Why We Serve Sacrificially

As we embrace the dinner church model we find ourselves admitting that it's going to take a bit more to do church then just showing up for a service. With that in mind, Myisha covers exactly why we even have to serve sacrificially in first place and how it makes our church and our spiritual lives healthy.

Throwback: "Eat" in the BELLS Model

As we preached on food this past week and move towards the dinner church model this fall, we are uploading some old episodes reflecting on food to help train us for the change.

Throwback: Eat Like Jesus

As we preached on food this past week and move towards the dinner church model this fall, we are uploading some old episodes reflecting on food to help train us for the change.

Why We Eat Together

In his book, "Jesus the Temple," Nicholas Perrin notes that, "It is widely acknowledged that keeping varied and questionable company at dinner was one of the distinctive features of Jesus’ life." 

In today's message, Jamin elaborates on the power food has in life and ministry and why 1208's is incorporating food into their new model.

Why We Embrace Change

As we gear up to alter our model this fall, it's important we talk about why we even need to change as a church in the first place. The answer is pretty easy to see if we just take a look at our ordinary everyday lives. Over time we all have the ability to pick up some pretty nasty habits, which, if not kept in check, will eventually hurt us or even kill us. The church is very much the same. If we do not stay healthy as a church by embracing community, mission and communion with God, we will eventually get hurt and we may even die. The body of the Bride of Christ must stay healthy just as our normal bodies must. And it's into this analogy that Jamin dives in this message.

Q&A Ep 1: Christians and Gambling

It's our brand new Q&A podcast! In this first session, Jamin and Myisha take on the topic of gambling.

Is gambling ok if done recreationally and in moderation and all winnings are tithed to the church? (i.e. Is this different than the person who spends $80-100 a month on entertainment or hobbies?)

Paul's Comments on Women

Much of modern misogyny in the church can be attributed to Paul’s comments on women in the Bible. But is misogyny really what Paul intended to communicate? In today's message, Jamin takes a look at Paul's comments in 1 Corinthians 11 and sorts out what's at the heart of Paul's message. As it ends up, from a cultural perspective he is simply trying to establish order in light of creation, cosmology and science. All three of these points go over the heads of modern people because we think entirely different on all three subjects. Therefore, we can only truly understand what Paul is saying by getting into a head 2,000 years older than ours.

Chameleon Evangelism

So often the church takes Biblical truth and shoves it in people's faces without first submerging themselves into the world of those they're trying to reach. Such evangelism requires little sacrifice on our parts and ignores Paul's only evangelistic method to "become all things to all people." If we truly want to reach people, it often requires more effort than bold statements—though it doesn't mean we water down the Gospel either.

If in the end we are not relatable, then we can hardly be heard. God, of course, gives us the ultimate example of this truth: He puts on skin and comes and lives among us as Jesus to show us exactly what God looks like. He "chameleons" himself into the people He's reaching. He wears their skin, their culture, their understanding, their world, and in doing so, He clearly shows them who God is.

And so, this kind of chameleon evangelism is expected of us to an extent, too.

Judging Angels

In today's passage Paul rhetorically asks, "Do you not know that we are to judge angels?"—as though we would nod our heads in agreement and understanding. But truthfully, most of us would put our hands up and respond, "Actually, Paul, we don't know what you're talking about."

To understand what the apostle is saying, we have to get our head into his world and understand the spiritual mindset he lived in. Jamin works off Michael Heiser's book, The Unseen Realm, in order to establish the Bible's picture of a divine council and give some backing to Paul's blatant statement. As it ends up, he does have a context and the Bible gives us the ability to understand what he's getting at.

The Gentrification of Christianity

Just as cities often gentrify (like our own Jackson seems to currently be doing), so do our churches. Myisha explains how this process often works so that we can keep an eye out for the problem.

A Heavenly Reward

Paul offers a metaphor that interprets in a rather surprising way: While Christians are saved only by faith and belief in Christ, our works as Christians play a part in a reward to come in Heaven. Working with this metaphor, Jamin surveys similar explanations of the afterlife through Jesus' teachings and then invites us to let Christianity get so under our skin that our focus becomes entirely Heaven-focused. We don't need to live lives full of earthly riches now, but lives aimed at Heavenly riches later. And if we let Heaven get under our skin enough, we may just find that even basic things like our sex drives can be called into question.

