Mcc Podcast

Achilles; Do you know who he was? Do you know what he was famous for? There is no evidence that Achilles was a real person, but he was the central character of Homer’s Iliad. You’ll understand why I want to make that disclaimer in a moment. Achilles was one of the greatest warriors and heroes in Greek Mythology. He was considered a hero because he was the most successful soldier in the Greek army during the Trojan War. But to be clear, Achilles was a literary character, not a literal character. I make that clear because, as the story goes, after Achilles was born, his mother wanted to protect him from harm. She held him by the heel and dipped him into the river Styx. In Greek Mythology, the river Styx was located in the Underworld and had special powers. Achilles became invulnerable everywhere but at his heel, where his mother held him. Which is also where he was hit by an arrow and subsequently died. So the term 'Achilles' heel' refers to a weakness or vulnerable point in someone. Even someone very strong.

We believe we should be a church of disciple-makers, who look for opportunities to restore the world around them in service, and who pray every day for clarity, insight, and strength as we trust that God is in control and we are doing the best we can to follow Him well. But, what does that look like as the church gathers each week? What does that look like when we serve in ministry areas? How do we protect from organizational drift and stay focused on our mission? It will take work. It will take putting some things together. It will take all of us committing together to this fundamental work that Jesus calls us to; discipleship.

June 27, 2022, offered a vivid reminder that Americans believe in prayer.  On that Monday, the Supreme Court’s decision in Joseph Kennedy v. Bremerton School District supported the former assistant football coach’s right to pray in public. For seven years, Kennedy took a knee on the football field after games, and as Washington Post reporter Robert Barnes stated, “From the stands, it might have looked like nothing more than someone tying a shoe.”  The Supreme Court documents identified it as “30 seconds of personal prayer at the conclusion of a football game.” Barnes noted of the court brief: “The school district decided it had a problem in the 2015 season, when an opposing coach told Bremerton’s principal that he ‘thought it was pretty cool how [the District] would allow’ Kennedy’s religious activity.”  Fearing repercussions for what an opposing coach called “pretty cool,” the Washington high school suspended Kennedy and then later placed him on administrative leave. The challenge weaved its w

Paul would write this to Timothy (1 Timothy 4:7b-8) - train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.   Look at that: Physical training is of some value. We all know that.  Lifting weights, cardio, yoga, martial arts training, running, swimming, etc…all of those have benefits for our body. Taking a walk is better than just sitting and watching TV Surprisingly, you don’t get in better shape watching ESPN all day. Although if you did, we would most likely have some pretty healthy people around here.   Paul says the same thing is true of our faith. In other words, with our faith, there is Some Assembly Required. But it's important because it holds promise for both the present life and the life to come.

What we’re going to talk about for the next few weeks, let me just say that there are 3 words that strike fear in some people’s lives. If you had to guess what those 3 little words are, what would you say? Some of us, when we read those 3 words, we just…sit back and stare at them. We sweat just a little. When you buy a grill at the hardware store, those words are right there. You buy a crib for your baby, those words are staring at you when it arrives. Those 3 little words are: SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED It’s interesting to me that there are other people who do not have that fear at all. When it comes to cars, my friend Tim, takes them all the way down to nothing and brings them back up. It’s pretty cool. Usually we lean one way or the other. But most of life is Some Assembly Required. So is our faith.It doesn’t just happen to you, you don’t just sit in church once a week and bingo bango bongo you’re a growing follower of Jesus. I want to be real clear, this is not about earning you salvation. Rather, for those w

“Therefore, go,” Jesus said. We’ve all heard the verse that closes Matthew, yet too often, the nature of that commandment is lost on us. There is a depth and a historical resonance to what Jesus is telling us to do. He is telling us to make disciples. Disciples that obey. Obedience to his last command means that, by definition, we aren’t genuine disciples until we’ve made a disciple that obeys everything he’s commanded. Our best marker for making a disciple is when the person we are discipling makes a disciple. The goal of the advancing Kingdom of God doesn’t stop with a pursuit of personal holiness (though that’s part of it) it continues to a commission of others into a lifelong mission to make disciples of Jesus. It’s much more than personal betterment, it extends to global restoration.  We get to participate in what God is doing.  But it's uncomfortable and it means releasing those you’ve let into your life through discipleship to go and connect with and disciple others. I can’t wait to be togeth

