Glory Of It All

I downloaded the new David Crowder Band release "Remedy" on the day it came out this week and haven't stopped listening to it since. It is in my opinion Crowder's best project to date. There is not a bad song on it. There is one track in particular that nearly brings me to tears each time I hear it. "Glory of It All" is a beautifully written song reminding us of the hope God brings, even in the darkest of times.

I will be at the National Youth Workers Convention in San Diego, October 19-22. I am looking forward to being there for so many reasons, one of which is being led in worship by David Crowder.

Here he leads "Glory Of It All" at Passion '07.

Wonderfully Awkward

Today is the day of See You At The Pole. Due to the fact that there are many schools represented in our ministry, it is impossible to get to all of them, so I decided to go and pray with some of my middle school students. It was a wonderfully awkward time.

It was awkward simply because the middle school years by themselves are awkward ones. Developmentally they are at a very self-conscience and awkward stage in life. Take that same kid and place them in front of their school around their flag pole and it gets even more awkward. It was wonderful because they were willing to take a stand for Christ despite the staring eyes and rude comments by their fellow peers passing by.

It was such a wonderful honor to stand as the only adult with the small group of students who showed up. It was wonderful helping them introduce themselves to one another, and discovering fellow brothers and sisters. When we bagan to pray, not many of them prayed aloud, but I'm sure they were praying inwardly, and based on the conversation we had afterward, continued to pray throughout their day.

I love middle schoolers. That small group of them were truly seeking to live out the words of Philippians 2:15, "...become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe."

To night is our post SYATP rally with our students. I am look forward to a great night of seeking our God together, and witnessing what He accomplishes through the time.

Student Evangelism

I was recently contacted by a national mission agency. They were seeking my opinion on a very important question. One particularly important when it comes to youth ministry. The question, what do you do to reach the schools in your community? It is a good question that would no doubt solicit various answers from different pastors and ministries. Here are my thoughts.

Along with always encouraging our students to invite their unchurched friends to things we are doing (events, regular gatherings, etc.) our primary "strategy" is helping our students discover who Jesus is, and fall in love with Him and His message. It is our belief that when a student is a committed follower of Christ it will be freely evidenced in their life and people will be drawn to Him.

It is my feeling that we for too long have been drawn into looking for the newest and best "strategy" to follow for sharing Christ (4 Spiritual Laws, Steps to Peace with God, Romans Road, 3 Story Evangelism, etc., etc.) when the best strategy is a changed and revolutionized life. When a person is consumed with and in love with Jesus, it doesn't take long for that person to start talking about the One that they are so committed to. Certainly we have discussed methods for sharing Christ, but we focus much more on discipling our students in the direction of a committed love relationship with Him.

If you were to spend any time at all with your average grandmother it would not be long before she was pulling out her wallet to show you all the pictures of her dearly loved grandchildren. Why? Because she is so in love with, excited about, and proud of them that she can't help it. It's natural. No one had to train her in how to share her grandchildren with other people. There is nothing she would rather do. So should it be with our relationship with Christ.

Thoughts?

Consumerism And The Church

I recently heard Donald Miller ask the question, "How has our free market society affected the gospel?" It really got me thinking. Our society is a society that is saturated with consumerism. It affects just about all we do. We want what we want, and we want it just the way we want it. And we want it now. This has even proven to be the case within the Church.

I can't begin to tell you how many times I have heard people utter the words, "I'm not being fed." Consumerism at it's finest. Why are you leaving your church I have asked. The answer, "I'm not being fed." I don't recall reading in scripture that the Church exists for us to be fed and to meet our needs. It's not about us. Is it not more about about looking for ways to serve the needs of others, both within and outside the Church? Isn't that a better model of what we see described in places like Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 12 among others?

Let this humorous video continue to stir your thinking.



HT to Joshua Johnson for the video.

Fall Fusion

This last Friday was Fall Fusion, our annual fall kickoff for 180 Student Ministries. What a night it was, complete with the giant velcro wall, sumo wrestling, stupid human tricks, prizes, great music, a ton of pizza, and a challenge to make life count.

It was our biggest and best Fall Fusion yet. Check it out...

