Jeff Adams

Dr.Luke

Not only am I glad to get back in the swing of things as 2012 gets cranked up, I am anxious and excited to get back into the pulpit on Sunday. Listening to some of our guys preach during Advent Season was a blessing to me and I know it was to you, too.  We are blessed to have a number of men who can really bring the word! My thanks to Alan and Jeff for the past several weeks of feeding and challenging us.

But, teaching the Bible is just what I do, and I’m ready to get back at it on Sundays. This Sunday, January 8th, I begin a study of the Gospel of Luke. I’ve been working on this for the past few months and can’t wait to share some of the stuff I’ve been learning. I’m even hoping to use this blog from time to time to pass on supplemental information. Stay tuned!

This would be a great time to invite someone to come and get in on the ground floor of this study. Luke is a massive book, but if you stick with me I’m pretty sure you’ll hear some things you’ve never heard before and I’m pretty sure they can result in transformation of your life.

I’m getting up at 3:30 am to head to Honduras to speak to a good size group of college students from various places in Central America about missions and making disciples. I love that! Any time I can be around college age young people I get energized!

I’m not even sure where I am going to be, but I’m thinking that there is a good chance there will be no Internet connection and maybe even no cell phone. That’s why I thought I had better check in with you tonight.  Wow! Are there still places like that on earth? I think we are going to be at some retreat center in the mountains, but exactly where, I have no idea.

Wherever I’ll be, I have to get back Friday evening so I can start my Ezra class early Saturday morning in Shepherd School. Still time to sign up, Ya’ll! I hear I even have some Internet students for this class. Should be fun! See ya’ in a couple of days!

Tomorrow is January 2nd, 2012 and the first day of our “normal” lives returning. It absolutely throws me for a loop when Christmas and New Year hit on Sunday. For those of you who were traveling or recovering last Sunday morning, we decided to use the day to give a fresh vision of the road ahead for Graceway in 2012. Four of us took key portions of the year and reported.

I talked about the Luke series beginning next Sunday, Jay laid out plans for four major community outreaches, the first coming up on Martin Luther King Day, and Jim shared some great testimonies of what it means to make disciples and discussed the formation of Directions teams. Finally, Jeff Cox cast the vision of something we are calling Take It Home that will begin at some point in 2012.

At its core, Take It Home is an initiative to make application of biblical truth to vital areas of life such as marriage, parenting and personal living. We are all pretty excited about the way things are shaping up for the year ahead.

In each service I asked how many had completed reading through the Bible in 2012 and was gratified to see so many hands raised. We made a big deal out of signing up to read through the Bible as a church, and it appears that the effort bore good fruit. This year, our Bible reading schedule will be the same and you can still get daily updates via email, various social media or directly from the website. If you gained a good habit of daily Bible reading in 2011, don’t turn loose of it in 2012!

Ironically, I was reading in Genesis 2 yesterday and noticed that God instructed Adam about not eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil before the woman was created. Adam would have had the responsibility to pass on the instructions. In the very next chapter it is Eve who is caught up in the serpent’s temptation and takes of the forbidden fruit. I wonder if she understood the serious of the matter as much as Adam did. I wonder if Adam took it home!

¡Hola! Espero que todos hayan pasado una muy feliz navidad juntamente con sus familias y seres queridos. También les ofrezco mis sinceros deseos para un año nuevo lleno de fruto espiritual y muchas bendiciones.

¡Oigan! Necesito oír de ustedes. A través de los años Dios me ha bendecido con muchos amigos en muchos lugares. Entre otras cosas, muchos de nosotros compartimos una pasión para hacer discípulos de Jesucristo. Hemos podido compartir enseñanzas y herramientas para mejorar nuestros esfuerzos en el proceso de hacer discípulos. Gracias a ustedes, hay personas utilizando estos materiales en casi todo el mundo y en varios idiomas.

