Reno:

- 25 people were baptized
- worldServe mission: We helped fund a building structure and water well with our missionaries to Guatemala; we purchased a utility vehicle for our children’s home in India
- cityServe missions:  26 families received assistance from our food pantry in January (about 500 pounds of food). The food pantry received a large donation of non-perishable goods from the Women’s Bible study. The food pantry also made food bags for Youth First Ministry of Reno/Sparks.
- 45 people attended the February life@grace class
- the new college-aged small group is seeing great growth and participation; over 30 regularly attend

- We will be moving away from using The City beginning March 1st (see last weeks blog for the why’s and participate in the conversation). Moving forward, we’ll be using the following: website, social media (Facebook and Twitter), InFellowship, blog, and printed materials.

- InFellowship is an on-line resource that links to the church’s database. It offers the ability to stay in touch with your community group(s), and become part of the on-line church directory (or not). To connect (in order):
1) visit InFellowship (https://grace.infellowship.com)
2) if you have given financially or have registered for a class/event through the Grace Church website, use that same email and password (the data base system will remember you; not your City info)
3) if you have not done the above, use the register button at the very top of the page

Leadership Changes:
- Kidzone Director, Dustin Hunt, has decided to step down from his position. We are so grateful for the time and dedication he has given to this ministry over the years. Although Dustin is leaving his staff position, he will not be leaving Grace Church. Dustin plans on still being actively involved in AWANA and in Kidzone. Jay Stearley will be directing this ministry along with Anne McKay and Kirsten Slavin until a new hire is made.

- Senior High Pastor Jim Rippey has accepted a student pastor position at Tahoe Forest Church in Truckee, CA beginning March 1. We can’t praise the Lord enough for Jim’s contagious spirit-lead outpouring of service at Grace Church over the years.

- The Slingshot Group will be assisting us in the search and hiring process for the above positions. If you are interested in applying, or have a referral, please complete the contact page at www.slingshotgroup.net. Click on the “contact” tab and fill out the form. For additional information or questions, contact Michelle Kaiser at michellek@gracechurchreno.org or 747-9000.

Tahoe:

- We are beginning to organize community groups at Tahoe. We have 20 sign ups so far!
- Live musical worship has begun!

Upcoming Events:

- Exchanged Life Conference – February 24-26. Contact Pastor Dave at daver@gracechurchreno.org to sign up or for more information.

- Communion – Sunday, February 26th at 6 pm

- life@grace – Sunday, March 11th at 1 pm. Lunch and childcare provided. Contact Karen Sundquist at karens@gracechurchreno.org to sign up.

- Inter-church Prayer Event – Monday, February 20th at 7 pm. Grace is participating in an inter-church prayer event at River Christian Church, 10475 W. 4th St. (near Mogul). Worship & pray for local churches, unity of believers, our pastors, and revival.

No matter how small or large a church is, communication is essential; from the sermon to children’s classes, print to digital.  Good communication unites.  Poor communication divides.  Great communication inspires. Poor communication discourages.  Amazing communication builds community.  Poor communication isolates.

• that across the globe 25,000 children die each day from preventable diseases?
• 15% of babies in developing countries are born with low birth weight because of malnourishment in the womb.
• that in some areas of the world, pregnant women are actually encouraged to stop eating protein? In their eyes, a smaller baby just means an easier delivery.
• the big six baby killers are diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria, measles, HIV/AIDS, and malnutrition.  All are preventable or treatable.

From motivation to follow Jesus in generosity and a love for others, Grace Church partners with churches, agencies and Christian  missionaries around the globe to tackle such issues.  By the numbers, 10% of the overall Grace Church operating budget goes towards world missions, then further monies for benevolence and local needs.

Each year during December, Grace Church takes a special collection called the “Year-End-Gift.”  Its purpose is to address timely large needs locally and oversees.  Over the past three years, our church has helped rescue sex slaves in Asia through International Justice Mission, help provide sustainable fresh water in Rowanda, Africa (http://www.rwandacleanwater.com/), provided housing and recovery-support for homeless, battered and recovering women in Reno (http://www.hosannahome.org), and continue to make more room for people to hear the good news of Jesus at Grace Church (Now Project).

This past December, we partnered with Compassion International to try and secure mother and child survivor programs in Peru.  $60,538 was collected, enough to secure two, year-long programs in Peru, then a third of a year in Bolivia.  What this means is that  approximately 100 mothers and their babies will have access to:

• clean drinking water
• vital education
• medical check-ups
• an introduction to Jesus

To read more about these programs, visit http://rescuebabiesnow.org/.

