Sun
Jun
21st
2009

Fearless Fathers

Many of our fathers made a public statement about their desire to be the fathers God has called them to be today. I was encouraged by the amount of men who stepped out of their seat and came forward at the end of both of our services this week to say they wanted to be fearless fathers. We saw from the Father in Mark 9:14-26 that fearless fathers: actively embrace their failure, and aggressively pursue Jesus. Men at Southbirdge were saying that they are not perfect, but they desire to aggressively pursue Jesus. Praise the Lord! Men stepping up to be the men God has called them to be!

As a follow up to today’s message the Fathers of Southbridge have been invited to a Fearless Fathers Forum at the Southbridge church office on Monday June 29th at 7:00pm. I am going to lead this time starting with a challenge to our men. Then we are going to have an open forum time of question and answer where our fathers and future fathers can ask any question they want to a forum of men who are leaders at Southbridge, and who have sons and daughters at various stages of life. I think this is going to be a great time for our fathers to sharpen each other and hold each other accountable to be real men to our families.

If you are a father and want more information about attending the fearless fathers forum email us at: southbridge@southbridgefellowship.com.

categories: Family, Leadership, Southbridge

Sun
Jun
7th
2009
0

Someone robbed the church

This weekend was one of those weekends I don’t think we will forget anytime soon. We have had some special weekends at Southbridge. I think of the week we did cardboard testimonies, the week people left without their shoes, weeks where multiple people made decisions for Christ, and now this weekend. What happened this weekend? The church got robbed. No this is not a blog about people failing to tithe. We literally got robbed. Here is my version of the story:

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.

 

categories: Church planting, Core Values, Generosity, Leadership, Life Change, Southbridge

Mon
Jun
1st
2009
0

Worry is a symptom of a greater problem

In my last post I asked, if we know worry does us no good, then why do we do it?

The answer is that worry is really a symptom of a greater problem. It is a faith problem. The passage I quoted before was from Matthew chapter 6. Take a look at the bigger context of that passage.

Matthew 6:25-33 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?  26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?  28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.  29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Emphasis added).

In that statement, “O you of little faith,” Jesus really summarizes the issue of worry. It is a faith deficiency. Notice it does not say you of NO faith, but you of LITTLE faith. The issue is a small faith, a faith that is lacking. You can look through the book of Matthew and see this is a theme (Matthew 8:26, 14:31, 16:8 ). Each time Jesus was speaking to His disciples. His disciples who left EVERYTHING to follow Him. These were people who had enough faith to trust Him with the big stuff, but when it came to the small stuff they did not have enough faith to trust Him. The issue of worry is really a symptom of a lack of faith (or a case of little faith). We worry about the stuff we want to control rather than handing those things over to Him.

So what do we do about our worry?

Verse 33 has the answer. Verses 31-32 say that the people who have no faith worry (that should be expected), BUT (that is a contrast, those, even those with a little faith should be different): 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Our problem is we are usually seeking our little kingdoms, and that is why we worry. We worry about controlling and furthering our little kingdoms. Jesus says, STOP worrying. He does not say learn to manage your worry better (He was never into sin management). He says stop. He does not simply say stop, He also says start. Stop worrying, and start seeking first God’s kingdom. That means start being about God’s business and stop worrying about all of your business. That means when things happen that are out of your control or that change your plans we stop asking, “how can I fix this?” and we start asking, “God how are you trying to further your kingdom through this?”

categories: Leadership, Southbridge

Sun
May
31st
2009
0

I worried it better

Isn’t it funny how we never hear anyone say that?

When you see someone with problems that have been fixed why don’t they ever say their problems were fixed by worrying?

You: “Last time I saw you, your car was broke down. It looks like it is working great now.”

Them: “Yeah, I worried it better.”

You: “Last time I saw you, your marriage was falling apart. Now you look like you guys are so in love and you are heading on a second honeymoon. What happened?”

Them: “Oh, I worried it better.”

You: “So you were going to the doctor to talk to her about your ulcer. What did she say?”

Them: “She said I should worry it better.”

No! No one says that. Why not?

WORRY DOES YOU NO GOOD AT ALL.

Jesus asked the question, Matthew 6:27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

The answer is no one. In fact worrying not only does not add anytime to your life, it does not  do anything helpful for the time you have. So why do we worry?

categories: Leadership, Southbridge

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