Participation

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” - Acts 2:42 (ESV)

This is one of those verses that stirs my heart. It’s my heart for our community of faith at The Crossover, as well as for the greater Body of Christ. This very concisely describes the “feel” of the first church. It shows us very simply what everything else was spring-boarding off of as they continued to grow as a church.

But one word in this verse, I believe, gets overlooked or misunderstood. It’s the word I highlighted in bold lettering… Fellowship. In the original Greek it is the word koinōnia and it means, “participation or sharing” and included the sharing of material goods.

Unity! As one stand together…

OK yeah, it’s [the title] the lyrics from an old favorite band of mine, Operation Ivy. But that aside it’s also something I’m very excited about regrading the body of Christ.

Last week, I taught a study on Unity in Community. We looked at how the church in Acts was so united and then we looked at Jesus’ prayer in John 17.

Now, I’ve read John 17 so many times, I couldn’t tell you. But this time as I studied it, I saw something I’ve never noticed before. And this really lit me up and got me excited.

Are You Listening?

This is a post that I shared recently on the now private, simplemindedpreacher blog…

Never make a principle out of your experience. Let God be as original with other people as He is with you. ~ Oswald Chambers

I heard this quote the other day and was blown away by it’s implications in my life. The bottom line is, I’m guilty. Not just of making principles of my own experiences but also accepting as principles, the experiences of others. I think this fact reaches into my own movement as well. That’s all I’ll say about that.

But in this quote I was stirred (yet again) to dig deeper and really desire to hear from God myself. Not to hear from someone else who heard from God, but to hear Him whisper to me what He wants to do through me. I think we can learn a lot from what others have heard from God. I think we can be greatly inspired by what others have experienced with God. But ultimately, when it all comes down to it, I NEED TO KNOW…

The Race… (Part 1)

O.K. here’s the deal… I am a huge race fan. My favorites are Formula 1, IndyCar/Champ Car, American LeMans and sometimes GrandAm. Sorry to all of the NASCAR fans, I just can’t get into it. But here’s the scoop…

I am always amazed when watching a race at how many variables go into whether someone will even finish, let alone take the prize. There are so many things that go into it that it requires a whole team of people countless hours of thinking and preparing for the 2 or 3 hours of actual race time. Sure some things “just happen,” call it bad luck or divine intervention. But when I look at some of the variables that are controllable I am immediately reminded of the race that I am in. The Apostle Paul put it this way…

What is a Movement?

Calvary Chapel is not a denomination. In fact, our Statement of Faith reads, “We are not a denominational church, nor are we opposed to denominations as such, only to their over-emphasis of the doctrinal differences that have led to the division of the Body of Christ.” To better describe what we are about as a whole we have decided to refer to ourselves as a movement. But what is a movement? What does it mean to be a movement? I found this definition on the web through Google:

A group of people with a common ideology who try together to achieve certain general goals.

While it may not instantaneously settle in your head exactly what that means in the context of Calvary Chapel, it certainly starts leading us in the right direction. Instead of “a common ideology“ we might choose to say a common theology. And while this may be somewhat oversimplifying I think it touches on the main point. Our Statement of Faith then goes on to describe what that theology looks like in the context of every day application at the local church.