Pastor Bill’s Blog

A little while back someone from church said to me, “What ever happened to our church being a Purpose Driven Church?  I thought our mission was to be purpose driven, not this Know-Grow-Sow thing?”  It’s a great question and one that is wonderful to answer!

Know-Grow-Sow IS purpose driven!  Rather than just reusing Saddleback’s words over and over again, we decided to make Purpose Drive our own experience here at King of Kings.  And so we took the 5 purposes, and made them into a Mission that is totally ours.

The Five Purposes, in case you have forgotten, are Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship, Ministry and Mission (Evangelism).  We took to those five purposes and we put them into our own words.  We come to KNOW the love of God as we Worship together. As a church, we believe that most people will come in contact with God’s message of love and forgiveness through our Worship experience. It happens in other ways, but this is usually the first way they connect to the message.  Then we GROW in God’s Word through our opportunities for Fellowship and Discipleship.  This happens from PreSchool through Adult in our many educational opportunities:  PreSchool, UpStreet, the River, 4:12, and LifeGroups all combine aspects of Fellowship AND Discipleship so that we can GROW as God’s people.  Finally, we SOW that love back into the world through our Ministry in the body of Christ, and our Mission out into the world.  And when we SOW that love in our neighborhoods, communities, schools, and workplaces, and we invite others to come and see the goodness of our God through Jesus, they in turn come to worship to KNOW the love of God! 

All of the parts of the Purpose Driven church are a part of our Mission.  We continue to live out the purposes of the Great Commission (”Go into all the world and make disciples”) and the Great Commandment (”Love God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself”) in everything we do together as God’s people.  Join us as we continue to live out that mission at King of Kings. 

Pastor Bill  <><

At the end of May we have approximately 13 young people who will be confirming their faith in God on Pentecost Sunday.  What an exciting time for us as a family of faith!  This will take place at a special service at 1:00 p.m. on May 31st. 

This blog is an open letter to them—however it is also open to everyone who affirms their faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. 

What is confirmation?  In our everyday world, the word means to confirm that something in the past is still valid in the present.  Dictionary.com defines the word confirm as “to acknowledge with definite assurance,” “to establish the truth, accuracy, validity or genuineness of…” 

     Some years ago I travelled with my family and some dear friends over to England, Wales, and Scotland. We were to be gone for two full weeks.  There was no travel agency involved. I made the flight arrangements, rented the car, and over the internet I made reservations at Bed and Breakfasts all over the British Isles.  But I’m a stickler for detail and so as the trip approached I called and confirmed EVERY reservation I had made, just to be sure that I could depend on them. I don’t like surprises when I’m travelling in a foreign land.  Having confirmed all the reservations, the trip was far from over. There was a whole adventure out there to be experienced (and that was just after taking the steering wheel and driving on the LEFT side of the road!).

     How terrible it would be to end the journey after confirming the travel arrangements!  I’m sure you get the point here.  How terrible it is when we end our faith journey at confirmation when there is a whole world out there to discover through our faith in Jesus.  There are joys beyond our heart’s ability to contain them…and there are hurts to walk through with the strength that God gives.  There is a community of faith to depend on because there are so many others making this same journey.  We walk together in our faith.  Our faith is a daily experience that we never grow out of.  The journey is always in front of us and God has more in store for us than we can ever imagine.  I pray for these  young people affirming their faith. But I also pray for everyone who worships here at King of Kings that our journey together continues as God’s people expecting great things as we Know the love of God, Grow in His Word, and Sow that love throughout the world.

Pastor Bill  <><

I recently shared in a sermon with our congregation the story from John 3 about Moses lifting the bronze serpent in the wilderness.  The story comes from Numbers 21:4-9.  The Israelites were grumbling once again against God and Moses as they wandered in the wilderness.  Poisonous snakes came into the camp and bit people, and many people died.  God told Moses to put a bronze snake on a pole, and anyone who looked at the snake were healed.  The snake had no healing power of it’s own, but as people lifted their eyes from themselves and put them back on God, they were healed.  This short and rather obscure story from the Old Testament is a peek into the future of what Jesus was going to do on the cross.  As we have been “bitten” with the sting of sin and death, God calls us to lift our eyes off of ourselves to see what He has done on the cross of Jesus Christ, and we are saved.  It is a wonderful story that reminds us that we come to the cross of Jesus in this Lenten season with empty hands and broken lives.  We come to the cross and lift our eyes to see what God has done for us!  That is the glory of John 3:16!

But now, as Paul Harvey says, here is the rest of the story.  If you read in 2 Kings 18:1-4, you will find another reference to this snake on the pole.  We find that about 650 years later, Israel has been offering incense to this object which has now become a spiritual idol.  They even named it the “Nehushtan.”  King Hezekiah was known for cleansing Israel from her worship of Idols, and he took the bronze snake and smashed it to pieces.

