The Church

The Church. Something that we have struggled with from the very beginning. It’s almost been like Jesus painted a gorgeous picture of a mountain.

We looked at it and said, ‘What if we put a couple trees over here? It’s still a picture of a mountain.’ And then another said, ‘We need to change the color of the sky. There we go-that’s better. Still a picture of a mountain!’ And another says, ‘There’s plenty of room to put our name on the bottom here next to the artist’s signature. It won’t mess with the picture. It’s still a mountain.’

We had a very unique opportunity with the opening of a new church. In my mind there was no history, no debt hanging over our heads, no drama-just a clean slate. This last Sunday we spent a lot of time talking about the church and about how some people think our church is 7 months old, but in reality we are about 2,000 years old. And so even though we would like to think our church has a clean slate and there are no struggles, we realized that the church was made of people.

We have had so many visitors come to The Rescue Church-it has been truly amazing. What we have found (a.k.a. DUH moment) is that people have history, people struggle with debt, and people have plenty of drama. The problem we have found is that we took a beautiful picture of what the church was supposed to be and conformed it to what we liked and then forced people to understand it…and LOVE it!

God continues to work on my heart as being the pastor of The Rescue Church. We decided to take the picture of the church and make it painfully simple. Take away the manmade additions and just look at ‘the mountain’.

What did Jesus tell us to do? Are we doing it? Let’s start there. Do you love Jesus?

Let’s start to capture our love for the mountain again. Let’s take away the things that we’ve put in the way of that love. We will never claim to be the perfect church, but we will forever claim to be a church that loves Jesus. From the beginning, The Rescue Church has talked about Jesus, and though many things will change, one thing will never change, the Book will be open and Jesus will be proclaimed, by the grace of God, through the power of the Holy Spirit. The result? That’s for God to know.

Much Love-PC

pastorcory@rescuesumner.org

www.rescuesumner.org

Clarity

Clarity…

The state or appearance of being clear. I would have to say that the first 20 or so years of my life I had the appearance of being clear. I gave my life to Jesus at a young age, enjoyed going to church, and lived a life that would convince most people that I was a Christian. But what was I doing? Just like every senior at the end of this high school year will ask-what am I going to do?

I think for most Christians this question leads to the appearance of clearness while at the same time mediocrity takes over their unconscious faith.

For myself, this past year has been a time of clarity in my life. I realize that this blog has looked more like a church update page, but I must tell you something important that happened in my life through the planting of The Rescue Church. God called me back to my first love of Jesus Christ. Too long we have just agreed with or tolerated the words of Jesus. I have come to believe that the words of Jesus were a poem of love for you and me.

My faith, my life, my family, my relationships have become so much more clear when I started to love Jesus again. I’ve always loved Jesus, but have you deeply loved Jesus-where you think about Him constantly? Through clarity comes mission and purpose. As Christians our mission should revolve around the love that has been given to us. For me, and those at The Rescue, we have decided that means to preach Jesus. Every week. At all costs.

Why must I talk to people about Jesus?

Isaiah 42:7, 'To open blind eyes, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.' Seems like a pretty good reason. But who do you know sitting in a dungeon? Again, clarity issue. We have looked at this world for so long through the OK lense. Everything is OK. You don’t want anything to do with Jesus, that’s OK. You’d rather live a life of sin, that’s OK. I understand you’re struggling with your faith, but it’s OK.

The message, the Gospel of Jesus, becomes much more clear when we realize that souls are in bondage. There is work to be done, and that has given me clarity. There are those who need to hear about Jesus, and that’s given me clarity. I love Jesus, and that has given me clarity. 

If you would like Jesus and the clarity He provides, I'd like to invite you to church on Sunday. 

www.rescuesumner.org

-PC