dr. George Mason
Cross Words: Communion
http://www.christchurchrockwall.org/resources/CrossWords.mp3

1.11.2009 - Baptism of our Lord Sunday
Mark 1:7-11
Pastor Andrew Daugherty
Watermark
http://www.christchurchrockwall.org/resources/Watermark.mp3

Easter Song

This morning's Resurrection Sunday sermon included a reference to a new Easter song written and recorded by Athens, Georgia singer-songwriter Bill Mallonee. The title is "Coming Out of Hiding." If you'd like to take a listen, follow the link.

HTTP://WWW.MYSPACE.COM/WORKSPROGRESSADMINISTRATION

Cross Word Follow-Up: Church

The Lenten sermon series Cross Words is now a wrap, but we wanted to post a nugget from another one for reflection and feedback.

Part of this Lenten sermon focused on what we mean when we say and use the word Church? It is a really important word for practicing Christians, because one of the hallmarks of following God in the way of Jesus is being in a community.

Sometimes it might be easier to say what Church is not rather than what it is. Of course the church is not even so much a place or a thing at all. The church is people.

And when you measure the vitality of a church, more factors must be considered than the size of membership or the annual budget. The "business metaphor" of the church can often become the dominant way people define Church.

Spiritually speaking, when we are being who Jesus calls us to be as a community, this is what it looks like: Galatians 5. This is it. We bear this kind of fruit, Paul says: we become people who make up a human version of a mixed fruit salad: the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control.

Do we love well because we are part of Christ Church? Are we more peaceful, patient and kind? Are we following Jesus for any other reason except that we want our lives to bear this sort of fruit?

Which leads to a working definition of Church offered in the sermon. Church is:

A spiritual community of human beings delighting in the mystery of God and following the way of Jesus through worshiping, learning and serving together.

This definition puts the emphasis on church as a spiritual community first: we are being formed spiritually in the image of Jesus. And that we are human beings: we are sinful and broken people and so this is a community of imperfect people. And we are delighting (seeking joy) in the mystery of God (realizing God is always so much more than we could ever imagine) and we seek that mystery through Jesus (the One who reveals the nature of God as love) through worshiping, learning, and serving together (it just so happens that this is the mission statement of Christ Church!).

• What is your definition of Church?
  

Cross Word Follow-Up: Worship

Why do people come to worship?

People come to a worship service on weekends for all kinds of reasons. Some come from habit or loyalty or guilt or gratitude. Some come to connect with other human beings. Some come because of the music or sermons. Some may even come to be entertained.


In the modern church's quest to "get people to church" the bigger question remains about ways to "get people to worship." Chances are we can get people to come to church for one reason or another. Yet if we seek to find ways to get people to worship, we cannot manufacture such an experience.

The tension between getting people to church and getting people to worship can lead to role reversals in the practice of worship where human beings somehow become the subject and God becomes the object of worship. And so people became shoppers for religious goods and services. People become the Ebert and Roepert of the theater of worship where sermons and prayers and songs are subject to thumbs up or thumbs down depending on the critics choice.

Which begs a question: For whom is worship? Who is worship for?

Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, brought a healthy corrrective when he he wrote an essay that explained the difference between how many of us tend to worship and how we ought to worship God. Kierkegaard said that many people think of the congregation as the audience with the pastor, worship leaders, and choir as the performers.

However, from the Bible's point of view God is the audience in worship, and the people in the congregation are the performers--singing, praying, listening intently as the Word is read and proclaimed, and giving back to the Lord in offering and praise. The pastor, worship leaders, or musicians are merely prompters to the actors on stage, which is every one who shows up for a worship service! Worship is literally and liturgically "the work of the people."

Therefore, when we leave worship, we should not ask, "How good was the sermon?" or "How good was the music?" Rather, we should ask, "How good was I, Lord?"

Each of us plays to an audience of One in worship. The actions and words of worship provide the script for our various parts.

• In what ways do you relate to this way of seeing worship?
  
• Why do you come to worship?
  
• Why don't you come to worship?
  

Lenten Sermon Series Update

Cross Words is the name of this year's Lenten sermon series at Christ Church. The focus of these sermons is on words that bring definition to Christian faith and practice. They are part of a longer list of words that form the Christian vocabulary of faith.

Each week, the sermon explores a key cross word by focusing on a particular biblical text and relates it to ways the word can live and breathe fresh today in our spiritual practice.

Here is the list of the weekly Cross Words:

March 1: Repentance~Mark 1:9-15
March 8: Communion~Mark 8:31-38; I Corinthians 11: 23-26
March 15: Worship~John 2: 13-25
March 22: Forgiveness~Matthew 18: 21-35

Upcoming Cross Words
March 29: Church
April 5: Evangelism

Currently, these six sermons are being recorded and will be available on our website as soon as they are ready.

