Equipping Hour (9a.m.).

No Equipping Hour last week, but click here for a synopsis of some of the “Thirsty?” studies. (See the announcement below about The Equipping Hour).
 
Service (10:30a.m.)

Announcements:

• Darren, Pam and Ashley Powers officially joined CBC! Welcome Powers family!
• Special thanks to Paul Wilson for getting the platform redone and recarpeted. It looks soooo much better!
• This week, we’re having some work done to our sound system and getting the projector hung from the ceiling. The updates to the sound system will eliminate the dead spots in our sanctuary. Hanging the projector will obviously give us better projection but will also protect the projector from the wear and tear from being moved so much. We’ve received a grant for this project from the Oldham Little Church Foundation—a foundation that specializes in helping small churches with relatively small projects. The grant is for $5700, but the project will cost closer to $9,000. Please consider helping us bridge the gap with a gift over and above your regular giving—thanks.
• There will be no 9 a.m. Equipping Hour or Youth study in July. We’ll start again on August 1.
• Summer Nights. We’re having a great time on Tuesday nights, but we need YOU to be here—6:30-8:30. Bring a dessert and a lawn chair and spend some “family” time with us right here at CBC. Contact Jody Rees for more information ().
• Antioch School: A new Antioch course entitled Covenants, Unity of Scripture and Biblical Worldview, will begin on Thursday, July 29, at 6:30 p.m. This 10-week Antioch School course is open to all who want to dig into the Scriptures. The Covenants Course is designed to help students understand the big picture of the Scriptures as a basis for developing a lifeview that is consistent with God’s plan and purposes. For more information, please reply to this email. Click here for more about the Antioch School.

Music:

• This was a big, bittersweet weekend for our Worship Team.
  • Tim Northup married Megan Jones on Saturday and they will be living and working in Kansas City, Kansas, this fall—too far to drive every Sunday. Tim led us in worship for 4½ years and will be greatly missed. His ministry was marked by a big heart for worship and an excellent blend of the best of the new worship music with the best of the older, time-tested favorites. Why don’t you take a few minutes and write a note to Tim & Megan (; megan.renee.) to express your gratitude to Tim for faithfully leading us in worship over the past 4½ years and your congratulations on getting married and how much we’ll miss them.
  • Fortunately, God has blessed us greatly by bringing us Mitch Langley. Tim and Mitch have been sharing the worship leading responsibilities for much of the past two years, but this Sunday, Mitch took on the full responsibility of leading us in worship. He is a gifted worship leader with a big heart for worship and we’re blessed to have him and his wife, Kristi, and their three sons with us.
• Songs (click on the links to listen/watch):
  • Your Grace Is Enough (the writer, Matt Maher, explains how the song was written)
  • Nothing But the Blood (Hillsong live)
  • Til I See You (with subtitles to sing along)
  • Jesus, Messiah (the writer, Chris Tomlin, explains why he wrote the song)
  • The Revelation Song (powerful song by Gateway Worship featuring Kari Jobe)

Message: “The Family Series: A Family of Families” (Listen on the CBC Podcast)

Introduction

The point: Strong families make strong churches make strong families.  So, the big question is: How do we strengthen the family? Of course, it requires every individual embracing his/her role, obeying God and living wisely. But there’s more.

Stephen Clark in Man and Woman in Christ wrote, “Many modern people, Christians and non-Christians alike, have attempted to strengthen the family by directly buttressing the nuclear family unit (Dad, Mom and kids). In many ways this seems to be the most obvious course of action. However, the evidence from anthropology and social history indicates that the nuclear family is only strong when it exists in the context of a larger extended-family system. Such a system need not be completely built on lineage, but it must involve the commitment of the nuclear family to a larger social grouping” (emphasis added).

In other words, we strengthen the family through church connection—each family committing to God’s ordained community, the church. And then, helping other families by helping them get connected to the church.

The Facts: The church is designed by God to be a family of families. These are the facts as they are presented in the New Testament:

We are the household of God.

