The Story

Here is what was shared at our Sunday evening gathering. If you were there, I would love to hear your thoughts on any of this...

Outline:

1) God and His Creation
A) God is Beauty, Power, Creativity, Life, Goodness, Joy, Love
B) God creates a world that reflects His character, "It is good."
C) God creates humankind, He breathes (spirit/wind) into Man, Humanity is the caretaker, image-bearer, God-reflector

2) The Breaking of the World
A) Humanity rejects God and His image, steps out of fellowship with God and His place in creation
B) Humanity loses the Beauty, Power, Creativity, Life, Goodness, Joy, Love

Pain, Fear, Rage, Doubt, Despair, Alienation, Loneliness, Opression;
Confused about who we are and what our place is;
We use each other, sex objects, for money, we lie, and cheat and steal, we hurt and injure each other;
There is murder and rape, people hate each other for the color of their skin or their gender, religion, or sexual-orientation;
There are countries where whole people groups have been exterminated by the millions
There is disease, aids, cancer, ebola; there is poverty and starvation;
Even the world itself is broken, the skies and the waters are polluted and diseased, the animals and the plants are dying off

C) The Creation loses the reflection of God into it, instead humanity reflects brokenness and pain

The world is broken because humanity is broken; we have reflected our brokenness into the world...

3) God's Promised Restoration
A) From the beginning God pronounces His plan to put things right
B) He promises to bless Abraham and use his family to put the world right

4) The Call of a People
A) God choses the descendant's of Abraham, the twelve grandsons, to be His people
B) He places in their midst His Law, His Prophets, His Temple, His very Presence (Image/Spirit/Wind)
C) They are to be a light to the world, Blessed to be a blessing, the promise fulfilled through them, image-bearers, God-reflectors
D) They have a choice; their own agenda or God's, will they see God's blessing and chosing them as a reason for arrogance and pride, to keep the blessing to themselves, to hide the light they have been given; or to step into God's mission?

5) The Son of God; the Second Adam
A) Jesus comes, he is the Second Adam, taking upon himself the restoration and role of the first, God's Spirit (breath/wind) decends upon Him, He is God's image, Son, reflection into the world
B) He takes upon Himself the mission of God, to put things right, reconstituting the nation of Israel (the people of God) around Himself, to possess the indwelling of God (Jesus IS the Law, Prophets and Temple), the light and blessing of the world
A) Jesus chose 12 symbolic students (a renewed Israel, a renewed people of God), God gathered thousands to Jesus after His resurection.
C) He confronts the counterfeit people of God, people must chose between the People of God and the Mission of God as Jesus presents them, as opposed to the ethnocentric, political, nationalistic vision of the Pharisees, Zealots, Sadducees.
D) Jesus is executed as a Rebel, a false claimant to the throne, but in so doing He fulfills the promise, the Crucifixion is God taking the brokenness of the world upon Himself, putting things right through His own pain, reflecting the image of a loving-forgiving-redeeming-suffering God
E) Jesus OVERCOMES the brokenness and death; Resurrection! Jesus is vindicated! He IS God's true light, Israel's true King, He is God's Son doing God's work, redeeming the broken world, putting EVERYTHING back together

6) The Call of a People
B) A choice must be made, my vision of the world, or God's, will I allow God to remake me in His image, will I accept my own brokenness and allow Jesus crucifixion and resurrection to become my defining reality? Dying with Him in repentance and resurrecting with Him by His Spirit?
C) These are the people of God on the Mission of God, they are going to be used by God to fulfill His promise for the world, God's 'Rushing Wind' (spirit/breath) falls on the Church, they are God-reflectors, the Body of Christ, the light of the world, and the source of Blessing

7) The Mission of God
A) The Church has a Mission, "NO!" The Mission has a Church! It is not that God's people have a purpose attached to them, it is that God's purposes have a people attached to them! The Church is the only communty that exists primarily for the sake of it's non-members!
B) God is setting the world right. Restoring broken individuals, restoring broken relationships, restoring broken societies, restoring a broken environment.
C) As Jesus suffered to redeem the world, so too the Church must enter into the brokenness and suffering of the world to redeem it. We must pray with one hand in heaven and one hand on the brokenness and pain that is around us.

