On Monday, we launched our first official Soul Care Community. Eight of our folks who live in or around Center City met over dinner to talk about banding together for the next year or so as one of the smaller communities at Seven Mile. The leaders of the group said the night went great. Over the next week, two more communities will launch. One in the Northeast and the other in Bucks County. We’ve been inviting people who have expressed an interest and who have committed to our big community to lock in more intimately in a smaller one as well.

The hope is that this will be a place where people at Seven Mile Road grow in the gospel, in the context of community, and live on mission together. We gather for corporate worship on Sundays and then we flesh out what it means to be a follower of Jesus in community during the week. We experience God’s grace as we hear it shouted from the front on Sunday mornings and as we hear it shouted from people’s lives together during the week in homes.  We pray together and confess our sin on Sundays and we are vulnerable with each other and work out our salvation and sanctification together during the week around someone’s living room. It is our hope that our Soul Care Communities would grow and multiply all across our city as we care for one another’s souls.

Walking closely with Christ in community – that’s what we’re shooting for.

There are two simultaneous movements that happen when the Gospel finds its way to our hearts. We are reconciled to God through Christ and we are reconciled to everyone else who has been connected to God through Christ. A Christian is joined to Christ and to every Christian. Our conversion grants us membership into the universal body called the Church (with a capital “C”). But the New Testament anticipates that our universal membership into the body of Christ will find expression through membership in an actual local church (with a little “c”). Membership in the Church necessarily means membership in a church. (Click here for a good article on church membership by Mark Dever.)

Seven Mile Road will be maturing towards church membership in 2010. But in the meantime, we’re going to have a Core Group Phase now. This process will be much less rigorous and intense than official church membership. However, it will give us a chance to express our commitment to God, to each other, and what He is doing through Seven Mile Road. Practically, it will help us form a nucleus of folks who are committed to carrying this ministry. In a sense, this will be a baby step towards church membership next year.

If God is connecting you to Seven Mile Road Church in this season and you are finding your soul knitted together with God and with His people here, plan to be at our meeting on Sunday, November 15 at 3pm. We’ll flesh all this out more then and answer any questions you might have.

Eager and excited to lock arms with you for Jesus.

Two Sundays ago, I walked out of the morning service at St. Marks and was greeted by the most brilliant autumn sky. I mean perfect blue littered with wisps of white clouds and leaves on trees so colorful they looked like they were on fire. The kind of sky that inspires poetry over prose. As I was walking to my car, God birthed a great sense of thanksgiving in my heart. A sense that remains in my heart even today. I have been so richly blessed. The Psalms frequently instruct us to “tell” the works of the Lord. So let me tell you a few in no particular order:

I have a wife, a child, friends & family: I’ve heard a preacher once say that when romance is done right, it’s beautiful for the couple and gross to everyone else. I agree. I’m Indian, so I’m genetically predisposed to being averse to public displays of affection. So I’ll spare you and leave it at this. Proverbs says, He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. Amen. To add, I have a baby girl. For the last two weeks, she has stayed up with me to watch the World Series. She lasts till about the  seventh inning and then falls asleep next to me on the couch. What a joy. Psalm 127 says, Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Amen again. And if all that were not enough, God has given me fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, who I am related to by both my blood and Jesus’, who love us. Incredibly blessed.

I get to pastor and preach: I get to preach twice every Sunday. When I’m not over analyzing every line of the sermon (Why did I say that? Why didn’t I say that? How could I have said it all better?), I pause to think of what a privilege this whole thing is. Week after week, I get to communicate the gospel of Jesus to two congregations. I get to herald the good news of the King. I get to announce His grace. Over these last few months, God has done a work in my heart so that I am enjoying this whole thing even more. Preaching at St. Marks in the morning is not something I have to do but something I get to do. The right words are not obligation or chore, but privilege and joy. God is growing a love in me for them. I long for them to grow in the gospel. And I am also overjoyed by what God is doing in Seven Mile Road. I can’t believe that God has called me to be a pastor. All the time, I’m stunned God even called me to Himself. I would have never chosen someone like me to be a recipient of grace, much less to be a minister of that grace, but God did. Incredibly blessed.

I know the skies will not always be perfect blue. Who knows what storms are coming our way? Sin, division, gossip, death – all could be just around the corner. But if they should come near, God will be nearer still.

