“We’re on a mission from God.”

Jake and Elwood may have made these words more famous, but they truly describe what it means to be the church. The word that is most often translated as church in the New Testament is the Greek word “ecclesia”. This word literally means “the called out group”. To be the church is to be sent, to be called out. Church is not something that we go to, not something that happens on a Sunday morning.

This week, we begin a new series. We are going to spend the month of May discussing what it means to be the church. Let’s start the dialogue about this with the questions below:

• What is your understanding of the mission that God has given the church? Why are we here?
• When you see that the word church is connected to the words “called out”, how does that affect your understanding of what it means to be the church?

We have been exploring the resurrection of Jesus and the impact that has had on human history. This weekend we are going to ask the question that so many of us have asked or are asking. What is the difference between Jesus and all of the other religions out there? Is God exclusive? Can’t you just pursue the idea of God and have that be good enough? Isn’t Jesus just one of many avenues to God?

How do we, as followers of Jesus, walk alongside our friends and neighbors as they engage these questions? It is so easy to respond to people’s sincere questions in this area with Sunday School answers, rather than wrestling with the difficult issues that surface. Have you had an experience of wrestling with these questions personally or journeying with someone who is asking these questions? My experience is that many of my friends have not yet been able to over the hurdle of this issue in their pursuit of God. They believe in God, but Jesus’ claim to be the exclusive avenue to God is one road that they are not willing to travel.

On Easter we talked about just how ridiculous it is that 2000+ years later, communities of people all around the world are celebrating the resurrection of a man who claimed to be God. So ridiculous that it forces you to examine whether it could be true or not. The more I have spent time digging into it, the more I have been completely convinced of the truth of the resurrection of Jesus.

This weekend, we’ll ask the question, “What difference has the resurrection of Jesus made in the world?” The great part is that we’ll ask that question around tables while we eat delicious foodstuffs. It’s breakfast at Pathways, so bring a dish of something and we’ll eat deep dishes and consider deep questions.

So, what do you think? What difference has the resurrection made in the world? Toss out one or two of your thoughts here into blogland. (We’re not asking you to build a case or even complete a sentence - just tossing thoughts - surely you’ve been doing that since you were three!)

Have you seen my socks? They are missing! Ever since Easter.

I can’t even express to you (without using socks as an illustration) how much I enjoyed Easter with all of you this year! From our Journey to the Cross, which was so meaningful, to the celebration of the resurrection on Easter morning. We had so many guests with us!!! I hope that you reached out to connect with someone and let them know how welcome they are here. We also had two baptisms - way to go Tonya and Jared! There is nothing that moves me more than seeing people connect with Jesus in meaningful ways, and baptisms send me through the roof.

I heard so many cool stories on Sunday of people connecting with people for the first time or connecting with people at Pathways for the first time. If we are going to be a community that is a “Change Agent” in this city, we need to pray for more and more of those stories. In fact, each of us needs to be praying that we would be a part of those stories.

In the post below you see the progression of prayers that are going up on the black wall. This was the final stage in the Journey to the Cross. If you missed it, I’m sorry that you did! If you were there, I hope it meant as much to you as it did to the great number of people that I have talked about it with. There is something special about taking specific time and reflecting on the meaning of the cross prior to Easter. It makes the celebration of the resurrection all the more meaningful!

The Journey to the Cross this past week was a meaningful experience for many in their celebration of Holy Week. At the end of the journey, there was a wall for people to write prayers of celebration, heartache, or thanks. The video below is a time lapse capturing the prayers as they were added to the wall over the course of three nights.

(If you are reading this by feed, and the video doesn’t appear, please click here for the original post.)

As we have gone through the “Redeeming Your Story” series over the last three weeks, Dean has mentioned Dan Allender’s book, The Healing Path, a number of times. We highly recommend this book for personal reflection and growth no matter what you story might be.

Dr. Allender has a number of helpful resources that you can find on his website.