1 Peter 1:1-2 - While we are here on planet earth we are stewards. We own nothing. Everything comes from God and we are here to multiply what He has given us. The parable of the talents shows that God expects us to multiply what He gives us—our abilities, giftings—whatever it is that was given by God. We are meant to cultivate traits so God can use them.

We are placed here for a purpose. Our citizenship is in Heaven, but we are chosen here on Earth. We are called out to advance God’s kingdom here.

Traditional vs. Missional - The mindset of tradition states that people come to church to consume programs offered to them and then leave. People are shifting their mindsets and realizing that they have a purpose. Everyone is searching for their purpose—we find it in God’s house. There is a new way of thinking from ‘I’m coming here to get’ to a release and longing to be used, built up, and sent into the world. A traditional mindset developed a position on everything, and a missional mindset is about experiencing the Holy Spirit. We want to experience what the Holy Spirit is going in us and in the church.

The Holy Spirit was sent to come alongside to help, encourage, and comfort. We do not just want knowledge of the Holy Spirit. We want to believe by faith and have an experience. God wants to express his love in a way that is real for us, an experience.

This new mindset means that every person has access to God. Others can help us connect with God but no one needs to stand between us and God. Every person can come before God even when you do not feel worthy enough to do so because we are not told to live by our feelings but by our faith.

A missional church collectively joins together and engages in something. We participate and worship together. We can have beliefs about the Holy Spirit or we can experience him in our lives. We will all come to have a revelation of who God is. The more we progress the more God will reveal to us. The word of God will come alive. The Holy Spirit will reveal truth to us; not just what we are told by others, but a truth we have found on our own. Discover God for yourself. Every person has a call, but God must become real to you first.

The Holy Spirit is at work in the world. God has a plan and it includes the salvation of every person. But everyday people are perishing, so His will is not enough. We have a part to play. We fulfill God’s will. We have been chosen, given the spirit, and been empowered. The Spirit is the key that unlocks our future in fulfilling God’s plan. The spirit will lead us as we allow him.

In Joel 2:28, God is beginning to pour out his latter rain: “Then after I have poured out my rains again…”

Water is a consistent theme in the Bible. Rain is caught in basins and forms rivers. Water equals life, and God’s rain and rivers equal divine blessing and abundant life.

When God rains down on us, we don’t want to waste it. We want to catch it all. The church acts as the catcher when God rains down on the earth. The rivers that are formed from God’s rain flow through the house of God. God wants this river to be a raging torrent to reach the world, and it is our job as the church to make this happen. When the church is flowing in the river, then the Spirit of God falls on all flesh.

This is why it is so important for us to become members of the house of God and serve it – to be missional in mindset and not consumers of the church. Just because you are saved and part of the family doesn’t mean you are a son or daughter of the house. Being a son or daughter requires relationship. “Your sons and daughters will prophesy … they will confound the wise…” When sons and daughters understand authority and submission, they are released to be a mouthpiece and receive wisdom way beyond their years.

Part of our job in building the house is to create this releasing environment. God wants to release you. This release comes from serving. When you come to Christ, you lower yourself – you become generous and serving. You submit to God and submit to others. The Bible says that the lowly shall be elevated to the mountaintop, and the last shall be first.

Psalm 1 talks about being planted next to the river. The Hebrew translation for this word is actually channel. Channels are man-made basins to catch and redirect water. See how God wants us to be part of his plan? God wants us to build the river. God wants us involved by creating a place for the latter rain to be caught. Then, people will start planting by the river and will prosper. Everything people need is in the water, and the house of God is the channel. The Bible says that a tree planted near the water will flourish, but a tree planted away from water will struggle to survive. We want the river to be wide, strong and well-built so that when God rains down – rains down his Spirit – we can catch it. That is why we are focusing so much on the Holy Spirit.

Rain in the Bible is equated to blessing. We are designed to be trees planted by the river. If we stay away from God’s river, we become malnourished and shriveled. Part of being planted by the river is being connected to the house of God.

