Tonight marks the official beginning of one of the most exciting seasons on the christian calendar – Lent! A lot of people are confused by this simple four letter word, but don’t be. It simply represents the six weeks leading up to the celebration of resurrection Sunday, better known as Easter.

It begins with a special Ash Wednesday service tonight at 6:30 PM and we want EVERYONE to be a part of this important moment in the life of our faith community. This is a significant time in the life and history of the church. We use this time for introspection, prayer, and fasting. We do these things in order to purge our lives of anything that has crept into our lives that is robbing us from the full joy of the salvation we have in Christ.

Hebrews 12:1-2 serves as our theme this year which states, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…”

That is the goal of our church-wide fast! That we would throw off everything that hinders our walk with Christ, especially sin that so easily creeps into our lives and trips us up in our relationship with Him.

This past Sunday I spoke about why we pray and fast during the season of Lent and you can hear that message in it’s entirety here. We have also made a Prayer & Fasting Guide available to you for this journey. It includes tips for how you can engage in prayer and fasting, scripture readings, and links to our online Lenten Devotionals. This guide is available online at sfnchurch.com/lent and we will have printed versions available at tonight’s service that include space for you to journal during your 40-day journey.

As I said Sunday, you will get out of this journey what you put into it. God promises us in His word that if we will seek him with all our hearts, we will find him. He promises that if we will draw near to Him, He will draw near to us. All God’s promises are true and all God’s promises never expire. Trust in his promises these next forty days. Seek Him with all your heart and God will reward you with nothing less than Himself.

Your Fellow Partner in the Journey,
-Pastor Brandin Melton

It is with great joy that I say, “We are experiencing the presence of God at SFN Church!” I remember times and moments when I was growing up and as a young adult when I would walk away from church services thinking to myself, “Wow! You could really sense God’s presence today.” But I believe we are being blessed with more than just occasional moments of the anointing of His presence; I believe that we are coming hungry for it and expectant of it.

Why is the sense of His presence “occasional” in some churches and “expected” in others? I think it has everything to do with how we worship. Do we worship occasionally or do we show up with the expectation that we are going to worship God today, no matter what? This is the difference.

I’m sure you have heard us say at some point a paraphrase of Psalm 22:3, “God inhabits the praises of His people.” Others would say, “God dwells in the atmosphere of His praise.” What this basically means is that when God’s people come together in genuine worship and praise to the God of the universe, and don’t hold back or approach him without awe, it blesses God and God in return blesses us with an overwhelming sense of His presence.

Let’s continue to praise Him for He has done great things! Let me share with you just a couple of great things God has done recently.

Three years ago we planted a seed of hope in the life of a young mother at our Free Garage Sale by giving her and her daughter a Christmas tree. That was what they desired most, and through some amazing circumstances we were able to provide them with one even though all of the Christmas stuff had been gobbled up quickly. This past Sunday that young mother came to church at SFN for the first time!

You see, we planted a seed three years ago but God has continued to nurture it and cause it to grow until just the right time when it is ready to be harvested. Think of all of the seeds we have planted over the past three years and may have forgotten about. God has not forgotten about those seeds. He is nurturing every seed that has been planted and we trust that one day each and every one will be harvested in due season. Praise God!

We can also praise God for reminding us about how urgent our mission is. We have been walking through a series titled “Hell and the Mission of the Church” over the past several weeks and I have been broken by what God’s word says and I have watched God break all of you as well. Praise God for breaking our hearts over the reality of Hell and the eternal destiny of so many. We praise God for that because it is only after we have been broken that God can give us away to the world. And the world needs us.

This past Sunday I shared with you the reality of what God’s word says about the fate of those who have never heard the name of Jesus and our responsibility to reach them. We shared with you about the Joshua Project and the 30 unreached people groups around the world. I would encourage you to go to their website and begin to pray for the unreached people groups that need to hear about Jesus.

We can also praise God for how you all responded so generously to the message by giving of your financial resources. You gave over $2,300 to missions on Sunday in addition to the 10% of every dollar that is given in the general offering! Thank you for your generosity and please continue to pray about how God would have us to GO and GIVE so that others might hear about Jesus.

Our God is good! I hope to see you this Sunday as we gather together once again expecting to meet in the powerful presence of an almighty God!

In Christ,

Pastor Brandin

I would challenge you to listen to it, listen to it again, and listen to it as many times as need be to motivate you to join in the mission of the church. Click here to listen.

