Below is the text from the handout that we gave on Sunday:

This challenge is meant to get us thinking beyond just giving, beyond just “doing what we’re supposed to do.”  It’s a challenge to be generous!  To give because we have received the most generous gift imaginable!  And because of the joy we have in the hope contained in that gift, we overflow with the desire to abundantly give to others.  Below are some suggestions to get you started.  Feel free to be creative.

Week 1:  Giving Away Your Time (March 6th to 12th)

Ideas:

• Volunteer with one of our Strategic Partners (i.e Raleigh Rescue Mission).  Visit the Connections Kiosk for a list of our partners.

• Help in an area that you normally would not – do someone else’s chore at home, assist a coworker in their responsibility at work, take a neighbor’s trash can back from the curb – and try to do it secretly if possible!

• Invite a neighbor over for dinner.

• Pick out an age-appropriate translation of the Bible and read favorite stories to your kids before bedtime.

• Take a prayer walk through your neighborhood.

• Plan a date night with your spouse and pray that God would use that time to draw you closer together and engage in transparent communication.

• Commit to attend a Community Group weekly for 10 months.

• Take a special trip with your kids to a local kids’ museum and take advantage of all teachable moments.

Week 2:  Giving Away Your Talent (March 13th to 19th)

Ideas:

• To learn about your giftings and passions, take Southbridge’s online assessment. (www.southbridgefellowship.com/assessme/about)

• Volunteer on a team (i.e. Tech, Bridge Kids, Hospitality, SYU, Outreach, Music, etc.

• Start a common interest/affinity group.

• Make a gift.  Take something you do well (i.e. baking, crafting, cooking, wood working, etc.) and make a gift for someone who wouldn’t expect something from you.

• Do something unexpected and nice for a neighbor based on your gifts and abilities.

Week 3:  Giving Away Your Treasure (March 20th to 26th)

Ideas:

• Bless someone in your Community Group generously.

• The next time you go out to eat, change your tip – 1) if you go to a restaurant that doesn’t receive tips, give a tip to the person cleaning tables. 2) if they do receive tips, double your tip (or double the bill as a tip!)  Thank God for the ability to do so.

• Sponsor a Compassion International (www.compassion.com) child or family, with your family, friends, or Community Group.

• Carry cash in your left pocket ($5-$50) and look for an opportunity to give it away.  Keep trying everyday until you can give it all away.

• Buy coffee for the person in line behind you.

• Commit to tithing (10%) for 30 days.

• Sell something you own and give the proceeds to charity.

• Go to www.lifestraw.com and donate a personal, portable water purifier that is used to prevent common diseases in many parts of our world.  (Cost = $5.00 each)

• Participate in the LifeCare and Gateway Pregnancy Centers drive March 13th to 27th).  Go to the Connections Kiosk on Sunday for more information.

Week 4:  Giving Away the Truth (March 27th to April 2nd)

Ideas:

• Share the Gospel with someone you love.  This could be in person or possibly a letter.

• Write a handwritten note of encouragement to your family or friends.  Tell the person why you value being in relationship with them.

• Set up a family meeting to talk about your generosity as a family (if single, do with a friend).  Discuss the biblical truth of what it means to be generous and how God wants you to be generous.  Ask for input as to where you should continue being generous.

• Start a Bible Study with your neighbors.  Contact the office if you need resources.

• Leave a Gospel tract with your server.

• Share your testimony (what God has done and is currently doing in your life) with someone.

• Ask God for obvious opportunities to share the Truth with others.

• Buy 10 Bibles and give them away.

We would love to hear how the Lord used this in your life.  Please let us know by going to the link below and sharing your story.  www.surveymonkey.com/s/generositychallenge

This Thursday, Southbridge Fellowship women will be gathering for Nourish, our Women’s Ministry event. We will host Paula Rinehart who is an author, speaker, and counselor in Raleigh.  As I talked with Paula over lunch, I sensed a warmth and thoughtfulness about her as well as a deep love for God’s Word.  She will speak for two short sessions.  Here is a sneak peak at the content of her talks:

“Two bedrock truths must be ours, in ever deeper measures, as we move through life:  God’s greatness and His empathy.  What would it mean to walk out your days with God, resting in his sovereign grace? Experience the cure for our regrets, the calm for our fears.”

