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This Sunday Jared Graves our youth minister will be starting a new sermon series that will take us through to Easter.  “Jesus =” will explore the seven “I AM” statements from the book of John.  This fits with our year’s theme “Discovering Christ and Our Identity in Him.”  Truth be told we should have probably started with this series as our identity is found in Christ’s.  I’m excited about this series as it allows Jesus to tell us who he is on his own terms.  Jesus throughout the book of John calls himself the bread, light, gate, shepherd, resurrection, vine and the way.  Each of these metaphors tells us something about his nature and character in concrete – easy to relate to terms.  We may not understand spiritual sustenance but we get bread therefore we can get Jesus.  I hope that this series will open up for us new insights into who Christ is and how we relate to him.  Jared will start this Sunday with “Jesus = Bread” come ready to be filled with the goodness of Christ!

From microwaves to computers exists O/I.  O/I, On/Off, a simple symbol to indicate power.  During Operation Identity (O/I) we will be tapping into the power of a unified identity and understanding of Christianity.  We have made Christianity difficult to understand and easy to live – that’s about to change.  Christianity is simple to understand and challenging to live – take for example: “love your neighbor” it’s easy to understand but hard to practice!

This Sunday marked the kickoff of Operation Identity for our church and during the next six-weeks we will be exploring our new corporate identity and mission at BGCC.   This mission, shared by every believer, centers on 4 key relationships every Christian has with: God, the Church, the World, and the Broken! We will discover how to have successful relationships by first discovering the Personal Nature of God and Connecting to God through salvation.

If you want to be a part of this exciting initiative then make sure you:  Join a Bible Fellowship Class (BFC) or Small Group.  If you haven’t done so yet then this Wednesday all you have to do is show up and we’ll place you in a group. Attend Sunday morning services, commit to not missing even one during this initiative!  Connect with God daily through the daily devotionals.  This book was written by our church for our church, enjoy others’ reflections on these important truths.

I’m so excited about what God will reveal to us as we study his word and what God will do through us as we serve him with a concentrated focus!  Join us as we power on with a renewed identity in the person and purposes of Christ.

We all need a little push, as I write this I’m sitting outside with my two children on a crisp fall morning. This post will be short so I can get back to important work – pushing my son around in his car. My son needs the push, it’s too difficult for him to navigate his car around the grass in the backyard. As I think about tomorrow morning’s sermon I realize we’ll simply be talking about getting a spiritual push from each other. Joshua 22 is our passage and in it we see the 9 1/2 tribes of Israel rallying to push the 2 1/2 trans-Jordanic tribes into holiness. The community realized it was their responsibility to push each other into the place God had for them.

As you prepare for tomorrow, pray and ask God to reveal any area of your life where you need a push. Maybe you are stuck in something and you really need God to help you make progress in overcoming. Ask God to show you who can give a push. We know few people, we trust less and we listen to fewer. It’s the few we listen to that can push us. I’m afraid that as we mature in our faith we become hesitant to ask for help and hesitant to listen – after all we should have this down by now. So, we become suspicious of those who would push us out of our familiar ruts and into the promises God has for us. We suspect their motives and move to a place of isolation in our spirituality. Tomorrow the challenge is to move from isolation, into community and into the promise God has for us. See you then!

Sunday we’ll be discussing guilt, the excess baggage that too many believers carry around after their forgivness.  Being guilty is something that all people share in common – it’s a universal truth that sin has placed upon humanity.  Conviction is the Holy Spirit and a person’s spirit working together toward repentance – it’s the awareness of sin.  Carrying guilt after forgiveness is an unecssary and taxing condition that plague many believers – it’s a curse.  As you prepare yourself for Sunday I would encourage you to prayerfully examine your life.  Ask that God would reveal to you any sin that needs forgiveness and any guilt that needs “forgotness.”  We’ll examine our guilt and the reasons we keep it around Sunday, as we study Romans 8:1-15.  As you examine yourself, hold up your life to the light of truth in this passage and see what God reveals.  See you Sunday!