NCC Vision for the Coming Year Aug 24th 2008
This weekend was NCC’s leadership retreat where all of the leaders in the clusters get together and spend time fellowshipping, worshipping and catching the vision for the coming year. And this year should be exciting as the vision is begin to cement on seeing God move radically in Norman. If you could boil it down to a single verse from the Bible, it would be:
…My conversation and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power…
1 Corinthians 2:4
For surrounding context, Paul is talking to the Corinthians here about how he came to them preaching, and how it wasn’t based upon persuasive words, apologetics, or any wisdom of the world but from power that flows from being concerned with nothing beyond the Christ that was crucified.
It’s exciting to (slowly at the moment) begin to see this played out in Norman. It was evident everyday in Cape Town but here in America the faith level in most Christian communities seems to be non-existent in regards to demonstrations of the Spirit and power (particularly because people a — don’t think it happens anymore which is one of the craziest things I’ve ever heard or b — are afraid because of abuses like Lakeland). But even here in the states where faith seems dead it can happen. As a church, we’ve seen several miraculous healings around town and things only seem to be picking up steam.
What’s important to remember (and what leads to abuses like Lakeland) is that the “demonstration of the Spirit and of power” is intimately connected to mission. It’s in this context of the missio Dei that Paul proclaims it. It’s not designed to center around a single earthly man. It’s not designed to single around getting a single ministry lots of money. It’s designed to spiral out in mission, “so that your faith would not be based on human wisdom but on the power of God. (vs 5)” Repentance and new life is intimately connected and its terminus isn’t ever just with a single body.
These are exciting times to be in Norman, indeed.
tags: church, faith, life, ncc
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who am i?
i'm a twenty-something starting this journey called life. i studied microbiology and chemistry in college and currently work as a systems analyst. that means i manage computers (and a lot of them at that -- linux, solaris, os x, and windows). but that's just what i do to pay the bills. less important than where i am at now is where i am going. for quite some time i've had a nagging voice whispering "mission" in my ear. thus the direction i walk. contained in these pages is a log of a bit of that journey (and everything else that i do).
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