The Connect Class series from Fierce Church guides you through a vision-renewing interacting worship experience. As we emphasize the significance of weekend services, we delve into the core mission of our church – nurturing steadfast followers of Christ who grow with Him in every step. From engaging in small groups and church activities to the transformative nature of serving others, we cover the breadth of experiences that enhance our spiritual pursuits and fellowship.
The Connect Class series from Fierce Church guides you through a vision-renewing interacting worship experience. As we emphasize the significance of weekend services, we delve into the core mission of our church – nurturing steadfast followers of Christ who grow with Him in every step. From engaging in small groups and church activities to the transformative nature of serving others, we cover the breadth of experiences that enhance our spiritual pursuits and fellowship.
Hey, what up? It's Mark Carter. I'm the pastor of Fierce Church. Welcome to our podcast. I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today. I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Connect Class series. I am so excited that you're here. If you're new with us, just know that this is not how we normally do things here. Physically, in the auditorium, people are sitting together at tables and, while we'd like to be close, that's not normally how we do this. But we're going to have a lot of fun in this series, I believe, for all of us. This is going to inform us, it's going to inspire us and it's going to compel us to follow Jesus Christ more closely and to connect with one another more deeply.
Speaker 1:Today we're talking about attending the weekend, and the reason that we attend the weekend is because it begins the process of God connecting us to himself and connecting us to one another. It probably helps at this point to review the mission statement of Fierce. Here it is the mission of Fierce Church is to develop prevailing followers of Jesus Christ who walk with him step by step. Now, there's a lot in there, but what I want you to notice is the step by step. Let's talk about the steps you and I need to follow to keep moving. There's a lot of churches that you could walk into and you could be there for six months or 16 years and you wouldn't necessarily feel like you were progressing in any way, because the only step that you really took was you came to Sunday. You attended the weekend, but that's only the first step. First there's big days. That's kind of like Easter or another day like that. It's kind of a pre-step. It's one of the ways we invite people to come to the church. Then Sunday is really a first step. Once people are at Sunday, we encourage them to go to Connect Class. That Sunday we encourage them to go to Connect Class. That's another step. Now you guys are so awesome that we're smashing those two steps into one. That's what the Connect Class series is about. Then we'll invite people to get into community. That's a next step. Things like Fierce Men, Fierce Women, the Grove, other things like that, small groups are a way that we step into the spiritual growth step of community. There's other steps like serving, inviting, giving. We're going to talk about all those in this series. And maybe, if you're in a family stage, there's things like fierce kids. There's fusion, there's fierce teens. That's how your children can take spiritual growth steps.
Speaker 1:The big idea with these steps is not to stagnate. Once we start to stagnate, we actually start to lose spiritual flow. When you come into Sunday, often the Spirit of God gets you excited about it, but after a while, that excitement will wear off. That's why we need to keep taking steps. Now one more thing, and then we're going to get into it.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's talk about the vision real quick. The vision is a little different than the mission. The mission is what we're always supposed to be doing. The vision is a specific target that we're aiming at as a church. Here's ours. Fierce Church will become a top-of-mind church for singles and families looking for a medium-sized church feel, a deep emphasis on personal connection with God through the Bible, a casual vibe for friends to feel at home and an expanding focus on discipling the online world. We're going to tear all that apart through this series, but it's good for us to just know where we're going.
Speaker 1:Okay, now we're going to go into breakouts. You're going to take a few minutes at your tables. You might have a leader at your table, or you might be at a table that there wasn't a leader, and so you're just all together and somebody gets to take the initiative and help everyone answer this question that we're going to put on the screen. I'm going to come back out live in a few minutes and then we'll do a few more of these breakouts throughout today. First question is can you share a personal experience where your spiritual growth felt stalled? What do you think contributed to that period of stagnation and how did you progress through it? So now, take a few minutes amongst yourselves. Don't anybody dominate. Give everybody a chance to talk, and I'll see you back in a few minutes.
Speaker 1:My name is Carter. I'm the lead pastor around here. I get to walk us through Connect class. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you for those tuning in online. Hey, this is what's going to happen. You guys are going to talk for a while, then I'm going to interrupt you, We'll kind of change the topic a little bit and then we'll dive in.