This week we had a guest speaker, Justin Gravitt, who joined us and talked about how Jesus taught relationally.    Justin is the Director of Innovation and Advancement with Navigator Church Ministries. In his role, he helps churches all over the area grow and develop disciple-making cultures.    This week he spoke about how Jesus' disciples.    The disciples of Jesus left everything and followed. Matthew 4:19-20 makes it look so easy for them. They heard Jesus’ invitation they immediately left their old life behind.    But, what did he do to transform them from ordinary and unschooled into those who walk on water faith?

In Luke 19 we find the story of Zacchaeus, a tax collector who Jesus goes out of his way to step into the story of and as a result Zacchaeus walks away from the encounter changed and begins to follow the way of Jesus. Zacchaeus story doesn’t change if Jesus doesn’t step in. This is true of the people around us as well. Like Mike talked about last week we are called to be disciple makers and part of that calling means stepping into others stories. That why this week we are asking the questions; What would it look like if we lived in such a way where everyone got a seat at the table? And what if I invited the people, who don’t look, act or think like me into the story of who Jesus is?

In our culture there are several words used to describe who we are: MCCers The Church Christians Jesus Followers The Bible word for those who followed Jesus, is disciple. And we are going to take the next several weeks to flesh out what that means to us today and why at MCC, we are using a word that seems foreign to our culture but has great meaning for how we are to live our lives.

One of the passages of scripture that we may find hard to want to say out loud is what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11:1 (NIV): Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. We should all be able to say it. But what does it mean? In real life, how do we do that? Last week we looked at what the pace of Jesus teaches us about how His example should shine through ours. This week we’ll look at the priority of Jesus as we encounter someone who was described as “a woman we might never have remembered had she not crossed the path of the One we could never forget.” And that description gives you a glimpse into Jesus’ priority and we’ll talk about what it looks like for His priority to be our priority as well.

For the last few weeks, we have been looking at what I believe we as a culture have a hard time doing appropriately. We've been in a series we’re calling Play AND Purpose and it seems to me that we either lean too much into one or the other.  Either we can't remember the last time we were not fully absorbed in a work week or we can't remember the last time we forgot about work.  We can’t remember the last time we gave ourselves to something greater than ourselves or we can’t remember the last time we were just silly. We can't remember the last time we were productive or not trying to be productive.   Play AND Purpose.   Two weeks ago Adam walked us through “AND.” Last week Eric walked us through Purpose as we celebrated our graduates. If you missed either of those you can catch them here.   This Sunday I want to walk with you through Play. Come prepared to have fun. Seriously, we’re going to have to have a good time.

Continuing in our Play And Purpose series, Student Pastor Eric Craft talks about how a life of purpose is centered in Jesus.

This morning we are beginning a series called Play and Purpose.  We wanted to take a few weeks to look at these because we’re closing in on summer and I hope you will take some time to play.  And next week is graduate Sunday and we want to talk about purpose and the importance of that. As our students transition out of high school and onto the next phase of their lives - purpose is what will guide them through a lot of decisions that will impact - not just today but tomorrow.   So Play and Purpose.    But today is not about Play - that’s in 2 weeks. but neither is today about Purpose - that’s next week. What does that leave us?   Today is about AND.