The Scene of the Resurrection

There are a few interesting Biblical callbacks it seems John is giving us as he paints for us Jesus' tomb—that is, the scene of the resurrection. As we look at these possible references, we retrace the presence of God throughout history and pinpoint it on Jesus. Furthermore, we come to see Jesus' role in and as the presence of God in an important light.

The Presence of God

Because we're not used to going to temples to worship we often miss the significance of them throughout the Bible. For ancient people, temples were the places where their gods resided physically on the earth—and while Yahweh is omnipresent and everywhere, He still practiced this method of putting His concentrated presence in buildings. As it ends up, God's manifest presence has found a few homes throughout history: Eden, the tabernacle tent, Solomon's temple, Jesus, and us.

The theological impact of this message is crucial to understanding who we are as Christians, the supernatural ministerial power we can have, and the spiritual growth available to us. In today's podcast, Jamin starts at the very beginning and unfolds the story of God's temple throughout the ages and why all of this is important to us today.

Joyful Christianity

I've been really surprised that my chapter on joy in A Taste of Jesus has gotten the most comments. Apparently we have widespread difficulty in making this a part of the Christian faith. Today I shared some thoughts on this topic with a group at the Grande Villa Retirement Home.

Holy Spirit & the Imagination

In this message, Jamin works off of 1 Corinthians to explain that whatever you do to hear yourself think is what you need to do to hear God speak. We are all crafted differently and therefore connect with God in different ways. After explaining his own journey into discovering the Holy Spirit, he goes on to give a testimony from his life as to how he has used imagination to engage God's voice.

Elementary Christianity

Myisha takes a look at Hebrews in order to explain what makes up the milk that new Christians are to be fed.

Lady Wisdom

It feels like wishful thinking to imagine Jesus being physically present in the Old Testament. In fact, some would say that to read Jesus into the Old Testament in such a way is to abuse the Bible. But if that's true, then it seems like the New Testament writers themselves abused the Old Testament, because they seem to be attesting to his presence there.

In today's podcast, we dissect a number of verses that give plausibility to Jesus' pre-incarnate and Old Testament existence, whether it be in the physical form of Yahweh (a theophany), the Angel of Yahweh, or Lady Wisdom. The Bible paints a very intriguing and strange picture for us to consider, and it seems the New Testament writers want us to embrace the thought.

The Wisdom of God

Paul's theological cornerstone was to know nothing more than Christ crucified. This was not something he only had to remind himself of, but the Corinthian church as well; for they were trying to blend worldly wisdom into Christianity and suppress the message of the cross. Jamin and Myisha tag team preach their way through the topic of worldly and Godly wisdom.

Across Denominational Lines

The Bible never promotes division in the church. Not only did Jesus pray that we'd all be one, but Paul called the Corinthians out when they began to identify themselves too much with church leaders rather than with Christ. It is clear from the Scriptures that there was a struggle to keep the church unified and now two thousand years later we have hundreds of thousands of denominations—each one sharing in its own differences. The church looks less unified than ever. So how do we honor Jesus' prayer in light of all of this? I propose an option and it is not to turn away from denominations.

The Already But Not Yet

The Gospel of Mark has been forcing me to preach on a lot of eschatology at church lately. Today we took a look what theologians call, "the already but not yet"—an understanding of our currently place in spiritual history based on a tension we find all throughout the Scriptures. A Biblical Theology of the New Testament puts it succinctly.

The already/not yet tension. The outworking of God’s salvation is seen by Hebrews in an already/not yet tension, as in the New Testament in general. The decisive era in the fulfillment of God’s promises has been reached or inaugurated in Christ, so that in some sense the fulfillment is already present. But the consummation has not yet come, and significant events in God’s program are eagerly expected in the future.

This topic is fresh on my mind as it's a section of the new book I'm working on, The Rest & the Rush. The topic becomes crucial for understanding our place as Christians in the world and our work under the Holy Spirit. Check out the podcast for this morning's message.