• In 1 Timothy 3:14-15, Paul called the church “the household of God”. The word “household” is key to understanding the nature of the church.
• In Matthew 6:9, Jesus invited us to call God “Father”.
• In John1:12, we’re told that those who believe in Jesus are give the right to be called God’s “children”. In this same vein, Galatians 3:26 says we become “sons of God through faith in Christ” and Ephesians 1:5 tells us we are “adopted” by God through Christ.
• Ephesians 3:1-10 tells us Paul had 2 jobs: first, to preach to the Gentiles. Second, the “administration” of the mystery (the church). Administration literally means “house law”. Paul’s job was to explain how the church was to function, so his letters are particularly important.

We are to treat one another like family.

• In 1 Timothy 5:1-2, we are told to treat each other as fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters.
• The terms “brothers…sisters…brethren” are used at least 196 times in the epistles to refer to fellow believers.
• To treat each other as family changes everything! If church leaders treat the church like a business, people become assets or liabilities! But when we treat each other as family, people are brothers and sisters! We’ll be more patient, more loyal, more respectful.

We are to choose leaders proven in the home.

• In 1 Timothy 3:4-5 and 12, we see that elders and deacons are to be chosen based on how they “manage their households”. The same skills that make a man a good manager of his home will make him a good leader in the church.
• In 1 Thessalonians 2:7-12, we read that the Apostle Paul and his team of ministers of the gospel had a parental mindset as they ministered to people. He said they were nurturing like a “mother” and encouraging like a “father”.

We are to strengthen families through the family of families.

• In Titus 1:6-11, once again elders are to be good family men who can teach sound doctrine and refute false doctrine. Why? To protect families. False teachers, according to v.11 were “upsetting whole families”.
• In Titus 3:3-5, we see that older women are to be well-established in their character (v.3) and well-established in the faith so they are able to “teach and encourage” young women to be good wives and mothers! Older women are just as important to the church as wives and mothers are to the family! Just as the older women were to minister to younger women, older men should minister to younger men (v.2,6)—to strengthen families!

The Challenges

We must rethink church: Church should be a family.

The word “family” is used a lot, but aren’t most churches filled with loosely connected acquaintances who struggle to make conversation once a week or 2-3 times a month? Don’t most church leaders think more like CEOs providing a service to consumers? Many “attend” church rather than join a family with common beliefs, values and goals. Are you struggling with all kinds of things, but your church family is completely out of the loop? Family isn’t like that and the church isn’t supposed to be like that. We should be close-knit, spending time together, aware of struggles, ready to help, support, serve, teach, advise, hug, weep with, admonish—almost everything family members do for family members.

We must rethink our commitments. Church should be central to our lives.

Many are very serious about church, but their church is not central to their lives. Church family should not be higher priority than individual families (spouse and children), but it must not be a peripheral slice of our lives either. Ask yourself: Is it possible we’re seeing problems in our individual family (marital problems, children “slipping away” and not embracing the faith, materialism, etc.) because church is not central to our lives—therefore, we don’t have that “extended-family system” (Clark) we need? Ask yourself: Does God have me on a shelf because I just don’t consider church to be central to my life? If we’re going to be part of what God is doing and invest our lives in what is eternal, we must make church central.

Closing

Some of the huge redwood trees in California are over 300 feet high. Compare that to the KU tower which is a mere 120 feet high. Those redwoods must have tremendous root systems that reach hundreds of feet down into the earth—right? Wrong. The redwoods actually have very shallow root systems. The redwoods grow strong and tall because their root systems intertwine. They lock into each other. If a redwood stood out in a field alone, it wouldn’t take a very strong storm to knock it down. The key word is “alone”. The strength of a redwood is found in its dependence upon the other trees which stand beside it.

Let’s stand together like that! Let’s support one another! Let’s commit ourselves as a church family to help strengthen the multitude of families out there who need a family of families.