A Faith That Works.Com
A ministry partner of SinglesOfFaith.Com / SinglesOfFaith.Org
Synopsis:
When God visited this planet 1,975 years ago, He didn't just campaign for conversions. Why not? Isn't that what He's about? We'd propose God is more about revealing His heart to us humans and seeing which of us choose Him than He is about finding takers for a "Heavenly Insurance Policy." God, in the person of His Son, got on His knees daily and served people out of this dying world into the Kingdom of God (which starts here, not after we die.) That's His style, His heart, what He's all about. He served wedding guests, paralytics, widows, the blind, the deaf, children, prisoners, the poor and outcast, the diseased. WHY? Why not just convert unbelievers? Well, we'd propose that He lived what the Kingdom is all about, and He invited folks (those who wanted to) to follow Him into that Kingdom by joining Him in serving (Matt 2537ff.) Today is no different. We either follow Him on His terms or we do things our way. "Churchianity" anesthetizes sheep weekly into a false so-called "eternal security" utilizing "Sinners' Prayers," "asking Jesus into their hearts," "accepting Jesus," and other "easy-believism so-called conversions." But it's following the Master to our knees in service to His sheep, we'd propose, that prepares us for an eternity of serving with the King. God's heart is in serving. Saving
Welcome!
Q: "If Jesus were a pastor here in town, what role
would works of faith play in His congregation?"
Well, let's Investigate. Ever since the Garden, we'd Propose, God has been
all about Works of Faith*
Thousands of years ago God started revealing Himself to this planet by "fleshing out" /
"working out" / demonstrating His unique method of evangelism:
(1) He SERVED pre-Israelites back into His presence (as many as would obey Him.)
(2) He SERVED the Israelites back into His presence (as many as would follow Him.)
(3) He SERVED the Jews back into His presence (as many as would obey Him & follow Him.)
(3) He SERVES us Gentiles back into His presence (as many as will obey Him & follow Him.)
Conclusion: God the Father and Jesus the Sons' method of evangelism (and life itself) :
SERVE human beings into the Kingdom. SERVANTHOOD appears to be an integral part of His very existence.
In AD 30 Jesus Invited People into a Faith That Works
Then, 1,975 years ago He issued the invitation, "Follow Me! [ Walk with me. Teach with me. Feed others with me. Wash feet with me. Also feed me. Give me water. Clothe me. Visit me. ]" Acts of faith. No thoughts of faith. No feelings of faith. No commands to intense sincerity / intense convictions of faith (by themselves.) It appears that God is not "into" a faith that sits in a pew. He is "into" a faith that acts, a faith that works, not a "faith" that just thinks or feels, no matter how strongly or sincerely. (That kind may be reserved for the demons and those they disburse it to in James 217.)
In AD 2007 Nothing Has Changed
Today our God continues to be a God of action, not (merely) conviction or feelings. He is at work. (To be sure, strong convictions and feelings characterize the man or woman of genuine faith, but those feelings and convictions are merely the invisible foundation for what really matters to God ... a faith that works, that proves itself out, that obeys, that follows, that shows itself in self-sacrificial giving for the best interest of another - love on legs.) God doesn't sit around loving people (love as a noun, like infatuation between teenagers.) He loves people by acting (love as a verb, like a wise couple committed to serving each other through daily acts of love.)
Q: "If Jesus flew into town and had a 24-hour layover
before His next departing flight, what would He do
with those 24 hours?"
He'd likely not sit around.
Might He walk the streets in your town seeking whom He might serve?
Might He visit hospitals or rest homes or prisons?
Might He feed the hungry?
Might He clothe the homeless?
Might He offer to pray for strangers in your town?
Might He mentor youth?
Might He frequent bars serving / ministring to the lonely?
Might He go door-to-door offering to pray for strangers with no strings attached?
Avoid the Emptiness of 'Pop Evangelicalism:' Serve!
Evangelicalism today all too often invites people to "ask Jesus into their heart" as if doing so would secure some kind of reservation in Heaven. God is likely not fooled. He's likely not interested in "heaven insurance conversions." Too many "pastors/preachers" ask parishioners (or, more often, visitors) to "give their hearts to Jesus." Well, God never did that when HE was here in AD 30. He's not interested in merely populating Heaven, we'd propose. No. God is interested in men and women who share His heart, His passion, His love, His priorities. Too much evangelicalism is "so heavenly minded it's no earthly good." The Kingdom of God is not "out there" somewhere, a million miles across the universe once we die. No. "The Kingdom of God is at hand." Heaven starts once a person drops his/her nets and chooses to follow Jesus.
