As of this weekend, we are officially "True Life Baptist Church." We have embarked on a great adventure in the Lord and pray that we will always stay within the center of His will. Our worship was really great this Sunday as God saw fit to bring several guests to be with us in worship. We are excited to see what God has in store for us.
This is the final sermon in the series entitled "True Life" dealing with the relationship between our new church name and John 14.6, where Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me." The sermon was different in that it was made up primarily of Scripture, but I believe God really spoke to our congregation through this message.
This sermon contained so much scripture, that I used a listening guide instead of depending on just a PowerPoint. If interested, you can download the listening guide by clicking on either of the links below.
2011 marks a turning point in the life of our church. Behind us there is conflict and doubts and uncertainty. The way ahead of us I pray will not be one of conflict and doubt, but even in the presence of strong faith there is always uncertainty.
We cannot see what God has in store for us, but we venture forth into this new year with a confidence that God is sovereign and that He will accomplish His mission of seeing the gospel message carried to the ends of the earth so that all people groups will have a chance to hear the good news of Jesus Christ.
In effect, 2011 is a year of starting over. It is the first year of a new decade. It is a year of new beginnings, and whatever happens from this point forward will be determined by our faithfulness to God’s call to be obedient to the Great Commission and to remain faithful to the fellowship of our church.
We even have a new name – True Life Baptist Church. (Click the picture for a larger image.)
That new name will not make us successful. It will not make us into anything that we are not and will not free us from the obligation we have to work diligently and in cooperation with one another.
Yet there is much in this new name to inspire us to understanding and to renew our commitment to Christ and to each other.
We are now in the middle of a sermon series that shows how our new name relates to the person of Christ and His testimony in John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life."
Below are the first three sermons in this series.
Please pray for us - that we will wisely discern God's will and that we will make an impact on our community and our world for the sake of the Gospel and for the glory of God.
Sermon 09Jan2011: Jesus is the Way Pt. 1, John 14:6
The New Year of 2011 is at the same time a new start for our church. We elected to change our name to True Life Baptist Church (which prompted the new title of my blog) and are in the process of changing logos, signs, etc. It is a bigger task than we at first thought, but we are making the change slowly but surely. More on that in the next entry.
For the first Sunday of the new year, I preached on the Radical Experiment based on David Platt's book, Radical. Click on this link for more on the Radical Experiment.
Most of the adults in our church are participating in the Experiment, meaning that each person has accepted the challenge to...
Pray for the entire world
Read through the entire word
Sacrifice their money for a specific purpose (for us that means Faith Promise)
Give their time in another context (participate in a missions activity)
Commit their lives to a multiplying community (which means a commitment to True Life Church hopefully)
