Sermon on the Mount

The Sermon on the Mount...many have heard about it, some know who preached it, very few knew what the preacher said. Join us Fall 2008 as we learn more about the famous sermon preached from a mountainside.

• Sept. 7, 2008: Beginning with the Ending - Wise and Foolish Building (Matt. 7:24-29)
• Sept. 14, 2008: Beatitudes – Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Blessedness (Matt. 5:1-12)
• Sept. 21, 2008: Public vs. Private Faith; Doing Things God’s Way (Matt. 5:13-16; 17-20)
• Sept. 28, 2008: What to Do with Anger: (Matt. 5:21-26, 38-48)
• Oct. 5, 2008: A Good, Healthy Sex Life; Stop Swearing (Matt. 5:27-32; 33-37)
• Oct. 12, 2008: Sharing with the Needy (Matt. 6:1-4)
• Oct. 19, 2008: Prayer (Matt. 6:5-15)
• Oct. 26, 2008: The Fast Lane vs. Fasting; Treasures in Heaven (Matt. 6:16-18; 19-24)
• Nov. 2, 2008: Judgment Don’t Worry, Be Happy Blessed (Matt. 6:25-34)
• Nov. 9, 2008: Judgment – Take the Log Out (Matt. 7:1-6)
• Nov. 16, 2008: Ask, Seek, Knock (Matt. 7:7-12)
• Nov. 23, 2008: Narrow and Wide Ways (Matt. 7:13-14)
• Nov. 30, 2008: Trees and Fruit (Matt. 7:15-23)
  

2006 Christmas Video

This was one of our first attempts at podcasting...so the sound was bad...we still were trying to figure out video, but you can at least get an idea of our attempt at a postmodern Christmas Sermon.

Peace Out!

T-Rob

Contagious Christianity

Where did we go wrong? So many live out their spirituality as if it is just as it is a me and Jesus relationship. Trouble is Christ called his followers to share the faith. Faith is meant to be shared. Plain and simple, Christ followers are meant to be contagious.

Our latest teaching series covers this particular subject...Contagious Christianity. We have found at Rejoice! we are excited about our faith...so excited we want to share our faith and spiritual journey. But many do not know how. Many do not know how best to share their faith in their own, personal, unique way. Below is a look at each week:

July 29

Why and How to Be Contagious Spiritually

August 3

Building Faith Relationships

August 10

How to Share Our Spiritual Story

August 10

How to Share His (Jesus') Story

August 17

Leading People to Cross the Line of Faith to Jesus

Growing in God's Way

Life…Health…Growth…These qualities are at the core of God’s creation. Jesus constantly compares the life, health and growth of his people to what occurs naturally in God’s Creation. A mustard seed, lilies in the field, weeds and wheat are but a few examples of Jesus’ famous comparisons. We invite you to join us for our new teaching series “Growing in God’s Way,” where we will explore how God grows people, God grows community and God grows his church.

Join the conversation on our blog. Share stories in where God has grown you and you have experienced the growth of God’s community: the Church. Share also where you feel more growth is needed. May these growth areas become a communal prayer offered to God.





This is the tentative teaching schedule for each week:

• April 6 Discipleship Strength
• April 13 Understanding the Christian Faith
• April 20 Ownership of the Ministry
• April 27 Leadership Development
• May 4 Struggle, Forgiveness, Repentance and Witnessing
• May 11 Mission, Purpose and Plan

God Bless and Give ‘em Heaven!

Pastor Tim

One Question - 24 Great Answers!

“Where do you see Rejoice! in 5 years?” On Sunday, March 16, this simple small question was asked of those who were in worship. Not all answered but those who did gave brilliant answers. Read below and discover that God has placed some great vision on the hearts of the Rejoice! community.

1. Rejoice! will be a church – a community – of common, ordinary people doing extraordinary things for others. We’ll be known as people who serve others and share the message of God’s love.


2. A community of love and peace not afraid to show others. Rejoice! is an inviting community of Christ followers who enjoy studying the word of God and going out and doing his good works. This church family welcomes all no matter where an individual is on their spiritual walk.


3. Reaching people at exactly the right time with exactly the right words and exactly the right love with exactly the right God.


4. To bring all the body of Christ and to know him – young, old, and even the broken.


5. A life saving station who plants churches. A place were miracles happen and people pray. A place and a community were the unchurched experience Jesus.


6. I pray for…not just a building, but to be a people who are maintained as one people…broken pieces, accepting of one another, caring and sharing. As we grow…may we always reach out to others in the community, continually! May spiritual growth continue through small groups and loving accountability groups as well.


7. Family: Togetherness at home and church. Uniting the two worlds that is my wish for Rejoice!


8. I pray that Rejoice! would stay the life saving hut from Chuck Swindol’s story. That it would be a true mission…loving it like now…not another clubhouse. The building is not the mission. We need just him and each other to “be sent” – in each of our lives – to each ministry to which we are called in our home, at work, in society, in politics and in life. Perhaps it would be good to read Swindol’s story about "the life savaing station" once a year to keep Rejoice! on our mission. God bless you! God bless us all!


