Elizabeth Mullins – Page 22

Christ the King

Dear Family and Friends,

With the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas that began on October 7, many people are concerned. Some Christians may wonder what the prophetic significance of this war is. Is this something we need to be overly concerned about as we await Jesus’ return? Are end-time events unfolding in front of our eyes? There is much to consider.

Let’s put this conflict in perspective. Understanding that there are 32 ongoing conflicts in the world right now—ranging from drug wars, terrorist insurgencies, ethnic conflicts, and civil wars—gives a global perspective. This confirms the teaching of Christ in Matthew 24, where he says, “there will be wars and rumors of wars.” The ongoing division and resulting warring disposition of humanity is strong evidence of the fall and the brokenness in our nature.

As Christ followers, should we be aligned with Israel and seek their eventual victory? Certainly, we want the killing to stop and peace to come. But because we are Christ followers, we should be aligned with his universal atonement and be for all people, desiring goodness for all—Israel and Hamas, Ukraine and Russia, Nigeria and Boko Haram, both sides of the civil war in Myanmar, and on and on. Jesus died for all, and Jesus wants all to be saved. I believe that as Christ followers, we join Jesus in weeping over the hatred and needless bloodshed in all places around the world.

An ex-military building contractor that I know in my hometown is a sincere believer, and he continues to quiz me on what is happening to Israel. He peppers me with questions like, “Is the king of the north moving on Israel? Who is Gog and Magog, and how do they come into play?” I’m not that guy who sits with my Bible opened to the book of Revelation with all the newsfeeds open at the same time trying to match current events to Bible passages. Good luck with that. However, I assure my friend that if these truly are the final events to human history, which would indicate Jesus is returning, I am all in. In fact, there is nothing I am doing in my human life of such importance that I should desire a delay of his coming for one more minute. I tell him I trust that Jesus has everything in control and nothing this world does or doesn’t do will advance or delay his coming. What we do know is that he will come at the right time—in his time.

We are fast approaching the end—of the liturgical year, that is. This Sunday, November 26, is Christ the King Sunday, which marks the end of Ordinary Time and ushers in the Advent season. We celebrate Christ’s messianic kingship and sovereign rule over all creation. The meaning of the celebration can be summed up in this collective prayer.

Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Considering world events, I pray that Christ the King Sunday will be especially meaningful as we celebrate in our GCI congregations around the world.

Come Lord Jesus,
Greg

Community Carnival

Grace Communion Glendora held its third carnival for the surrounding neighborhoods on October 14. More than 200 children, almost 200 adults, and 33 volunteers enjoyed the games and refreshments. The carnivals have helped our congregation become known in the area, and we see several families returning for the events. Some expressed appreciation that the carnival provided an opportunity for families to get away from their electronic devices and do something together as a family.

The carnivals have given us many contacts in the community and have allowed us to use email lists to invite neighbors to our smaller events, where there is more opportunity to build relationships. As we walk the neighborhoods distributing fliers, we see and greet families who know us!

These activities, in addition to being outreach events, also help bond members together as we work together. This will be helpful as the Monrovia congregation merges into ours in late November, and we will join forces to present our second annual living nativity this December. The merger will mean that we have more people to help reach the neighborhood in our mission.

By Mike Morrison, Associate Pastor
Glendora, CA, US

Neighborhood Mystery Dinner

On October 14, I participated in a Love Avenue engagement hosted by my parents, Dishon and Afrika Mills. Faith Avenue Champion Afrika and Pastor Dishon serve in the GC Steele Creek church plant.

The event was a mystery dinner. At a mystery dinner, guests work together to collect clues, work out puzzles, and solve a fictional crime. Our purpose was to provide a chance to get to know some people in the Steele Creek area. We invited neighbors by posting the invitation on our homeowner association’s page and Nextdoor (an online platform that allows members to create community groups to facilitate communication among neighbors). Members of our church plant attended as facilitators and wait staff.