The Grace Church missions committee is working on a possible trip to Peru to serve alongside the local churches there later in 2012.

As the Grace Church looks ahead to 2012′s Year-End-Gift, what are some Jesus-centered causes/missions that you’d recommend for consideration?

• The teachings of Jesus
• Doctrine
• Leadership Character
• Soul-keep; spiritual encouragement

Please join us in completing the reading, dialog with upcoming blog posts, and grow in the faith with us.

Grace Download and print here: Bible Reading Plan Download

God gave the church the following word from Ephesians 4:11-13 -”So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

How does your church equip and build up the congregation?  Are there opportunities outside of Sunday teachings and small groups in which to grow?  How are leaders developed?  We value your input and are always trying to put forward the best practices – please share, helping us do a better job.

One new element of the ministry at Grace Church in response to Ephesians 4 is what we call the Servant Leader Community (SLC).  It’s sole purpose is to build unity, encourage, equip, inspire, and build-up leaders in the church.  This is done through recommended readings, community and live teachings.  For instance, the SLC will meet this Friday at 6:30 pm.  Our Associate Lead Pastor, Tony Slavin, will be outlining a  pertinent Bible reading plan and Nancy Alcorn of Mercy Ministries will be sharing her inspirational journey of how God called her to lead and make a difference.

We wish we could open this evening up to everyone in Reno/Sparks, but because of limited space, we ask that only those who call Grace Church their home attend.  However, if developing your leadership skills and building up the Church is on your list of “to-do’s”, plan on joining us for the Global Leadership Summit this coming August (another opportunity we host); we’d love to mature with you.

I look forward to reading your thoughts and experiences on this subject.

Our church has as its purpose statement “Living and Teaching the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.” The Great Commission is as follows:

“Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

Really?? We are to make disciples of all nations? All nations? Is that really possible? Can that really be accomplished? It seems that we have so far to go.

We, as humans, can look at a daunting task and grow in discouragement and pessimism regarding accomplishing it. Making disciples of all nations is no doubt a daunting task. But I want to argue that we can accomplish it, but not because we are anything special. Follow my argument below.

God gave Moses a seemingly impossible task: Lead my people Israel out of Egyptian bondage. Moses says: “But I can’t, Lord.” Yahweh says, yes you can because “I will be with you.” (Exodus 3:10-12). Moses accomplished the impossible.

God gave Joshua a seemingly impossible task: Lead my people into the promised land and take possession from the inhabitants. Joshua is afraid, and God says, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9). Joshua accomplished the impossible.

When God promised Moses and Joshua that He would be with them, He was not simply saying that He would be by their side, He was promising them success in the mission He gave them.

Now, back to Jesus’ commandment to us to make disciples. What does he tell us?

All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me . . .

Go and make disciples of all nations . . .

Behold, I am with you even to the end of the age . . .

Wow, Jesus is giving us the same promise of success in our mission that He gave to Moses and Joshua. The Great Commission can be accomplished because Jesus is with us.

Now, what does this have to do with Acts chapter 2? Well, in Acts 1:8, Jesus said that when the Spirit came, He would give us power to be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, even to the ends of the Earth. That Spirit came in Acts 2 with great power. Peter preached that day and 3000 people gained eternal life. That same Spirit is in us today. That same Spirit is still Jesus’ instrument to empower us to “be His witnesses.”

 Therefore, I need to stop making excuses. I need to stop doubting. God has given me and you a commission: Make Disciples!! Be My Witness!!

Let’s get busy and watch God accomplished His will through us.

 And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, and ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.    Romans 12:2

 A small view of faith is derived from a small view of sin. 

When confronted with surmounting adversity, it’s easy to discover that we have arrived at the fork where our only options are to press on in faith, looking to Jesus to save us from ourselves amidst our circumstances, or to abandon the notion in lieu of trying to right the wrongs ourselves. That is to say, noticing that we’ve arrived there is easy; not the godly choice itself. What is far harder, however, is realizing that as children gone astray, we exist at this fork rather permanently. It is the immensity of tragedy or suffering that brings into sharp focus that we are in fact at such a crossroads. But in the mundane and everyday, this reality is lost on us. We have no bearings nor compass, no map to tell us that we have yet to ever leave the crossroads. Our lying hearts convince us that the small trivial details of our lives are certainly so within our own agency that we have surgically removed the need for Jesus in the details of our lives. We believe that we can save ourselves from the trivial. We fail to realize that our sin keeps us at the crossroads, and that will be our home until the day we are raised in glory with Him. The choice to reckon our lives to the cross is hard enough without standing at the wooded fork failing to hear our Savior pleading with us to just listen to His call, believing ourselves to be lounging on a beach somewhere listening to the tides. 

