Hello Church!
I hope you’re having a good week. Last week I shared with you about the Multiply: Bless The West strategic resource initiative. I was blown away to hear what our leadership has already committed to the campaign. Between our pastors, staff, small group leaders and deacons over $40,000 has already been pledged. That’s already over halfway there to our basic goal of $75,000. With that kind of momentum even the WOWlelujah goal of $100,000 isn’t out of reach.
So many of you have enthusiastically gotten behind this project. I encourage you to continue praying about what role you could play. I spoke about “Bless The West” for a few moments this past Sunday and offered a few ideas for how you could help contribute. I hope you’ll check it out if you weren’t able to make it.
Spring is in full swing and we’ve got some really big things coming up soon. If you’re interested in singing in the 9:40 or 11:00 worship choir then let me encourage you to come up tonight (Wednesday) at 6:30 as they rehearse for Easter Sunday. The Lord has blessed us in bringing Daniel to lead the worship ministry in our church. He’s been a blessing to our staff team and is doing a great job so far. I know each of the choirs love him and his family a lot.
Not too long from now we will be kicking off our spring Spiritual Growth Campaign entitled GREATER. This growth campaign is geared to help you apply the victory and power behind the death and resurrection of Jesus to your everyday life so that you can start winning at home, at work and in your most important relationships.
So often when people think of the word “GREATER” words like “strength, power or victory” come to mind. The word GREATER might surface feelings of discontentment between the life that you have and the life that you want. The word implies that what “could be” is greater than what “is.” It scratches our itch for something more.
Most people in our culture don’t associate the word GREATER with Jesus. You might, if you grew up in the church. But, for the most part, words like “Jesus, Gospel, Holy Spirit” bring up something else. For most people, when they hear those words, they might think of things like new-fashioned, judgmental, restrictive, or “spiritual.”
In our culture, so many people put their “spiritual thoughts” in a category separate from their “real life.” Philosophers call it the sacred/secular split. That’s unfortunate. We may think we’re able to split those two realms but we can’t. We are integrated selves. Furthermore, the only way to experience “real life” in a GREATER way is to apply the spiritual power within the Gospel to your everyday life.
It’s one thing to apply bits of wisdom to your life that you draw from the Scripture. It’s another thing all together to center your life on the truths of the Gospel; to apply those in a deep and profound way. It’s the difference between being influenced by the Word of God and being indwelt with the Word of God.
As you’ll see in this growth campaign, the GREATER life comes when we let the Word of God “dwell within us.” It means being at home with the Gospel story and having the Gospel story be at home in us.
My prayer in this campaign is that you’ll see just how relevant the Gospel is to your everyday life. I want you to see how the Gospel can fundamentally transform your relationships. I’m not just talking about your relationship with God. I’m talking about relationships in the home, at work and among your closest friends. Here’s a brief breakdown of what we’re going to cover.
We’re kicking off the GREATER series on Easter Sunday. Small groups won’t be meeting that day but I’ll be preaching from Colossians 3:1-4 on what it means to live the greater life and how that life is truly found in Christ. The small groups will start meeting the following Sunday. From that point, the growth campaign will last six weeks.
Week 1 will look at the “lesser life” and identify those things that keep us from experiencing the greater life that is in Christ. There are some silent enemies that lurk in the deep recesses of our heart that need to be exposed. We’ve got to put off the new if we’re ever going to experience something new.
Week 2 we’re going to discover the key elements that position us to start winning in life, spiritually, relationally and otherwise. This week contains probably my favorite passage in the whole book of Colossians. It’s just so practical and helpful for every relationship in your life.
Weeks 3-6 are going to offer that same kind of practical help. However, they’re going to apply the Gospel to four specific relational environments. These four types of relationships go a long way in determining the quality of our life.
Week 3 is being GREATER in our marriages. We’re going to look at the relationship between husband & wife. Week 4 is being GREATER in our parenting. We’re going to look at the relationship between parents & children.
Week 5 is being GREATER in our work. We’re going to look at the relationship between Christians and their work. Week 6 is being GREATER in our witness. We’re going to look at the relationship between Christians and the world.
You’ll benefit the most from the GREATER spiritual growth campaign if you involve yourself in a small group that is dedicated to covering the content together. If your current small group isn’t going to do the Greater campaign and you want to be involved, then you’ll need to find another group. The campaign will only last 6 weeks and it starts the Sunday after Easter, April 23rd.
If you’re Sunday morning small group isn’t going to do the campaign, there will be mid-week small groups on almost every other day of the week. I’ll even be hosting a small group at my house on Thursday evenings. If you need help locating a small group, just reply back to this email and we can help.
There are also Greater campaign spiritual growth tools in our Broadview app and in the Gathering Place. The staff have worked hard to provide you with a 100 page GREATER “growth guide.” This guide contains daily devotionals, a bible reading plan, small group discussion guides that correspond to the small group video curriculum and a place to take notes on Sunday mornings.
If you don’t want a paper copy of the growth guide you can access all of the same resources through our smart phone app. We will even include the small group discussion videos in the app along with the Sunday morning messages so that you can stay up to date even if you miss a week.
I want to challenge you get involved with this growth campaign. It’s an intentional time of targeted spiritual growth. Please join in and stick with it for the full 6 weeks. If you miss a week, be sure and catch up online or in the app. Share what God is doing in your life on social media by using the hashtag #greaterbbc. Have faith that God is going to use his Word by his Spirit through this tool to change your life.
I know I’m excited about what’s next. If you have any questions or if there’s anything you’d like me to know and/or pray about, please just let us know. I hope you have a great rest of your week!
Blessings,
Pastor Wes