VIDEO: Fearfully & Wonderfully Made: Joe & Heidi
Joe and Heidi share the story of their struggle with infertility as part of our teaching series called Fearfully & Wonderfully Made.
My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. -Psalm 139:15-16
A Story from Conversations
I love hearing stories of how God is at work in His church. Such stories remind me that it is normative for Jesus to be active in the lives and hearts of His people, and they remind me of the greater context in which we “do” church.
If you’ve been around RBC much at all, you already know that each year for the past six years we have hosted a stage production called Conversations the week before Easter. Through hospitality, music, real life stories, and dramatic vignettes, we seek to communicate the power of the Gospel of Jesus in a loving, practical and relevant way. There are many stories that can be shared about how Christ has used Conversations as a means to reach hearts for His glory, and I wanted to take time to share one with you in the form of an email that one of our staff received after this year’s production:
Thanks so much for your emails and for the personal card and gift in the mail. I really appreciate you reaching out, and have been meaning to write back to you for a while because I wanted to share an encouraging story with you. I hope that you will share this with others who may also be encouraged.
I have been looking for a new church recently, and Ali has recently joined me in my search over the last month or so. Ali has a mixed-faith background and described herself to me as a “seeker” when I broached the subject when we first became friends (just a few months ago). We came to visit RBC on Palm Sunday, and heard about Conversations. God has most certainly been pursuing Ali through various circumstances that have come together in just the right timing.
Although I consider myself a strong Christian, the last two years have been the toughest of my life. My faith and my motivation for evangelism has waned lower than ever. However, despite my recent brokenness and struggles, God used RBC and me to draw Ali to himself. When we attended Conversations that Tuesday night, we were both incredibly impressed and moved to tears. Afterward, I invited Ali in to chat, and I had the privilege of leading her in a prayer to give her life to Christ, just before Easter. I wanted to share this with you because I know that those involved in Conversations will be greatly encouraged to know that they were a key role in Ali’s decision. Conversations also greatly encouraged and softened my somewhat hardened heart – praise God!
Ali and I are signed up for the Starting Point class that begins this coming Sunday, and she is eagerly reading her bible daily, always excited to pray and worship and attend church. I not only praise God for bringing Ali into an eternal relationship with Him, but also the incredible encouragement she is to me!
Thanks again for the warm welcome to RBC.
For His Glory,
Kristin
While church productions and programs come and go, the work of Jesus remains steadfast and strong and will endure for eternity. What a humbling thought that He would use so small a thing as a stage production to do a great and lasting work in the hearts of those who saw and heard what Jesus has done in the lives of others. Be encouraged – God is at work in His church.
Have a story to tell from your experience at Conversations this year? I’d love to hear about it.
VIDEO: The Road Less Traveled
To register for the 2010 RBC Marriage Conference featuring Paul Goodnight (May 7-8, 2010), go to www.restonbible.org/marriage.
Fearfully & Wonderfully Made
People of the Spirit
Is it just me, or is there a certain elusiveness to that third member of the Trinity? You know the one. Father, Son and… who? Ah, yes. Holy Spirit. While I can perceive (faintly, dimly) of the awesomeness of God the Father through the majestic revelation of Jesus the Son, I often feel like I draw a mental blank in relating to the Spirit. My brain knows the theology of this third co-equal, co-eternal Person, but do I really know? You know?
About six years ago, I was handed the keys to our Young Adults ministry here at RBC. As a young, nervous wannabe pastor, I thought an appropriate first teaching series would be a boot-camp style basics of Christianity. The week before Halloween it just so happened that the topic was the Holy Spirit, and I cleverly titled my message “Ghost Story” – which turned out to be a rather embarrassing foreshadowing of my own shallow grasp of the Holy Spirit. About halfway through my message, I noticed that I kept referring to the Holy Spirit as “it” rather than “He.” Convicting? Believe it. After publicly repenting several times in the middle of my sermon, it’s not a mistake I’ve (knowingly) made since – but it did reveal something that has stuck with me: The Holy Spirit makes me nervous. I might go as far to say that I’m a even a little afraid of Him. Continue reading
A Living Room Testimony: Bridget
Bridget Goetz shares her story of God’s faithfulness as He drew her out of self-reliance to deep dependence on Christ. This video was originally shown at the 2010 Reston Bible Church Women’s Retreat.
A Living Room Testimony: Leighann
RBCer Leighann Marquiss shares her family’s story of their son, Ryan, born against all odds with Pentalogy of Cantrell which includes ectopia cordis and a host of other heart defects. This video was originally shown at the 2010 Reston Bible Church Women’s Retreat. You can learn more about the Marquiss family and their story at http://marquissclan.blogspot.com
Why We Use Social Media at Reston Bible Church
As a church whose greatest desire is to know Christ and to make Him known, we are bearers of the greatest message of all time. The constant proclamation of the gospel – both for the edification of believers and the awakening of sinners – is our duty and delight. Though the truths of the Gospel are innately powerful and timeless, the means through which the Gospel is communicated are as varied as history and culture.
Are all means of relaying the gospel good, effective, or equal? Not at all. Nor should all believers necessarily engage in certain means and methods of communicating the gospel. However, this is not to say that those means and methods be automatically dismissed for all merely because of individual conviction or cultural popularity. In an article entitled “Why and How I am Tweeting,” one pastor points out two prevailing responses toward internet-based social media (blogs, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.):
One says: These media tend to shorten attention spans, weaken discursive reasoning, lure people away from Scripture and prayer, disembody relationships, feed the fires of narcissism, cater to the craving for attention, fill the world with drivel, shrink the soul’s capacity for greatness, and make us second-handers who comment on life when we ought to be living it. So boycott them and write books (not blogs) about the problem.
The other response says: Yes, there is truth in all of that, but instead of boycotting, try to fill these media with as much provocative, reasonable, Bible-saturated, prayerful, relational, Christ-exalting, truth-driven, serious, creative pointers to true greatness as you can.
The Creative Arts team of RBC resonates with that second type of response. We would put the use of social media in the category of “missional contextualization.” That is to say, these are culturally relevant tools used to reach and teach in ways people around us are familiar with. Just as a missionary would study and use the language and culture of a people group in order to reach them as effectively as possible, so we desire to use social media and other communication technology as a way of effectively reaching, teaching and preaching to those around us.
The New Testament in particular clearly shows us the importance of missionally contextualizing Gospel truth. Scripture emphasizes communicating its timeless truth in ways that people of specific times and cultures can understand and relate to. As a brief example, Jesus often teaches in simple parables about coins, sheep, seeds and bread (Luke 15:1-10, Matt. 13, John 6) – these are visual themes his audience can relate to and connect with in order to grasp biblical truths. Paul likewise reasons with Jews from their own Scriptures, quotes pop-culture literature to philosophers and references familiar pagan gods in order to contextualize the Gospel and teach about Jesus (Acts 17). And undoubtedly, the greatest example of missional contextualization is God the Father, who entered into humanity and engaged in human culture as Jesus the Son in order to visibly explain Himself to us in a way that we could relate to, connect with and understand (John 1:14, Gal 4:4-5, 1 Tim. 3:16).
Again, as Christians, we are vessels of the greatest message ever – the gospel. Both believers and non-believers alike are in continual need of the gospel and its application to our lives. Social websites, graphic design, videography, etc., are timely methods to speak into the culture of Northern Virginia (and beyond) with the purpose of proclaiming and reinforcing the worth, relevance, and glory of the gospel of Jesus. Though vastly inferior to the gospel itself, we consider these methods as vessels useful in proclaiming Christ’s great worth. To Him be the glory as we seek to know Him and make Him known through social media.