Sunday, November 9, 2008

Faith and the Emerging Culture

Hello,
Sarah Curtis asked me to give you a five minute talk to encourage you to read the Emerging Culture report that was given to Session in early September. I was thinking wow, five minutes! There is so much in that report what can I say? Then I decided I needed to tell you a story…

26 or so years ago was when I first came to Huntsville and Faith church. Now if you think I’m introverted now, you should have seen me then! I grew up Catholic and had moved away from church when I left home for college. I was not looking for a church home when I came to Huntsville. But through a friend of mine who came to Huntsville too and worked for Norm Schlemmer, I was introduced to the Faith singles group.

They were a great group of people and did a lot of interesting things. In particular were Maranatha retreats. I loved Maranatha, but I had a real problem with the worship service. I usually found some place else to go during worship. Everybody was OK with that and still accepted me and didn’t push me. They did what Faith does. They welcomed me for who I was and loved me as the child of God that I was, but didn’t know yet. The rest is history as they say.

Well, my story is the emerging culture story. Faith’s story is the emerging culture story! The emerging culture story is not about multi-media, and using the worship service as a marketing tool! It’s about connecting with people, all people, and loving them as the children of God that they may not know they are and ushering them into a life with Christ on God’s timetable.

The report is available on Faith’s website.
Thank you.

1 comment:

DSM35803 said...

This was the prepared text for Sunday's retreat. Those of you that were there know that it didn't go off exactly as planned!

You should also know the content was not planned or coordinated with any of the preparations for the retreat. Anyone except the Holy Spirit that is!

The Spirit was truly present!
Dave