Mission

Karl Helvig: Youth and Young Adults 

Mission impossible.  Mission accomplished.  Mission: Put a pony tail in my daughter's hair and convince her to leave it there (which, for a dad like me sometimes feels like mission impossible!).

This past Saturday the students of Studio72 talked and learned about God's mission.

More importantly, we sought to JOIN in his mission and steer our lives to BE missional.  

 Every day on mission.

It strikes me that Advent and the whole Christmas season is really quite timely for a conversation about mission.  Sometimes we can be easily tempted to believe that Christmas is about all sorts of things that it really isn't about: shopping, tinsel, reindeer with red noses, ugly sweaters, egg nog, movies with heart warming themes and lots of fires in fireplaces.  None of those things are bad (I plan to include many of them somewhere during my Christmas season), but they are most certainly not the center of what Christmas is about.

Rather, thousands of years ago God made a promise to a guy named Abram and said he would bless the whole world through him and his kids.  Some time went by and God made another promise to save and redeem his people (which, is actually part of the first promise to bless others through his people).  Then, all sorts of God-followers spent lots of time talking about how this would happen and when this would happen and who the Messiah would be (Messiah being the anointed one of God who would accomplish the thousands of years old mission that God set in motion with a guy from a place called Ur... [feel free to peruse Genesis 11-25 for more on the guy from Ur, also called Abram, also called Abraham]).  So, God has been on a mission for about as long as anyone can tell and that mission is simple, He wants to bless the world.

 

Christmas is the season when we remember one of the
central, major, history-altering moments in God's mission.

 God decided to move his mission forward by coming to earth.

 That is what Christmas is about.

 

God moved his mission forward by coming to earth.  God included Abram in his mission, Abram lived on earth.  After Jesus grew up and was crucified and resurrected he told his followers he would leave his Holy Spirit with us here on earth.   
 

God's mission gets moved forward by people on earth.

 

This Christmas season: be invigorated as you continue to join in God's mission; be reminded of the miracle of God's coming to earth to accomplish his mission with us; be encouraged by the friends and family and tinsel and ugly sweaters that ideally remind us of the reason we celebrate so thoroughly every year.

How are you joining that mission this Christmas?

 

Merry Missional Christmas!

Unhealthy Appetites

Jon Hardin

I’ve been thinking about unhealthy eating.  A recent doctor’s exam revealed that my cholesterol is creeping upward and came with the warning: “You’ve got to pay more attention to what you eat.”  Well, that’s what I’ve been trying to do these past few days, and it’s made me realize something: this next month can be one of the year’s most unhealthy sandwiches—the weeks “sandwiched” between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  For many this will be like a high-calorie sandwich—stuffed with over-eating, over-spending, and over-absorption with self and family. 

In the last week Lynda and I have been vividly reminded how, while we are eating our way toward Christmas, many people remain spiritually famished during this season’s celebrations.  We recently spent the evening with Muslim friends from the Middle East, and a few days later we had a meal with another person from a similar part of the world.  It made me realize that while I am tempted to turn inward during the holiday season, there are people like these—in fact billions more—who share these non-Christian worldviews and who (whether they realize it or not) are starving for the very thing we are supposed to be celebrating during this season: the Gift of God that deserves all our thanks.

So yes, the doctor was correct; I need to watch my diet.  But not just my consumption of high-cholesterol food and needless stuff.  Even more, I need to fast from my own spiritual carelessness  I’m reminded of Jesus’ statement regarding his own appetite, when his disciples were preoccupied with getting lunch, in John 4.  On that occasion Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34).  Now that’s a healthy appetite!  May God grant us hunger to do his will and kingdom work throughout the “sandwich weeks” of Advent. 

Hot Tub Evangelism

Pastor of Care and Finance, Ron Mol

You never know the opportunities God may send your way on any given day - even when you leave the beautiful state of Colorado!

Last week I had the privilege of taking my wife and son on a vacation.  We left late on Friday and drove only to North Platte, Nebraska, where we found a Fairfield Inn to lodge for the night.  

Before retiring, Scott and I opted
for a visit to the hot tub.

When we got to the whirlpool, we found it was already occupied by a gentleman.While starting a conversation with him would fit my nature, I was also keenly aware that this would likely embarrass my teenage son, so I showed great restraint and remained silent.  Our predecessor in the hot tub did not have a teenager with him, however, so he was not inclined to restrain himself! “Where did you guys start your day today?” he asked.  “Well, we got a late start from Denver on our way to Chicago, how about you?”  I had taken the bait.

The stranger told us his name, and that he was returning to his home south of Denver from Chicago.  I told him we lived in Highlands Ranch.  

 He asked if I knew where the corner of Broadway and Mineral was.

At this point I thought God might be prompting me to talk about our church a little bit, so I told him I was a pastor and my church was right at that location.  He started asking me about our church and told me he was currently looking for one (about this time, Scott had had enough of the heat).  The stranger and I shared some of the details of our respective spiritual journeys, and he told me he would like to visit our church sometime.

So, if you meet a new face at church in the near future,
you may want to ask how he heard about our church!  And always be looking for an opportunity to share the good news with those you meet.

A Celebration of Generosity

                                     

Senior Pastor, Steve Thulson

When word came – first to our Pastors, then our Elders, and finally our Congregation last Sunday morning – there were jaws dropping, tears, applause, even cheers. When a few days earlier, Ministry Assistant Jamie Durbin had opened the church mail and saw the anonymous check from a brokerage firm, she had to ask Ron Mol if she was seeing the comma and dot in the right places.

For the reduction of our mortgage debt, Centennial Covenant received a gift of $400,000!

We praise God for his gracious provision, and thank these generous friends!

This reduces our debt from $1.2 million to $800,000 which will allow far more of the ongoing generous giving from our other 175 households to be applied to direct people-to-people ministries.

Last Sunday we shared even more beautiful examples of generosity.

-          Each week, our children place coins from their allowances in a basket – gifts for Jesus and his work. Darlene and Stefany have observed, though, that some kids – from a family scraping by at the poverty-line – tend not to put in just coins, they put in dollar bills. They make sacrifices.

-          Last week we received thank-you notes from two families in the community who had been in financial crisis due to unanticipated health problems. We had been alongside them with gifts from our Benevolence Fund.

-          We have been experiencing a gradual but steady growth in ongoing financial support of our core ministries and mission, getting closer to the levels we approved last Fall!

Don’t you think these gifts are from the Spirit and please the Father every bit as much as the extraordinary donation to reduce our debt?

And then there’s the generous grace of God we celebrated last Sunday in Dale Flander’s strong teaching and stories like Donna Osborne’s. She told us how her lost hearing seems to be returning at least in part. And even greater is the powerful freedom she has experienced by God enabling her to forgive a man who kidnapped and terrorized her years ago. Dale’s reminder was to let such “highs” be windows to everything our Lord is doing all the time – even in the “lows” when his goodness is not quite as evident.

God is good. All the time. And all the time, God is good. Right?