Fund Raiser at BIG Meeting!

“Hi all,

My name is Emily Jansen and I am a fellow member of Covenant Life Church and the ONE Singles Ministry.  As some of you know, I recently spent a year abroad in Kenya, where I served as a staff member at the Rift Valley Academy, the largest Christian international boarding school in East Africa for children whose parents are missionaries throughout Africa.

We’ve heard a lot about the Great Commission these last few months and I trust God is using this series in your life to spur you on to greater heights and depths of Gospel ministry!

This Tuesday night at the BIG mtg., I’d like to offer you a unique opportunity to apply the Great Commission in a fresh, creative way.  Shopping!

Before and after the main meeting, I will be selling Amani ya Juu merchandise, which is handmade African pieces of jewelry, purses, bowls, crafts, bags, etc. made by poverty-stricken women in East Africa who have been commissioned by the Amani Foundation to participate in their sewing partnership project.  You can read all about Amani and view their products here.  I joined the Amani Sales Team this past August after returning home from living in Kenya for a year, because they have an office and retail store right here in Washington, D.C.

Not only do Amani products make great gifts for birthdays and for the upcoming holiday season, but get this…ALL proceeds go directly back into the Amani ya Juu project!  That means you get a tax deduction AND the African women in countries such as Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda can support and feed their families this winter.

I have close to $1500 dollars worth of merchandise to sell, so bring your cash and/or checkbook with you on Tuesday!  First come, first serve.

Thank you,

Emily”

Big Meeting: Follow Jesus…Make Disciples

Isaac did a great job exhorting us all to the mission that Jesus Christ has set for all of his disciples: Make More Disciples!

He reminded us that this mission works because according to Matthew 28:16-20, all authority has been given to Jesus and Jesus is with us to the end of the age.

Christ’s authority and Christ’s presence make this mission possible.  So, as disciples of Jesus, we are now called to make our life mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ.

If you didn’t make it to the Big Meeting or want to review or prepare for care group discussion, the audio and outline and discussion questions are available here.

Next Month’s Big Meeting we start the ‘how to’ of making disciples:
- September 14th (6:30pm for Dinner, 7:45pm the meeting starts)
- Kevin will be speaking on the topic of Sharing Christ from Acts 1:8

Braden

Big Meeting: Follow Jesus…The Nature of Discipleship

At the July Big Meeting, Isaac preached about the call of 4 of the disciples from Matthew 4:17-22. 

They immediately followed Jesus.  They followed a person, not a system of beliefs.  They were committed to his mission.  They were willing to sacrifice everything for his mission. 

And our call is the same.  We follow a person.  We must be committed to his mission. We must be willing to sacrifice everything for his mission.

Here is Isaac’s working definition of a disciple:
A disciple of Jesus Christ is called to be a committed, devoted follower of Jesus Christ

Here’s the link to the mp3, sermon outline, and discussion guide if you missed the message or just want to hear it again:
The Nature of Discipleship

The God of Mission

God called a pagan moon-worshipper and told him that he was not only going to bless him but the entire earth through him.  And this guy didn’t even know or serve God.  Abram heard the call of God and responded.  God delivered on his promise.  And today we are all blessed through Abraham’s offspring: Jesus Christ.

At our first Big Meeting in our series on mission, Isaac led the charge and directed our gaze to our God who seeks to bless undeserving sinners like Abram and like us. 

God’s mission is to redeem the people of the earth through His redeemed people. We are His redeemed people.  We are called to His mission.

In light of this call, each one of us needs to soberly assess where we spend our time and energy and money to see if we are in fact carrying out His mission.

God’s purposes will never be thwarted (Abram made mind-blowing mistakes that seemed to put our redemption in jeopardy), but he has decided to use his redeemed people to carry out these purposes.  As weak and fallible as we are.

We don’t want to be content with our current knowledge of and zeal for His mission—we want more.  We want the mission of God to be infused into the DNA of our lives.  We want this to become a part of what it means to be a mature follower of Christ—a holiness that leads us to meet the needs of others.  Real physical needs:  Food. Clothing. Mentoring.  Housing.  And even greater needs: that all people be reconciled to their Creator through belief in the death of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the promise of blessing through Abraham.  Scripture makes it clear that Christ is the offspring that Abraham was promised (Gal 3:16) and that we are children of Abraham through our common faith in the promise of God (Gal 3:6-9, Rom 4:13-25).

How should we live in light of this God and His mission?

• We should worship our God who initiated the mission by calling an undeserving sinner named Abram and promising blessing to him.
• We should have confidence for the mission: it was His idea, and His will that brought it about.
• We should have sustaining strength for the mission: God never tires, and He never gets bored of this mission and goes off to start a new one.  Let’s draw our strength each day from the God of mission.
• Find a place to serve and proclaim.  We don’t need a plan of study for six months.  We just need to find a need and meet it and begin proclaiming the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Just like Abram…we must go.