Last week, we preached from Matthew 9 and cast a vision for being a community that welcomes sinners like Jesus. We said “a hospital for sinners” and not “a museum for saints” is what we’re shooting for. This week, we preached from Luke 10 and cast a vision for being a community that shows mercy and compassion like Jesus. I am so grateful to God for how these sermons fell back to back in our series. Here’s why.

Usually, we tend to run to one of two poles when it comes to ministries of the Word and ministries of deeds. On the one side, you’ve got folks who eat up theology and love doctrine and care deeply about truth and the proclamation of truth. They love evangelism and are constantly calling the church to be on mission, to build relationships with people and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus. Preaching and teaching – after all this is what Jesus was about. Their slogan comes from Mark’s Gospel, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” It’s the soul that matters not the body, right?

On the other side, you’ve got folks who are not about words, because they’re about deeds. Forget what you say with your mouth; the real question is what are you doing with your life, with your hands and feet? They love ministries of mercy and compassion and social justice. They are constantly calling the church to engage in the margins like Jesus. Serving the poor, helping the oppressed, ministering to the sick – after all this is what Jesus was about. Their slogan comes  from James, “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?” Faith without works is dead, right?

But here’s the thing. This is not an “either-or”, but a “both-and”. They are two sides to the same coin; one is heads and the other is tails.  Right hand. Left hand. Ministry to the soul and ministry to the body. Being on mission is to proclaim the Gospel with our words and to proclaim the Gospel with our deeds. At Seven Mile Road, we will only be a faithful gospel community if we embrace this duality.

So, a community that calls people to follow Jesus with our words and serves people like Jesus with our deeds. That’s what we’re after.

We preached Luke 10 and Jesus’ parable of The Good Samaritan this week. It’s a story that Jesus tells in response to a question posed by an expert in Jewish law. This lawyer approaches Jesus to test him. It becomes pretty obvious that this man is quite impressed with himself. In fact, the text tells us that he’s seeking to “justify himself” before Jesus. He recites the two most important commandments – to love God and love your neighbor – and is quite certain that he is satisfactorily keeping both. Instead of allowing the weight of God’s requirements to humble him and crush his self-righteousness, he’s getting ready to pat himself on the back for being such a good person. So Jesus tells a story. By the end of it, the man’s heart is exposed. Instead of loving his neighbor, Jesus reveals the hatred for neighbor that lies within the lawyer’s heart; and in ours as well.

What the parable does is show you your impoverished state in light of God’s law and God’s commands. Who of us loves God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength? And who of us loves our neighbor as ourselves? The kind of love that sees a man lying in a ditch on the side of a road, and takes enormous risks and bears tremendous costs to show mercy. So by the end of the parable, at least spiritually, you find that you’re the one who is poor and in need of mercy. You’re the one lying in a ditch, naked, and dead.

But here’s the gospel. He who should have been your enemy, like a Samaritan to a Jew, sees you lying there…and He has compassion on you. He binds your wounds. He clothes your nakedness. He brings you to life. He makes you whole. And He bears the cost for your salvation.

Only when you’ve experienced such incredible mercy will you become a person of mercy. Only then can you hear Jesus say, “Go and do likewise.”

On Sunday, we preached from Matthew 9 where Matthew speaks autobiographically about when Jesus called him to be a disciple. It’s a great story. Matthew is a tax collector. That means he’s likely a sinful, cheating, despicable man working for the hated Roman empire. Tax collectors usually made friends with the other despised degenerates of society like prostitutes and drunkards. And these are exactly the kind of people that Matthew invites to his house party to celebrate meeting Jesus.

And here’s the thing that has struck me about the story. Jesus is God in the flesh. So when we see Jesus, we’re seeing God. I kept reading the passage inserting “God” for “Jesus” just to make this explicit in my mind. So hear Matthew 9:10 from that perspective for a second:

And as God reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with God and his disciples.

God reclines at the table with sinners! Imagine that. In Genesis, God walked with Adam in the cool of the day. But then sin enters the world and shatters the intimacy man once enjoyed with God. The Scriptures make clear that sin and sinners cannot exist in the presence of God. The repeated refrain of the Old Testament is that man cannot see God and live. The people of Israel are warned to tread lightly in the presence of God lest they be consumed. Even when God dwells among His people in the tabernacle and temple, there is the Holy of Holies separating God and man. A man is killed for touching the Ark of the Covenant representing the presence of God. The Ark was about to fall to the ground and so he figured he would hold it up and God strikes him dead! God is not kidding about his holiness and man’s sinfulness.

