mike adkins | grace•ology

Five Years

Can you believe it has been five years since God started Grace Fellowship? In some ways it seems like it has always been part of my life. In other ways it seems like just yesterday.

Each year we have had an anniversary celebration on the first Sunday of February and this year we are doing it again, but just a little differently this time. We will still have a great time, and you will hear some exciting things about where God is taking us in 2008, but our main focus will be on gratitude and worship for what God has done and what He will do.  I can't wait to tell you some of the stuff that's coming down the pike. It's amazing!

So whatever you do, do not miss Sunday February 3rd. You will want to be a part of this historic day in the life of our church!

Some Things I Learned

Had a chance to listen to Greg Hawkins from Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago talk about the state of the church today. Interesting. He described 4 stages of spiritual growth that people tend to go through in life. Each stage had implications for the way we disciple them. The overall message: ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL.

The stages he mentioned were:

1)Exploring Christianity: "I believe in God, but I am not sure about Jesus. My faith is not a significant part of my life."

2) Growing in Christ: "I believe in Jesus and am working on what it means to get to know him."

3)Close to Christ: "I feel really close to Jesus and depend on him daily for guidance."

4) Christ Centered: "My relationship with Jesus is the most important realationship in my life. It influences everything I do.

The best part of the conference for me was the Q&A afterwards. We had the opportunity to talk about best practices in ministry. I walked away with some very practical "NEXT STEPS," for discipleship at Grace. Probably the most engaging idea was the idea of those who fall into the Christ Centered category being self-feeders. Basically that means that there comes a point in spiritual maturity where the responsibility of being fed shifts from the church's job to feed me to my job to feed myself. Then, my life becomes about giving to others and serving my community.

This idea seems clearly what Jesus intended for His church.

Sunday Morning Re-cap

Great morning talking about conflict and how to handle it biblically. Quick story. I had a man come up afterwards and say how much he wished he had heard some of the things I was talking about years ago before his marriage broke up. I do too. He went on to say that since being at Grace, he has begun to really understand the bible and his life in a Christian way--which is really new to him. I'm so glad we have a church that doesn't throw up a lot of obstacles for people to come to Christ.

Another story. After church I went to the new members class and answered questions about our church to people who have taken our on-line membership course. Afterwards, a man came up to me and said that this was the first church he ever wanted to be a member of. That's amazing. He said that in his previous church experience he always felt that people were pointing their fingers at him in judgement. He said that at Grace his experience was just the opposite. He felt welcomed from the first moment.

I love stories like this. There are so many more too. Keep being the church. Keep welcoming new-comers, keep inviting friends, because so many more need to hear the message of grace that Jesus has given to us.