Posts Tagged "God Story"

A God Story: Mars Hill Church – “God’s Work, Our Witness”

Mars Hill Church, planted and led by Pastor Mark Driscoll is one of the most influential mega-churches churches in the United States. They are the 43rd largest AND the 43rd fastest growing church in the USA. In my opinion, numbers only matter because they are potentially an indication of Holy Spirit actively changing lives and of Jesus’ name being known / multiplied in the nations.

Mars Hill is much more than a “big church”; they are a church that preaches the Gospel soundly, passionately, unapologetically, loudly, and devoutly. They also provide many many many many many (many many!) teaching and training resources  to believers, non-believers, ministry leaders, and other churches.

Mars Hill recently launched a sermon series “God’s Story, Our Witness” (I really like that sermon series title!) by releasing a video that tells the story of Mars Hill from the beginning to today (the video located at the bottom of this post). The leaders and servants at Mars Hill Church were horribly and wonderful ill-equipped by all accounts. They would never have been capable of what’s been accomplished if not for the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s why I call it a God Story! Praise God for their obedience.

While it is no secret I am a fan of Driscoll’s direct, “intellectual”, and fervent teaching… The purpose of this “God Story” is NOT to extol Driscoll… but to praise God for the beautiful collision of the transforming power of the Holy Spirit with submitted, faithful, hard working disciples. As Christians, we should celebrate, learn from, be thankful for, be inspired by, and be driven to action by God’s work through and in other believers. (… continue reading…)

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God Stories: The Hypocritical Characters & the Beautiful Endless Loop of the Gospel

Note: This short post introduces a new “column” at Christian Marriage Spice called “God Stories”. The first “God Story” will be posted next week.

God Stories = Crazy, Unbelievable Insanity

I love God stories. God stories are crazy, joyful, hilarious, non-traditional, painful, confusing, wild, unbelievable, exhausting, frustrating, emotional, overwhelming… and often lead us far beyond the perceivable end of sanity. The counter-intuitive beauty is that this “insanity point” is often where many of us experience God in a uniquely pure, more real, more whole, and supernatural way. This insanity point is where God makes Himself and His provision known profoundly.

These insanity points are where we are challenged with the Truths of the Gospel… and equally  importantly, where the Good News is NEEDED, EXPERIENCED, and PREACHED. Most of us are careful to try and never actually get to these insanity points. We do everything we can to ignore God and indulge complacent comfort.

Life stories are God Stories because they show us how great God is, how deficient we are, and excellently proficient we are only in Him. They occur far beyond our capacities, imaginations, personal provision, abilities, and capabilities. They depend on God. Afterwords (and hopefully sometimes during), we look at God and think… “How in the world can this be reality?” or “I can’t believe that happened or that we were able to endure that… Praise God”. [… continue reading]

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