9. I see a large and loving place where any age will fee comfortable to learn more about their faith and be renewed.


10. Rejoice! is a place where people can come and experience joyous living and friends are only a handshake away.


11. A church that serves and then leads the unchurched they have served to find Jesus in their church.


12. Regardless of where Rejoice! is at physically – my hope is that Rejoice! will continue to find ways to reach out into the community. This is what has attracted me to Rejoice! It is about building relationships with each other and with Jesus the will make this church continue to grow.


13. I would like us to financially sound more than anything so we can focus on ministry, servant projects, instead of paying for a building. I think financial health at our entire congregation plays a large part in that. One will take care of the other.


14. I pray for the Rejoice! community and that we continue to serve the rest of the community. I pray for us to keep bringing others to Rejoice! and more importantly to Jesus. Rejoice! has helped me to become better connected to Him (God) and I hope and pray that we bring others like me to find Christ .


15. I pray that our church will always be the Servant Church. As our numbers and size grows, so will our acts of service to our community.


16. Successes where He (God) is first without distractions.


17. Always serving others…doors wide open…Bible centered coworkers of Christ


18. Building…Youth Ministry (high school)…multiple services…solid praise bands…classes to teach individual outreach…online services (that is broadcast live and recorded worship) via the internet to the entire world.


19. Dear God thank you for Rejoice! and all my church family…all of you help me to grow in the Lord.


20. God centered!...Outreach…Fun…Sense of Community…Caring Support of One Another…Welcoming to Those Who Do Not Have a Support Network…Be the Hands and Feet of Christ.


21. Rejoice! is a place that will help you find your way when you are lost. With a strong sense of community, they help to strengthen your faith.


22. Family


23. A place where people are reached by others who love them – just as they are – warts and all. Reached through small groups, one-on-one visits, prayer, worship – in whatever way they need. A place where everyone counts and everyone has a place…a place that is a true life saving station.


24. Men’s and Women’s small groups where love, support and accountability help individuals grow…mentoring or young women and new mothers.

Wow I am so proud of my tribe/community/sisters/brothers/fellow-Chist-followers. Today it is easy to use my normal salutation, “Give ‘em Heaven!” Obviously that is what Rejoicers are all about!

Give ‘em Heaven!

Pastor Tim

P.S. One person had a question of her/his own. Since a name was not left…I will just include his/her question and try to answer it. “Why isn’t Rejoice! listed in the ELCA section of the Argus Leader (Sioux Falls’) newspaper? This is a great question. It is not the first time we have heard this question. Well #1 we would love to have an add in the paper, but it is expensive. #2 Newspaper adds about local churches are for people who are already churched…Rejoice’s mission is primarily to the un-churched and de-churched…so for the same amount of money, we have chosen to advertize where un-churched and de-churched people are…namely at the movies…that is the WestMall7 theater where our ad has run for about 8 months. #3 and probably most importantly, we believe Rejoice! will grow better through word of mouth invitations partnered with creative advertizing and service events. We don’t feel called to be just another Lutheran church, we feel called to be a different sort of church for a world that would love to see a church that makes a difference. All the same this was a great question. Thanks for asking it. Email me if this answer was not satisfactory for you. I am not saying this is the right answer forever…it just has been the right answer for our first year and half.

NCD Natual Church Development

Greetings!

Soon you will be hearing a great deal about NCD or Natural Church Development. NCD is not a program, but it is a process which churches have used worldwide. NCD's main premise is that God wants all of His churches to be healthy...and...a natural biproduct of health is church growth. NCD was developed by a Lutheran pastor in Germany nearly 20 years ago. Since this process has grown to help churches all around the globe.

WHY IS NATURAL CHURCH DEVELOPMENT HELPFUL AND SUCCESSFUL?
Church research in America shows that 85% of our churches are on a plateau or declining and that Protestant denominations have declined by nearly 10% in the past 10 years. But the more important reason has to do with the health of our churches.

Natural Church Development helps a church focus on its health as a congregation, not on the numbers of increase or decline. It assumes that healthy churches will be growing churches, but a church will not always experience an increase in numbers.

The questions Natural Church Development asks have to do with congregational health and transformation. For instance:

Does the church empower its leadership to do ministry?
- Does the congregation have a passion about its sense of spirituality?
- Do people leave worship knowing they have been in God’s presence?
- Do the relationships of the people show the signs of God’s love?

WHAT CAN BE DONE?
Teach leaders and members of our churches what a healthy church is like, and coach them in a process of becoming healthier communities.

WHAT ARE HEALTHY CHURCHES LIKE?

EIGHT QUALITY CHARACTERISTICS
Empowering leadership
Gift-oriented ministry
Passionate spirituality
Functional structures
Inspiring worship
Holistic small groups
Need-oriented evangelism
Loving relationships

WHAT PROCESS WILL HELP?
Churches are organizations, and they are organisms. As with any organism [any living thing]
God has designed natural processes for health and growth. Natural Church Development teaches churches to follow these six life-giving principles to enhance their health and increase their growth:

Interdependence: everything is connected:
Multiplication: living things normally reproduce themselves
Energy transformation: both negative and positive energy harnessed for good purposes
Multi-usage: increasing the capacity for ongoing growth and development
Symbiosis: cultivating cooperative relationships for mutual benefit
Functionality: an organism’s functions produce discernible results according to its purpose

WHAT IS NATURAL CHURCH DEVELOPMENT?
The Institute for Natural Church Development is an international, interdenominational organization based in Germany committed to helping congregations become healthy, growing churches. NCD resources are being used in the U.S. by many denominations, including Lutheran, Episcopal, Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian.