Serve your Neighbor on your Own / with your Family
If Gods' strategy for the evangelism of humans is "no-strings-attached-giving," how about if we adopt it, too? Idea: Go to each of your neighbors with a pie or plate of cookies or fresh fruit or a main dish (or whatever) and say, "Hi! God is into no-strings-attached giving. So are we :) We love to pray for our friends and neighbors. Is there one thing we could pray for you or your family?"
Or Serve your Neighbor With Us
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Please Don't Misunderstand Us
• Works will transport no one into the Kingdom of God. (Remember the Pharisees?)
• Adding works to an existing "faith" (trying to "beef up" or somehow
enhance our belief /
so-called "faith") will not please God. (Legalism / "works righteousness.")
• The only thing that will please God ... faith. What kind of faith? A faith that works.
If you or I are not seeing in our lives the proof of a faith
that is alive -- the proof being works of faith -- the solution is NOT to run
around trying to score points with Him by working/serving. That would be
fruitless concentrating on the symptom / the result (like stapling
apples to a tree to make it an apple tree.) The solution is to drop
to our knees and allow our hearts to marinate in His presence daily
(the Word, prayer, fellowship, teaching, ...) in such a way that we begin to
take on His heart ... (fertilizing the tree such that it bears
fruit) ... our heart begins to look like His,
to reflect His. THEN, once we begin to share His love of serving, we
can be confident that the Holy Spirit is transforming our heart.
.
Q: So, ... "If Jesus were a pastor here in town, what
role would works of faith likely play in the lives of
His Congregation?"
A: Mmm ... The lead role. And the supporting role. And, we'd propose, every other role. And that brings us to what we're about ...
Who We Are
We are catalysts, mostly single Christians, men and women on a "missionary journey" in the 21st Century. We're traveling from town to town, (upper midwest currently) inviting men and women, believers and unbelievers, to follow Jesus into the Kingdom today,
What We Do
Each week we:
• Email a month ahead to the city we'll be visiting thirty
days later ... emailing :
(1) SinglesOfFaith.Com members with the opportunity
to Meet, Become and Serve2, and
(2) Pastors with the opportunity to lead their
members into following Christ to their knees3
• We visit those pastors who respond, then ask THE
QUESTION4 re: their town in particular
• We coordinate with the service organizations gleaned from
above for a volunteer surge
• We serve the men and women targeted by those ministry /
service organizations
• We identify local volunteer (or paid5) leaders
who surface from that servant workday
• We equip the growing national team of community servant
leaders with online
communication, training, encouragement, etc. via blog,
email and conference calls
• We pursue hard after God's heart together to "serve a
hurting world into His Kingdom" 3
• We move on to the next town
Why We Do It
It is our understanding from pondering God's word that God is "in the business" of serving. That is what "lights Him up." That is what brings Him joy. We sense God created a universe with a "secret" : joy and peace lives in (following Him by faith) serving. We sense that Heaven may be all about "addicts" (in the great sense of the word :) unstoppably "mining for" / searching for opportunities to serve one another. We sense that God started serving us humans when He created the earth and its inhabitants -- us -- so He'd have more folks to lovingly serve. And we sense that if we don't find ourselves serving we may have missed the whole purpose of faith ... to live the life God designed for us. He seemed to flesh that out 1,975 years ago when He visited this planet. Jesus was "servanthood on legs." Every single day He sought out hurting men and women that He might love with God's love. (And for that reason thousands and thousands also followed Him! Hmmm ...)
We'd propose that God is trying to reveal a secret to His universe: Joy inhabits servanthood. Joy lives inside of a faith that follows Him daily, serving others.
By the way, can you think of a more effective evangelism strategy? In a day of spectacular evangelistic ineffectiveness nationwide, when so-called "Christians" are vilified in the media (often with good reason) because their "faith" has been reduced to Kingdom-ineffective issue-oriented national opinionating, what would Jesus likely be doing? Issue-oriented opinionating? No. Serving.
So, what's the faith God wants? A faith that works. (A faith that serves.)
