The church is for sick people...

Wouldn't it be weird if doctors only wanted healthy people to come to hospitals? Of course it would! Everyone knows that the primary purpose of a hospital is to help sick people get well. If hospitals didn't open their doors and invite sick people in, would they even be considered a hospital? Probably not...

So what about the church? What is the purpose of a church? I see it in three parts:

1. To preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ so that non-believers can be saved.
2. To equip, challenge, rebuke, encourage and strengthen Christians to grow deeper in their faith.
3. To create community.

Question: If a church doesn't have non-believers coming on a regular basis to hear the Gospel, is it a church or a social club?

Check out Mark 2:16-17: "When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

"God, I pray that church would be the most welcoming and friendly place in the world. I pray it would be a place where sick people could be made well. Amen."

We are the Church - Week 2 - Judgmentalism

We Are The Church - Judgmentalism from Dan Anderson on Vimeo.

Pre-decide

What is the point of studying for a test? That's easy... everyone knows the answer to that... you study for a test because you want to make sure you know the answers before you have to give them on the test. That way, when you see the questions on the test, you are familiar with them and hopefully, you pick the right answer. To put it simply, when you study for a test, you are "Pre-Deciding" the correct answers so you can choose it when faced with a question.

So why don't we "pre-decide" other areas of our lives? Why do we wait until we are "in the moment" to make a big decision? The truth is, when we wait until we are in the moment to decide, we will likely choose wrongly.

Also, if the Holy Spirit is not in control of our lives, we will make decisions based on pleasing our flesh. If we don't love Christ more than our sin, we will never overcome it. We should rely FULLY on the Holy Spirit and make decisions to be OBEDIENT to the Scriptures.

What have you "pre-decided" about the following areas: (click on the following verses to see what God has to say about them.)

• Drinking alcohol and Smoking weed - Ephesians 5:18 and Romans 13:1-3
• Sexual involvement - 1 Corinthians 6:18
• Talking back to your parents - Ephesians 6:1-3
• Cheating on a test - 1 Corinthians 6:8
• Lying - Exodus 20:16
• Looking at pornography - Luke 11:34
• Gossiping about others - Romans 1:29

If you don't "pre-decide" you will likely make the wrong decision... If you don't love Jesus more than your sin, you will likely make the wrong decision.

Obey the Bible - it is NOT a list of rules... it is God's best for you.

We are the Church - Week 1 - Vision

We Are The Church Bump from Dan Anderson on Vimeo.

We Are The Church 1 from Dan Anderson on Vimeo.

• The Church is made up of anyone who loves Jesus and has given their life to the cause of building up His Kingdom.
• The church is a building where Christians gather to worship Jesus and non-Christians come to hear about Jesus.
• The Church is invisible.
• The church is visible.
• The Church is made up of people and has no walls.
• The church is a building and has walls.
• The exit doors of every church should have signs that says, "The Church has left the building."
• Jesus has told the Church to be "salt" and "light." See Matthew 5:13-15 (preserve a rotting world AND be light in a dark world)
• The Church should do a whole lot more ministry than the church! If you love Jesus, you take Him everywhere you go!
• The church is the place where the Church gathers to be challenged and encouraged by a message from God's Word, worships Jesus through singing and experiences community with other believers. (and should be a welcoming environment for those who are not Christians)
• The truth is, the Church has way more potential for ministry than the church.
• There should be much more ministry happening Monday thru Saturday than on Sunday.
• It is time for the Church to act like the Church! The people of God need to act like people of God!
• We are the HOPE OF THE WORLD! We have JESUS!

Why our daughter will be named Anna Grace

Guest Blogger: Bethany Carson

Ryan and I have both always believed that there is great power in a name. There are stories all throughout the Bible that lend testimony to this idea. God would often change people's names to reflect who they were becoming.

There are also many verses that speak to how God knows us by name and has taken interest in knowing us since we were being formed in our mother's womb. God told Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1:4, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you..." God told Jacob (Israel) in Isaiah 43:1, "I have called you by name, you are mine." Psalm 139 also shows how well and intricately God knows us. David says, "For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made."