Speaker 1:So we're talking about attending the weekend. The reason we're talking about this is because not only are all of you attending the weekend, and if you call this church your home, this is kind of your church home, but we're always attending the weekend with guests in mind. There's a lot of folks that are going to come that aren't necessarily. They would call this their church home, and so we always want to be thinking about them as well as what God wants to do in our life. So the first thing we say is, as people attend the weekend, we want them to experience Jesus' kindness. We want them to experience Jesus' kindness, and we get this directly from scripture.
Speaker 1:The last little lesson that Jesus is teaching his disciples before he gets crucified is he wants them to know hey guys, it's really important to me that people know you're mine by the way that you act out. My kindness, Listen to this. He says, John 13, 34, a new command I give you love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this, everyone will know that you're my disciples as I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this, everyone will know that you're my disciples as I've loved you. Have you ever noticed that Jesus loves you and I? If you know Jesus at all, if you've walked with him in relationship.
Speaker 1:One of the ways he loves us is he loves us specifically and he loves us with honor. I mean, he doesn't just love you and I like fish in the tank. He doesn't just like, hey, here's some food, Like when he answers your prayer. It's specific to you, he knows all about you, he nuances things to your particular life. He's specific with you and not only that, he honors you.
Speaker 1:If we read the parable of the prodigal son, you remember. The prodigal son comes home and the father's not like well, all right, work your way back into my graces. No, he says, hey, I'm going to throw my own family robe around you, I'm going to put my ring on your finger. Even though you haven't necessarily deserved honor, I'm giving you honor and that's how Jesus treats us. So he loves us specifically and he loves us with honor, and so that's how we are to love others and that's how everybody will know that we belong to Jesus. I think it's so important. Jesus wanted people to know this. He's like guys, you need to know when you're going into your mission. You need to know. It's important to me that other people recognize that you're mine so that they will also want what you have. So he specifically loves us and he loves us with honor.
Speaker 1:This brings us to one of the codes, the fierce codes these are. This is one of our values. There's a lot of things that we're like, yeah, we're thumbs up about that, but there's. Then there's our torch, our fierce code. That means we're all in on this particular value. And here's the first one Honor is the culture of the kingdom. We honor one another.
Speaker 1:As people come in, we want them to experience the kindness of Jesus. That means we're going to honor them. It means we're going to treat them sweetly. It means we're going to smile extra big. We're going to go beyond what we would normally do because we want them to experience kindness. That means a couple other things. It means we don't talk smack about people. We don't talk smack about other Christians. We don't even talk smack about people we don't get along with. We just don't talk smack about anybody. That's just how we do it. So we don't talk smack. We build one another up, we point out what people are doing right, we try to applaud what's going on and we speak to one another just with a respect, with a graciousness. We want to say I love that. Jesus made you. You're awesome. I wouldn't rather you be anywhere than around me. I'm glad that you're here. So one of the ways we do that is by treating people exceedingly well when they arrive.
Speaker 1:Years ago, Kenzie and I my wife we're early 20s we're visiting churches. We went to this church. Honestly, guys, it wasn't that good. It was okay, All right. People weren't particularly friendly. But as we're making our way out, we're like three feet from the door. We're carrying our firstborn daughter in the little carriage and this 16-year-old gal runs up to us. She's like guys, guys, guys, guys. Oh, my God, I just think it's so awesome that you came today. Thank you so much for being here. First person that talked to us three seconds before we're out the door. Guys, it melted our hearts. We're like doggone. We'll stay just for you, Because the urgency with which she wanted to love us old girl ran. And that is how we need to be guys. We need to run toward people that may. They're just checking out. They're afraid, like you have been afraid when you walked into a new place. That is one of the ways that we honor them.