There are many ways that the church today becomes influenced by culture, and often times we are unaware that a particular way of thinking has crept into the way we act and live. But a popular viewpoint that we cannot afford to adopt is Universalism.

As I mentioned in the message, universalism is a theological doctrine that all human beings will eventually be saved. Scripture very clearly reveals to us that this is not true. There is a Hell; there are no second chances; and many will end up there.

The truth of Scripture and the reality of Hell should help to guard our hearts from drifting towards universalism. Universalism neuters the church of its mission. It robs us of the zeal we need in reaching out to the lost. David Platt writes, “…while some professing Christians have rejected universalism intellectually, practically they may end up leading universalistic lives. They claim Christ is necessary for salvation, yet they live their lives in silence, as if people around them in the world will indeed be okay in the end without Christ.” Are we living lives that look more like Universalists than followers of Jesus Christ?

I want to leave you with this quote from Charles Spurgeon:

“Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you are not saved yourself. Be sure of that…. The saving of souls, if a man has once gained love to perishing sinners and his blessed Master, wil be an all-absorbing passion to him. It will so carry him away, that he will almost forget himself in the saving of others…..”

“If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.”

- Pastor Brandin

Jesus didn’t send away the 5,000 men plus women and children when they were gathered. Instead, He invited His disciples into the problem and then performed a miracle to meet the need using only five loaves and two fish. In the same way, He calls us to do the same in our broken and hurting world!

On Sunday I presented two upcoming opportunities to respond to the brokenness around us including working with Habitat for Humanity on a house build in Springfield and building homes in Joplin through a work and witness trip. I’m excited to share that over 60 cards were received wanting more information about these projects!

If you are interested in more information but were unable to submit a card last Sunday, you can complete a card this Sunday and drop it in the offering plate or you can email the church office at info@sfnchurch.com.

To hear last weeks message, click here.

-Pastor Brandin

The process I shared last Sunday comes from the example of how Jesus handles bread. That may sound like a funny place to start, but what if we can learn something about how Jesus handles each and every one of our lives from the way He handles bread. In Luke 24:30 that is says, “It was as He reclined at the table with them that He took the bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.” The words I want to emphasize to you are: took, blessed, broke, and gave. This is the process God uses.

As we pointed out on Sunday, it is the process God used in the lives of men like Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Joseph, and even Jesus. Using Jesus as the supreme example, we see how God took him from the womb of the virgin Mary, blessed him with signs and miracles, broke him on a hill called Calvary, and gave him to be the Savior of the world. This is the process God uses and he uses it in my life and yours.

Let me briefly define those stages for you.

1. The Taking Stage. What I also call the “calling stage.” It is where you sense God is calling you in a new direction in your life; He’s taking you into new territory. It could be a new job/vocation, a new relationship or away from a damaging one, or it could be to a new ministry or involvement in a faith community such as this one.
2. The Blessing Stage. In this stage His divine favor rests upon us and He begins to open doors that seemed closed for so long, you are receiving so many more good things than you deserve, God’s goodness just seems to be upon everything you do.
3. The Breaking Stage. It is in the breaking stage that God purges from us all of our self-sufficiencies. It is in the breaking stage that we are forced to lay down our pride and arrogance, and realize that we are nothing without God. It is in the breaking stage that God makes us holy and makes us more like his Son Jesus.
4. The Giving Stage. God breaks bread so that He can give it. It was A.W. Tozer who said, “It is doubtful that God can use a man greatly, until He has hurt him first deeply.” God breaks us to make us useful.

As you reflect upon these things this week, I want to encourage you to think once again about what stage you find yourself in. Spend some time praying and asking God to reveal where He has you. Once that becomes evident to you, surrender your life completely to Him and ask Him to fulfill his purpose in you.

You can listen to this message in it’s entirety by clicking here.

- Pastor Brandin

Often times my blog is simply a recap of the previous message. Therefore, you might be tempted to skip over it. This blog is not that.

Here I attempt to apply all that we have learned over the past three weeks about creating a church for the next generation to some practical next steps for the church.

I once read a story of a little boy named Billy who sheepishly walked into the kitchen where his mother was working. As he stood before her with his head towards the floor he said, “Mom, you know that vase you said was handed down from generation to generation?”

“Yes?” his mother responded.

“Well, this generation just dropped it.” Billy confessed.

Over the past several weeks we have been reminded that the Church of Jesus Christ has been entrusted with a precious gift that has been passed on from generation to generation and we are stewards of that gift. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be the generation that drops it. As the current generation of adults who make-up the church, no matter your age, whether you are 26 or 62, we carry the burden of responsibility to pass on our faith to the next generation.