It was a great way to get people to work toward a common goal and have fun while doing it. I learned that a wonderful way to help strangers connect is to intentionally give them something to talk about. This game does that while also giving guests the freedom to do it in a way that is comfortable to them, not forcing any interactions.

It was a meaningful way to gather neighbors without them feeling pressured to be involved with the church. We hope they became curious though, because very few churches would choose a mystery dinner as a way to connect with the community.

By Serena Mills
Steele Creek, NC, US

Faith, Hope, and Love in Action Workshop

In Winnipeg, we were blessed to be able to host the Faith, Hope, and Love in Action Workshop for the vision churches of Canada in October. This was a great encouragement to us to see that the denomination has not forgotten about us up north. It was further encouragement for us to see the Canadian churches working towards the same goal of implementing the three Avenues.

Though we might be at different stages, we were all there to lift each other up, and help each church build on the momentum that they already have. It is always meaningful for us to take stock of what we have already been able to accomplish by God’s grace, so that we can continue down the road, one step at a time. The workshop helped us to celebrate how much has already been put into action, so that we can continue to look ahead with hope.

By Alexander Brandt, Pastor
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

From Equipper—Until Christ is Formed in You

Join us! During the weeks of Advent, we invite you to follow this spiritual practice from Equipper.

Enjoy and subscribe today!

My first pregnancy was not like Mary’s pregnancy with Jesus. There’s the obvious difference—while my husband and I experienced the pregnancy as a miracle, our child was not immaculately conceived. There are other differences as well. I was in my late 20s while Mary was a teenager. I was married, and though Mary was betrothed, she was not yet married. I deeply desired to be pregnant while Mary’s pregnancy was a surprise. I was surrounded by a village of loved ones who prayed alongside us for a child while Mary lived in a time when becoming pregnant in that context was met with societal doubt, judgment, and shaming. My experience was more like Hannah’s as recounted in 1 Samuel 1. We navigated the ache of infertility, longing and praying for a child who my husband and I were unsure would ever come to be.

What our stories have in common, however—what we all have in common—is the shared experience of Advent, a period of active waiting and anticipation. Though we wait, there is much happening in the waiting. It is a time filled with promise and possibility. We are being spiritually formed.

Spiritual formation is the journey through which we can develop deeper intimacy with and connection to God. I committed my life to Jesus more than 30 years ago, and for much of that time, my focus was on either doing things or avoiding doing things in hopes of keeping God from being upset with me. I didn’t really know what it meant to be with, loved, and formed by God.

Last year, however, after being introduced to spiritual formation by a close friend, I had the privilege of participating in the School of Formation alongside other Christ followers as we learned about and practiced contemplative rhythms, interior examination, racial justice and reconciliation, wholeness, and missional rhythms. Through that experience, I began to truly understand what it means to be in Christ.

As in pregnancy, our spiritual formation journey can be filled with growth that is hard to see with our eyes. In the first trimester, a woman’s body can appear unchanged. Without the verification that comes with changes in a woman’s cycle, pregnancy test indicators, and ultrasound confirmation, one can wonder if anything is actually happening.

As a woman progresses into her second and third trimesters, we begin to witness the change in the size of her belly, and the movement of arms and legs of the life inside her. We still can’t see details such as the development of the circulatory and digestive systems, eye color, fingerprints, and marrow.

The same can be true with us as we practice prayer, meditation, silence, solitude, fellowship, lament, and celebration within a faith community. Although we begin to transition from attempting to perform for God to desiring to participate with Christ in becoming salt and light, it can be really demoralizing when we encounter our distractedness, selfishness, and weariness as we practice new ways of being. We can begin to wonder if anything is changing at all. Yet we are developing and growing!

What develops in us as we wait and form is spiritual fruit—love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, against which there is no law (Galatians 5:22-23). With practice, these ways of being can become spontaneous, like breathing, blinking, and the beating of our hearts.

In Galatians 4, Paul refers to the Galatians as his dear children for whom he is in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in them (verse 19). I am intrigued by his reference to childbirth, especially considering that it wasn’t possible for him to experience it personally. What childbirth represents can be universal. This verse demonstrates it.