Speaker 1:So here's my question how would God use you, how would God use your kindness to change somebody's life the same way that he did for Kenzie and I all those years ago. God's church, God's people, fierce church must be known by Jesus's kindness. Hey, let's go into another breakout session. Here's your question Can you talk about how someone's kindness, showing Jesus love changed your view of following him? Let's have it back on the screen, there you go. Can you talk about how someone's kindness showing Jesus love changed your view of following him? And I'll see you back in a few minutes. Hey, what's the difference? What makes a place like Fierce different than just a Christian country club? I'll tell you what it is it's Jesus' presence and Jesus' voice. So one of the things we want our guests to experience is, yeah, we want them to experience Jesus' kindness, but also something from heaven baby Jesus' presence and Jesus' voice.
Speaker 1:Paul was instructing the Corinthians about the ways their worship experiences needed to go so that they made the most sense and were the most helpful to people, and he said one of the things you guys need to make sure you do is don't do a bunch of goofy stuff and make sure the prophetic sense of God's voice is in the house. One of the these we love and we need every single doggone day and we want to highlight and exalt here at Fierce is the presence of Jesus and the voice of Jesus. Listen to Paul, he says. As they listen meaning folks that are coming in and kind of new to it their secret thoughts will be exposed and they will fall to their knees and worship God, declaring God is truly here among you.
Speaker 1:One of the ways we talk about that is we talk about the immediacy of God's presence. It's not just that God is out there somewhere. God is here in the room. God is there wherever you are through the screen, God is speaking directly to us. So you'll experience this from time to time. You'll feel like and some will have even said this to me, God, I felt like you were talking just to me, Like the camera zeroed in on me and it was about me. Did you know something? I literally had people ask me did you know something about my life? I'm like no dude, I'm not spying on you. The spirit of God is with you and he knows what you need to hear. That's the presence of Jesus and the voice of Jesus, and we need fresh stuff from him all the time. I grew up in a church tradition where it was good in the sense that we learned about truth like it was true things about God, but very few people had the sense of they were walking hand in hand, relationally heart to heart, with Jesus. And so when I found a group of people when I was a very young man who were actually encountering God through his word guys, it blew my head off and I've been addicted ever since. So one of the things that we want to exalt here at Fierce is the presence of God and the voice of God. We can't force that to happen, but we can posture ourselves to experience that. Another fierce code that we would talk about.
Speaker 1:This is gonna sound a little weird at first. No one gets healthier on cake. Nobody gets healthier on cake. Nobody gets healthier on cake. And we're using a biblical metaphor there. You might've heard this before. The Bible talks about milk and meat. Okay, Milk is like it's stuff for younger Christians. It's to help them start the process of growing as a disciple of Christ. But then there's also meat. That's higher challenge level stuff, Stuff that God's actually going to confront you about some things to bring you more in alignment with his blessing. Well, some places they're not only not meat, they're not even milk, they're more like sugar, they're just like cake.
Speaker 1:And I got to say I love a good, encouraging message. I want to be optimistic. I want to hear the good parts, I want to hear about the stuff. Man, God does want to bless you and God is on your side and, like God, wants to get you out of that thing and into a higher level. That's all true. The problem is, if that's all you get, that's a diet of cake and nobody gets healthier on cake, and so I don't know about anywhere else.
Speaker 1:But for here we're going to have. We're going to have some milk. We got to put some cookies on the lowest shelf for people to be able to get. But we're also going to challenge people and expect people to keep on going, keep on taking steps, keep on growing into maturity, because it's maturity that Jesus is after, so we can have the highest amount of his presence and his blessing in his life. So here's what you can do. You can pray every doggone day, every doggone week.
Speaker 1:God, would you show up this week at Fierce with your prophetic voice? We don't need just Carter geez. What we want is Jesus. We want Jesus to be speaking, not even just through the message, but through people out in the hallway, people over in Fierce Kids in the evening, at Fierce Teens. We need people to get the sense and have the expectation. I think I'm probably going to hear from God today. My expector is out. I'm open to the idea. I know God speaks and I want to hear from him today. That's what you can do. You can pray that that happens. And then maybe even a second level is to pray for other people. We don't want it just for us. Man, I get so excited about the idea that other people are encountering the person of Jesus the way that I did all those years ago. I'm like, oh my gosh, Jesus is here with me and it is awesome.
