As part of this series we will be issuing a challenge each week to help us break out of our normal activities and worship with our lives. Some will be easy ways to show God’s love. Some will be more challenging. Check back later for Challenge #1.

What is The City?
The city is church movement software. It is an online tool that allows for us to communicate and mobilize as the body of Christ. When you first log onto The City it looks a little like facebook. In fact you could easily confuse it for a Christian version of facebook. If you do that you are really missing out on what we believe it can be for our community.
The City is meant to allow us to communicate with each other more effectively and quickly. It will allow the total church body to receive communication at once, it also allows groups within the church to communicate with one another. This will allow both the whole church and your lifegroup or your serving team to keep up with events and scheduling, but even more important with specific prayer requests and specific needs of the whole church or your group.

Why now?
We believe God is positioning us to have a great impact on our community. He continues to build us and guide us and we believe a season of reaching out to the community with the gospel is close at hand. Our hope is that The City will allow for us to better administrate and communicate as God uses us to love this community with the love of Christ.

Who should be on The City?
Every attender at The River should be on the city. It is now the main way we will communicate outside of our Sunday Gatherings. Every life group and serving team will be using this to communicate as well. So, if you want to know what is going on, then you will need to sign up.

What if I don’t have a computer?
Well, then you are not reading this post

How do I sign up?
Email us at info (at) riverchurchlive (dot) com or sign up at the kiosk at our Sunday gathering.

But just so you don’t forget, here is a little of part 1.

In discussing Matthew 16: 13-20, I mentioned that I have always thought of the part of this passage where Jesus says, “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not stand against it,” as a passage where the church is being attacked.   It’s been some poor understanding that has put the picture in my mind of Jesus building a building and the devil attacking that building.  And that the point of the passage was that the devil can’t tear down what Jesus builds.  Now, I believe that the devil can’t tear down what Jesus builds, but that is not the point of this passage.

The true picture of this passage is Jesus’ church on the offensive as army deployed to accomplish the great mission of it’s leader.  An army that is about the work of giving witness to redemption.  And in this work nothing can stop the church.  Even as it charges the gates of hell to bring back God’s elect, the church cannot be stopped.

Understanding the true picture of the call of the church changes our focus in our lives as followers of Jesus.  We are not meant to sit in our buildings and call people to join us and hide from the world.  We are called to be in the world, bearing witness to the gospel that has changed us and has the power to change the world.

This week as we prepare for our gathering together as The River, let’s focus on being on offense and taking the gospel to the world.

Many of you may know about Pastor Matt Chandler and his battle with brain cancer.  Here is a great article where he continues to point to Jesus in the midst of his suffering.

Here is the link: ARTICLE

Today we were forced to cancel our worship gathering for the first time because of the weather. I know it’s different but it should really have no effect on us. We are the church, not of our own doing but of God’s. He adopted us into His family and made us His. He put us together and formed us as His church, His “called out” to be on mission with Him in the world. So, while we miss not gathering together, our mission remains the same – Be The Church.

The Yokeley’s gathered as a family this morning around the kitchen table with a Bible and a guitar. We sang off key and forgot a lot of chords and words, but we sang loud and with glad hearts. We studied Luke 10 and asked each other the question, “Who are our neighbors?” The answer came down to anyone God places in front of us is our neighbor. We also prayed together. Josiah (2 years old with down syndrome) prayed after every song we sang. So we prayed with him. His words made no sense, but he started each prayer with thank you God and ended with amen. What was in the middle only his creator knows, but it was beautiful and we prayed along with him. We can worship God anywhere. Today, I would not have traded my spot for any church building in the world.

Today reminded me that as God places people in our lives He continues to call us out to be His church, to worship him with our lives, and to love His creation. May we be able to do just that, no matter what the weather!

I thought a facelift might give me a little push in the right direction.

“[Grace is] my favorite word in the lexicon of the English language. It’s a word I’m depending on. The universe operates by Karma, we all know that. For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. There is some atonement built in: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Then enters Grace and turns that upside down. I love it. I’m not talking about people being graceful in their actions but just covering over the cracks. Christ’s ministry really was a lot to do with pointing out how everybody is a screw-up in some shape or form, there’s no way around it. But then He was to say, well, I am going to deal with those sins for you. I will take on Myself all the consequences of sin. Even if you’re not religious I think you’d accept that there are consequences to all the mistakes we make. And so Grace enters the picture to say, I’ll take the blame, I’ll carry the cross. It is a powerful idea. Grace interrupting Karma.”

I think it is mostly I seldom have something to say. I also have been laser focused on a few things lately and I’m frankly swamped.

So, no more promises. No more check back tomorrow for the next answer to the question.

What you see is what you get. Maybe I’ll post more. Maybe I won’t.

In the end isn’t this really all we have for our lives. We can promise and promise to change, to do better, to love more, to talk less, to clean up our underwear, to put down the seat; but really promises are nothing without the action to follow them up.

Our words are only as good as our actions. My actions need to be focused on my faith, my family, and The River.

So, I’ll blog when I blog.