Tag: Community

A Prayer to Become a Community of the Triune God

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Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. (1 Peter 3:8-9)

Lord, give us power and grace
that our character and relationships
one with another might look like You
from start to finish and throughout the years.

Lord, You know the temptation to retaliate,
to treat poorly those who treat us poorly,
to repay a verbal stabbing with a silver-tongued sword thrust,
to descend like a flaming comet into anger, bitterness, and cursing.

Lord, help us to take instead the way of blessing,
to walk in unflappable peace, humility, and compassion,
to step inside another’s shoes and see their life through their eyes,
to saturate every word and action with the seeds of selfless love.

Lord, such a way of life does not come easy,
in fact it cuts against the grain of normal human life.
It must instead overflow from Your very life springing up from within us
and be steadily sustained by Your Holy Spirit’s power.

Lord Father—grant us Your life.
Lord Son—grant us Your truth.
Lord Spirit—grant us Your way.

Hope Together

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This past weekend at Eastbrook, we continued our series on 1 Thessalonians entitled “Hope Rising: 1 Thessalonians for Today.” This second week of the series, Greg Marshall preached from 1 Thessalonians 2:1-3:13 on how hope lives within the sense of community between the Apostle Paul and the Thessalonians believers.

You can find the message outline and video below. You can access the entire series here. Join us for weekend worship in-person or remotely via Eastbrook at Home.

“For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 3:8)

Paul’s circumstances were not good, but he was still “really alive” (1 Thessalonians 3:7)

The reason he is “really alive” is because the Thessalonians are standing firm in the Lord (1 Thessalonians 3:8)
Standing firm in the Lord
• Faith
• Hope
• Love

Paul was present to the Thessalonians in the same way that God is present to all of us (1 Thessalonians 2:7-12)
• Like an infant
• Like a mother gently caring
• Like a father comforting, encouraging, urging to live a life worthy of God

Dig Deeper

This week dig deeper in one or more of the following ways:

  • Memorize John 10:10
  • Journal a prayer for someone else each night this week.
  • Practice being “alive” in a way that makes it easier for others to believe God loves them. 

United – a new series at Eastbrook

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This coming Sunday at Eastbrook Church we begin a new preaching series entitled “United,” which explores the essence of what it means to be the church. The church is most fruitful when it’s fully united. Jesus’ dream for the church is full unity. What a divided world needs is a united church. Join us for a series in partnership with other churches to talk about four essential aspects of the life of the church.

For this four-part series we are partnering with other churches in the “Brook” family of churches, and thus will pause our extended walk through the Gospel of Matthew, which we will return to in February.

Join us each weekend of this series in-person or via Eastbrook at Home.

Here are the weekly topics for the series:

January 9 – “People Who Are Called by God”

January 16 – “To Live as a Family”

January 23 – “To Be Sent on Mission”

January 30 – “To Live as One for the Sake of the World”

The Messiah’s Family

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This past weekend at Eastbrook, I concluded our series entitled “The Messiah’s Mission,” by looking at Matthew 12:46-50. Here, Jesus’ earthly family comes looking for Him, probably making the journey from Nazareth to Capernaum. Jesus uses their arrival to reframe family in relation to discipleship and the disciple-community.

You can find the message video and outline below. You can also view the entire series here, as well as the devotional that accompanies the series here. Join us for weekend worship in-person or remotely via Eastbrook at Home.

“Pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.’” (Matthew 12:49-50)

Jesus and His Earthly Family (12:46-47)

  • Beginnings and parents: Matthew 1-2
  • Siblings: Matthew 13:55
  • Eventual disciples: James (Galatians 1:19; James 1:1), Jude (Jude 1:1), and others (Acts 1:14; 1 Corinthians 9:5)

Jesus and His Disciple Family (12:48-50)

  • The one who does the will of the Father in heaven
  • Encountering the Father
  • Jesus as our Brother

Living as Jesus’ Family

  • Living by belonging to the Father
  • Living the Father’s will
  • Living together with our new brothers and sisters

Dig Deeper:

This week dig deeper into what it means to be part of Jesus’ disciple in one or more of the following ways:

Community and Identity: Part 2 of a reflection on Henri Nouwen’s “In the Name of Jesus”

Matt Erickson2 Comments

Yesterday I began a series of three posts on Henri Nouwen’s book In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership. I continue that series here by delving into the second part of that book: “From Popularity to Ministry.”

Doing Ministry Together
I have read this book several times, but I continue to be deeply impacted by Nouwen’s emphasis on the fact that ministry is shared and not something in which we strive “to do something spectacular, something that could win [us] great applause” (53). How often I have seen in myself and others a twisted motivation in ministry aimed at the wrong end: praise, attention, recognition, or accolades. We sometimes become bent on others’ opinions that we miss the true nature of ministry.

True ministry involves proclaiming the gospel together, not lifting up ourselves. True ministry comes from a place of reliance and interdependence, where trust that “the same Lord who binds us together in love will also reveal himself to us and others as we walk together on the road” (59).

Think of that. I wonder, when we engage in ministry with others, are we so together in it that we trust God to reveal himself to and through us to others? Or are doing something else entirely? Are we competing with others for the praise and glory of ourselves in the eyes of other humans?

Who We Are – Who We Are Not
Our twisted motivations often come from twisted souls. Nouwen presses the conversation of this second part of the book toward the heart of the matter: our identity in Christ. We need to know our identity and, specifically, that ministry it is not about us, but about God.

Nouwen writes:

We are not the healers, we are not the reconcilers, we are not the givers of life. We are sinful, broken, vulnerable people who need as much care as anyone we care for. The mystery of ministry is that we have been chosen to make our own limited and very conditional love the gateway for the unlimited and unconditional love of God. (62)

If you skimmed that section quickly, let me encourage you to stop and read it again. This is so important and challenging.

I wonder, do we know who we are and who we are not when it comes to ministry? I know it is such a struggle. It is vital that we let go of our need to appear competent, to be needed, and to be seen as the source of good in ministry. We are made in the image of God and valuable in that regard, but we are also, in a sense, unnecessary to God. He does not need us to do ministry, but He does desire to work in and through us. There is a holy humility to this aspect of knowing our identity. There is a freedom in letting go of our need for acclaim and simply relying upon God to work.

This can be a fierce struggle, but it also can become one of the freeing joys of truly doing our ministry in the name of Jesus.