Speaker 1:So let's go into another breakout. Here's your question Can you share a moment you strongly felt God in church and how it affected your thinking about church? Can you share a moment you strongly felt God in church and how it affected your thinking about church? Let's dive back in Hope. Everyone's having fun. I feel like you guys are starting to get into this. You feel like you can do this more than one weekend. All right, good, hey, here's the final one.
Speaker 1:As people attend the weekend, we want them to experience Jesus' message. We're not just talking about the Bible, we're talking about the preeminent message that Jesus' people should be communicating and reveling in. See, one thing that can go wrong with every church in the world is, after a while they can become inward focused, they can begin to make it about them and forget that they are the only organization in the world that is for other people. And so one of the things we've got to do, we've got to have meaty teaching. We've got to keep growing and taking our steps, but one of the values we've got to keep in mind is other people matter. We've got to make sure that we're always reaching out, and that doesn't come natural. Just, you know, as a church leader, I would just tell you I've always got to be tilting the playing field back to making this thing about people that don't yet know Christ, Even though I love everybody. Everyone wants their program and they want this thing to happen and they want us to put energy toward that, and that's all great, but if more and more people aren't coming to know Christ, we are missing the mark in a major way.
Speaker 1:And it's so important because, yo, it's actually greater stakes than life or death. You think about that. Think about how long you'll be dead than life or death. You think about that. Think about how long you'll be dead. That's a long time, dude. That's a long time. That's why the stakes are so high. That's why it matters, because the message of Jesus Christ is eternal life versus eternal death, and that's what he offers.
Speaker 1:So one of these I want to do is I want to walk you through it's. This is the gospel. If you ever hear that word and you think that just means Bible, it doesn't just mean Bible. It means this is the message that Jesus comes to give. It's the announcement hey, I've made peace with God on your behalf. I want to trade you. I'm going to give you all my obedience and take all of your curse on the cross. That's the gospel. That's his offer to us.
Speaker 1:So a couple of ways we can talk about this. This is my way to talk about it that emphasizes the relational component. The first piece is Jesus likes you. Jesus likes you, man. He wants to forgive you. He's able to forgive you if you trust him. Those are the four parts of the relational gospel. But he likes you is my favorite part, because most folks have a hard time with the idea. They can even think maybe Jesus likes humans or Jesus likes other people, but Jesus likes me. Yeah, Not only does he like you, he likes you the most, and even though you might have hurt his feelings more than anybody else, he likes you the most. So that's the relational gospel.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about a different way to talk about it. We can talk about the scriptural gospel, or the biblical gospel, or a theological gospel. These are just different ideas that talk about the concept of how God went about saving us. So it starts with human fallenness, and we see this in Romans 3, 23,. For everyone to sin, we all fall short of God's glorious standard. God's glorious standard was Jesus. What that means is it's not that you're only bad, but it means none of us ever lives up to the Jesus level. We've all got stuff that we're doing wrong. That is not quite what Jesus would do, and because of that we're fallen. And then God takes the initiative 1 John 4.10.
Speaker 1:In this act of crucifixion we see what real love is. It's not our love for God, but his love for us. When he sent his son to satisfy God's anger against us, God went first. God always goes first. The gospel was not something we didn't like. Oh Jesus, please come. No, the father saw you, he loved you and he said son, we've got some business to take care of, Go. And he sent Jesus to get in a rescue mission, you and I. And then it's freely received. Romans 10, 13,.
Speaker 1:As scripture says, everyone who calls out to the Lord for help will be saved. Everyone who calls on the name of God will be saved. Everybody, everybody, everybody. There is no one who could not cry out to Jesus and he wouldn't be right there. I'm here because? Why? Because I like you, because I'm for you. I came all this way to get you. Of course, it doesn't matter where you are, it doesn't matter what you did wrong, it doesn't matter if you're lost, it doesn't matter if you're in prison, it doesn't matter if you're down on your last penny. Jesus says no matter what you've done, no matter where you've been, I want you and the gospel is for somebody. Say everyone, Everyone. Romans 8.1. And when Jesus rescues us, it's so dope because we're completely rescued. Listen to this those who belong to Christ Jesus are no longer under God's sentence.