When our daughter was born, the years of wanting and waiting, disappointment and worry, dreaming and wondering, didn’t feel like years at all. It felt like a light and momentary trouble (2 Corinthians 4:17). Her physical formation began a transformation in us into something we hadn’t been before—parents. As believers, we are also in transformation as we are becoming the image of our beloved Messiah in a world desperately in need of the aroma of the kingdom of God.

As we anticipate the celebration of our Lord’s incarnation, may Jesus be formed in us. And may who we are becoming, bear fruit that proves to be a blessing to everyone God brings into community with us.

Following are some suggested practices as you go deeper into spiritual formation in this season of Advent:

Week 1 – Hope

Spend ten minutes each day meditating on the hope we find in God, our faithful vine, in whom we bear much fruit as we remain in him. You may want to journal your thoughts and reflections.

Week 2 – Peace

Spend ten minutes each day in silence with God, confessing where you may be experiencing a lack of peace in your life, and inviting him to fill you with his shalom.

Week 3 – Joy

Spend ten minutes each day exploring verses that focus on the joy that God offers us. For example, read John 15:11, where Jesus talks about his joy being in us, and our joy being complete. Read it again and reflect on what you see God saying in this verse. Read it a third time and share with God what you notice. Read it a final time and sit quietly, listening to what God will say in response.

Week 4 – Love

Set aside a portion of each day where you will pause other activities and responsibilities to lean into the rest that God offers as an expression of his love for you. During that time, intentionally enjoy his green pastures, quiet waters, protection, provision, comfort, and goodness in the context of your life.

By Afrika Afeni Mills, Faith Avenue Champion
Steele Creek, NC, US

Prayer Guide—November 2023

“Prayers are tools, but with this clarification: Prayers are not tools for doing or getting, but for being and becoming.” – Eugene Peterson

Prayer unites us in ways words cannot express. Our monthly prayer guide is more than a guide; it’s a doorway to deeper communion. In these moments of shared devotion, we strengthen our bonds and grow in faith. #WeAreGCI

Join us in prayer today. Click here or on the image below to download this month’s prayer guide.

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Meet Bret Miller

“I am grateful for the love, mercy, and grace of Jesus.”

Check out this month’s GCI Profile to get to know Bret Miller, GCI Home Office IT Manager. To read his full profile, click here or the image below.

Devotional—Rooted in Love

Editor’s Note: For our Ordinary Time Devotional series, you are hearing entirely from young authors. They are sharing their perspectives on the theme, “God is in the streets.” Enjoy reading how the next generation of emerging GCI leaders experiences God outside the walls of the Sunday church gathering.

God is present in our relationships. When I’m with my loved ones, I feel God’s presence. We were made as an outpouring of the love of the Trinity, to love and share love. When I’m living into that reality, I feel more in tune with God and with those around me.

God is in the streets, walking with me and my friends as we explore coffee shops and bookstores. God is at the dinner table during Thanksgiving as my family shares a meal. God is standing with me at my grandma’s hospital bedside when I say, “Goodbye for now. I love you.” God was with me when I looked into my wife’s eyes and said I do.

There isn’t a time when God leaves me alone. But when I’m with my loved ones, whatever the circumstance, it’s easier for me to feel the presence of the God who is love.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:17b-19 NIV

Prayer: God, thank you for your immeasurable love from which we were formed and for your goodness in making us in your image, to call us your children. Thank you for giving us the calling to love one another and share your gospel as we go about our lives with all people. Amen.

By Andrew Rakestraw
Tallahassee, FL, US

Culture of the Kingdom

Dear GCI Family and Friends,

If our GCI culture is sourced and shaped by our central personality, Jesus, then for all practical purposes we are ambassadors of Jesus.

What do you think of when you hear the word ambassador? Does your mind think about a politician, or a diplomat who represents our nation in a far-off land? Does it feel overwhelming? Perhaps you think that’s just not me. But maybe it is you.