This part of the story reminds us of how easy it is for us to take our eyes off of God and put them on other things. Even those things around us that we hold dear as a part of our understanding of God can become a hindrance to our faith when we allow them to get in the way.  We raise altars and pulpits, buildings and instruments, books and writings to a status that is almost “god-like.”  They become the focus points of our worship.  God intended these things to speak to us in special ways to raise our eyes from ourselves and turn our eyes on Jesus. 

In this Lenten season, what turns our eyes away from Jesus?  What turns us from connecting to God first in our lives?  What kinds of things distract us?  As the prophet Joel says, “Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful; slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”  Let this season turn our eyes to Jesus!

Pastor Bill  <><

I just returned from our annual Bishop’s Theological conference, and like so many conferences I have attended, there are nuggets of thoughts that I bring back with me. At this particular conference, our presenter shared with us a thought from Martin Luther about what Jesus did as He was nailed to the cross. Was this a time of passivity, simply waiting to die? Or did Jesus continue in ministry, even with His hands and feet nailed to the wood? It reframed for me the question that was asked until we were all quite sick of it… “What would Jesus do?”

Luther saw three things that Jesus did as he endured the cross.

First, Jesus prayed. From beginning to end, He lifted prayers. “Father, forgive them,” “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” and “Father, into thy hands I commit my Spirit.” With hands and feet imobilized, while others made fun of Him and still others cried for Him, Jesus prayed.

Second, Jesus proclaimed. To the thief on the cross, Jesus declared, “Today you will be with me.” At the end, He declared in a single (Greek) word, “It is finished!” He shared the message of grace even when no one else wanted to hear.

Third, Jesus sacrificed. When He had nothing else to give–no water into wine, no bread and fish, no lepers cleansed, no dead raised–He gave Himself. Jesus gave all that He had so that the world might see God’s love in action.

How often I have felt immobilized, ineffective, unable to do anything that I think is useful. When I don’t have the words, the courage, the strength to go on, what do I do? What should I do?
Pray, Proclaim, Sacrifice.
Pray for those around me, not just my own needs, but the needs of others. Lift my eyes so that I might see, and I might pray.
Proclaim God’s love. I don’t have all the answers, but all the answers aren’t needed. Just the relationship in all of it’s authenticity. I don’t always know why and how, but I know who! I know who loves me, and I know who loves all. Tell the story to someone. Proclaim the promise.
Sacrifice for another. Put love into action. Even in the smallest deed, a cup of cold water for one who is thirsty, is a gift given in love. Give generously. Generously give of myself. It is in giving that we receive. It is in forgiving that we are forgiven. And it is in dying that we are born again.

When all else fails, when I can’t do anything else, what can I do?
What did Jesus do, when he could do nothing else? When hands and feet were nailed?
Pray………. Proclaim………..Sacrifice.

What do you think?

There is something new coming to King of Kings. But, as the title of this blog alludes, it is also something old.  Our name for it is “LifeGroups.”  Now many people immediately say, “that sounds like small groups.” And you would be right. But you’d be wrong too.  (Gosh I’m having fun with this!)  In some sense it is like small group ministry, in that it does involve groups. But that is where the similarity ends.

Small groups have typically been about gathering a group of 8 or so people together who will meet for 18 months to two years, or until Jesus comes again, to develop deep, intimate, soul searching, transformational relationships. 

LifeGroups are a group of 15-20 people. The size is larger so if there are people who can’t make it one week, you don’t reduce your group down to 6 or 4 people.  LifeGroups meet in semesters of 8-12 weeks, depending on the season. You only commit to that period of time together and then when it is finished, you can sign up for the next semester or take some time off.  LifeGroups is about making friends.  It is about getting to know people in our church community.  Intimacy comes from making frienships as a natural development of relationships.  There are basically three semesters in a year:  Fall, Winter (Lent) and Spring.  During one semester each year, probably in the Fall, all LifeGroups will be doing the same curriculum, supported in our worship services.  The other two semesters, LifeGroup Leaders will chose the curriculum for their group from a list of study programs (or one that is approved by the LifeGroup Team) that is pertinant to their LifeGroup situation.  Everyone may be doing something different.

So why are they called LifeGroups?  Because half of the groups offered will have a common relationship theme. For instance, there will be Women’s Groups, Men’s Groups, Married Couples, Parents, 50+, 25 and under, etc.  The other half of the groups offered will be general groups that may only have in common that they are meeting on Tuesday night at 6pm at someone’s house!

Coming in Lent, 2009 will be our Launch time for LifeGroups. You will hear a lot more about this in the coming months, newsletter, church emails, and sermons.  So here is your head start to be thinking AND praying for this wonderful opportunity.  This is a great way for our members to get to know each other, GROW in the word (part of our mission), and connect new members into the fabric of King of Kings.  Don’t miss out on these opportunities.  It isn’t just a program we are launching. This is a way for us to be the Body of Christ together.