New Name

Names are important. What's in a name?, some may ask. Names identify who we are. They also describe who we are. My name, Brian, means "strong one." I guess I can live with that. Find out what your names means by going here.

For the last 50 years our church has gone by the name Tigard First Baptist Church. For a long time that name did a good job of describing who we are. In recent years we have taken on sort of a nickname if you will, that being The Grace Place; a better description of who we really are. With these two names it has left us in a bit of an identity crisis. While we no longer completely identified with the title Baptist, we also felt as if The Grace Place was a bit on the gimmicky side or perhaps just too cute sounding.

After quite a long and arduous process God has led us to our new identity. As of Sunday, September 16, we are now known as Grace Point Community Church. Many have asked are we distancing or disassociating ourselves from the association of churches we belong to? Or are we no longer a baptist church? The simple answer is, our name is changing but our affiliation is not. So why the change and why the name Grace Point Community Church? The why can be answered quite simply. We feel we can do a better job of reaching our community without the title baptist in our name. We have found that in recent years that that title has done a better job of repelling people than attracting them. Case in point, this last spring we had our annual high school beach retreat. One student shared with me that they had invited an a friend to join us. The girl was told by her mother that she could not attend because, "it's a baptist church, and all baptists are psycho." How tragic. I can't help but wonder if our name had been something else, if she would have joined us, and perhaps be walking with Jesus today. While we are a church community known for our love, grace and acceptance of people, many can't even get past the name to find that out.


Pastor Steve did a great job laying out the the thinking and the heart behind our new name.

• We want people to know that the point of our church is grace. (not doctrinal issues, programs, buildings etc.)

• We believe that the entry point of salvation is grace.

• We point people in grace to "live for an audience of One." (one of our core values)

• We are committed to grace and truth. This is the point of our approach. (one of our core values)

• Grace Point has a focusing effect on all we do/are.

• Unlike the name Baptist, Grace Point is consistent with who we are and is a description of what folks will find at our church.

• We seek for our church to be the central point of our community.

• Grace Point Community Church tells who we are (a church focused on the grace of God) and who we're here for (the community).

• Grace Point Community Church describes a sweet dynamic of Body Life in our church. We are a community!

One of our people shared today a sad truth ... baptist have become known for what they hate, not what they love. May that never be said of us. May the world see that we are living out the stated purpose of Grace Point Community Church, "to love God and love others to God."

We are excited to see where this new chapter in our life takes us.

Along with out new name also comes a new domain name for our web site and email. Our new site is yet to launch, but our email has now been changed. If you have previously emailed me at brianeberly(at)tigardfirstbaptist.com, please change your address to book to reflect my new address, brian(at)gracepointfamily.com.

Teamwork

Sometimes two hands are just not enough.

A Day In The Life

I have often been asked, just what does a youth pastor do?

Click on this image to find out.

Whew! Makes me dizzy just thinking about it! Man I love me job!

HT to elevating a generation

Think On This

The American church as a whole needs to move from selfish consumerism to unselfish contribution. Those are poles apart. To start with a woman who's most interested in how many diamonds she's got in her tennis bracelet, and move her to sit under a banyan tree holding an AIDS baby - that's a giant leap. People in this culture are trained to think about me, me, me; I've got to do what's best for me.

Even when we go to church, we have this consumer mentality. We say things like, "I didn't get anything out of the service today." Well, sorry. It wasn't for you; it was for God.

-Rick Warren

See You At The Pole

In two weeks "See You At The Pole" will take place. SYATP a student led prayer movement that began 17 years ago with a handful of students in Texas, has now become a movement that has swept across our country and even around the world. On September 26, thousands will gather around their school flag poles an hour before school to pray. It is always an awesome site to see students boldly standing before their peers to seek the God they love. Two years ago I wrote about my experience with the event. Read it here

There are mixed feelings on the event. There are some who no longer support it because of how commercialized it has become. I agree with the sentiment but am not ready to throw it out. It is always a sad thing when a great movement of God becomes institutionalized. What was once the vision of a small gathering of students has now become an organization with offices, salaries, and expensive merchandise. While disheartening on one hand, I suppose the same can be said about the Church. I'm certainly not ready to throw out the Church.