I know you are well aware that our world is divided. It actually has always been divided, but that division now seems to be wider, more obvious, and more filled with hatred. However, as we prepared, we also determined that just as important as the stand we take is how we do it. Peter said (1 Peter 3:15-16): 15 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. To be clear, we are called to always be ready to answer everyone who asks us about our hope, and we’ll talk about that. But I want to make sure you catch what Peter says next: But do this with gentleness and respect, 16 keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. And sometimes it’s not too difficult to pull that off. But how do you deal with the unexpected, especially when the unexpected is unpleasant? How do you deal with situations when the heat is turned up quickl

“If I ran the world everything would be better.” Have you ever thought that? For most of us, it's a joke, but there is a kernel of truth there. This small belief that if everyone saw like you did the world would make sense and be better. The problem is it explains away a lot of shortcomings that we all have. The reality is we judge others by their actions and ourselves by our intentions. We know what we meant to do and so we hold ourselves in the highest regard, while for others all we see is a part of what they’ve done and we think we can diagnose how to make their life better in an instant. That’s why Jesus made it very clear that before we ever start to believe that we can impose our will on the world, our lives better have gone under an intense process of restoration and alignment with God’s will. As we do that, we might just find more and more how much we have to change in our lives and leave it to God to be in control of the rest.

This weekend we are beginning a new series called Take A Stand. Originally the idea for this series was to take a few issues that are current with our culture where, as followers of Jesus, at a minimum, we should know where we stand and why we stand there. But we’re not just going to tell you what we think or feel, we’re going to show you what God has said through the Bible. I hope you’ll join us for those. But as we talked about this, it’s important for us to know where we take a stand, but equally important (maybe more) is HOW we take a stand. This Sunday I’ll be talking about what we stand on when we take a stand.

It has been a difficult two years, pandemic, social unrest, geopolitical crisis. As these things continue to pop up we can be tempted to wonder, “when will things get back to normal?” we can follow up with another tough question; God, why? In seasons of great uncertainty, it’s really hard to get to peace, and a lack of peace sends you searching for reasoning. Uncertainty or anxiety can become a downward spiral because you don’t want to feel that way, and you start to feel like there’s something wrong with you and then you worry about that, and quickly peace that was just in your grasp seems like a distant memory from a person you used to be. Look pandemic and geopolitical crisis aside, it can be any inciting incident that makes anxieties rise. We all just went through a season where collectively our “normal” was crushed, and we are coming slowly into a new normal, but every day there is the chance that our lives will be flipped upside down. In those times, after the phone call, the meeting, the diagnosis, the

Celebrating Easter is all about Jesus’ death and burial and resurrection. And we celebrate this weekend with egg hunts and baskets and family gatherings and coming to church together or coming together in your home to be part of this there. But this weekend is HUGE because at the cross we find forgiveness for our sins. That is why we follow Jesus right up to the cross. But we’ll also be reminded that there is something else we are called to as we follow Jesus away from the cross. I hope you will bring your family and friends this weekend so you can be reminded of why what we celebrate this weekend is so important.

I still remember sitting in my office with someone who wanted to talk about beginning their relationship with Jesus. They wanted to be baptized. We talked about that. And as we were finishing, she looked at me and had this troubled look in her eyes.  She said, “What happens after I’m baptized?  I mean, what if I sin?” I asked, “What do you mean?” She said, “The Bible says that when we give our lives to Jesus that all of our sins are forgiven, right?  I said, yea. We had just looked at this verse, (Acts 2:38 NIV), Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins… Psalm 103:12 says, “He has taken our sins away from us as far as the east is from the west.” She said. “My slate is wiped clean, right?” “Right.” “So what happens if I sin after I’m baptized?” You know what she’s asking: I wonder if you’ve wondered this. What happens when I sin? Am I finished? Does God not love me anymore? Does that question bother you? If that has bo

Have you ever asked God for something or for someone? A teenager who is having her 5th open heart surgery? A young mom whose husband left her? A young man fighting cancer? Your dad when he is fighting for his life? A young couple who want a child but don’t seem to be able to get or others who can seem to sustain pregnancy. Maybe none of those are prayers you’ve prayed,  but they are all prayers I have asked God,  “Please.” “Please”, that You will hear us God and “Please” that You will attend to my needs and the needs of others. And let me add this, none of those were one off prayers. There were times I was literally on my knees and prayed the same thing for days, weeks, months. Have you been there? Notice the nearness of the words “please” and “plead.” What do “Please” prayers teach us about ourselves and about God?