 If nothing else, thank God for adversity in your life. It is through that lens that suddenly our whereabouts are made clear before our eyes and our perilous state revealed. Upon this thanks, promptly repent in your heart of your disbelief and the proclivity to beg Him for rescue from our overbearing circumstances and not from our abiding, everyday sin. The truly unfortunate thing is that we mistake His supposed absence from the trivial details of our lives for His ambivalence to such matters. We snatch from His hands the reigns and very nearly push Him from the carriage, then become convinced that He never much cared for driving. Why would He have been bothered to join us on our daily commute? We have too small a view of our reality, too small a view of sin. This can only result in little value placed upon faith. 

A small view of sin is the proud folly of the world.

This is the sharp reality of a life without Christ. This is the truth behind the modus operandi for the world at large; a world that has long since denounced and sought to shame its Creator. This is the sin of Lucifer. This is the sin of Adam. This is the well of pride within each and every man that would sooner seek to be God and King than to bow to the One. Apart from a good and gracious God jealous for our affections we all would remain hopelessly dead in our shameful pride. Apart from a merciful and loving Savior whose death demands all corners of the believer’s heart reconciled to the rugged reality of God crucified, we would all return there. Hopeless, we invite spiritual blindness into our lives with open arms. We see not but our own reflections in the world around us the far-reaching implications thereof. Trial and tribulations are only significant insofar as they affect us. Others and our relationships therewith are only ever valuable insofar as they either benefit or hinder our own goals and desires. As humans are temperamental and trivial creatures. 

This pride runs contrary to the design of humanity. We are meant to live in submission to the authority and Word of God. From within Eden, the first spotless humans rejected their dependence on God’s will, His knowledge of good and evil, and His ultimate right to the throne of not only creation, but their own hearts. We force our thinking into a self-absorbed microcosm of reality in which all things work together for our good, as well as our glory. The habitual resignation of our will into a deprived and wanting relationship with God is the result of our small view of sin and faith. Overwhelming faith, faith that demands us to dream of new and creative ways to trust Him and all facets of our lives, big or small, bears no necessity when sin is a small thing. The truth of our sin being the means of the greatest tragedy of human existence, the loss of intimate relationship with God, falls by the wayside for the natural man, and unfortunately, too quickly for the carnal Christian. 

The Church, empowered by the Holy Spirit must be something more.

We find then, by contrast, that the Bride of Christ is to stand as a glorious, living breathing testament to the grace of God. The call of God upon the heart of the believer is to resign, but in glory, and He will demand it of those whom He loves. Like Jacob wrestling with the Lord in the wilderness, it was only after being crippled by the power and presence of God’s might that Jacob, the deceiver, was stripped of the last of His entitlements and penchant for proud, cheating, manipulation. At this final glorious moment, striving with Lord, God Almighty Himself declares, the surprise of the great patriarch, that the man is declared to be the winner. How? Why? How does a man, having submitted to an omnipotent God with a lasting limp to forever remind him of the damage the demands of God can have upon one’s small view of sin and faith win in fight? By submitting to Him; by resigning himself not to his own small views and small desires, but to the rough reality of relationship with the uncompromising Savior. 

This last weekend, we examined the power of the Holy Spirit to empower the beginnings of the church. There is a distinct reason that the presence of the Spirit in the movements of the Acts church was so well-documented. Today, you and I have the responsibility to force our eyes behind ourselves and allow the same Spirit to renew our minds and fundamentally transform us from the inside out. This is the way of the Church, and process by which we are individually sanctified to reflect God’s glory. The prophet Isaiah issued the command of God to “Arise and shine,” (60:1) of the mouth of God. I beg and pray that this is our earnest desire, not of ourselves, but strictly to the glorious praise of His name.

