Adventures in Public Speaking
One of the things I have done for income is network marketing. My friend and I tried to market nutritional supplements with understandably limited success. Oddly enough however, we seemed to excel in motivating our peers, and were invited to speak at several meetings. These were small groups topping out at a modest 20 people, but they really responded well.
There was a global convention to be held in Dallas Texas in one of the bigger venues. We were on the airplane getting ready to take off when I received a call from the events coordinator asking me if I’d be willing to share my experience at the youth meeting. So I’m thinking it’s a few people my age in a small room somewhere, “Sure! I can totally do that” I said confidently.
Then… to my horror, I’m looking at a packed auditorium of five hundred plus people with only a vague idea of what I’m going to say. The schedule has me sandwiched between an executive bigshot speaker and a globally renowned doctor. The only public speaking experience I had to draw on was the two words I had masterfully delivered in my high school play in which I played a disgruntled ex-business partner of Ebenezer Scrooge. Clearly, I’m going to die.
When I get nervous my whole body becomes far less cooperative, especially my jaw which means my understandability takes a big hit. They called me up and after narrowly avoiding tripping over cables on the floor, I sat down and began my train wreck of a speech. I spoke a bit about the product and the business as planned, then I launched into talking about the Lord and how through him we can have a meaningful life. One eternity later, after eeking out each word through a stubbornly clenched jaw, I had done it. I rejoined the audience, shaking and mortified, convinced I had just forced a whole room of people to listen to my unintelligible babble.
To my great surprise people were coming up to me the entire remainder of the convention commenting positively on what I said and how they understood every word. A few weeks later, l listened to a fairly high quality recording of my speech and indeed, it was complete gibberish! No one who heard the recording could understand it including me. How then could the audience possibly understand what I had said? I am convinced God had a hand in bridging the communication gap and I think he wanted them to understand my testimony to the Truth, not unlike the Jews in Acts 2 supernaturally understanding the apostles in their own native tongue.
Jonathan Duncan
Offensive Language
Fresh from a global disaster, humanity rallied together to rebuild. On level ground, they built what was to be a beacon of hope, strength, and new vision. They reasoned, perhaps, that they wanted to build this new beacon so high that not even the torrential floodwaters that had recently ravaged the globe just a few generations ago would not be able to reach the top.
And so there, on the plains of Shinar, humanity built the tower of Babel.
This demonstration of unity for humanity was seen by God in a very different way. Instead of the optimistic beginning of a new chapter, it was the return to the same demonic rebellion against Him.
In the garden he had commanded Adam and Eve to spread out their descendants over the face of the earth in order to extend the boundaries of his great garden over the entire planet. And here was humanity, clumped up in one part of the planet, committed headlong once again in the wrong direction.
In order to prevent another catastrophe from developing, God decided to intervene sooner rather than later, and confused the languages of humanity. Better for humanity to be divided in their rebellion than united in it. In confusing their languages, God did achieve the scattering of Adam and Eve’s descendants over the globe - but He also allowed for warring dominions, spiritual powers, and demonic principalities to gain control over the various people groups of Earth. And for generations demons and spirits have had a field day in deceiving and corrupting the various human cultures.
Whether the Norse paganism of ancient Scandinavia, or the terrifying animism of Africa, or the millennia long reign of Hinduism over India - there has been no shortage of spiritual deviations corrupting and deluding mankind’s knowledge of God or themselves.
But with Pentecost, God speaks words that go on the offensive, breaking down the wall of hostility that has fractured the world since Babel. The demonic forces and spiritual powers that have all carved out kingdoms for themselves, at humanity’s expense, are now subject to a cosmic invasion.
Not only is God reaching these people in their native tongue, but he is sending a message: the Holy Spirit is about to liberate every nation from the power of the devil (Col. 1:13-14), those near and far (Eph. 2:17), not for the imperialistic unity of Babel (Gen. 11), but in the beautiful diversification of every tribe and tongue gathered in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 7:9).
