Church | Flesh and Blood, Not Bricks and Mortar: Consumer or Contributor? - Part 3

Send us Fan MailFLESH AND BLOOD, NOT BRICKS AND MORTARConsumer or Contributor? - Part 3Springcreek Church | Senior Pastor Keith StewartSeptember 3, 2023https://www.springcreekchurch.org/#realspringcreekchurch #consumer #contributor #fleshandblood #bricksandmorar #church #thechurchisnotabuilding #wearethechurchWe need to be living proof of a loving God. This message is all about how God is leading us to do precisely that. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS1. Describe a time in your life when you felt most connected to other believers. Why did you feel so connected or cared for? How do you do that for others?2. Remaining anonymous and disconnected is a great temptation in a larger church. We sabotage ourselves in shortchanging our spiritual life, in depending exclusively on what we get from a weekend service, and in not being known or connected to others when troubles or difficulties arise. Have you ever done this and if so, why did you make the shift? How would you encourage someone to move into a deeper sense of connection with the church?3. The home is an ideal environment for the experience of church for many reasons. Can you name some of the reasons mentioned in the message or can you think of others that weren't addressed? 4. Take some time to re-read the quote by Alex Roxburgh. What stands out to you in this quote. What resonates and/or what does not and why?“We need a movement of God’s people into neighborhoods, to live out and be the new future of Christ. It must be a movement that demonstrates how the people of God have a vision and the power to transform our world. This is not the same as current attempts to grow bigger and bigger churches that act like vacuum cleaners, sucking people out of their neighborhoods into a sort of Christian supermarket. Our culture does not need any more churches run like corporations; it needs local communities empowered by the gospel vision of a transforming Christ who addresses the needs of the context and changes the polis (or city) into a place of hope and wholeness. The corporation churches we are cloning across the land cannot birth this transformational vision, because they have no investment in context or place; they are centers of expressive individualism with a truncated gospel of personal salvation and little else. Our penchant for bigness and numerical success as the sign of God’s blessing only discourages and deflects attempts to root communities of God’s people deeply into neighborhoods. And until we build transformed communities there is no hope for a broken earth.” - Alex Roxburgh5. What stirs your imagination? How might Springcreek leverage the resources it presently has to better serve our community? What sorts of businesses do you think could provide a meaningful service to our community and help create revenue that could be poured into serving the vulnerable in Garland and surrounding areas? Have you ever seen, read about or personally been involved in other churches doing similar things? If so, describe that to the group and talk about what you learned from them.