Speaker 1:Other translations say there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ, Meaning, my friend, the rest of your life as you've trusted Christ, you'll never have to add anything to it. Rest of your life, as you've trusted Christ, you'll never have to add anything to it. You don't have to make up for anything. You don't have to like well, I better, you know add a little bit to what he did for me. No, if you, if you die right then or you keep making mistakes the rest of your entire life which you will, it doesn't matter, it doesn't change. You stand forgiven in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, from that moment forward, now and forever, and you can't undo it. It's permanent, it's complete and then finally permanent.
Speaker 1:John 10, 28,. I give them eternal life. They shall never die. Come on somebody. They shall never die. No one can snatch them away from me. That means when you close your eyes in death, you're going to open them instantly in heaven and all your pain and all your sorrow and all your sin and all your disease and all your everything, all your complaints, everything is gone. That was bad and everything is good. That has come and all that was bad has become untrue, and you are face to face with Jesus for the rest of forever and check it out. You can't mess it up and nobody can mess it up for you. Nobody can take it from you, because you're in his hand and check it out. He's not trusting in your strength to hold on to him. He's trusting in his strength to hold on to you. That's the gospel. That's our message. That's why it's so important. That is the most important thing in the universe.
Speaker 1:Let me give you one more illustration. You've seen this before. This is the bridge illustration. Some people are visual, like me. It starts off with there's us, we're on one side, and God's on the other. It's a chasm between us. We can never cross it. We can't get back to him. We stepped out from under the umbrella of blessing. God said stay under this and you'll be blessed. And we said no, came out from under it, and now there's separation between us and God. Well then we go to the place that that separation is not just a little pit. It is death, hell, division, self-righteousness, self-worship, war, all the things that suck about earth. That's where it came from is our separation from God. But let's keep going, because God takes the initiative and there's the cross. He's the one he makes the way. Remember? He came to get us. We couldn't make it across. He came to get us and then finally we're with God, there in the end, the rest of forever. That's the visual representation. You go to the next one there. You go there with God.
Speaker 1:Guys, this is so important because the gospel listen, we're almost done. The gospel is everything. The gospel is I don't want to. It's going to sound don't overthink about this, okay, it's going to sound a little gross. The gospel is the birth canal of the kingdom of God. Without the gospel, there is no life transformation, there is no reconciliation with God. Sure, there's religion. Sure, people go back and forth and they're hearing maybe good, profitable, maybe like helpful how-to messages, but until the gospel is preached, people do not get reconciled back to God, they don't get filled with the Holy Spirit, they don't change the world because they never went through the Holy Ghost birth canal. Let's not even talk about it ever again like that.
Speaker 1:But what that means is, as a church, my friends, sometimes there's going to be programs that we do that are like why are we doing this For people that are far from God? That's why it's not for you, it's for them. Why are we playing this kind of music? For them? Not for you, it's not for you, it's for them. Why are we doing all this stuff online? We're already here. Why do we have to do online stuff? It's not for you, it's for them. There's gonna be stuff all the time that we pitch the table back to.
Speaker 1:We need to get more people to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is the what and the why. So here's your final question, Final breakout At least in God's mind, the gospel is the preeminent message of all churches. What do you think goes wrong when churches take their eye off this ball? At least in God's mind, the gospel is the preeminent message of all churches. What do you think goes wrong when churches take their eye off this ball? Let's go back into it.
Speaker 1:Hey, thank you so much for joining us today. If you don't have a home church and you're looking for a Bible preaching community that has its heart set on passionately knowing Jesus and being his witness in our generation, check out fiercechurch. We'd love for you to join us, either digitally or in person. Also, if you're looking for leadership development-related content, don't forget to check out the Fierce Leadership Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts from. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to support this ministry. It's because of you that this is possible. You can click on the link in the description to give now or visit fiercechurch for more information. If you enjoyed this podcast, why not subscribe? Share it with your friends? Click on the share button, take a screenshot and share it on social media or wherever you would share such things. Whatever challenges you're facing, I know you can make it. Don't give up. Hang on to Jesus. He won't let go of you. Jesus loves you so much and we love you. I hope someday we get to meet in person.