Christ Church Member on Mission--Post #2

Here is a link to a blog about the Guatemala mission trip that Christ Church member Cynthia Gunter is a part of this week. Here you will find pictures and posts of all the great work she and the team are leading at the malnutrition center there. This week Cynthia is a tangible extension of the ministry we share through Christ Church: being the hands and feet of Christ in caring for the children at the Center .

http://fbchinternationalchildcare.blogspot.com/

Christ Church Member on Mission

Part of the mission of Christ Church is serving others in the spirit of Christ. Serving others can take on many different expressions both locally and globally. We are only limited by our imaginations. Still, we seek to be the kind of church that encourages members to be engaged in doing the kind of work Jesus calls us all to do. Being compassionate means putting flesh and blood on the gospel every chance we get.

Over the next week, our very own Cynthia Gunter will take a pilgrimage to Antigua, Guatemala. Through the Florida Baptist Children's Homes, she will be part of a team working with children and helping with facility projects at a malnutrition center there. The children served by the center range from seven months to seven years of age.

Through our Christ Church Volunteers in Missions fund, we will be supporting Cynthia and the malnutrition center with our financial gifts on this specific project. Please pray for Cynthia this week; for her safe travel and for the vital work she will be doing to help children there.

Trip updates will be posted here as we get them.

Quote of the Week

From last Sunday's sermon on Repentance from the Lenten series, "Cross Words." A quote from author Kathleen Norris:

Repentance is not a popular word these days, but I believe that any of us recognize it when it strikes us in the gut. Repentance is coming to our senses, seeing, suddenly, what we've done that we might not have done, or recognizing … that the problem is not in what we do but in what we become.

• In what ways do you resonate with this understanding of repentance?
  
• Who do you want to become?
  

Lenten Sermon Series

The forty-day long season of Lent has begun. A few of us at Christ Church met for Morning Prayers yesterday to mark the start with ashes, silence, Scriptures, and prayers.

• This Sunday begins a new Lenten sermon series titled, Cross Words, key words that bring definition to Christian faith. Over the next six Sundays during Lent we will explore Cross Words like repentance, forgiveness, worship, Communion, and evangelism. These are words Christian use a lot, but sometimes we use them without realizing the depth and breadth of the meaning they hold.

Unfortunately, some well-intentioned Christians can use cross words over cross words. Meaning, we can use words to hurt others over differences about how to interpret Cross Words; what they mean and how they should be lived out. Some of us can be offensive with the ways we use these words while others become defensive when people seek to grapple honestly with their meanings.

Trying to be both biblical and Christ-like is not as easy as it sounds when it comes to these Cross Words. So, how do we talk about these words passionately yet respectfully in community? How do we handle these words wisely as people who follow after the Cross-bearer?

Join us this Sunday as we begin the journey with Jesus toward the cross with the first Cross Word: repentance. And may you find a full experience of God's grace and mercy during this Lenten season in worship, Bible study, and prayer. Speaking of prayer:

• Join us also for Lenten Sunday evening prayers beginning this Sunday night at 6:00PM. There will be Scripture readings, silence, guided prayers, and art meditations. Evening Prayers will last about 30 minutes. It is meant to be brief, contemplative, and informal.

Ash Wednesday Quote of the Week

Ashes remind us, with a shock, that we are God's creation, made for God, and not the other way around. Ashes remind us of the brevity of the gift of life, and the grace of eternal life in the heart of God. Ashes remind us that we are born to live, really live, before we die. Ashes remind us of a resolve to a Lent, and a lifetime, of a more authentic relationship with Jesus the Christ. For reasons like these it does not occur to us that we participate in a "strange" custom of ashes and dust. To the contrary. With hearts full of awe, we seek gold and God in the dust. --Douglass Bailey

Ash Wednesday thus marks the beginning of Lent. In the Old Testament, people mourned their sin and repented of it in "sackcloth and ashes."

Today is a day that we confront our own mortality when our foreheads are marked with the sign of the cross and we hear the words, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." This can be a painful acknowledgement. There can be a sense of sadness at having to let go of some thing we cling to so closely.

Yet today is also a chance to make a space for God. Lent can help us get in touch with our own brokenness and mortality and sinfulness, so that Christ can make us whole in every way.

• What do you make of the quote above?
• What practices will you be taking up this Lent to help create a space for God?
  
• Is there anything you will be giving up this Lent to help you make a space for God?
  

Prayer: Some Resources

The Sunday sermon this past week included a few references to resources for developing the practice of prayer. This arises out of a sermon series based in Acts 2:42 where the early church devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and the prayers.

Many of us search for ways to make prayer more intentional and more prominent in our everyday lives. Whether we pray in the mornings, at meal times, at night, or other times throughout the day, it is helpful to have something that calls us to prayer throughout the day.

While there are many books and online resources to choose from, here are three liturgical prayer resources that integrate Scripture, silence, reflections, and guided prayer.

Link to these resources and see how you might make them part of your own practice of prayer. These are especially helpful for those who sit in front of a computer much of the day. Try these out. Pray. Connect to God. Enjoy.

The Northumbria Community's daily office is available here.

