God's purpose for your life (or at least part of it)!

Looking for God's
guidance in your life?

The more conversations I have with people the more I hear the sentiment, "I wish I knew what God's will for my life was. I wish I knew what he wanted to DO!" I would be completely dishonest if I claimed to never have these feelings because the truth is that I'm human! The fact of the matter is that many people are looking for God to give instructions about where to go and what to do. If we look to Scripture with this intent, we will tend to miss all the fantastic things God tells us about our purpose.

Ephesians 4:1-2 holds one of the many statements God gives us about what our purpose is. It says, "I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love."

That's it. Did you get that?

The life worthy of the calling is to be completely humble and gentle. The title "Christ follower" carries with it a certain expectation. God is calling us to live out his purpose. He is calling us to be his children. The life that is worthy of being considered a son to the creator of the universe is a life that is completely humble, completely gentle, completely patient, and being loving as we bear with one another in life.

The idea here is that faith is a journey. God knows (better than you do) that change takes time. He knows (better than we do) that if he gave you too much right now, today, that you'd never be able to handle it. He knows (better than we do) what his plan for us is. He has given us his plan so that we can know (better than we do now) how to get there.

We start by living for him and trying to become like him right here, where we are. Later in the chapter it says that some people will be called to different things (v. 11 & 12) but these are secondary to what every believer is called to be. We have to figure out what it means to be a believer before we can know what it looks like to be a believer that can literally follow God anywhere.

So get up! Go read God's word and start to discover his will for you. Forget about next year and start asking him to show you the next step. Don't look to the Bible to show you what a month down the road should look like, but instead start using it to show you what today should look like.

Start living out your purpose!

Re:define Ministry!

Welcome to the new blog for Re:define Ministry! Re:define is an exciting next step for the college-age and career ministry at Adventure Church. The name was not chosen arbitrarily, but instead is a meaningful statement of what we intend to do! Our goal in every element of our ministry is to re:define what ministry looks like! This blog is one facet of a ministry that seeks to fulfill the great commission, creating followers that are madly in love with Jesus Christ. Here are the ways we're going to re:define ministry:

• We believe that the church is the brotherhood of ALL BELIEVERS, and will seek unity with those that claim that Jesus Christ is the one true savior for a creation in need of saving. (1 Corinthians 12:13)
• We believe that WE ARE ALL MINISTERS! Ministry doesn't just happen on a weekly basis with one qualified paster preaching at an audience. It happens out where people are. In the workplace, in our families and in our lives, we are all called to be ministers to those around us. (1 Peter 2:9)
• We are called to be set apart from the world. We are to have standards for success, behavior and purpose that are separated from those standards held by the World. (1 Peter 1:13-15)
• Faith in Jesus is not meant to be stagnant. It is not a habit. It is not a tradition. It is given to us by God to find and fulfill our ultimate purpose as his creation. It is meant to inform our lives and teach us about his character. (Ephesians 3:16-19)
• Faith starts from within. Outward signs of goodwill and service are only as good as the inward motivation that causes them. We believe that a life of faith means taking time to let God shape your spirit inwardly. (James 3:9-12; Matthew 12:35)
• We can do nothing without the power of the Holy Spirit. God seeks after us when we are lost, beckons us to belief and saves us of his own initiative. The Spirit is his presence among us that lives in us and nudges us towards Godliness. (John 14-16, Ephesians 3:16-19)

For too long, "Ministry" has been characterized as something only a select few are "called" to do. While only some are called by Christ to make ministry a vocation, ALL are called to be a light to the world around them, shining God's character into the darkness of this world. While this blog's header might say young adults ministry, this is not an age-specific, or even life-stage-specific mission. This blog will be an attempt at motivation, hopefully empowering the reader to step aside and let the Spirit work in them. So follow, like, tweet, facebook, digg and buzz the blog. Subscribe to it yourself or pass it on to a friend and let's start a movement that re:defines ministry as we know it!

Swimming Upstream

Today I saw something that really bothered me and it opened my eyes to a bigger question. How can God use social networking to reach the lost?

Today as I was surfing on facebook I saw a friend had posted a video with some comment about the wisdom contained therein. Now the content of the video was bothersome enough to me (at least certain aspects) but what followed was a stream of comments in support of the video and, as soon as one person offered her point of view, another stream of comments blasting this critic and her Christian beliefs to pieces.

The fact that this person used to have such an extreme faith and this is now the focus of their heart shook me. The comments about God such as "IF God is ______ then count me out," bothered me because of a lack of investigation as to who God really is and what he is like. But that wasn't what really gave me pause. What struck me is how the internet has become such a divisive arena, a playground where teams are being chosen for kickball and everyone wants to be on the winning team. I am noticing that facebook, twitter, etc. are becoming places where everyone is in agreement with everyone else. The courage that being behind a keyboard gives people is our first weapon against anyone that disagrees and now, several years into the social media movement, I find that comment streams are almost always unanimously self-agreeable. Those that choose to offer up an opinion will quickly be chastised for doing so.

I could go into the way this flies in the face of the "tolerance" that our world claims to have. But I won't go there today, either.

I saw this and I was strongly tempted, even though someone had already blazed this trail, to offer my two cents, to share how my heart breaks when I see people fuel the fire of public opinion, while fewer and fewer know anything about Scripture's actual content. I could have taken any number of approaches in debunking the myths that I saw out there. Only to fall on deaf ears. I feel a bit like Solomon even as I write this. "Meaningless. All is meaningless." If this post only falls on the ears of those that agree with me and we seclude ourselves in our Christian bubble, then this post has been a failure. We've missed the point of what God has called us to do.

The real question is this: in what ways can the Christians in this world still be effective in using facebook, twitter, blogs, etc. to reach out and create disciples? How can we show the world (if not through comments in already-hostile threads) that the message Christ preached is one of freedom (Gal 5:1), love (1 cor 13), purpose (Matt 22:37-40) and relationship with our creator (Gen 2)? How can we allow ourselves to be used as Christ's body to impact his Kingdom? The answers to these questions continue to elude me everytime I boot up my computer.

In the end, I didn't post anything. But that person has been on my mind ever since. The thought that they have known Christ and left, pushing some non-Biblical theology that has a distant resemblance to God's character (much like the folks John wrote about in his letters) makes me shutter. The idea that this person has gone so far from what is true and is now rallying troops to go with her breaks my heart. This friend has been on my heart the entire day and I have been in prayer for a heart-change since seeing this. I pray for discernment in what to say if the opportunity arises. I pray that I know what a real opportunity looks like. I pray that God will give me the guts to say it when and if I do recognize that moment. I don't know what else to do but pray. I feel as if we are swimming upstream.