The reason I say all of this is because God has worked so powerfully in helping us name our little girl and I wanted to share this story. Ryan and I had a hard time finding girl names that we both really liked. I would mention one of the 25 or so names that caught my attention and he was pretty quick to dislike most of them :)

Valentine's Day weekend, he and I went to a 2 Becoming 1 marriage retreat at Berry College in Georgia. On Saturday February 13, 2010 I woke up early to go to the bathroom (which happens a million times these days haha) and I SO distinctly heard God say that this baby's name would be Anna Grace. After getting up and heading to the first session that day, the person speaking made reference to the notion of "naming children for your testimony." I immediately started to journal the thoughts that were flooding my mind at that moment. I want to share what I wrote with you:

God, when I woke up this morning I really sensed that this baby was going to be a girl and if it is that her name will be Anna Grace. She will be a representation of God's love and grace to us and to the world. I feel like you were telling me that if it were up to me and my efforts, this baby would not have made it - it's ONLY because of your grace and love that this baby has lived and lasted in a sinful, wicked, fallen person like me. So thank you for your grace - thank you for giving me what I DO NOT deserve and for helping me to see that it is NOT works based. It's LOVE based - it's GRACE based - it's JESUS based!! Help me as I flawfully attempt to lead this baby as her mom. Make me more like you!!

Now, let me just clarify... I am NOT a good, consistent "journaler." I don't have things like this happen very often. In fact, consistency is a weakness of mine that I greatly want to improve upon. However, I know what I felt that morning and so I documented it.

Later on, I mentioned this name to Ryan without telling him anything that I had felt or written down. I told him that the name Anna meant "grace or favor." He loved the name, but didn't really understand the whole "Grace Grace" idea as far as meaning was concerned. So, I pretty much dropped the conversation.

A couple weeks later, Ryan came back to me and said, "I meant to tell you. You know when you mentioned Anna Grace as a name to me? Well, God brought back to mind a seminary class I took where we were looking at the original Greek of John 1." Ryan went on to point out John 1:16, which says, "And from his [God's] fullness we have all received, GRACE upon GRACE." He went on to explain how this verse speaks to grace in the Old Testament and God has always been a God of grace even before Jesus came. By God giving us the 10 Commandments (which he didn't have to do), he was graciously showing us how we should live. By God giving us Jesus (which he didn't have to do), he was giving us grace upon grace. We both knew that if it was a girl, that would be her name. However, I kept my journal entry treasured in my heart at that time.

So, then March 16 rolls around and Ryan and I head to our ultrasound to find out if we are having a little son or daughter. The ultrasound technician looks at us and says, "Are you ready to find out?" Of course we were!! She says, "It's a girl. I'm 100% sure!" Ryan and I looked at each other and said, "Anna Grace Carson it is!"

As we were leaving the doctor's office, I looked at Ryan and said, "You've gotta see this!" I opened up my journal and read him what I had written a month earlier. Even though he is convinced that there's no way of perfectly guessing the sex of the baby, he couldn't deny how God had woven this name long before either of us knew it!

We are so excited to meet little Anna Grace and we pray even now that she will show everyone who she meets that because of the fullness of Jesus Christ, we ALL have been given the opportunity to receive his GRACE upon GRACE!!

The Social Side of Advance >>

All students of Advance >> should read this post for an important update:

This is a very important Email regarding Advance >>. Please take 5 minutes to read it carefully.

We want to start off by thanking you for your prayers and support of Advance >>. In the past five months, since we kicked off this ministry, we have seen God do some amazing things. There are around 470 students involved in Life Groups and we have over 100 volunteers serving with us! Our team has been humbled to see authentic life-change by the power of the Holy Spirit in many of our students. It has been truly exciting!

When the Student Ministry made the changes to become more aligned with the mission and vision of Forest Hill as a church, we knew that it would take some time to get things exactly right. We knew we had to put a huge emphasis on our three main priorities: 1. Program 2. Life Groups and 3. Volunteers. Thankfully, we feel that we have a pretty good handle on these areas and now we want to continually improve upon them.

The Advance staff consists of people who are constantly critiquing what we do to make sure we are both excellent and effective for the glory of God. We have noticed one area that could be dramatically improved – the social aspect of Advance. After getting some feedback from you guys, the students, we confirmed that this is a real issue and we want to do our best to improve upon it. Before I explain how we are going to improve upon it, let me try to explain how Life Groups are supposed to function at Forest Hill Church.

Life Group should consist of three aspects:

1. Care – relational time with one another (20%)
2. Growth – time in the Word, discussion, and prayer (60%)
3. Impact – serving with one another (20%)

Here is what we have tried to do thus far to implement this strategy into Advance Life Groups: when we meet on Sunday nights, we would meet in the sanctuary to worship and hear the Word. After that, we would break into Life Groups to discuss on a deeper and age-appropriate level. That covered the “Growth” aspect of Life Groups. For the “Care” and “Impact” aspects, we asked our leaders to organize “Care Events” and “Impact Events” for their group OUTSIDE of Sunday nights. What we found was, due to everyone’s schedules, this was a difficult thing to organize with any degree of success. Leaders were getting stressed out and students were not able to connect in a way that was beneficial to them. So we are going to change this immediately!