God’s Word has gone on the offensive, and we have all witnessed his unstoppable advance through history and the world.
Pastor Ryan Lunde
Young Adults
Our Origin Story
And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. - Acts 2:2-3
Peter Parker was bit by a radioactive spider and became the Amazing Spider-Man. Bruce Banner was hit by an experimental explosion of gamma rays and became the Incredible Hulk. A group of disciples had flaming tongues dropped on their heads and they became Christ’s Glorious Church. This event was our origin story. This is the beginning of the movement that we are a part of today. The Church is a movement, not because it hosts the best potlucks, nor because it has such wonderful buildings, nor because it has such great people in it, nor because it has a bunch of forgiven people in it. Those are all wonderful things to have, but the Church of Jesus Christ is a movement because it is Super-Powered. The Church is powered by the Holy Spirit. Without the Spirit, we are a very large and committed social club who like to get dressed up in our nice clothes on Sunday mornings.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church (which also happens to be an individual gift to each and every believer who has ever lived), is actually the way that God brings us into the very union that is shared within the eternal relationship of God that we call Trinity.
C.S. Lewis explains it this way…
“The union between the Father and the Son is such a live concrete thing that this union itself is also a Person. I know this is almost inconceivable, but look at it thus. You know that among human beings, when they get together in a family, or a club, or a trade union, people talk about the ‘spirit’ of that family, or club, or trade union. They talk about its ‘spirit’ because the individual members, when they are together, do really develop particular ways of talking and behaving which they would not have if they were apart. It is as if a sort of communal personality came into existence. Of course, it is not a real person: it is only rather like a person. But that is just one of the differences between God and us. What grows out of the joint life of the Father and Son is a real Person, is in fact the Third of the three Persons who are God.” - C.S. Lewis
And this is the Person who we call the Holy Spirit. When Jesus poured out this Person on those earliest disciples with those tongues of fire, Jesus was also inviting them into the union and the power and the love that Jesus has always shared with His Father. This has been the invitation ever since that day. The Triune God is inviting you, “Come, enter into the family of God… be changed… take on our DNA… be filled with what fills Us.” The Spirit was our origin story, but it is also our story today.
Josh Rose
Teaching Pastor
Between the Now and the Not Yet
"Men of Galilee, they said, why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” Acts 1:11 (NIV)
The Church owns the greatest commodity ever- real hope (we possess the true “hope diamond”). Our hope springs from the soil of faith in His resurrection, as Pastor Ryan taught us this past Easter. It is forged through trial and suffering and shines brightest when observed in the light of our King’s ascension and return. Because the Lord knew His followers would lose hope easily, He ascended to reveal His power and authority over all and to assure us that He would keep his promise. If we were to cut into this precious jewel we call hope, we would notice that is made up of three things:
The abiding presence and power of His Spirit: “But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” (John 16:7 NIV).” Acts 1:8 says His disciples would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them. The Greek word for “power” in this passage is where we get our word “dynamite.” The book of Acts is all about showing us how the Spirit of God unleashes His power in and through us, working in ways we never imagined, using people we would never have imagined, to accomplish things beyond all we could ever imagine.
The abiding community of faith to comfort and help us stay hopeful:
“Let us think about each other and help each other to show love and do good deeds. You should not stay away from the church meetings, as some are doing, but you should meet together and encourage each other. Do this even more as you see the day coming. (Hebrews 10:24-25, NCV). True hope is best nurtured and experienced when the Body of Christ gathers. We best encounter our “heaven-on-earth” in the community. The promise of Christ’s return: Paul instructed us to keep encouraging and comforting one another with the reality of Acts 1:11.
For the Lord, Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who remain, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words. (I Thessalonians 4:16-18, NASB)
Every trial, every pain, every moment, everything we are and hope to become will be worth it all when we see Jesus. Until then, He abides with us through His Spirit, His Word, and His Church. Today amazing things happen in and through the Christ-follower who invests in eternity, always looking, living, and longing for His return (2 Corinthians 5).
