My New Blog

I've officially changed my blogging software and from now on you can read my new blog at mikesantistevan.com. Come on over!

4 Ways God Designed Us To Experience Him

In the message on Sunday I covered the first stage of our spiritual growth process. Since everyone's spiritual journey begins with a personal experience with Jesus Christ, we identified our Sunday morning gathering as our primary environment to help people experience God.

I also shared 4 ways that God designed for us to experience him. These I will reproduce here:

1. God designed us to experience him in corporate worship
2 Chronicles 5:11-14
Acts 2:1-4
Challenge: Commit to weekly church attendance. Prepare your heart before coming to church. Come with a hungry and expectant heart. His Word says that those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will be filled and that he rewards those who diligently seek him. Come expecting to meet with God.

2. God designed us to experience him through the preaching of his Word
Acts 10:44
Challenge: Come to every sermon with a humble and expectant heart hungry to receive the word of God. God desires to speak to you. Be prayerful during the sermon asking God to speak to your heart.

3. God designed us to experience him through personal prayer
Mark 1:35
Exodus 33:9-11
Challenge: Develop a habit of personal prayer alone with God. Expect to interact with him in a personal way. Find someone who can hold you accountable for your prayer time. Nothing can substitute for your personal time with God.

4. God designed us to experience him through the reading of Scripture
Hebrews 4:12
Challenge: Develop a habit of disciplined reading of Scripture. Utilize a Bible reading plan if it will help you. Come to the Scriptures prayerfully, asking God to speak to your heart through what you read.

Intentional Mission Strategy

We had a great service this past Sunday. It was the kick-off of our E3 series. This series is all about revealing our intentional strategy for making disciples.

Just as spiritual growth does not happen by accident, so a church does not accomplish its mission by accident. A church will only accomplish its mission if it does so on purpose. Sunday we defined our mission like this:

Our mission at ACC is to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ by helping them to experience God, excel in spiritual growth, and express his love to the world.

Our intentional strategy is thus summed up in these 3 words (each of these links to previous posts I have written about them):

Experience

Excel

Express

This series will be about expounding on each of these.

New Series: E3

This Sunday we will be starting a new 3-part message series called "E3: Making Disciples In 2008." In this series we will be diving into the heart of our mission as a church and our direction for '08. What does E3 stand for? Come Sunday and find out! You won't want to miss this important series.

Pray Global Prayers

Check out this interesting post on prayer from John Piper.

Goals For 2008

On Sunday I challenged everyone to set aside some time to take some personal inventory and set some personal development goals for the new year. I specifically challenged everybody to set spiritual goals and physical goals.

The old saying rings true that if you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there. As each of us gains greater clarity into the person that God is calling us to become, we will be able to pursue growth to that end in practical and intentional ways.

We must be both practical and intentional because spiritual growth does not happen by accident. We are only kidding ourselves if we think we can get somewhere we've never gone by doing what we've always done. In order for us to grow spiritually we must pursue it intentionally and proactively.

In addition to setting spiritual and physical goals, I'd like to encourage everybody to set some goals in a few other areas. Growth in these areas will help us in our effectiveness for God's kingdom:

1. Mental development goals
Find some new ways to stretch yourself mentally this year. Set some goals for reading and reflection. I am always reading books that help me grow in areas of spirituality, Scripture, leadership, and communication.

2. Dietary goals
Decide in advance what types of foods you need to decrease or cut from your diet. Sometimes we can short-circuit our productivity for God's kingdom by poor eating habits.

3. Friendship goals
Take some steps toward developing new friendships and strengthening old ones this year. Maybe more tv nights could be turned into dinner or coffee with friends. Since we were created for relationships, we must continually guard against the danger of isolating ourselves.

Christmas Eve

Just finished an awesome Christmas Eve service! God is awesome! We had 3 people make decisions for Christ.

Blogging may be sporadic over the next few days due to the holidays. Have a merry Christmas!

Unwrapped Continues This Weekend

This Sunday we will be continuing our Unwrapped series. We'll be looking at Unwrapping Fear and Intimidation. If you haven't visited unwrapped07.com, take a moment to go over there and see it. You'll be able to see the thoughts of others and also post your own.

The Power Of Our Words

Recently I've been reflecting on the power of our words. The words we use in communicating with people carry tremendous power. Proverbs 18:21 says,

"Death and life are in the power of the tongue."

Our words carry the ability to build others up and also tear others down. They have the power to bring both death and life into those who hear them.

For that reason it is so important that we be people who use our words to build up others and encourage them. We all experience enough negativity by just living in this fallen world. What we need is to speak life and blessing into one another's lives.

Who is there in your life that could use a fresh, life-giving word of encouragement today?

Be encouraged to go and make that person's day.

Upcoming Spiritual Renewal Month

I just want to put a few upcoming things on the radar for next year. Our focus as a church for January is Spiritual Renewal.

We will be having our annual week of prayer and fasting Jan. 13-19. We encourage everybody to participate in whatever way they feel that God is leading them. Some may fast for a day or two. Some may fast a meal a day or from entertainment. I will personally be doing a "nothing but liquid" fast during that time. Our goal during this week is to set aside some of the normal comforts of this life in order to focus more intensely on seeking God and drawing closer to him.

We will also be having our annual Spiritual Renewal Services Jan. 23-25 (W-F) at 7pm. These services will be devoted to pursuing God and will typically have a time of extended worship, a sermon, and a time of prayer and seeking God. Our guest speaker this year is Bobby Hawk. Bobby is a gifted preacher, pastor, and church planter from Pontiac, MI.

There's no better way to bring in the new year than to pursue God with all of our hearts!

Christmas Eve Service

Our Christmas Eve Service will be at 7:00pm on Monday, Dec. 24. I'm looking forward to this service for two reasons: I love Jesus and I love Christmas!

It's going to be a great time as we gather to celebrate our Lord's birth together!

Unwrapping The Pain Of Ongoing Trials

Had a great service this morning. My wife Jessica shared the 3rd message in our Unwrapped series on "The Pain of Ongoing Trials." Here's a short video clip testimony that we used as an illustration.

Bring Somebody With You

Perhaps more than any other time of the year, this is the time when most people are likely to go to church. For that reason, I'd like to encourage everybody to invite a friend to church during this holiday season.

Researchers have indicated that many non-churchgoers would be willing to attend a church if they were simply invited. One of our goals at ACC is to be a church where people feel comfortable, excited, and proactive about inviting their unchurched friends to attend.

Our current message series Unwrapped, also makes for a good invitation opportunity during this season. We're studying how to get honest with ourselves and God as we experience the difficulties, pains, and failures in life. You can also refer people to unwrapped07.com where they can register to receive a free $5.00 coffee card on their first visit.

Tips For Devotions

Check out a great post by Jeff Leake with some good practical tips for devotions.

Pastor's Meeting

This morning I met with a group of pastors from our MCM-Pittsburgh network. We try and get together weekly to encourage one another and share ideas. I really look forward to these gatherings. It's great to be able to meet with other pastors who can invest in my life and sharpen me like iron sharpening iron.

It's so true that "he who walks with the wise grows wise". It's so important for us to surround ourselves with people who build us up and encourage us in our walk of faith. I'll never forget what one of the pastors I served under used to say:

"Show me your friends and I'll show you your future"

There's definitely enough things in life that tend to pull us down and drain us. I'm thankful for this gathering of pastors that I can hang out with and be strengthened by.

What are some things you do to surround yourself with people who build you up?