So, the question we must ask ourselves as we conclude our series titled Generation to Generation is this: “What is the best way for us to pass our faith on to the next generation?”

There are many potential approaches to passing on our faith, but what is the best way? We could take the systematic educational approach much like the public school system, but information is not the same as transformation. This approach also confines involvement to a limited number of teachers in classrooms a few hours per week.

I am not dismissing the importance of Sunday School classes and increasing biblical knowledge in our children. But can I propose to you that the biblical model for faith transmission from one generation to the next is much more relational/conversational. In Deuteronomy 6:4-8 God tells the Nation of Israel:

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”

The emphasis in these passages of Scripture is upon conversations that happen in the midst of daily life. It is relational. It happens as a result of sharing life together. This has great implications upon the role parents play in the faith formation of their children, which I will be talking about this Sunday, but what implications does it have upon the church. I believe it means that the church must recognize that faith transference to the next generation reaches beyond our Sunday School rooms and how we engage our children and youth in the life of the church.

Here are some practical next steps for us to consider.

1. Serve together. One of the best things we can do as a church is to engage our children and teens in our service events to the community. What better way to show them our faith in action than to involve them in what the gospel looks like in action? And I think we need to be intentional about not just having them present, but having them work alongside the different generations in the church so that relationships are fostered.
2. Allow them to Minister. At one of our recent fellowship events I was thrilled as I watched the kids from our children’s department take delight in the opportunity to wait on tables and serve food to the rest of the congregation. They enjoyed it and the adults enjoyed it. It was a great opportunity for them to grow as they served in the church.As our children grow into teenagers the opportunities for them to serve in the church are numerous – if we will let them! As Reggie Joyner writes, “Think about it. When did you grow as a leader? Didn’t most of us get jumpstarted in our faith when we plugged into a ministry and served? If most of us grew more when we assumed ministry responsibility, what makes us think that wouldn’t be true for teenagers as well?”

   Last month my eyes filled with tears as I watched my daughter Katy raise her hand in worship to God as she participated in leading the congregation in worship during the youth service. I cried as I watched her best friend Macy (who we have watched grow since kindergarten) play her guitar in that same service. I was emotional not just because I was watching them grow-up, but because I was watching them grow-up in their faith as they were ministering to the Body of Christ.

   One last note on the subject of creating room in the church for them to minister – it provides a natural environment for mentoring relationships to be fostered. As adults are engaging them and helping them to learn how to serve in the church, deep relationships and trust are built.

3. Multi-generational Connect Groups. I am a big supporter of age-specific environments. I believe settings like children’s church and youth group allow us to teach them in such a way that truly connects with them and addresses issues that they are dealing with. Having said that, I think we need to look for more opportunities to bring the generations together. One of those opportunities could be to encourage more multi-generational connect groups. These groups could be on-going or seasonal. The important thing is that we intentionally and consistently look for opportunities to bring ALL generations together for practical spiritual conversations.

I hope these next steps are helpful and will give us much to think about as we move forward as a multi-generational church for ALL generations!

-Pastor Brandin

Life experience teaches us that this statement is painfully true. As a young leader I am motivated by that statement to lead the church of Jesus Christ in such a way that this statement can’t be said of the church of North America.

I have spent a lot of time in recent days studying and talking about the current condition of the church and how over 3,000 churches die in America every year. I have pointed to two things as the main contributors to the death of the church: (1) the average age of the membership in most mainline denominations is over sixty and within the next decade 50% of their denomination will pass away; (2) that 70%-80% of the kids who grow up in our churches walk away from the church upon graduation from high school.

The reality is we only have the power to address one of those issues. We cannot turn back the hands of time, but we can and should do everything possible to ensure that the next generation remains an integral part of the church. This will not happen unless we are showing them and including them in a vibrant and life-giving faith.

Over the past couple of weeks I have shared some of the ways in which we have failed as a church in America. Confessing those failures has been healthy for us as a church as we have admitted…

• We must confess that at times we have let our rules get in the way of God’s love.
• We must confess that at times we’ve failed to recognize that there are absolutes that God requires of us.
• We must confess that at times we have thought that what belongs to us is more important than who we belong to.