Martin Luther once said, “There are two days in my calendar: This day and That Day.”
Pastor Dave Hook
Worship Arts
King Over Culture
I can remember when I first started following Jesus after my senior year of high school, someone asked me, “how is your spiritual life going?” I had been around church enough to know that they meant, “how is your relationship with Jesus?” The question itself reveals the way that we often think of life as being divided into compartments. We have our spiritual life, our relationship life, our family life, our financial life, and our physical life. We even periodically imagine that the boxes don’t bleed over from one to the other. However, the first followers of Jesus didn’t view following Jesus in that way. For them, allegiance to Jesus changed everything, not just their “spiritual life.”
One of the best examples we have of this is a reference to the way people were thrown off by the devotion of Christians in Thessalonica. In Acts 17:6-7 Luke recorded, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus." Notice that when the early followers of Jesus made the claim that Jesus is Lord, it wasn’t just a religious claim, it was a political claim too – and it was the political side of the assertion that got them in trouble. For them, religion and politics were intricated and explicitly intertwined primarily because Caesar demanded worship.
Luke pointed out that the claim “Jesus is Lord,” turned the world upside down. However, it didn’t turn the world upside down because of what happened inside the church building or solely in the spiritual lives of Christians, it turned the world upside down because of the way they claim “Jesus is Lord” caused early followers to live differently. They worshipped differently, they loved differently, they used their money differently; but they also interacted in the public square differently. Following Jesus doesn’t just change our spiritual life, it transforms our whole life.
What might it look like for followers of Jesus to “turn the world upside down” through the declaration that “Jesus is Lord?” What might it look like for the claim “Jesus is Lord” to shape our politics just like it did for the early church? It would mean that the kingdom and reign of God became our first priority. It would mean that allegiance to Jesus was primary over every other affiliation. It would mean that we sought to follow his way in all that we do
Take some time today and ask the Spirit to reveal places of your life that you need to surrender to the lordship of Jesus. After that, join me in praying that the Lord would once again turn the world upside down through his followers.
Pastor Ryan Paulson
Lead Pastor
Don’t Think of a White Elephant!
Don’t think of a white elephant. Too late!
You probably thought of a white elephant.
This prank was first done to me by my youth pastor. And his point was two-fold: first, to prove that our thoughts are very susceptible to being influenced; and secondly, that when we hear God’s commands, our minds immediately are tempted to break those very commands. The human mind is a sponge, absorbing all sorts of fleeting ideas coming from any number of directions. Whether it’s from the internet, media, conversations, music, books, art, or anything else - we are not entirely in control of what thoughts come into our minds.
Add human selfishness to the equation and we have a real mess on our hands: not only are our minds weak and susceptible to be influenced, but we’re equally at fault for biased thinking, self-deception, clouded judgment, suspicion, resentment, and assuming the nature of people’s motives and actions.
But Scripture tells us that, no matter the ridiculous or offensive things we're prone to thinking - we are nonetheless responsible for what we do with those thoughts.
Paul exhorts us in 2 Corinthians 10:5, to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” And likewise, in Colossians 3:2 to “set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”
His exhortation is based on what the disciples observe of Jesus in Acts 1:9-11. After telling them that they will receive power from the Holy Spirit, Jesus ascends into Heaven. This ascension is the very ascension that exalts Christ above every name, power, and principality. Christ is no longer just the humble man we read of in the Gospels but is now the exalted Lord over the universe.
And now, the Lord of the universe, commands us to bring our minds in submission to him. As shown by the “Don’t Think of a White Elephant” prank - this is a difficult task. So how are we to set our minds on things above?
The answer, like most things, is we don’t try to force our minds to have good thoughts. Rather, we bring our thoughts, the good and the bad, always back to Jesus. This is what the author of Hebrews exhorts us in Hebrews 3:1, “Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus,” and again in Hebrews 12:2, “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer, and perfecter of faith.”