Más de una vez se me ha sugerido escribir algo sobre la base bíblica y filosófica de hacer discípulos. Claro que el manual Direcciones ya está disponible para bajarse gratuitamente del sitio web de Reality Living Publishing. Pero, algunos han tenido interés en saber mejor cómo utilizar los materiales al máximo.

Entonces, díganme lo siguiente:

• ¿Habrá interés en escribir un pequeño libro sobre el proceso bíblico del discipulado? Yo escribiría el libro en el castellano. ¡Por supuesto!
• Si hay interés, ¿cuáles son algunos temas, preguntas, conceptos, etc., que tú quisieras ver en este libro?

Escribir un libro por comité no funciona, pero sí tengo mucho interés en saber la opinión de muchos de ustedes.

Personal development is a current and very popular catch phrase in the career world and among those given to all sorts of “self-help” activity. Though the term can mean a myriad of things depending on who uses it (you can Google it) and the context in which it appears, personal development is basically personal growth.

Suffice it to say that the concept of personal development is so popular today that we have invented a new career path – that of being a life coach!

Sadly, I have heard some followers of Jesus respond with smugness, knee-jerk reactions, super-piety and trite phrases that have little application. The message often conveyed by those who would look down their sanctimonious snout  at those interested in personal development is that “I don’t need any of that stuff because I’m just trusting God alone! I’m just going to keep reading my Bible, praying and trusting God. That’s all I need”

Next time someone throws that attitude at you, calmly and politely ask them to enumerate three specific areas of growth in the last year and how God led them to discover truth in scripture that resulted in those specific life changes. If  someone actually gives you a good answer, congratulate them and learn from what they shared! Hmmm. I’ve never had anyone respond like that yet. Those who grow are usually eager to share the specifics of how they have grown and how it came about.

I’ve actually had people get mad at me for suggesting that they should be able to see growth in their spiritual walk. Yes, that’s really true. A couple of years ago I preached a series on personal spiritual growth and more than one person was highly offended to think that I would challenge them to detect any specific spiritual growth.

Here’s my unscientific, personal observation. Many followers of Jesus who are not truly grounded in their faith tend to be dismissive of any trend, idea or concept they don’t understand and retreat to what I call “bumper sticker theology.” By that I mean that their theological understanding is limited to short phrases that can be put on a bumper sticker. (Hmmm. That might make for a good post sometime).

I think there is a bit more going on, though. Since it’s still the Christmas season, I’ll be generous and grant that some are just clueless, don’t get it and have never grown (or developed personally) to understand how to think clearly and critically as a believer in Jesus Christ. However, in some cases I suspect people don’t want to talk about personal development because they are simply irresponsible, lazy and don’t want to get their fat a….. Angora cat off the couch to grow and develop into the persons God made them to be.

So, here is the incredible scene before us. There is an amazing amount of interest in the “world” to grow and develop personally. There is so much interest that many people are willing to pay a fair sum of money to life coaches. Some who hold in their hands the original personal development manual (the Bible) and profess to be born again followers of the Most High God have no idea how to connect with this obvious hunger of the very people we are tasked to reach. How STUPID and blind can we be!

Listen to just one command of scripture -

But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen. 2Peter 3:18

Biblical personal growth is not “self-help,” but growth in God’s grace. More than just accepting amazing grace one time 30 years ago to get saved, we are to continue growth in God’s grace. You need to find out what that is and what it means to grow in that grace. And, it is to grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Where do you think you might find such knowledge?

What has our Lord commanded us to do? Is it not to make disciples? (Matthew 28:18-20 in case you’re stumped). Do you not see what a biblical life coach is? One who makes disciples of Jesus!

People around you are hungry to grow in their personal lives. Why would they shell out money to hire a life coach? Because they think that coach has something they want. Discouraged because no one wants to “come to church” with you? If YOU can’t see specific areas of change and growth in your life over the past year, do you really think anyone else will? Do you really think they might care or be interested when you tell them how important your faith is to you?