You can listen to those messages online, but I want to encourage you to join us this Sunday for the third and final message in this series that will give us a vision for how we move forward as a church for ALL generations. Many of the statistics we look at today are not encouraging, but I think there is HOPE! Remember, we serve a risen savior who lives to redeem and restore. I believe that He can redeem and restore the church in America today.

-Pastor Brandin

If you weren’t with us on Sunday or misplaced your instructions, they are below. We’d like to encourage you to take a picture of your jar and post it on our Facebook page. Sharing your picture will encourage those within the SFN family to participate as well but may also start conversations with other friends about God’s grace and provision on your life.

Stones of Remembrance instructions

Sometimes we forget or take the good things that have happened in our lives for granted. Here’s an idea that will help you remember.

Find a pickle jar or similar transparent container, a permanent fine-point marker, and some small, smooth stones you can write on (or you can just use scraps of paper). Take a minute and ask God to remind you of some of the blessings you’ve experienced in your life during the last year. As you think of each one, thank God for it. Then write a brief description of the blessing on one of the rocks and put it in the jar.

Leave the jar in your kitchen or somewhere you pass by every day. As blessings flow into your life, give thanks, write what happened on one of these “stones of remembrance,” and toss it into the jar. If you keep it up, you’ll be amazed at how quickly your jar fills up and overflows.

If there was one message that I wish I could share in every church across America it would be this one. According to a 2005 study, the median church in the U.S. has 75 regular participants in worship on Sunday mornings. With an average age over 60, these congregations can expect to lose as much as 50% of their congregation due to death in the next decade. Add to that total the roughly 70%-80% of college-aged students who leave the church upon graduation from high school and we are very clearly one generation away from losing the church in America. Our churches and our people need a wake-up call!

I could go on, but I really would encourage you to listen to this message in its entirety to hear what I believe God wants to say to the church today. May God bless you and challenge you as you listen to this week’s message.

I would also like to encourage you to follow through with the Stones of Remembrance jar that we introduced on Sunday. What a powerful way to set the tone for the Thanksgiving season for your family.

-Pastor Brandin

These mistakes led to some painful seasons in the history of Israel. You could say…these were some serious faux pas.

A faux pas is defined as “a blunder; especially a social blunder.” Over the past several weeks at SFN Church we have been talking about how social media has overtaken our culture. For example, according to Business Insider, 96% of Americans use Facebook and there are 10 million comments posted on the site every 20 minutes. We are a Facebook nation and that includes us as Christians as well.

The question for us as Christians is how do we engage this cultural phenomenon in a way that is glorifying to God and avoids all of the evil that our culture uses it for? How do we avoid making some serious faux pas? Well, we started out with some helpful tips from Josh Veach and Aaron Dicer but moved on to address some potential faux pas.

Faux Pas #1: Christians shouldn’t use social media.
Social media is amoral, meaning it is neither good nor bad. But because there are people who use these tools for evil things Christians have often determined that the best rule is to completely separate ourselves from these things and declare that they are “of the devil.” Take movies for example. For years the church told us “don’t go to movies. Movies are of the devil.” And for decades the church neglected a tool that could have been greatly used to influence our culture. Finally, the tides have begun to turn and people like the Kendrick brothers and Sherwood Pictures have begun to make movies like Fireproof and the new movie Courageous that are taking advantage of the medium to influence our culture. By the way, Courageous was #4 in the country opening weekend and has brought in over $25 million.

I tell you that to say that I think it would be a serious faux pas for Christians to neglect the use of this tool that is having such an enormous impact on the culture around us. It made me think of the Apostle Paul who said, “To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all things for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.” I believe that Paul would have been burning up Twitter and leveraging Facebook for the sake of pointing people to Jesus.

Faux Pas #2: How I use social media has nothing to do with my Christian faith.
This is a serious faux pas as well! Our use of social media has serious implications on every area of our Christian lives, from our marriages, to how we parent, to the effectiveness of our witness. To fail to think intelligently about how our use of social media impacts our faith is a serious faux pas.

The difficulty for many comes in the fact that the bible does not specifically mention social media, such as Facebook. It didn’t exist! But the bible does have a great deal to say about how we relate to one another as human beings and as Christians. And those principles apply whether we are relating to one another in person or online. I think if we will apply the values of Ephesians 4:29 and 2 Corinthians 5:20 we will be certain to honor God and avoid many of the faux pas of the culture around us:

• “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” (Ephesians 4:29)
• “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.” (2 Corinthians 5:20)

To hear the message in its entirety and my answers to many of the questions I have fielded over the past couple of weeks, click here.

-Pastor Brandin