We may think of the white elephants of life, whether suspicion, resentment, lust, assumptions, but all we must do to be obedient is to bring those thoughts back to Jesus, presenting all the wanderings of our mind to him, and laying them down before him.
Pastor Ryan Lunde
Young Adults Ministry
Rules Over Our Relationships
One of the most popular reality television shows of the 2010s was a show called “Undercover Bosses.” Maybe you’re familiar with it, the concept was this: bosses would go undercover and take on the job of entry-level employees to see what they do and learn more about what happened day-to-day at their company. It was a chance for the boss to build relationships with employees that they probably would never come into contact with otherwise. It would oftentimes illustrate just how hard people would work in their jobs and how capable they were, despite the fact that they weren’t rich and powerful or have any authority.
As Paul would remind all of us in Philippians 2:3-4, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” As followers of Jesus, Jesus rules over our relationships and in our relationships we are called to demonstrate selflessness and humility, looking to the interests of others above our own. Paul would have been writing to a church made up of slaves, slave owners, rich, poor, and everything in between. The commandment is clear. Value others above yourselves.
In “Undercover Bosses,” no one condemns ambition. Ambition can be a good thing! Scripture doesn’t condemn ambition. But ambition that steps on people to get to the top? The ambition that is to increase our stature or ego? Well, Scripture cannot applaud this type of ambition. As we’re reminded in the life of Jesus, the greatest among you will become your servant. As Jesus rules over our relationships, what does that look like? It looks like lifting others up. Putting others first. Doing nothing out of selfish ambition, but pushing others up and celebrating their greatest victories as we would celebrate our own. Have you celebrated anyone else recently? Make a habit of rejoicing with those who rejoice, putting others first, and see if it doesn’t transform your mindset and thought patterns. As the bosses learned through experiencing the everyday lives of their fellow man, we learn through sharing others’ experiences to celebrate the good, mourn the bad, and work towards becoming more of who Jesus has called us to be each day.
Seth Redden
High School Pastor
Christ in Me
Growing up in a Christian home, with parents who were devoted to attending church, I was privileged to hear hundreds of powerful messages that were full of truth about God and what it means to follow him. Yet, one message stood out above the rest. I didn’t hear it at Hume Lake or on a Sunday morning. Instead, it was an exhortation spoken quietly by a trusted leader who looked me in the eyes and said three short words, “Christ in me.” Years later, those three words still penetrate my soul as I both relish the promise and engage the challenge.
In Acts 1, we read about Jesus’ ascension to heaven. As the disciples watched, they were likely shaking their heads and saying, “what now... we thought Jesus said he would always be with us”. They had spent three years, dedicated to following their Rabbi and he disappeared into the sky? But he left some instructions that indicate that his ascension would not mean absence. He was leaving them with power in the form of a comforter, an advocate, and friend. So the choice with which they were left was whether or not to follow; believing that Christ’s presence was still active and authoritative.
Paul tells us in Ephesians 1:22-23 that, “God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church. And the church is his body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself.”
This certainly doesn’t sound like absence! Furthermore, who has ever claimed to “fill all things everywhere with himself?” The authority with which God speaks is a declaration of presence throughout every aspect of our lives. What an incredible gift! There is no need for striving, performance or achievement. He fills every part of us such that we have the very mind of Christ. Oh what a marvelous hope! This promise of presence is available to each of us, but we have to make the decision to embrace it. That means giving Christ access to everything: the areas we try to hide, our deepest sorrows, and the need to do things our own way. For some it is easier to call Christ Savior than to call him Lord; and for others, just the opposite. What does it mean though to call him both?
Throughout the rest of this week, we are going to explore areas where Jesus is calling us to embrace him not only as Savior but also as Lord. He has declared his presence and his authority; do you believe it? By proclaiming Jesus as Savior and Lord, we surrender to his authority and have the joy and freedom to say, “Christ in me.”