The one word that describes us is “connect” – connect to God, connect to yourself, connect to others. Connecting up, connecting in and connecting out. This is part of being missional. It is not the call of God for us to be an island When the rain of God is caught and the Holy Spirit is allowed to move, it is easy to connect with God. We need to create that environment to bring people to God – an environment of faith and expectation. The church isn’t just here to get bodies in the seats. We are charged with keeping the river strong, flowing and pure, and fueled so people can feel the river in us and thus be drawn to God through us. God wants commitment. God told Gideon that he didn’t need a lot of people, but the ripe, committed people to accomplish the goal. The ones who are looking.

We don’t want to grow the church at the expense of growing people in God and planting them deeply by the river. We want people to discover their place in God’s house and in the mission. We want to produce, not consume. We serve the house of God – it doesn’t serve us. We want to play our part to make the river wider by serving, praying, submitting, encouraging. We want to build a river filled with servants that love to serve God and are willing to do whatever it takes to fulfill his purpose. We want an outpouring and we want to catch it.

We don’t want God’s rain to go to waste. This is part of our mission.

www.ChristianCityChurch.com

“I came to you in weakness, timid and trembling.” This came from one of the boldest saints in history. Paul, after his conversion, hid away for 14 years. During that time he began to get an understanding of his mission in life, which was taking the gospel to the gentiles. He was in constant danger from both his friends and his enemies. He was beaten, stoned, whipped, chased by the Pharisees, shipwrecked, and deserted, but he still driven to spread the Gospel because he knew he was on a mission.

Mission shaped churches - following the example of Paul - do not thrive on traditions and knowledge of the past. We all carry traditions, knowledge and learning from our past experiences. However, these traditions are nothing to what God wants to do through us in the future. Paul was a Pharisee. He had all of the Church tradition and knowledge - but he could not and did not let it define the mission God gave him.

“I didn’t come to you with powerful words, human wisdom or eloquent speech – by the Holy Spirit and his power among you.”

We are not a traditionalist kind of church.

Traditional says we come and consume some church stuff on a Sunday. We are missional because we come and celebrate and leave with vision and faith to share and take the gospel to the world. A mission shaped church is not about coming, taking what you want and leaving. It’s about taking what God gives you and using it to fulfill His purpose.

In a mission shaped church, we participate in worship and become worshippers. We don’t just show up on Sundays to watch the band.

Institutional churches are organizations that run like machines, with interchangeable disposable parts. Missional churches are living organisms with every member playing a vital role. Every member is important and has a calling and a purpose.

In traditional churches the leadership is top-down. In missional churches, leadership is flattened. Leadership isn’t just about authority, it’s about influence. Leaders help people understanding who they are in God, why they are here and where they fit in the House of God. Missional churches create a platform in which people can experience God, understand his purpose for their lives and position themselves to be used by God.

We are called to connect with people and bring God’s power to their world. In the future is the power of the Holy Spirit being unfolded in our lives. Despite our varied pasts, just like Paul, we don’t let our pasts define our future. That is our mindset – a vision mission for the church, not programs for people to consume. This missional mindset allows people to live out the gospel and experience in for themselves.

The mission of this church is more important than our feelings. Paul said it is more important than our own well-being and safety. The church mission is a microcosm of the great commission. As Paul said, we have to do what God tells me to do, and until He stops confirming with signs and wonders, we have to fulfill the mission.

Mission driven churches are people driven. We will let go of some of our traditions and make adjustments within the boundaries of scripture for the sake of reaching the lost. We want everyone to feel welcome in God’s house. We want to create an environment for the Holy Spirit to move and change lives. The most important role of the Holy Spirit is inspiring, empowering and releasing the church by giving us the tools, wisdom, gifts, faith and vision we need to go and fulfill the mission.

When you discover your role in the house and God’s calling on your life, there is no better revelation in the world. We want to be part of seeing God’s people grow – to discover God’s plan for them and empower them to fulfill it. That is the vision of a mission shaped church, and that is what we are.

www.ChristianCityChurch.com

www.ChristianCityChurch.com

God gave us authority and power to fulfill the great commission. He gave us the Holy Spirit and His gifts to represent God.

