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.

Dreaming about the Ministry Tool of a Building

“When are you going to build the church pastor?” I hear that question almost weekly. Not too often from Rejoicers, but very often from people from our mother churches or from people within our community. My usual answer is, “Well, we started building the church a year and a half ago with a small Bible study and some day we will grow large enough to need a building.” The responses are usually puzzled stares. Let me explain.

What is a church? Some use the word "church" as a synonym for a building…as in, “Where is Pastor Jones…Oh, he is in the church.” Others use the word “church” as a synonym for worship…like, “Hey kids, let’s get ready to go to church.”

In the original Bible, written in Greek, there were two words for our one English word “church.” Trouble is neither of the two words refers to “going to a worship service” or a “church building.” The first Greek word the early Christ followers used for “church” was “koinonia.” The English word “economy” has its roots in koinonia. This word can be translated, “the gathering, the fellowship, and the community.”

The other Greek word for “church” was “ecclesia.” We get our English word “ecclesiastical” which refers to matters of church ministry. “Ecclesia” can best be translated, “the congregation, the assembly, the gathered ones.”

1 Corinthians 3:16, says, “Do you not know that you (God’s people) are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?” (NRSV) So you see, Rejoice! Lutheran Church is the people and we are church not only when we worship, pray and read the Bible together, but we are church in our homes, in our schools, in our neighborhoods and wherever we live life.

As for a church building and location, thanks to God, the South Dakota Synod and the ELCA, 20 acres have been purchased for us to someday use for ministry and build a building upon. You can find where the land is off our website

As you can see we will be right next to St. Katherine Drexel Catholic Church. Please note St. Katherine’s new worship building is a beautiful, cathedralesque type building. How could Rejoice! ever build a beautiful enough building to compete with St. Katherine’s? Why would we want to try competing? They are our brothers and sisters. They have their mission, to bless and grow a church for loving Roman Catholics…and…we have ours, “Daily renewing and serving our community until all join us in rejoicing in Jesus’ love.” As St. Katherine’s will do an awesome job of reaching the churched people of our community. We hope to do an equally awesome job of reaching the unchurched and dechurched seekers of our community. Two different strategies require two different types of buildings.

Please look at the pictures of two church buildings that our leadership visited this summer. These buildings are used and owned by Community of Hope on the southside of the Twin Cities and Kauw Prairie in suburban Kansas City. Notice that their buildings are not cathedrals, but they are more of a tool for ministry.

What do you think? Dream with us about what sort of building we will someday build on the 20 acres of land God provided for us. Please share your comments.

Ask Thank Tell

About once a year, we at Rejoice take some time to have a conversation about what Christians call "Stewardship." Merriam Webster defines stewardship in this way, "the conducting, supervising, or managing of something; especially : the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care ."

We at Rejoice believe that all we have and all we are is a gift from God. (Acts 7:49-50) We also believe that we have been "blessed to be a blessing." (Genesis 12:2)

So for the next month, we ask you to share three things in comment section of this blog:

1. We ask that you share how you have been blessed by God his past year.

2. We also ask that you please pray about how much God is calling you to invest in his kingdom expansion in our midst.

3. Please also share your hopes and dreams about what God might do in and through Rejoice in this coming year.

God's Peace,
Pastor Tim

Got Questions? Get Rejoice!

What are your questions? Do you have your "when I get to heaven" questions?

For two weeks (September 23rd and 30th) Rejoice! will be doing a short, "Got Questions? Get Rejoice!" sermon series. But we need your help.

Either send an email (timr@rejoiceforlife.com) or better respond to this blog (that way everyone can see a log of all the questions that everyone asked) I will pray over those questions and study God's Word and do my best to answer the answerable questions and be honest about the unanswerable questions.

So...start thinking...starting praying...and...start blogging

Peace Out!

Pastor Tim

I Love Autumn

What a great day!

Yesterday the Bishop asked me to go Sporting Clays shooting to support South Dakota 4H. Hmm...let me see? Would I like to give support to a great group (SD 4H), have fun and get to know our future bishop and his future staff better? Hmm...let me see...YES!

So we loaded up the bishop's SUV and headed out. I need to insert here, I go shooting about once a year...so I always set my expectations really low. I figure if I get anywhere near 50% I did OK. Sure enough I got 50 out of a 100. After all sporting clays is a very humbling sport...why not be humbled again? Of the dozen teams, our team took 2nd place. So thanks be to God, I did not pull them down too far.

I love autumn! I love football. I love cooler weather. I love the changing of the leaves. I love people coming back to worship after vacations. I love hunting. I love it all.

It is good to be back home in the Midwest! In CA, there are just two seasons: 8 months of hot, dry, smog & traffic and 4 months of cool, wet, cloudy & traffic.

It is wonderful live in SD. It is wonderful to turn on the morning news and ask God what kind of weather will you give us today? It is wonderful to be surprised on a daily basis.

Yesterday's surprise was a beautiful day with beautiful weather, getting to know some really great people.

Lastly, let me report to you that I know that there will be no surprises from our new synod staff. Our outgoing staff, Bishop Andrea and her gang, as many of you know, were outstanding! Thanks be to God, on the talent and enthusiasm level, we move from outstanding to equally outstanding. I know SD is in great hands with great people. Sure there will be surprises wherever there are new personalities, but with God is in the mix, with a very talented synod staff, any of those surpises will be minimized. I am confident this new staff will do a great job of rolling with any and all of the surprises. I know they will be a blessing to our great Church.

What a great day...what a great state...what a great time of year!

Give 'em Heaven!

T-Rob

Day 6: The Trip Home

Earthdate: 7/30/07 Captains Log: DAY 6 The Ride Home

Time to go home. What a wild ride!!! Thanks for all of your prayers and support. We leave Michigan with minds and souls filled with ideas, inspiration and love.

As many of you already know, Rejoice! is filled with wonderful leaders…and…I had the awesome blessing and honor to spend six days with 4 of our best and brightest! DeWayne, Don, Jim and Sonia represented our community above and beyond the call of duty. Not only were they fantastic listeners and contributors to what we will bring home to Sioux Falls, but on many, many occasions they blessed the communities visited as much as we were blessed by them. They were not only takers of great ideas, but also helping hands and loving servants. Whenever one of the churches we visited was cleaning up or setting up, they were one of the first to jump in and say, “How can I help?” I am so proud to have shared this week with them.

I am sure much of what we learned and experienced will germinate and grow into our future, but I also want to say this was not only a trip about how can we do things better? It was clear as the week progressed, this was also a trip to be affirmed that we are doing many things right. We indeed do many, many things very well already! Each of you reading this have played a part in our growing. Thank you for your part in making Rejoice! a great community.

As we are on our way home, I am truly proud and honored to serve such an awesome community. May God take what we do well now and make it great…and…may He take what we do great now and make it excellent.

THE BIGGEST LESSON LEARNED
If there was an underlying theme to every church we visited it was that growing churches can take many shapes and forms, but the truly great growing churches exist not so much for their members, but they exist for the sake of those outside their worshipping community. In Cincinnati, they used the phrase, “outward focused.” These churches grow, not to become big, but they grow because that is what great churches do, they grow. I like what one person said, “Great small churches become big churches…this small to big growth is just a fact of church physics.”

If you would like to see pictures from Day 6 trek home, click….
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0CYtW7lw3aMXcA

Thanks for reading. See you next Sunday if not sooner.

Peace Out!

T-Rob