For further reflection, take a moment to worship the Lord with this song by Jeremy Camp, “Christ in Me.” Jeremy Camp - Christ In Me
Lynette Fuson
Director of Soul Care & Counseling
Hope Restores
In his famous book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell lays out the idea that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to effectively master complex skills, such as playing the violin. I don’t know for certain, but having taken my dad down to Mexico and watching him mud walls with high school students, the ease of which he could do something in his late 60s after a career of doing it, compared to the relative inexperience of high school students at evenly coating anything seems to bear out that this idea may have some merit to it.
When we talk about mastery of any skill, it has to start with the belief that we may actually be able to attain that goal. Simply put, it starts with hope. We have hope that with enough time invested, we might be able to become something or someone we currently are not.
1 Peter 1:9 says that we are “receiving the end result of our faith, the salvation of our souls.” There’s something about hope that encourages not only to place our hope in the life to come but to receive presently the gift of God through his Son Jesus. This hope should compel us to action! When we truly believe that we are receiving our salvation (and as Paul would say to the Philippians, to work out our salvation with fear and trembling), we are ignited by the hope and striving to imitate Jesus that it moves us to action. Do we have hope that we can imitate Jesus? Do we have hope that we can become more like him? That we have not only received and will receive, but that we are currently receiving our salvation?
The challenge for us is this: to stake our lives on this hope that restores. Restores not just in the future sense of when we will be with no more pain and no more tears, but that is currently restoring us each day as we strive to become more like Jesus. We are being restored. This is the work of God within us that is done between our grace-driven effort and God’s Spirit. Does hope ignite the fire within you to strive to become and achieve “mastery” of the things of God? May our hope be so firm that we would strive to be with Jesus, like Jesus, and do as Jesus did, not just after God takes us home but in the present.
Pastor Seth Redden
High School Pastor
Hope Rejoices
“Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory…” - I Peter 1:8
The more I think about this verse, the more I love it. First, Peter says that our trust in Jesus causes us to “rejoice with joy.” I love that he uses two different words that are very close in meaning, “rejoice” (the expression of joyousness) and “joy” (the content of that expression), in order to double down on the emphasis that Jesus produces a lot of joy! Then, to make that point abundantly clear, Peter uses a wonderful word that is translated here as “inexpressible.” Literally, this word means “not able to speak,” or “what cannot be expressed in words.” This is the same word group that Paul uses in Romans 8:26 when he says that “the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” This is a deep and abiding joy that can only be described as transcending human understanding. There are quite simply no words that can adequately explain this joy.
Have you ever experienced a joy that you just can’t explain? Have you ever experienced something so powerfully filled with joy that you just have a hard time letting other people know about it. For me, I think of days like my wedding day, or the birth of my children. Those days produce in my memories of joy that I just can’t really put into words. This is the kind of joy that Peter is encouraging the persecuted church with. He is reminding them that no matter what evil the world throws at them, Christians have a deeper joy that can get them through it.
This is super helpful for any of us going through hard times, but the next part of this may be even more powerful. Peter says that this kind of joy is filled with glory. Glory! When you and I experience this kind of joy that is brought about by our faith in Jesus, we display the glory of God to the world! Wow! Biblical “glory” is God’s invisible (and inexpressible) attributes put on display for the world. God’s glory is only fully seen in Jesus, but it was partially seen in the Hebrew Scriptures (remember Moses seeing God’s back as God passed by). Now, without the physical presence of Jesus in the world, the best way we can “see” God is by seeing his glory on display. Now Peter is telling us that our joy in the midst of trials is a joy in which we can actually manifest God’s glory for the sake of others. This is huge!
So, today, let’s go and become people who show God’s glory to the world by living out the joy that springs from the hope we have in Jesus!
Pastor Josh Rose
Teaching Pastor