Following are my message notes from today’s day service talk. My prayer is that the MCA Church story becomes consistently told by our entire congregation in ways that represent our heart.
Identity
MCA Church has just completed one of our most important teaching series in the story of our worship community.
Live Local: Fully Alive, Here, Now brought us into the importance of living the full life of Jesus in our daily lives. MCA Church, we are not hearers only, but doers of Jesus’ teaching. James 1:22-25
Today I am filled with joy as I announce MCA Church’s three newest Live Local initiatives.
• After extensive preparation MCA Church is now approved as an Anchorage Cold Weather Family Shelter.
o When the Anchorage weather is below 32 degrees, we are Anchorage’s overflow shelter facility for families. A family is defined as parent and child or husband and wife.
o We are the selected shelter for Thursday evenings.
o Your help is needed. Please write your contact information and place it on the cross as a statement that you will carry the ministry of Jesus into Thursday evenings, as needed.
• Food insecurity is a rapidly growing challenge in South Central Alaska, especially among children. MCA Church, after feeding children in various countries of the world, we are becoming part of a solution to hungry children in East Anchorage. We have leased (at a greatly reduced rate) the MCA Church kitchen, gym, and an office (from 9-5 Monday – Friday) to the Lunch Box of Anchorage. EXCITING!!!
o The Lunch Box, a service of the Anchorage Soup Kitchen, prepares lunch for food insecure children and delivers the meal to them at school.
o Each evening at 4 PM, the Lunch Box prepares an evening meal for Anchorage’s youngest citizens. The children and student’s meals will be served in the MCA Church Gymnasium.
• MCA Church Women’s Ministry announces our first LIVE Local Walk-a-thon to assist in ending human trafficking in South Central Alaska. The Walk-a-thon is at Begich Middle School on Sunday, September 9.
These types of opportunities urge us to become more sophisticated in knowing how to tell the world the MCA Church story.
For some time now, we have been learning to tell our individual stories of God’s great grace in our lives.
What is the story of our group? To what storyline is God calling us? If “We’ve a story to tell to the nations” what makes our story one of a kind?
The Church is a BIG deal to God. There are many facets to the Church.
• The Church universal and the church local
• The church gathered and the church scattered
• The church organism and the church organization
Any way we view the church, it is a big deal to God. 1 Timothy 3:15
• God’s household
• Belongs to God
• The pillar and foundation of the truth
The next generation of Christians is screaming for the Church to align with today’s text and be an activated force in the world for the cause of Jesus.
MCA Church’s identity includes:
• The faith to pursue your full potential in Christ (Ephesians 2:10)
• An invitation to what is next in your life of faith (Revelation 22:17)
• An experience with the real presence of God (Exodus 33:15)
• A way forward (Isaiah 30:21)
• The unleashing of Kingdom capacities (Acts 1:8)