Christian A. Schwarz is head of NCD and the author of Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities of Healthy Churches and several supporting books and resources. In the 1990s they surveyed over 1,000 churches in 32 countries – churches of different denominations and with different theologies, both growing and declining churches. On the basis of that initial research, they identified the Eight Quality Characteristics which define healthy churches.

NCD has now surveyed 33,000 churches in 60 countries, including 20,000 churches in the U.S. Their research continues to support their initial findings and conclusions. They have discovered that every church surveyed which showed a certain level of health in all eight areas is, without exception, also a numerically growing church.

Send a pastor and key leaders to an informational night where they will learn how Natural
- Church Development can help them be healthier, growing churches
- Recruit a leadership team – called a Church Health Team – which we will train in how to oversee the process
- Have 30 active members and the pastor complete a survey which we will process and report on to the congregation
- Engage in a process to discern their next steps, on the basis of the survey report, to move toward health and growth as a congregation
- Begin that process, and work on it for a year.
- The time and energy required for the process is the most important contribution they will make.
- The extent of their financial contribution will be the decision of the denominational body sponsoring the Natural Church Development program in this area.

WANT MORE INFORMATION?
http://www.ncd-international.org/

God Bless...and...Give 'em Heaven!

Pastor Tim

Casual on the Outside - Serious on the Inside

In the Church where I grew up, the experience was very serious on the outside. Everyone wore their Sunday’s best. Children were expected to sit still and be quiet. We sang very serious, formal, dark hymns (a church word for songs).

While we were very serious about our outside religious appearance, we were very casual about our faith experience on the inside. Bible reading in the home was never encouraged. Faith seemed like a once a week, one hour a week obligation.

Rejoice! aims to be just the opposite of my childhood experience. We seek to be “casual on the outside, serious on the inside.” I believe this was Jesus’ way of living. The common person found Jesus very approachable. The ultra-religious found him far too casual on the outside and when Jesus examined their insides, it got personal and they then schemed to kill him.

During the next few months we, at Rejoice!, encourage our community to come as they are, casual. In fact come to worship in your sweats to workout your soul and stay at the health club to work out your body with a free day pass at Family Wellness’ health club.

We also believe there is something very serious about serving and worshiping the living God of the universe. Think about it, if God is “in the house,” we can expect Him to be up to some very “serious” business. (Forgiving people’s past errors, loving people unconditionally, giving his Holy Spirit to purify and perfect, and showing us what His love is really like through the life, love, miracles, healings, death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus the Christ.)

We pray that you come just as you are…but we also pray that you leave seriously transformed by the awesome love of God and the Spirit of Jesus the Christ.

Give ‘em Heaven!

Pastor Tim

"Casual on the Outside - Serious on the Inside" Teaching Series

A recent survey done by USA Today found that 79% people in the United States say that “Christians make them sick.” Unfortunately, studies tell us the average person finds Christians to be fake and hypocritical.

We at Rejoice hope to reverse the trends of hypocrisy. We hope to reinvent church for seekers looking for something deeper, more spiritual. We say it this way; we try to be “Casual on the Outside, yet Serious on the Inside.”

Below is the schedule for our new teaching series, “Casual on the Outside…Serious on the Inside. Join us to help reimagine church. Come as you are, casual on the outside…and…we hope that you will leave experiencing the serious transformation of God’s love deep in your soul.

February 3
(re)joice – (Discovering the Difference between Happiness and Joy)

February 10
(re)boot – (if your computer needs to reboot from time to time, what makes you think your body, mind and soul don’t need to also?)

February 17
(re)turn – (God created us for greatness…see John 10:10 and yet to often we settle for less than greatness…we will discuss the way to return to God’s ways)

February 24
(re)lease – (Baggage…we all have it…we all carry it…How do we Let God and Let God?

March 2
(re)discover – (The average home in the United States has 2.4 Bibles. Trouble is many are never opened. Come this day to rediscover Word of God and learn how to read it for direction and purpose in your life.

March 9
(re)deeming brokenness – (If we are wounded on the outside, we put on a Band-aid or see a doctor. What do we do if our wounds are deeper than the skin? Come and learn how God desires to redeem broken people and broken lives.

March 16
(re)charge – (If our electronic devices lose power, we throw out the old batteries and put in new batteries. But what do you do when you lose power and energy in your emotional/psychological/spiritual life? Come and learn how to recharge your spiritual life.

March 23
(re)surrection – Easter Sunday! The day Jesus came back from the dead. God through his death and resurrection has made us Easter people. Learn how Christ resurrection makes it possible for dead and lifeless lives to be transformed into beacons of hope, purpose and life.