As of this weekend, March 21st, we will begin to implement the different aspects of Life Groups ON SUNDAY NIGHTS! Some nights will be “Care Nights”, others will be “Impact Nights” and others will be “Growth Nights.” We are starting off this weekend with a “Care Night.” This will give the students the ability to just hang-out and allow them to connect with other students besides the ones in their Life Group. We have some great things planned including: Live Music, Ice cream, 4-Square, Wii Sports games, board games, ping pong, foosball, corn-hole (bean bag toss), football, Frisbee and kickball. If a student doesn’t like any of these activities, they can just hang out and talk with staff, volunteers and other students. This will also give us, the Advance Staff, the opportunity to be more relational with students, which we are all really excited about!

We already have “Impact Nights” planned for April 18th (High School) and April 25th (Middle School). These will take place here on campus and will give students the opportunity to connect while serving a greater purpose.

Students need time to be relational with one another, serve with one another, and study God’s Word and pray with one another. We hope that we are on the road to finding a more balanced approach to the Life Group model of Forest Hill.

In order to gauge this effectively, we really need your help. Please do your best to get to Advance this Sunday at 5:30. We would LOVE to get your feedback on Monday as to whether or not this was beneficial for you, the students.

Thank you so much for allowing us to serve you. We will continue to preach the life-changing message of Jesus Christ with passion and boldness and do our best to help you connect to a student community through Life Groups. Please continue to pray for us!

In The Dark - Week 5 - How to Share Your Faith

We wrapped up the series "In The Dark" on Sunday with a message on How to Share Your Faith with others.

As we read the Bible, we see that Jesus didn't SUGGEST that we share our faith with others, but He COMMANDED us to do so... Check out Philemon 1:6 and Matthew 28:19-20.

So, if we are going to obey Jesus, we must be active in sharing our faith in Him. Check out this message and the "role-play" segments to understand it more.

Also, check out the new Advance website (www.fhcadvance.com) or click HERE to see the methods that were talked about. Enjoy!

In The Dark - How To Share Your Faith from Dan Anderson on Vimeo.

Advance >> Prayer Methods - Day 5

Day 5 - Pray Through Scripture

This is a great way to pray because you are also spending time in God's Word. This is basically how you do it.

• Read a passage of Scripture and ask the Holy Spirit what He wants to reveal to you about the passage. Let the Scripture suggest, inform and shape your prayers.
• While you read, ask the Holy Spirit what you need to do to line up with this passage of Scripture.
• Pray that you would line up with God's will (which is found in His Word). Pray for the Scriptures to shape your life!

Some great passages to start with are:

• 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
• Psalm 51
• Psalm 103
• Psalm 46

Hopefully this will be a good way for you to read the Word and pray at the same time!

In The Dark - Week 4 - Prayer

In The Dark - Prayer from Dan Anderson on Vimeo.

To view the prayer methods that were discussed in this message, click HERE to go to the Advance >> website.

Advance >> Prayer Methods - Day 4

Day 4 - Journaling

The journaling process may not seem like the most exciting thing in the world while you are doing it, but when you look back and see God's faithfulness in your life over a long period of time, you will be so thankful you did it!

Journaling is simply the process of writing down your conversations with God. When you journal, you can write down:

• Prayers
• Questions for God
• Scriptures
• Your struggles
• Praises for God
• What you need from God
• Anything that you are feeling

A great verse to remember while you journal is Romans 8:28 which says, "God works all things together for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes." When you look back to your old journal entries, you will see how God was working in your life all along.

You can journal on the computer! Check out this website: www.livejournal.com. You can keep your journal online and type your prayers!

Advance >> Prayer Methods - Day 3

Day 3 - Pray to Music

1. • Create a playlist on your iPod or computer of worship music
   

1. •Hit play and listen to the songs and pray as your listen/sing (you could even pull up the words on the Internet by searching for them on Google)
   

1. •If you don’t have any songs on your computer, you can look up almost any song on YouTube. Some good possible songs include: (just click on the song below to listen to it)
   

o Inside Out – Hillsong United

o Hosanna – Hillsong United

o Revelation Song – Kari Jobe

o Stronger – Hillsong

o Tear Down the Walls – Hillsong United

o Arms Open Wide – Hillsong United

o Lead me to the Cross – Hillsong

o All I need is You – Hillsong United

o Mystery – Charlie Hall

o Closer – Charlie Hall

o Glory to God, Forever – Fee

o Your Love is Strong – Jon Foreman

•Make sure you are paying attention to the words that are being sung and not just enjoying the music.