As I see it, any time we can encourage students to gather and pray....do it! I really appreciate the theme of this year's SYATP. Gather. Unite. Pray. Come Together. John 17:20-23. I believe it brings God great pleasure and honor to see his children coming together to seek Him and pray. It is something the world sees far too little of. We are good at airing out differences for the world to see, but lack in coming together as one Church. Let the Church pray!

May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. John 17:23.

2007 Mexico Video

I just returned from a great time with your Mexico Outreach Team. It was so good to sit around and share fun memories and even more the ways God is continuing to impress upon us the need to live our lives on mission for Him.

We also enjoyed a great meal of enchiladas, rice, beans, chips, fresh salsa, and of course Mexican Coke in a bottle!

The highlight of the night was viewing the video of the trip. Took us right back! If you would like to see it, and have 17 minutes to spare, grab yourself a bottle of Mexican Coke and enjoy!

Salsa

One of my favorite things about this time of year is salsa...fresh from the garden!

From this
To this
To this
To this!
Our Mexico Outreach Team is getting together tomorrow night for a reunion and debrief time. What better time than that for some fresh salsa!

We're looking forward to a time of seeing how each of us are continuing on with the mission God has set before us. A lot happened in our hearts in Mexico this summer. It's our hope that the work God began only continues to grow.

We also plan to "premier" the extended version of our Mexico Outreach video. For those interested, I will be posting it here after the team sees it on Sunday. It does a great job of telling the story.

Addicted to Money

Relevant Magazine.com has just run a brilliant article by Jesse Carey, on how we as a society are addicted to money. There is a great collision between the life God has called us to and the life our culture calls us to.

God has called us to a simple life, a life of dependence upon Him and community, and a life of giving to the poor. Our culture calls us to something entirely different. It calls us to a life of consumerism, a life of independence, and a life of relentlessly seeking bigger and better.

Carey sites a a report published by the Center for Environment and Population (CEP), "in 2006 they found that though the United States accounts for only 5 percent of the world’s population, it uses 23 percent of the world’s energy, 28 percent of its paper and consumes 15 percent of its meat. The study also found that 37 percent of all of the cars in the world are on American roads. The average American is responsible for five pounds of waste per day—that’s compared to three pounds in Europe and .9 to 1.3 pounds in parts of the developing world. The study also found overwhelming comparisons concerning obesity, carbon emissions and water usage in contrast to other parts of the globe."

Donald Miller is quoted saying, "We live in a culture that’s addicted to money, and we’re addicted to what money can buy us. And we’re fooled into thinking that, ‘I can buy this product, and this product will make me happy.’ And we’re fooled because the average American sees 3,000 commercial images a day. It’s like somebody constantly asking you if you want crack—3,000 times a day. And you only take it once a day ... that’s not good.”

The reality is, if we are making more than $3 a day we are among the world's rich. The question is what are we doing with our riches? Are we living for the culture or are we living for Christ?

We have our priorities messed up. I have my priorities messed up. We need to make a change. Will you join me? If you have 10 minutes to spare start by reading the article. It's found here.

If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 1 John 3:17-18

May we be filled with the love of God and show it to the world around us with our actions, filled with truth.

What Is Your Theology?

Just took this little quiz to find out which theologian I am most like. I came out as Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033 – April 11, 2019). Wikipedia says of him, "He was an Italian medieval philosopher, theologian, and church official who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. Called the founder of scholasticism, he is famous as the originator of the ontological argument for the existence of God and as the archbishop who openly opposed the Crusades.” Next to Anselm I am most like John Calvin.

Who are you most like? Go here to take the quiz.

Let me know who you line up with.

HT to Greg Burch

Change

Change

1. to make the form, nature, content, future course, etc., of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone.
2. to become altered or modified


It's time. This blog has been in need of a face lift for quite sometime now, so now is the time. There are still quite a few tweaks and fixes still to be made, so stay tuned. For someone like me, who is not the sharpest tool in the html toolbox, it takes a little time.

Thanks for reading.