Prayer for Chapel Hill

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

On Sunday we spent our time together in prayer for The Well and for Chapel Hill.  We prayed for our spiritual community - that we would grow to be more like Jesus and that our friendships with one another would grow deeper.  We prayed for Chapel Hill - for unity, for the economy, and for our role as a church in being a blessing to our community.  This video was a meditative background, with some passages from the Bible to help guide our thoughts in prayer.

Find more videos like this on The Well Chapel Hill

We invite you to join us in prayer.  If there’s something you’d like us to pray about, you may either put it in a comment below or send us an email.

Peace,
Matt

Community Involvement This Week!

Monday, June 22, 2009

The Well Chapel Hill will be involved with a couple of service opportunities this week. Everyone is invited, you don’t have to be part of our community to participate.

Friday, June 26th - 6:30-8:30 at Extraordinary Ventures (map) - Friday Night Live is a fun opportunity to hang out with developmentally disabled adults. Ping-pong, foosball, Karaoke and more. Light refreshments available for minimal cost. Hope to see you there!

Sunday, June 28th - 6-9 at Umstead Park in Chapel Hill: Potluck in the Park. This is a community potluck, so bring a dish or two to share and get to know your neighbors.

Peace,
Matt

The New People of God

Monday, June 08, 2009

Over the past five weeks, we’ve been talking about the message and mission of Jesus - what he said and what he did. As we look at Jesus’ message and mission, we also find the message and mission he has for us as a community. This week, we looked at Jesus’ mission to establish “the new people of God.”

In the centuries before and during the time of Jesus, God’s people were literally a nation. The nation of Israel. First as a people under God’s leadership through prophets and judges, then as a nation with a king. When the people obeyed and honored God, he blessed them. When they disobeyed and worshiped other gods, he allowed other nations to conquer them. This is a pattern repeated over and over throughout history. Yet throughout this recurring disobedience, the prophets talked about a time coming when the people would return to God and live in obedience. At this time, he will truly be their God, and they will truly be his people. That’s what we’re talking about here.

As you can see on the map, at the time of Jesus, the nation of Israel had been reduced to a province of the Roman Empire - and a relatively unimportant province at that. Many of the people lived in expectation of a new king coming who would break the shackles of Roman domination and restore the glory of God’s kingdom - Israel.

But this was not God’s plan. He planned to establish a new people of God, but not a geographical kingdom with boundaries, taxes, and an army. The new People of God is the church. It is a community, a family, a fellowship; made up of people from all nations and ethnicities, all walks of life; not bound by time or space; including people from around the globe and across the millennia; the community of those who have submitted themselves to Jesus’ leadership and committed themselves to living in Jesus’ community.

When we commit ourselves to Jesus, we join the New People of God. We can’t help it. God adds us to the community. He makes us one, he unites us.

He doesn’t fix us. We’re still all messed up, even though we’re God’s people. But we’re a community. We’re God’s community of broken-yet-healing people that provides love, support and accountability for each other as we share our spiritual journey.

Want to journey with us? Give us a shout or just come by our meeting this Sunday.

Peace,
Matt

Counter-Cultural Jesus

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Part of the mission of Jesus was to turn the world upside down. He came to tear down power structures and reshape values. Political, religous, and social systems had run wild in his day. People were valued for what they could do and how much money they had and for which religious party they favored. Religious leaders cared less about the spiritual life than they cared about holding on to their positions of power and prestige. The regular folks weren’t even in the picture. Jesus was intent on saying “That’s not how things work in MY community.”

Jesus’ closest followers had a hard time grasping this. Jesus had to call them down and explain this to them very clearly (Mark 10.42-45, New Living Translation of the Bible):

So Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Unfortunately, in our culture, we share those same values that Jesus confronted in his day. We value people because of what they offer us rather than because of who they are. We respect people because they’re powerful in business or because they have money. For some of us, this is accidental.  We try not to. For others, there’s no question, it never occurs to us to think otherwise.

At The Well, we work hard to respect people for who they are. Our leaders work as hard as everyone else. There’s no task that any of us is “too good” to do. We are committed to these upside down values and to this idea of servant leaders. And we invite you to hold us accountable for this - call us on it when we fail.

Peace,
Matt

I Need a New Heart!

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Many centuries ago, God’s people had turned away from him.  They began to go their own way, worshiping other gods, abusing the poor, and generally rejecting God’s path for them. Finally, God allowed them to go their own way. He allowed their enemies to conquer them and, as was the custom then, to carry them off as slaves. Yet, even as God let them experience the consequences of their actions, he still loved them deeply and longed for their return.  In the midst of their captivity, he sent this tender message by one of the prophets, a man named Ezekiel.

I, the Sovereign Lord, will gather you back from the nations where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel once again.
When the people return to their homeland, they will remove every trace of their vile images and detestable idols. And I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them. I will take away their stony, stubborn heart and give them a tender, responsive heart, so they will obey my decrees and regulations. Then they will truly be my people, and I will be their God.

Part of the mission of Jesus was to take those hearts of stone and replace them with hearts of flesh, and this is still his mission in our lives today.

I can relate to those people. I need a new heart. It seems that I’m constantly wrestling with my stony, stubborn heart. Sometimes I feel like God has called me to do things too big for me - things I just don’t want to do. I’d rather sit at home. I’d rather withdraw into myself and my own space. I’ve got my own problems, I don’t need to tack on anyone else’s!

I wonder if Jesus ever felt that way? Jesus exemplifies the life of service. A tender heart. Responsive to God’s call and to the needs of those around him. Giving up his own rights and desires to carry out the mission set before him.

God, please take my stony, stubborn heart away and give me a heart like his.

Peace,
Matt