8) The Buffalo Vineyard Church
A) We have a choice! Will we repent and allow God to define us, to heal us, to set us right? Allowing ourselves to be connected to God by His redeeming death and resurrecting Spirit, will we submit to His Spirit (Breath/Wind)?
B) The Church is in danger of the same judgment as the nation of Israel if we do as they did, we must recognize that we are chosen to serve. We cannot create a bubble of Christians, marginalizing everyone else. We must be the church for the world, or esle we are not the Church! The Church for too long has rejected God's purposes in the world, and rejected the peopple that God loves and wants to bring in...
C) Becoming the people of God, connected to each other through community, truly and deeply knowing and loving each other.
D) Joining the mission of God, connecting to the broken places and people around us in our own lives, in the larger city, and in the larger world.
E) I say YES! We are a small group of people who meet in a home weekly to worship and learn and pray, to eat and listen and encourage and challenge, to serve the needs of the poor and the broken, to warmly invite others to participate, to include anyone who desires, to see that reproduced around the city. We are beginning to experience God's restoration, God's healing breath and spirit, (I invite you to participate and receive Him) There are people in our church who are dreaming about making an impact on the world around them; connecting the arts and spirituality, serving the broken and needy people in our city; THEY GET IT! The Church is for the world!
F) To have an expanding network of small communities of people who are commited to the Mission of God, reflecting His image, allowing the Christ-life to dwell in their midst, to invite others to participate and to see that same thing reproduced a thousand times throughout our city and our world...

So now it gets practical---

We want to see more, in more places, we don't want to hold on to this

GIVE AWAY THE BLESSING!

*MAYBE YOU NEED TO BE PUT RIGHT, HEALED, WE ALL DO!

How do we share what we are experiencing? What we are commited to?

Handout: See the end.

10) Conclusion
A) Story - You are invited to find yourself in God's Story!
B) Mission - You are invited to put the world right!
C) Repentance - It begins with the choice to allow God to put your own soul right, to take your brokenness upon Him and to create you anew, and Breathe (Spirit/Wind) in you again



Handout:

Begin your day by praying the Lord’s Prayer
Pray through the book of Psalms
Pray over the daily Buffalo News Headlines
Read the Gospel of Mark every day for a week
Ask someone to recommend a book to read
Worship God
Compose a song or poem praising God
Spend time in contemplation on who God is
Be silent for an extended period of time
Spend a week without listening to any radio/TV
Give up food for a day and buy a homeless person lunch and/or pray for starving children
Confess something to someone else
Go out of your way to encourage someone
Pray for God's insight, and then write an encouraging letter to someone
Invite someone to join you in any of the activities on this list
Invite someone here to your home for a meal
Open your home to start a second home group
Spend time with someone who has nothing to offer
Offer to perform a menial task for the Church
Spend time with someone you wouldn't normally
Get someone here's phone number and go have coffee together, ask each other deep questions
Rake leaves in your neighborhood
Visit sick people in a hospital and pray for them
Share with someone your spiritual journey
Invite a friend to be a part of our community
Sponsor a child with World Vision or Be-A-Hero
Help someone move
Offer to pray a blessing over a random stranger
Tip 100% at your next meal
Volunteer at the Homeless shelter
Listen to someone
Meet someone’s practical needs
Organize an art show exploring spirituality
Research ways our community can practically make an impact on: AIDS, Environment, Global Poverty
Pick up trash on your block
Organize a drive to replace light bulbs with energy efficient ones
Volunteer with Aids Community Service
Travel to another country to serve their needs
Pay the toll for the car behind you
Start a blanket drive
Volunteer with Big Brothers-Sisters
Volunteer with Habitat for Humanity
Start a Sunday School for children that meets at one of the housing projects in the City