Following the Global Leadership Summit at Grace Church in August, we were challenged to pray & draw a line in the sand saying, “Here am I Lord, what’s Your assignment?” I was excited to do this.  As I prayed, the clear assignment from the Lord was to call and offer to speak at the national fall conference of a company with which I had been doing some independent contracting. (marketing & sales)

My thoughts were, “God I can’t be getting this right!” It just didn’t make sense. The conference was in Florida, and I hadn’t even committed to go!  They don’t even really know me. Why would they want me to speak? What would I say? What would the message be? It’s impossible!  But the more I prayed, the more God made it clear. I’m talking about a God-sized task.

Well, I said, “Yes God I’ll do it. I’ll draw a line in the sand.”

I made the call to my sales manager. He thought it was a great idea and would call the V.P. of Sales and give my request with his support. Well needless to say the Lord had my attention.  Now He had to open many more doors. A week or so later my sale manager called and said the V.P. and the President didn’t know much about me.  All they could find out was I was some kind of a religious preacher and they weren’t looking for a religious talk.  So, the V.P. wanted to talk with me to hear what I wanted to speak on. I continued to pray and the message was clear. It is all about attitude of the heart!

In the sales experiences I have had with this company, I have been confronted over and over again with difficulty and discouragement. My heart went out to fellow sales associates who weren’t trained or equipped to handle those kind of days. I thought how discouraged they must be and how I wanted to encourage and give them a message of hope.

Anyway, I had to step out in faith and make the commitment to attend the conference with my wife, be willing to take the time and money to show up, and be available.

A few days later the V.P. called and wanted a subject and an outline! He wanted to give something to the President “if” I was to be called on to speak.

We went from that point to about one month prior to our arrival at the conference not hearing anything and not knowing whether or not I would be speaking. The Lord was saying, “Just trust ME”.

When we arrived we were handed the agenda which did not have my name in it. I was relieved, but just to be sure I asked the V.P. at the end of the first day if they had decided not to have me speak. His response was “Of course you’re speaking!” Hadn’t I seen the subject of Attitude on the Wednesday’s agenda? Wow… Lord you’ve brought me this far.  Now make me ready and able.

Needless to say on Wednesday I was standing before a group of 200+ people to deliver a message on “Attitude is Everything.” The Lord gave me the faith and confidence as well as empowerment by the Holy Spirit. The message was far beyond everyone’s expectations. Especially mine! It all ended with a standing ovation.  The president of the company used my points in his closing remarks and announced to everyone he was inviting me to speak at the next conference in Palm Desert next Spring!

Praise be to God, great things He has done! He has opened the door for me to be used by Him to many unbelievers. All we have to do is be willing to pray for Him to use us wherever He wants to and then be willing to trust Him.

Opinions abound when discussing worship music.  Different styles, progression, and leaders resonate, or not, with each and every person.  Such is the case at Grace Church and around the globe.  This reality can either draw us closer to God, or can lead to discontent, and in some instances, cause people leave the church.

I remember several years ago my mom and dad left the church that they had been members of for thirty plus years.  The reason they left was because the church never changed and was dying.  The new church they selected is very similar to Grace and while they really liked the teaching format, they were continually telling me how much they were disturbed by the music—my dad called it 7-11 music—-seven words repeated over and over eleven times!!!   Why they felt this way I understood because they came from a strict Southern Baptist environment where anything other than a pipe organ was taboo!!  I tried as best I could to coach them to not dwell on any negatives, but to concentrate on all the positives they had found in this new church—nothing I said seemed to sink in.  Finally, as we should always do, I went to scripture—I reminded them that in Psalm 100 God’s Word says “make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands”.   It doesn’t say what that joyful noise is or needs to be–just “make a joyful noise”.  It does not mention any particular song, any particular poem nor any particular hymn—just make a joyful noise!!!  From that, they got it and while they still may not have liked the music and would still have preferred another type of worship, I heard no more about it and as long as my dad was alive, he worshipped in the manner used by their church—my mom still does.

From that experience, I came to realize that what I prefer or what anyone else prefers in our style of worship really does not matter.  What matters is what is pleasing to Yahweh.  Since we can in no way understand what “noise” He likes, then it stands to reason to me that any and all worship is pleasing to Him otherwise He would have already sent a message to His churches to make a correction.

The Elders and Pastors of Grace Church want all who attend Grace to have a sincere and satisfying worship experience during every service.   It is understood that there will always be personal preferences, but accepting that personal preferences are not as important as what is pleasing to Yahweh, lets join our hearts together, raise our praises in unison,  and make a joyful noise to Him using any of the expressions selected by our dynamic arts and worship team.

Worship Night from Grace Church on Vimeo.