Thoughts on our Easter Weekend (Fox25 News, Globe, Baptisms & more)

What can I say but that I am totally blown away by God.  I tried to pick an adjective to describe the weekend - monumental, transformative, catalytic - but couldn't. 

Monumental? Seems like the peak of something, and this is just the beginning of what God is going to do. 

Transformative? Yes. But as some of you know God has been transforming many in our midst for some time, and those of you who have been praying with us the last month weren't blindsided by this at all.

Catalytic?  Only if we allow it to be.  And to allow it to be we must become a church filled with people who, as one young woman from our church put it this weekend, are "recklessly abandoned" to the call of Jesus no matter the cost. (1)

Weekend Highlights

• 3 Prophetic words God gave us during the week of prayer to start April being fulfilled
• Love of God filling club and pouring out into streets (on Easter there was standing room only with 127 chairs setup and our welcomers were greeeting outside the doorway)
• Nets being broken open and Holy Spirit being poured out (it was absolutely electric at times and real conviction from the Holy Spirit for those responding to the message)
• Spiritual gifts being released on Easter Sunday (leading up to and the morning of Easter God released gifts of knowledge, wisdom, faith, and prophecy which directly related to all 127 sits being filled and the salvations & baptisms that tooks place)

One
 Mission
  Serve The
    City

• 40+ people from Newfrontiers churches in the Northeast (Boston, Portsmouth, Norwalk, Portland) serving the a local Boston housing development in the pouring rain and giving Boston residents a tangible reason to celebrate this Easter. These volunteers worked so hard with such joy. I am priveleged to be a part of a group that embraces Jesus' example of servanthood like that.(Check out facebook.com/fenwaychurch for more pictures!)
• 2 people making first time commitments to follow Jesus and be baptized.
• 3 people total spontaneously deciding to be water baptized!!!
• Boston Globe Article from our International Sunday helping drive our website hit total to 273 up 225% from the previous week
• FOX25 filming our Easter Service (watch the segment below to get a great feel for what it was like on Sunday!)
• All of you (you know who you are) who prayed at early morning prayers AND participated on evangelism teams on Friday night AND prayed and worshiped late Friday night AND woke up the next morning and served all day at One Mision AND rehearsed later on Saturday AND got to church at 8AM on Sunday AND SAW GOD MOVE IN WAYS WE'D NEVER SEEN BEFORE. You guys are my heroes.
• Worship team, setup team, prayer team, welcome team, my staff team, breakdown team, kid's church team and all the various people who just kept jumping in to help so that everything that took place this weekend could happen.  Your reward is great in heaven.  It is a joy to serve with you.  Some day we are going to be a part of a party that doesn't stop.
• The Fox newscaster who said, "Their next venue might be House of Blues." (only seen if you watched it live). You words may just be more prophetic then you will ever know.
• EVERYONE who PERSONALLY invited a friend. Almost every single one of our guests who was there came because a friend brought them.  Publicity is nice, but the kingdom grows because we love others enough to invite them into our journey and an encounter with Jesus.
• And finally, a tweet that somes so much of this weekend up...

@littlewilds: @David_W_Hill dude! We can't go back 2 "normal" christian living anymore. We gotta do today more often #OneMission #success

The best is yet to come #fenfam!
 
Love you all so much,
 
David W

(1) To that end, let me put in a plug to listen (or listen again) to our two Easter messages at http://www.fenwaychurch.org/media.php?pageID=5 They reveal just why we believe Jesus is so worth our while to follow...

One Mission: Serve the City (Saturday April 23)

Time: Saturday, April 23 · 9:30am - 5:00pm

Location: Abundant Grace Church // Faneuil Gardens Housing Development // 77 Guest Street  Boston, MA

"As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it for me..." - Jesus

A day of service with college students & 20s from Boston and the region to give a community something to celebrate this Easter. Restore grounds, paint apartments, and give back to the city.

Lunch will be provided.

If you plan to attend the event, please register at the link below:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dExzZ2ZzRHV6aVJ1ZkZpX1pwdEFnaHc6MQ

Directions via Public Transit from Kenmore Square! Click here
 
 
A Newfrontiers Northeast Event

Contact David W. Hill, dwhill@fenwaychurch.org for more info.