When we read Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 5, we realize he is stating our ambassadorship as a matter of fact.

So, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:20 NRSVA)

Because we are new creations in Christ (verse 17), and he resides in us, the natural flow is that we are his earthly representatives. We are in the mix of the reconciliation ministry of Christ.

A strong parallel thought to being Christ’s ambassadors is that Jesus came in the flesh, and in his public ministry he continuously and persistently announced his eternal kingdom (Mark 1:15). In Luke 17:21, Jesus indicated that he had inaugurated the kingdom of God by his presence — the king is among them. Since the days of John the Baptist, the kingdom is advancing and breaking in (Matthew 11:11-13). The kingdom has a here-and-now dimension that we need to tap into. I call this the kingdom culture.

As ambassadors of Christ, it is imperative that we have kingdom eyes, a kingdom message, and kingdom actions.

Kingdom Eyes

In this fallen, broken world, do we as believers rise above and see the beautiful transforming work of Jesus through the Spirit? Do we see beyond the shootings and violence being reported on the news streams to the acts of kindness and faith? In most shootings and violence stories, some peole ran in to help, or some who tried to intervene. Not any less, acts of kindness might include one neighbor mowing another neighbor’s lawn. It could be a generous donor supporting a ministry in a developing country. Hopefully, all believers are relating to friends, family, and co-workers who are not yet believers — building strong, loving, credible relationships.

Kingdom Message

This is the message of reconciliation. God is not counting your sins against you; he has resolved that matter in Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:19). This is really, really good news!

As ambassadors, we are taking and carrying seriously good news about the true King, the great reconciler, Jesus. The strength of our message is contained in what he has done for us and through us. Our personal testimonies are how we give witness to the reality of Jesus.

According to the Barna Group’s research, some 61% of people surveyed in the U.S. see Jesus as the standard for being a good person. Shows like The Chosen, and the advertisement piece, “He Gets Us – All of Us,” establish the historical validity of Jesus and display his goodness. It then falls onto the shoulders of us church folks to proclaim his divinity and draw others into the worship of our Lord and God. The King is a nice guy and so much more.

Kingdom Actions

I think back to an Update letter I wrote in April about the beatitudes of Jesus. Because Jesus lives in us, we are to display meekness and humility in a world of pride and narcissism. Do we behave righteously when we are stressed and persecuted? Are we proactively making peace where there are factions in our circles of influence? We are empowered to live out these kingdom actions as Jesus lives in us. Not I, but Christ!

If we truly are Christ’s ambassadors and bringers of the good news, how do we live this out in a post-Christian world? Chapter 5 in Jon Ritner’s book, Positively Irritating, gives excellent instruction. On page 64, Jon writes,

All human longings ultimately find their fulfillment in God’s presence and his kingdom. The thirst for unconditional acceptance and love, deep healing and wholeness, significance and value, community and connection, all point us to God. Our job as missionaries [or ambassadors, my addition], is to identify the obvious yearnings in the culture around us and help people to find the ultimate fulfillment for those longings in God.

Jon has more to say in his book. Why not get a copy? Another tremendous tool created by the GCI Media Department is the Place-sharing webinar series.

As Christ’s ambassadors and kingdom citizens now, may we all have sharper kingdom eyes, be bold in sharing the kingdom message, and by the power of the Spirit, live out kingdom actions.

Prayer: Lord, by your grace, empower GCI to more deeply live out the kingdom culture that you began over 2,000 years ago. Amen!

Living in the culture,

Greg Williams

GCI Swag Store Is Closing Soon

Get your GCI gear while it lasts!

GCI clothing and accessories will only be available for purchase through October 31.

Represent our fellowship and reflect your personal style. Shop now, by clicking on the image below.

We chose the vendor for our on-demand store based on their high-quality and ethically sourced items, as well as their ability to ship internationally. However, please note that the shipping costs are per item. You can get detailed shipping information here.

Author: Elizabeth Mullins