Advance >> Prayer Methods - Day 2

Day 2 - Pray for your husband or wife

The most important decision that you will ever make is giving your life to Christ. The second most important decision is who you marry (if you do get married). You should take time everyday to pray for your future spouse and your future marriage.

Here is a good place to start:

• Pray that God would shape you to be the husband/wife that He wants you to be for your marriage.
• Pray that the husband/wife that God has for you will become who God wants them to be.
• Pray for both you and your spouse in the following areas: walk with the Lord, strong family life, purity, protection, etc.)

Create a journal that you write in so one day you can look back and see how faithful God is!

In The Dark - Week 3 - Frank Turek

Frank Turek Pt.2 from Dan Anderson on Vimeo.

Advance >> Prayer Methods - Day 1

Day 1 - Create Your Own Prayer Calendar

Have you ever felt overwhelmed because you have so much to pray for? Have you ever tried to pray for everything at one time? It can be frustrating and intimidating to remember every person and everything that you want to pray for... A great way to solve this problem is to create a prayer calendar.

Creating a prayer calendar allows you to pray for certain people or certain things on a schedule. Here is an example:

Monday - Parents, Siblings, and other family

Tuesday - Personal growth in your walk with Christ (confession of sins, repentance, thanksgiving)

Wednesday - Lost friends who don't know Christ (pray for them by name)

Thursday - Future decisions (school, future spouse, relationships, jobs, etc.)

Friday - Christian friends to keep walking with Christ (pray for them by name)

Saturday - Opportunities to serve the Lord - what can you do? Ask Him!

Sunday - The ministry of Advance and the leaders of Advance

This is just an example of what you could create. Feel free to use this or make your own.

Are You Desperate?

Desperate - "showing extreme urgency or intensity because of great need or desire"

This word often takes on a negative vibe because most people think about it in terms of dating. If a guy or girl really wants to have a boyfriend or girlfriend, but no one likes them, they might become desperate. When they become desperate, they will do ANYTHING to meet the need for fellowship or intimacy in their life. They will date anyone, do anything, and not care what anyone else thinks because they are meeting a deep need in their hearts.

Here's the point: When the need is high, desperate people will take extreme measures to meet that need.

Do you know how much you NEED God? Did you know that a Christian cannot function without total dependence on the Holy Spirit? I am not just talking about the need for Jesus for salvation... I am talking about EVERY DAY after that. Colossians 2:6 says, "Therefore, just as you received Christ Jesus, so walk with Him."

Christians should be DESPERATE for God at all times... We should have a desire to grow in our relationship with Him every day and continually be conformed more and more to the image of Christ. Unfortunately, many Christians have put Jesus on the shelf and decide to pick Him up on Sundays when they go to church. This is NOT walking with Him...

Are you desperate for more of Christ? Do you have any urgency in your relationship with Him? Is your walk with Christ intense? Do you have a desire do know Him more? Do you really understand how desperate you SHOULD be?

Don't Forget...

Ecclesiastes 12:1 says, "Don’t let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your Creator. Honor him in your youth before you grow old and say, “Life is not pleasant anymore.”"

Questions:

• When you make decisions for your life, do you remember God or forget about God?
• Do you honor God right now in your life?

If you don't recognize God early in your life, it is very unlikely that you will recognize Him later in life.

Did you know that 80% of Christians gave their lives to Christ BEFORE they were 18 years old? Don't wait! Follow the Lord NOW! Take your relationship with Him seriously! (If you don't, your future will be far different than what you want.)

Most teenagers don't realize this, but you are setting patterns in your life RIGHT NOW that will follow you for the rest of your life! The way you live your life today WILL have a huge impact on your future. The Principle of the Path is true... "Your Direction, not your Intention, determines your Destination." Check out THESE verses.

Head --> Heart --> Hands

The Christian faith moves through you in three ways:

Head: Your mind has to come to an understanding of who you are and who God is first. The Bible talks about developing your mind often. Head knowledge is very important, but don't stop with head knowledge.

Heart: Once your head has grasped the concept of Christ, true life change happens when it moves down to your heart. If the knowledge of Christ doesn't move to your heart and only stays in your head, you will most likely become religious and actually not know God at all. Example: The Pharisees.

Hands: After your mind understands Christ and your heart has been changed by the Gospel, it will lead to you serving others. You no longer use your hands for work that only benefits you, but you think of others.

It is an amazing thing to witness someone go through this process. I pray that students would not just come to church to learn about God, but that they would have their lives changed by Him. And then, when their lives are changed, I pray that they would work to help others experience that same life change.

Advance >> Your Faith - - - - - - - - - - Advance >> The Kingdom