Notes from the Story of Lot's Daughters

Here are some follow up notes I have out to our Community Group (CG leaders) following the message I preached on Lot's daughters (Genesis 19) on March 20, 2011.  You can listen to the message here: http://www.fenwaychurch.org/media.php?pageID=5

The notes have been divided into three sections.
1. The Story
2. The Story Continues (Ruth)
3. The Parallels of the Stories of Lot & Noah (personally I find this fascinating and instructive but you will have to read until the end, :)

The BIG IDEA in this story is that God's mercy is always greater than my sin. To me that is the story of the Bible and no story illustrates this so clearly. The way to see this theme is by looking at ways a couple of different scriptures connect. I think this story more than any other story we have done will give your CG a chance to look at how different passages of scripture connect together. To accomplish that, you will need to take a look at a couple of these scriptures yourself before hand!

 

1. The Story

 

Read Genesis 19:30-38
Notes

 

- How would you have felt if you were Lot's daughters in this situation? What led them to think up such a shocking plan? It is important to note here that up until this point their lives have been dictated by others. How have people in your group experienced or been led into sin by others? It may be worth discussing or at least keeping in the back of your mind as we approach this story. We cannot condone their act, but I am certainly sympathetic towards their plight. Some members of your CG may have experienced or witnessed horrible sins be careful not to focus on how bad this was it may people push people away from experiencing God's mercy and freedom from shame.

 

- The story of Lot in Genesis ends abruptly. Romans 6:23 states, "The wages of sin is death." Lot's life comes to an abrupt end such is the wages of sin. Do we really believe that sin leads to death? What sins are we holding onto or ignoring (or embracing) in our lives?

 

 

2. The Story Continues

Read Deuteronomy 2:9,19
Notes: How does God tell the Israelites to treat Moab and Ammon? Why? An amazing example of God's grace. He is providing for the descendants of this sordid incident. He remembers Lot and his daughter's despite their sins (drunkness and incest). If this is so, why would we ever doubt God's grace towards us through the provision of his own Son when we sin?

 

Read Ruth 1:4-5,15-18
Notes:  One of great,great... grandaughters of one of Lot's daughters is Ruth. God will divinely orchestrate the events of Ruth's life (the arrival of her husband due to the famine, the death of her husband, and later she happens open Boaz's food) to make a path for her (she is the great,great grandmother of King David) to participate in God's long-awaited rescue plan - Jesus. Her willingness to face her fears

Read more »

Fenway Church Summer Internship

Fenway Church is receiving applications for a six-week summer internship program (May 16 - June 28) until March 6. To fill out an application go to: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dDU0aGEwaDRTakRINkN0UWVrV0RLR1E6MQ#gid=0
Here is a preview of what to expect!

Mission Statement:
To equip those interested in engaging local and global mission fields through the local church in a six week intensive of discipleship and community engagement.
Who:
Those willing to take a break from normal living to focus on spiritual formation, community living, and discovering what Jesus meant when he said, “Come, follow me.”

Training Capsules
Discipleship (Week 1 and 2)
Become more like Jesus through personal/spiritual inventories, doing what Jesus did, living in Christian community, and being trained in Christ-likeness.

Community Engagement (Week 3 and 4)
Find a cause through assessing a community, developing neighborhood relationships, and volunteering in local non-profits.

World Missions (Week 5 and 6)
Awaken a vision for world missions through spiritual/global mapping, Biblical study, and interaction with international missionaries. 

The internship will end at Newfrontiers Northeast Celebration weekend, June 24-26.

Foundations: Scripture // Bible Reading Plans for 2011

This Sunday we are going to be starting our series on "Foundations" with a look at the spiritual discipline of Scripture reading. 

Why read the whole Bible?
One of the great attributes of the Bible is that it tells a story.  Coming from a "church" background, I was surprised when I got to Boston University and discovered that several of my most well educated, secular college friends were not familiar with some of the most well-known Bible stories like Noah and Abraham.  I also found in church among my generation few attendees have actually read through the whole Bible.

To not have read the whole Bible and become familiar with it is similar to only reading a couple chapters in the middle of a large novel.  You don't know all the characters; you can't figure out the whole plot; and you could even get a totally confused about what the author is trying to communicate.

Bible Reading Plans
Therefore, it is important to read through the whole Bible.  To do that you will likely need a plan and a community.  There are 3 resources below that will help you plan for how to read through the Bible in 1 year.  My wife (Betsy) and I are going to be using the plan and resources that Journey Church in St. Louis has generously provided online (see option #2 below). 

I want to enourage everyone involved in Fenway Church to consider committing to do a plan together with others in our church; the accountability, encouragement and discussion that will come out of it will be valuable.  A building is only as strong as it's foundations - let's dig deep together this year!