Why? Because that's what God's up to in this universe. He's "into" action, not
words. He's "into" serving. He is all about giving of Himself to enrich the lives of
those He has created. And He has invited those of us who want to serve with Him to join
Him, to follow Him. Forever. Starting now.
Summary?
When God visited this planet, He didn't campaign for as many cerebral or emotional conversions as He could secure. He got on His knees daily and served His dying world. He served wedding guests, paralytics, widows, children, prisoners, the poor and outcast, the diseased. He demonstrated what the Kingdom is all about, and He invited us to follow Him into that Kingdom. Those who dislike serving would hate Heaven anyway. We don't get to pick and choose how we want to follow Him and still balance our busy 21st Century schedules. We either follow Him on His terms or we don't. "Churchianity" may anesthetize us into a false "eternal security," but following the Master to our knees in service to His lost sheep prepares us for an eternity of grace, serving with the King.
Join Us
If you'd like us to visit your town soon, or if you're crazy enough to join the team
as we travel the United States, please contact us! This is exciting and we're meeting
tons of folks we'll be spending eternity with :) Please ... Let us serve you and
the men and women God wants to serve and give life to in your community!
Contact Us
If you have any questions about what we're doing or how you can join us or how we might enhance the ministry, how we might more clearly hear God's voice and respond to His heart, or just to say, 'HI,' please [ contact us ] and we'd love to dialog !
Overview / Summary
- Although it's roots are well-intentioned zeal rather than biblical exegesis, we'd propose that most "Christians" today are unfortunately (and unintentionally, unmaliciously) taught a non-biblical, non-saving "faith" that is purely western -- thinking & feeling only. (Why? Probably the "heaven-insurance" mentality so prevalent in America today.)
- Jesus, on the other hand, invited men and women to follow, to move, to act, to obey, to serve ... not to sit ... (action/activity, not passivity.) Why? Because servant action is at the very heart of God. It's one reason He created humans ... to have additional creatures to serve and to teach the joys of servanthood.
- The question that can drive home the passion and motivation (and thoughts) of God: "If Jesus flew into town and had 24 hours before His next departing flight, what would He do with those 24 hours? How would He invest in the people in our town?"
- History says He'd head immediately to His knees. He'd search out folks to serve. He'd heal, teach, visit, feed, quench, encourage, invite, challenge, lead, empower, commission, ...
- Since this seems to be central to the heart of God, His primary motivation, we are travelling town to town throughout the U.S. (1) to seek out and to serve the same people Jesus would be serving and (2) to catalyze servant teams in those towns to carry on the mission of the Master until He returns.
Footnotes
* "A faith that works" is a "play on words" with multiple meanings :
(1)
A faith that works means a faith that is EFFECTIVE (in getting us into the Kingdom: it
WORKS by successfully getting us there) and
(2)
A faith that works meaning that a faith that is NOT accompanied by works is not a
genuine,
saving faith. A genuine faith WORKS itself
out ... it is, by definition, accompanied by
visible, non-artificially-generated acts of servanthood
("works.") If my faith is real (and
therefore different than the faith of the demons in Jas. 217,)
I will be "working the works of
God" for which I was created (Eph. 210)
1 Jesus apparently was not interested in a 20th / 21st-century kind of "faith" that exists only in a persons' head (their seat of thinking) or in their heart (their seat of feeling.) Jesus made it clear that He was interested in men and women whose faith "leaked out" into their lives, their actions, their behaviors: God's call throughout history has been to change human lives, not just minds or hearts.
2 SinglesOfFaith.Com proposes that God's three highest priorities for His unmarried men and women are these (not in this order :) ... (1) Meet the person He has for us to meet, (2) Become the person He has for us to become, and (3) Serve the people He has for us to serve.
3 We'd propose that servanthood is absolutely central to God's heart (and therefore His strategy) to serve the Lost into the Kingdom of the Heavens (the Kingdom of God.) He so loves serving that He created a new planet to populate with beings He could serve. And we'd propose that only those of us who love (following Him into) serving will love (following Him into) Heaven.
4 "If Jesus flew into our town and had exactly seven days before His next departing flight, what would He do with those seven days?"
5 For those leaders who also want to spearhead ongoing workdays, workshops and events for local single or married Christians, full-time and part-time paid positions exist.