Join us at the Hilton RTP off Page Rd at 7pm this Thursday, May 13th for an exciting evening with our women. Paula’s books will be available for purchase at the event.

How many times do we miss opportunities to give because we fail to see real needs or we are afraid to give what we have? Those are the requirements of a generous life:

1. Eyes to see real needs.

2. Courage to give what we have to meet those needs.

Do you meet the requirements of a generous life?

A memorable Community Group effort started last Christmas when we were offered the opportunity to sponsor a needy family at Christmas time. The family we got to sponsor was a mother and her five children ranging in ages from 2 to 11 years old.  Also the father of the last four children, is actively involved with the family.  We collected up the gifts and took a meal to them and they were very appreciative.  But that is just the beginning.
 
Our group was convicted that a one time giving of gifts was not what God wanted, so we got involved with the family.  Some of our group started going over on Thursday nights and helped the kids with their homework, took a meal or just plain shared fellowship.  Near Easter, one of the members of the group shared the Easter story and then the Gospel and the entire family prayed to receive Christ.  They have been coming to SBF as their schedule permits.  We had a community group night at the Durham Bulls and took the family.  We had a group cookout and invited them and they brought a teenage neighbor who also stated he wanted to come to church.  So our community group grew from a simple gift giving effort to shepherding a family which led to multiple salivation’s.  Now that is PRAISE the LORD material.

That is great. Thank you for sharing.

The church should function like that. When the world sees what we have (Jesus) they should say: I want that. However, the church has become lame. It is more of a routine than a revolution. The early church was different. Success was not measured by attendance. It was more than a one hour routine. It was not about a bunch of people singing some good music and hearing a good talk from one guy. The early church was different it was a revolution that turned their world upside down. What did they have? COMMUNITY. By Community I simply mean being connected in relationship. Connected in relationship first with Jesus Christ then with each other. You can hear more about this by listening to the message from today: I want that!

“My community group mirrors the community that is found in Acts. We have loved together, shared, supported each other with finances, morally we are unafraid to confront, we are open to each other and others, we’ve fought. They are as close to me as family, and sometimes even closer. Pretty much anytime I am not at work or at church, I am with them or on the phone with one of them.” 

“Through my group, God has helped me to come to the point of trusting people again.” 

“Our group has divided twice so that others could begin to lead and share community with more people. We have seen marked growth – more people reading their Bible consistently and opening up about their struggles.” 

“…I have received unconditional love and acceptance. Life change has been huge in our group and I look forward to attending.” 

“Being the oldest in our group, it’s been refreshing to be able to both learn from the youngin’s and share life lessons from God with them.” 

“The story that comes to mind is when my husband and I were going through a tough time with our families…Our CG was so supportive, and they came over during a week night after the kids went to bed and we had a prayer session. We felt so blessed and could feel the power of prayer from them. It was awesome to know that we have such a close group that they would drop everything to be there for us.”

“My community group went to see the movie “Fireproof” as a group outing, and my mom happened to be in town so she came along and was very welcomed. She accepted Christ as her Savior the next day!”

Today we began our series called CORE. We are preaching through our five core values: Worship, Community, Growth, Service and Generosity. Today we started by talking about worship, asking the question: Are you the kind of worshipper God created you to be? We saw that God is actually looking for a certain kind of worshipper (John 4:23). We looked at biblical worship which is: Seeing God accurately and responding appropriately. We saw how Peter did this in Luke 5:1-11. You see this throughout the scripture in passages like this one in Luke 5 and other places like Isaiah 6. The pattern is people have an encounter with the living God and they don’t leave feeling all warm and fuzzy. They are blown away by who God is (holy and righteous), which forces them to reflect on who they are (sinful). However, God is gracious and allows us to speak with Him and be used by Him. Our appropriate response is like that of Peter leaving everything to follow Him or like Isaiah saying, “Here I am send me.” The appropriate response is a surrendered life. Like Paul says in Romans 12:1 “Therefore, I urge you, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual act of worship.” God wants a completely surrendered life.