So, wanna be a life coach? You’d better get going on your own personal development. How will that happen? Will you drop those 10 pounds you gained from Thanksgiving to Christmas by just thinking about it? Huh? Just thinking and talking about your personal growth will have the same result.

There are many ways to drop those 10 pounds, but whatever method you use is going to be a combination of less calories and more exercise. Catch the drift? There is no specific formula for personal growth, but you can bet that it will take a bit of effort and that it will sooner or later involve integrating biblical truth and principle into your life. Here are just a few suggestions. Some of the suggestions are specific to Graceway, but those of you elsewhere can surely find similar opportunities.

• Do YOU need a life coach? If you are a Gracewegan, you can go to the Graceway home page, click “Grow,” and follow the instructions. It’s all free, but it WILL cost you!
• Right this very minute you can decide that this next year you will read through the Bible. We emphasized this as a church last year and made it as easy as possible. We will continue to post daily readings on the website and sign up for them via email or social media. If you did this last year, it will be easier and better this year. Don’t lose the habit! If you prefer, use another Bible reading scheme. They’re all over the internet. This is something anyone can do, but it’s  great place to begin.
• Meet people! Grow is a plural verb in the Bible. Start attending an adult Sunday school class in addition to attending a main service. And/or become part of one of the many Bible study and class opportunities at Graceway. We need each other to grow. Check out the website.
• Already been though the Directions study? Try out the Next Steps course to start after the first of year. More details in your Sunday bulletin or the Around the Corner at Graceway video.
• Sign up this next year to take a course in our Shepherd School of Ministry.
• Set some realistic personal goals for your growth in 2012 and talk to God about them.

I’m sure you can think of other specific steps, too. Just determine to grow and be specific. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll be sure to get there and right on time!

If you think I’ve been a bit in your face, I’ve just been trying to encourage you to grow. Christmas Eve my oldest daughter and son-in-law were describing the kick-boxing class they are attending. I smiled as they described how their “coaches” would loudly and forcibly “encourage” them to push hard. It reminded me of my marital arts training. So, get up and start kicking a … Angora cats! what did you THINK I was going to say?

I’m writing these words on the eve of Christmas Eve. Though it’s late, stores are still open and folks still scurrying around getting last minute gifts and purchasing what they need for Christmas meals.

Today, my youngest daughter and I set aside time to make eggnog – an annual tradition. We had a great time and a wonderful talk. So much so that we let the eggnog get away from us. We ruined it! First time that’s ever happened, but we enjoyed the time together and that’s the real purpose.

Christmas Eve is our big family time and always has been. It’s a Latin American thing, even though I know of many families here who also count Christmas Eve as their main Christmas focus. In Latin American people visit the homes of friends unannounced as though the whole city is engaged in one big open house. By around midnight, everyone is migrating to the home of grandparents and a meal of tamales awaits (in many countries). Midnight in many countries is also a time to set off fireworks – lots and lots of them. The next day piles of paper litter the streets along with a sulfur-smelling haze.

So, I’m just about ready to go to bed and wake up tomorrow to welcome Christmas Eve! At 3:00pm we will have a family service at Graceway with traditional music and a time to reflect on the theme “Night of Wonder.”  Afterward, our family will gather at our house for a Latin American meal.

If you miss Christmas Eve, we are having a single Sunday morning service at Graceway at 10:00 am. I’ll be speaking on “Why Jesus Came to Earth.”

Many churches have a talented singer do a rendition of “Oh Holy Night” each year. I’ve always loved that song. So, as one who loves music, I scoured the Internet to find this great example of “Oh Holy Night” sung as you’ve never heard it before. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRiYKf19T-k

Though not technically a Christmas song, I couldn’t help but include this link from a very moving international performance of a Christian-Country classic. I think it will warm your heart this Christmas season.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWT9tLa15vU

Have a very Merry Christmas one and all!