John 9 - The blind beggar did not ask Jesus to heal him. Jesus found him. Jesus spit on the ground and wiped the mud on his eyes. The blind man let Jesus wipe the mud on his eyes. Something in him allowed Jesus to help him. Was he desperate? Was it humility?

Jesus said that people get sick so that God can be glorified in the healing.

Jesus tells the blind beggar to go wash his eyes in the pool of Siloam. This pool was used to supply the city’s water in the event of war or natural disaster. The man did as he was told and came back able to see. He had an experience with God and was healed.

His neighbors did not recognize him. The beggar told his neighbors who he was and that the man called Jesus did this to him. He had a revelation of Jesus as a man. They asked him where Jesus was, but he did not know. His friends took him to see the Pharisees. Jesus had healed the blind beggar on the Sabbath. Once again, the Pharisees could not see God’s power through their own religious knowledge. They decided that this could not be the work of God, because it was done on the Sabbath.

The Pharisees were locked into the knowledge of God, but their brains could not comprehend the true spirit of God. Their knowledge got in the way of the truth. Believing that God is real is not the same as believing in the power of the name of God. The devil knows that God exists. Knowledge alone cannot save you.

The blind beggar replied to the Pharisees that he thought Jesus was a prophet. The blind beggar had progressed in his revelation of Jesus from a man to a prophet.

His friends and the Pharisees did not believe the beggar’s story at face value. Now, his parents get questioned. They chose not to take the difficult side and stand in the truth, but to say that they were not sure who healed their son. They were scared of being rejected, so they sold out their son.

Don’t let what you believe or what you think get in the way of your experience with God.

This is happening all over the world. Tradition and theology have been combined to the point that having an experience with God is suppressed for the sake of comfort. People are using “religion” to hide from God’s true calling on their lives.

God tells us that He loves us, but also provides a way to show us that He loves us. He gives us the Holy Spirit so that we can connect with God on a physical level.

The blind beggar had been abandoned by his friends, church, and family….but…Jesus found the blind beggar again and asked him to believe in the Son of God. The man got the revelation of Jesus the Son of God and bowed to Jesus. The blind beggar’s revelation of Jesus had progressed from Jesus the man, to Jesus the prophet, to Jesus the Son of God. The blind beggar allowed his experience with God to develop in his heart despite what his own head, friends, church, and family had told him.

www.ChristianCityChurch.com

www.ChristianCityChurch.com
Titus 3
The Holy Spirit is probably the most misunderstood of the godhead. In the Old Testament, God ministered to people. In the gospels, Jesus minstered to people. From Acts 2 (day of Pentecost) till now, Holy Spirit is ministering to people.
When we believe that Jesus is our Savior and we recognize Him as our Messiah, the first thing that happens is His blood covers our sins and we become perfect in God’s sight. His Spirit regenerates us and gives us a new life (Titus 3:5) - we are saved. (Note for NLT readers - see the asterisk for more detail)
Psalm 139:13 - God conceived us in the spirit BEFORE we were conceived in the natural. The eternal part of us (our spirit) is being regenerated when we come to the cross. All we are doing is coming back to the God who already knew us before we were born. The Bible says that we are washed, cleansed, and reborn - which has everything to do with the Holy Spirit.
John 7 - John (as a writer) has a different perspective from the other gospels. He wrote about the Holy Spirit in a way that the other authors didn’t. The underlying theme in John has to do with water. Every year, people came to Jerusalem to live in tents for 7 days. It was called the Feast of Shelters. They would bring burnt offerings to the Lord daily and on the 8th day, there was a MASSIVE party! The Jewish people knew how to party. Then, the High Priest would take a large gold pot and fill it with water from the pool of Siloam, and then to end the feast, the priest would pour the water out on the steps of the temple. Jesus came to the feast incognito so that He would not be noticed. On the last day as the priest poured out the water, Jesus began to shout and revealed Himself. He said that all who were thirsty should come to Him. The crowd went quiet and He began to prophesy what was to come. He spoke of living water that comes from within - we have to get uncorked and unblocked so that the river of God can flow out of us. Living the Christian life without being unblocked is quite difficult. We were never meant to live without living water. When we come to the cross and become regenerated, that is merely the beginning. The next thing that occurs is the pouring out of the Spirit. He has already placed His Spirit inside of us from the time that we were born. Jesus told them to wait in the upper room before the outpouring of the Spirit until the Feast of Pentecost. 500 people were told, but only 120 were left on the day of Pentecost. They were baptized with fire, and it was a fulfillment from the book of Joel. Rivers of living water flowed out of the 120 and the church was birthed through the day of Pentecost.
The Holy Spirit conference in June is going to be 5 nights of an “upper room experience”, but when they came OUT of the upper room, the world began to understand them. When we come out of the Holy Spirit conference, we will be relatable to the world.
The Holy Spirit guides us and coaxes us alongside of our journey. He is in our life, in the world, and omni-present. The Spirit of God will move supernaturally during the week of conference. The main sign of being filled with the Spirit is speaking in other tongues. It is Spirit to Spirit, the way tthat we were created. Jesus told the woman at the well that she has to worship in SPIRIT and truth. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the culmination and fullness of our spirits connecting to God. The world sees the way we operate and the way that our faith works. We are enabled to do things beyond our natural ability. Our spirit on earth is connecting back to our heavenly Father, just the way it was before we were born. When we operate through the Spirit, life begins to make sense and things start to work out. The river of God flows around us and through us - it is an easy burden. Everything that God has for us in our lives (job, family, relationships etc) comes out of the river of God.