Sacred Space is a daily guided prayer devotional that spends 10 minutes in prayer and Scripture.

Pray As You Go combines music, Scripture, and some questions for reflection. You can download it to your iPod or MP3 player, too.

Ministry in India

During Advent and Christmas in December, Christ Church members participated in the Advent Conspiracy project by giving special offerings through the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's (CBF) Global Missions Offering to build 3 water wells in India. Each water well will provide fresh drinking water for an entire village.

Every year 1.8 million people die from water born illnesses. Drilling a fresh water well is an affordable way to help solve the water crisis for communities around the world.

Sam and Latha Bandela are CBF missionaries in India who oversee such projects. Check out this video that shows some of the work the Bandela's are doing to help people in India.

Quote of the Week

English writer G.K. Chesterton once said, "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried."

• What do you think about Chesterton's perspective?
  
• In what ways does this ring true for Christianity in American culture?

Current Living Room: Acts of the Apostles Part 2

Key text: Acts 1:1-26

The opening chapter of Acts is about the nature and mission of the Christian church that is soon to be born. The story of the earthly Jesus ends at the ascension
(1: 9-11), but the author Luke makes it clear that the church picks up where Jesus left off through the power of the Spirit.

One of Luke's main points is that since Jesus is not going to be present in the way he used to be, the church must be the hands and feet and presence of Christ in the world. Therefore, Luke insists that the church is not optional. It is essential for proclaiming God's reign in the world.

Now, the first community of Jesus followers is seeking to make sense of what is happening. Jesus tells them to wait for the Holy Spirit, because it is the Spirit that will make it possible for the church to fulfill its mission. The success of the Jesus movement would not depend on the moral, physical, or even spiritual power of the apostles alone. It would depend on the power of the Spirit to make the Jesus movement stick. In the absence of Jesus, the church would be the "flesh of God" to help bring about the kingdom of God on earth.

The community of believers in Acts is struggling to redefine itself in light of recent events. This is not unlike what we are doing today: seeking to rediscover and even redefine what it means to be the church in the 21st century.

Author Phyllis Tickle recently shared her working definition of both church and Church as "a body of people delighting in God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit."

So two questions for you: 1) How does the culture around you tend to define the church? 2) How would you say the church is best defined?

Souper Bowl of Caring

Last Sunday, the people of Christ Church participated in our first Souper Bowl of Caring on Super Bowl Sunday, February 1st. This is a practice we have carried over from our parent congregation, Wilshire Baptist Church of Dallas.

Six families made pots of soup for lunch. Lunch was free, but we asked everyone to make a gift to the Texas Baptist World Hunger Offering in the amount of what they would normally pay for a Sunday lunch out.

Christ Church raised $241.00 for the hunger offering. Thanks be to God.

Check out this video to learn more about the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger.

Current Living Room: Acts of the Apostles Part 1

Luke narrates the story of Jesus and tells the story of the founder's followers and the growth of the Jesus movement. The main purpose of Acts is not a simple re-telling of chronological events. Luke's higher aim is to tell a story that tells the truth about what it means to be the church. Luke not only wants the reader to know the story. Luke wants the reader to become part of it.

Our abridged study of Acts begins by highlighting Luke's central themes:

The universality of the gospel: The Jesus movement has a global vision. It was a movement meant to be extended through God's promises to the people of Israel (God chose Israel for the sake of the world) Acts 1:8

Women: Women play a prominent role in Acts. Mary the mother of Jesus is named when Luke names the Apostles. Priscilla the woman pastor, Lydia the merchant, and Dorcas; all are important to the fledgling early church.

The Holy Spirit: Jesus promises the Apostles the Holy Spirit in Acts 1: 4-5. Nothing can be started until the Spirit comes. The Holy Spirit is the continuing presence of Jesus on earth. The action of the Spirit defines what it means to be part of the Christian community (10: 44-48).

Old Testament Fulfilled: There is continuity between the story of Israel and the Jesus movement. The apostles were observant Jews. Luke says there were about 120 believers, the proper number for the formation of a synagogue. Peter also assures the crowd at Pentecost "this is that." Meaning, the coming of the Holy Spirit is in line with Old Testament prophets and promises.

The Nature and Mission of the Church: Luke's purpose it not just to tell what life was like in the early church. His theological purpose is to tell what it means to be the church and what the church's mission is.

Reflection:

• Which of these themes is most relevant to the church today? Why?
• What is your opinion of the importance of the church and of the necessity for all Christians to be part of it?
  

Welcome to the Christ Church Rockwall blog

This blog exists to be a forum for reflections, questions, and conversation to help Christ Church members and friends connect around Bible studies, book studies, and sermons. Blog posts will include questions and ideas that arise from each.

This is another outlet to help us in our journey of growing faith and building community. You are invited to comment on posts, share your stories, and talk about what you are learning.

Occasional announcements about church news, happenings, and special events will be included here, too.

Check in often to hear the latest and to let us hear from you.