Tonight Reggie Joiner opened up the Orange Conference and even as I type this I am trying to wrap my mind around he full weight of his talk tonight. The truth is that what we do in family ministry is messy because the Gospel is messy. You can’t serve teens, kids, college students, preschoolers, or parents and led them to Jesus and not get messy. Some of us have spent so much time eliminating the mess from our life and our ministry that we forgot the gospel is messy. Tonight we processed the idea of living in the mess and helping families learn to live their faith in a messy messy world. Jesus lives in the mess…why are we not joining Him there. I’m just gonna share these thoughts and let you process it with us here at the conference. Here are my notes…I’m still processing…
The gospel is messy. // Sometimes God places messy people in our lives to remind us that the gospel is messy!
There is no way to do what we do in ministry without getting messy
There was no way for Jesus to do what He did without getting messy. // Jesus did not die to make you happy just to make you forgiven.
There is no way to make disciples without getting messy. //The disciples were willing to get messy because they watched Jesus for three years do ministry in the mess. The gospel is not just about creating environments where Christians can become more Christian. The gospel is about stepping into the mess with the message of hope and salvation. This is not something we sign up for. We are called to this. Times are changing but we stand strong because we serve a Savior that understands messy.
There is no way to make disciples without them getting messy. // We must invite this generation into the process and get messy doing ministry so they are equipped to do ministry in a messy world when they leave. The gospel transcends culture. What would happen if the world around us actually believed we loved them. We raise kids who have faith in a God bigger than our church and our theology.
This was simply an amazing message! He reframed the way we ought to think about game changers and ministry.
NATE, NO DOUBT…this morning I’m still processing. Great way to start the week!
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