www.ChristianCityChurch.com

www.ChristianCityChurch.com

You can’t do anything to win God’s favor. Those who believe that God loves them and believe they are His children are elevated into God’s presence.

Some people think that poverty equals holiness. John 10:10 says My purpose is to give life in all its fullness. (NLT)

How can the church help the poor if it has nothing to give? Charity came out of the church. If I am called to help people in need, how can I help if I don’t have anything to give?

The Good Samaritan was able to treat and care for the wounded man. How many of us can carry someone into a hospital and offer to pay for it all?

We are called to be the light of the world…be the church. Somebody better have some money…some extra so we can do these things. Living with “just enough” is not biblical.

God is the governor of the earth and He created the Church to meet the needs of the people.

There is a way to live that leads you into a life of abundance.

The Wheel is not The Answer. It is a basic tool that allows you to evaluate where you are so you can live in abundance.

God has this universal way in which He takes us through a renewal process spiritually. This happens when I connect with God. This is not when we get saved. That refreshing of the spirit happens instantaneously. After salvation, a renewing process begins. God knew us before we were born. He formed us. Before the foundation of the world, he knew everything about us. So when we finally come back to our Creator, to the Cross, spiritually, it begins the return to perfection, the state when God created us and knew us. When I was born I inherited sin because of the Fall, and I been disobedient until I came to the Cross but now I am being renewed…how I think, what is important to me…this renewal is reflected through new actions and new attitudes.

Before Christ, I was sowing selfishness, self-centered seed and a distorted, selfish love into the field that is my life.

After the Cross, God has plowed the field and given me a fresh field fertilized by the Holy Spirit so I am sowing different seed and reaping a different type of life. As a result, I am experiencing a life I didn’t know before…a life of abundance.

Abundance in God is not measured materially, how the world measures. That is the paradox of the Kingdom. God wants us to be blessed, but He is not going to measure us by what we have.

The biggest difference in living a life in the midst of the renewal process is that we don’t live by what we see. We live by what we believe. In our old life, we lived by what we could experience through our physical senses. Now, we live by hope, faith and love. When other hurt you, turn the other cheek. When you’re not getting any love, you love anyway. You don’t have to have love to see love. Even if I don’t receive what I need, I can still love because I believe that God is in control. (II Cor 5:7) Acts Chapter 7 talks about when Stephen was being stoned to death by the Jewish leaders and yet he still asked God to forgive them.

Jesus is the example of how to live in abundance. God’s abundance is immeasurable. Abundance means more than you ever dreamed so you can give it out when other hurt you, slander you. You give love to them and that is how you discover the life that Jesus wanted us to have.

www.ChristianCityChurch.com