We say at Southbridge that worship begins with a decision to trust Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and it continues as a lifestyle of responding to His revelation of Himself. Worship is not about singing a song, volunteering for a ministry, giving some money or anything like that. Worship is a matter of the heart. When your heart is surrendered to God those things can be great expressions of worship, but if your heart is not surrendered to God those things are done in vain.

Some helpful resources that I recommend when you are thinking through your own personal finances are:

Surviving Financial Meltdown, by Ron Blue and Jeremy White (I mentioned this book a couple of times during this series).

Money, Possesions, and Eternity, by Randy Alcorn (A great book as a resource for a biblical perspective on finances).

The Treasure Principle, by Randy Alcorn (A short book that contains God’s investment strategy).

I would also recommend Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. I have not completed it, but I have listened to some of the talks. Southbridge is also offering some small group classes called: The Road to Financial Freedom as a follow up to this series. You can sign up for those by emailing crown@southbridgefellowship.com.

Ron Blue in his book Surviving Financial Meltdown recommends these web sites for your personal finances:

www.masteryourmoney.com

www.mymoney.gov

www.crown.org

www.360financialliteracy.org/life+stages

He has more, but these should be useful.

One of the Pastors I have become friends with since moving to Raleigh is Jimmy Carroll, the Lead pastor at Journey Church. When Jimmy heard that our stuff had been stolen, he immediately emailed me and offered to let us borrow some of their equipment. I mention to Southbridge periodically that we are not in competition with other local churches, but if those local churches are preaching the gospel they are our partners. Jimmy and Journey Church gave us an awesome example of that this past week.

I just want to use this blog to thank Jimmy and Journey Church for their generosity. I am thankful to have churches like Journey who are also trying to reach this city for Jesus Christ.

It was Saturday night, I had just finished the final touches on Sunday mornings message. At about 8:30pm, I called our worship leader for that Sunday morning. We talked through the service and we were about to pray together, when I saw someone beeping in. It was Jon Cullen, our Family Pastor. I ignored the call. Then he called my cell. Then he called the home line again. I knew something serious was going on if he called that many times. I also knew his wife was out of town, so perhaps he had burned his house down, that or he was hanging out with John Piper after the conference he attended this weekend. Either way I called him back without knowing why he had called.

When Jon answered, I said, “Jon this is Scott.” To which he replied, “Hold on, I am talking to the police.” POLICE! What is going on? Where are you at? I could not ask those questions because he stopped talking to me. Then after what seemed like a long time he said, “Scott, let me call you back.” I said, “Wait. What is going on?” He said, “I am standing out here by our trailer (we are a portable church), and someone broke in. It looks like they cleaned it out.”

Sure enough someone had broken into the trailer where we keep most of our audio visual equipment for Sunday mornings. At this point it was almost 9:00pm on Saturday night. What happened then was truly amazing. People from Southbridge jumped on this situation and went to work so the hundreds of people who would come to Southbridge this morning would have an unhindered worship experience. Did we have the television in the lobby, cameras for the video venue, or all of the technical bells and whistles we have grown accustom to? No. But the troops were united and at work. The worship team prepared a new worship set (that was pretty much all acoustic in case the tech team could not get anything worked out). However, the tech team (whose leaders worked past midnight), went to one of our elders (Allin Foulkrod’s) office to assemble a temporary sound system and get a projector to show the words (from one of the guys laptops). If you were there in the second service we missed a slide on one song (I think because his battery was dying. Sorry, but one slide was not bad after all that had happened). People work hard every week at Southbridge, setting up, tearing down, etc. However, this week they were working extra hard and I am super thankful for all of them.

I reminded everyone this morning of a verse from Genesis: Genesis 50:20 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

What man intended for bad, God intended for good. God united people so that the gospel could still go forth. We were reminded about what we really NEED (the technical aids are nice, but it was nice today taking a few steps back technically). We desire to connect people to Jesus for life change. Today we were reminded that all we need to be able to do that is:

1. Jesus.

2. People.

One of the ironic things about today was that I was already planning on speaking about generosity from 1 Timothy 6:17-19. The challenge was to hold all of our material stuff with open hands. God has a funny way of making sure we apply the truths He desires for us to learn.