And then you get, And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. This is the glory of the Gospel. When we could not get to God, when we could not go near God, when we could not approach God – He approaches us. He comes near us. He gets to us. God wraps Himself in flesh, so that in Jesus, He might sit at the table and eat with sinners. What a God and what a Gospel!

We’re going to be showing Game 4 at the church on Sunday night. Let’s hope for a sweep. How fun would it be to see them win the Series together? So grab a friend and come out!

Yesterday, our community dedicated two of our children to Jesus. It was a beautiful moment to celebrate the grace of God to two of our families and to our community as a whole. At Seven Mile Road, we don’t see dedications as a Sacrament. We recognize baptism (entrance into the Covenant) and the Lord’s Supper (continuing in the Covenant) as sacraments/ordinances given by Jesus to the Church. So nothing magical or mystical happens when we dedicate our children. The heart behind it is simply to submit our children and ourselves to the Lord and his grace. When God gives us the gift of children, the first impulse of our hearts as believers is to bring them to the Lord and seek His blessing. So we submit our children, our parents, and our community to the Lord and His grace, committing to raise our little ones in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

We preached from Mark 10:13-16 where some people bring their children to the Lord that He might touch them and bless them. The moment also gave us an opportunity to lay a vision for how we view children at Seven Mile Road. May God make us a community that receives children as Jesus did. Enjoy some pictures from the day here.

]]> http://phillychurchplant.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/bringing-our-sons-daughters-to-jesus/feed/ 0 Ajay Thomas Dedication http://phillychurchplant.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/god-has-given-you-the-phillies-for-the-sake-of-gospel-mission-and-community/ http://phillychurchplant.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/god-has-given-you-the-phillies-for-the-sake-of-gospel-mission-and-community/#comments Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:32:35 +0000 Ajay http://phillychurchplant.wordpress.com/?p=1057 ]]>

(Ibanez’ 3-run homer in the eighth)

At Seven Mile Road, we’re asking ourselves, “What are the things I normally do, but if I were intentional about how I did it, I could add gospel, mission, and community to it?“

For example, it’s Red October – you’re going to be watching the Phillies. There’s no doubt about it.

So the question is, how are you going to do it? Here’s what I want to challenge you with. Resolve to watch the game with someone. Either get yourself invited somewhere or host an evening at your place, but don’t spend the night alone.

In fact, if you’re at Seven Mile Road, I want you to say to yourself, “God gave me the Phillies in the post-season for the sake of gospel, mission, and community.” He did! So think about who at Seven Mile Road you can invite over for the game (community). And  then think about who outside of Seven Mile Road you could invite over – a buddy from work, a neighbor, someone (mission). And what if you bathed the night in prayer that you might grow closer to your brother & sister from church and also display Jesus to your friend through your words, your hospitality, and your friendship (gospel)? Who knows what opportunities the Lord might give you?

Enjoy the series!

Dennis Mathew, one of the participants of our first run of Soul Care reflects on his experience. We’re getting ready to launch three Soul Care Communities in November. If you’re at Seven Mile Road, get ready to jump in.

I really had no idea what to expect when Ajay said we were going to start “Soul Care” groups.  Even the name sounded a little funny to me.  I assumed this was just a fancy term for bible study or small group, but turns out that this is much different than anything I experienced in the past.  When he first described Soul Care he indicated we would come together weekly and study the word and then break out into groups of men and women to share about our week and pray for each other.  I thought, that’s interesting, he wants us to share.  What does that mean?  Is he really interested in knowing about what I ate for lunch and what TV shows I watched?  I’m not used to sharing that much information with people , but I’ll give it a shot.  He clarified that the sharing was to be at a very deep and personal level.  It’s not a time to share superficial things like what we ate earlier in the day, but to share our weaknesses and sins, to hold each other accountable, and to push each other to grow as Christians, husbands, fathers and men.  The first couple weeks were definitely difficult.  How could we ever really share at such an intimate level?  How could we break through the walls we were so accustomed to keeping/maintaining around our lives?  We are guys which come from a community not used to sharing so the whole concept was foreign to us.  Ajay set the tone by sharing on a personal level right from the beginning.  This really challenged us to open up and to allow other men to look into our lives.  It was amazing to see what God did over the next few months.  He allowed us to share in ways we never imagined we would.  Over the course of a few months we grew in many ways, forged deep friendships and developed a brotherhood with men who could hold us accountable to live for the glory of God.  It was clearly God at work, but we had to be willing to take the risk.  I praise God we did!