1) 10 reading plans from the EVS Study Bible website (a study Bible I use): http://www.esv.org/resources/reading-plans-devotions/

*recommended*
2)  This plan was developed by Journey Church (an Acts 29 church in St. Louis).  It involves reading only 3 chapters (1 NT, 2 OT) a day with an an off day every 4 days.  If you are like me, the off day is key for catching up or reflecting on what you have red.  To make this plan possible, they pull out 12 of the more confusing and dense books of the Bible and provide video snapshots that provide a background for the book and then encourage you to speed read them in one sitting to catch the main ideas of the book. Here are the links:

Vision and explanation of plan includuing guidelines for how to read the Bible effectively and an introduction to the Bible's mega-narrative (I highly recommend reading through this .pdf it is a rich resource!)
http://journeyon.net/sites/default/files/attachements/blog/BibleReadingPlan.pdf

Introductory and Snapshot videos to each book of the Bible.  (I watched two and they were great, hoping the rest will have similar quality and content)
http://journeyon.net/media/engage-scripture

3) A pair of bookmarks that let you check off days and leave buffer days for each month. It more typical of traditional Bible plans in that it has you read from 4 different parts of the Bible each day. http://www.navpress.com/uploadedFiles/15074%20BRP.dj.pdf

Thoughts for the FenFam as we head into 2011

To my Fenway Church Family (#fenfam on twitter),

I love the start of a new season.  I think God wired me that way.  I love the anticipation of Opening Day, the preparation for the start of new YMCA basketball league season where everyone starts at 0-0 and no matter how bad your teams was last year you have a shot at the championship this year. 

I love looking at a blank canvass and dreaming about what could be painted on it (although I have no skill in painting - I can DREAM up a killer picture in my mind).

And, I love church planting because God takes a small group of messed up people and creates something with their shared lives that impacts not only the world but eternity.  He takes our past seasons and our unknown futures, and He creates a masterpiece.

So as we begin 2011, I am excited.  It's a new year, and many people are considering changes that they want to make to their lives.  Some of us have had time to relax and reflect over Christmas. As I did yesterday I was driving back from western Pennsylvania... 

I was considering the New Year, what ideas needed to come through in the preaching series, ways our church could grow and work together more this year... and God directed my thoughts from all my plans, desires, and dreams to past New Year's Eves and how every year for the last 10+ years when I've looked back at the year that is ending and thought about the year that is begining I've had the same thought:
I wish I had prayed and shared my faith more last year.  I want to pray and share my faith more this year.

To me if you read the New Testament and you read what Jesus said and watch how he and his disciples lived, if you forget about church structures and strageties and leadership gatherings, if you step a side from the discussion of how the band sounded and how long the message went, if you just read the gospels and the book of Acts, you can't really escape this message that comes pulsating through.  Life is about knowing Jesus and loving others. 

The main way I get to know Jesus is through prayer.  Prayer the way Jesus taught it - closing the door to everything on the outside, being alone with him and his Word (the Bible), and opening up our hearts, minds, and mouths to him.  And prayer the way the disciples did it - gathering daily to seek God together and experiencing his power corporately.

The way I love others is by sharing Jesus with them.  Jesus said, "What does it gain a man if he gains the whole world but forfeits his soul." (Mark 8:36)  We can be people's best friends, we can be servants of the poor but if we enable others through our love and companionship to gain things here on earth but we never introduce them to Jesus we have done them a great disservice - they will forfeit their souls. 

So for another year in a row, I am setting my heart on Jesus.  I want to follow him to the place of prayer, and I want to share him with those God places around me.

In January at Fenway Church, we are going to be talking about Foundations - the practices of scripture reading, being filled with the Holy Spirit, working in team, and confessing our sin that root us in the our foundation stone, Jesus. What I've discovered is that these practices drive me to prayer and witness.  My prayer for our church this year is that as we discover Jesus together we would gain an even greater capacity to pray with him and love like him in 2011.

Grace and peace to all God's adopted kids at Fenway Church and to those who don't know they've been adopted yet may you come to know the Father this year...

David W.

Metro - Music venue ‘Church’ is also rocking Jesus

Metro - Music venue ‘Church’ is also rocking Jesus

Check out this article about our church by Justin A. Rice that landed on the front page of the Metro Boston on December 20, 2010.  Great publicity and positive article!  Great job by Justin and the Metro.