Scott's Thoughts: Sun, Feb 12, 2023

As part of needing to do a good rhythm and balance of both all-church and campus-specific things, we are trying a couple new adult “WinterSpring” retreats! Both are all-church events and are at Longview Ranch (longviewranch.com). While many of our FCC Staff will be there and you’ll know some friendly faces, come meet some believers from other local churches and be encouraged by the fellowship, teaching, games, and other such activities. We would really love to see you there! (Life Group Leaders, this would be a good thing to sign up for together!)

Adult Men, Fri-Sun, Feb 26-28 — In what I’m sure will be a weekend filled with lots of dangerous axe throwing, arm wrestling, and meat eating, we will likely also sit around a campfire, sing God’s praises, study His Word, and pray for one another to be the man God created us to be for those under our care. We’ll be studying the life of David and yours truly will be preaching, (so what could better than that?! Please don’t actually answer.) Details and sign-ups are at fccgreene.org/retreats or the top of the “Home” page on the app. Dads, bring along your 13-21 yr-old sons free!

Adult Women, Fri-Sun, Mar 17-19 — While there may not be much in the way of axe throwing or beating of chests as the Men’s Retreat, there will be plenty of time to develop deeper relationships with sisters in Christ and to study God’s Word together. (And yes, you can leave early to get to church to serve on Sunday morning. In fact, please do—we need you!) Details and sign-ups are at fccgreene.org/retreats or the top of the “Home” page on the app.

In keeping with our pattern of rotating between a systematic doctrinal/theological study, explaining and unpacking our Elders Position Papers (fccgreene.org/beliefs, scroll down to the bottom), and reading and discussing a book of cultural or theological import, it’s time for BB&B Book Club! Beginning with the most recent posting (Episode #87), we are reading and discussing R. C. Sproul’s classic Holiness of God. We’ve still got another 4-5 more episodes where we discuss its contents along the way, so you’ve got plenty of time to catch up. Buy a copy in The Hub, get to reading, and join us for our discussion!

You can follow BB&B on the app (under “Watch” > “Media”), on Facebook or YouTube, and at fccgreene.org/bbb.

We’re "resurrecting" our 2020 Easter@NPAC plans that were messed up by Covid and are really excited for all 3 campuses to be together for one big worship service at the Niswonger Performing Arts Center on Easter Sunday! (Just to clarify this means no services at any of our 3 campuses that day.) While there’s not much detail to tell yet, please pray that we use this as an opportunity not just to come together as a church to celebrate the Resurrection, but to invite friends and family who need Jesus and/or don’t have a home church.

Here’s what we know at this point:

• Sun, Apr 9, 10 AM, at NPAC
• Childcare for preschool only
• We’ve got a couple special service elements planned.
• We’ve ordered invite cards and yard signs on the way soon. (You may need to replace your 3rd campus launch signs!)
• It’s not ready yet, but fcceaster.org will have all the details.

For now, please pray with us, that God will continue to prepare our hearts and bless our efforts to reach Greene County with the gospel. More details soon…

Even though our Next Steps class (fccgreene.org/nextsteps) and what seems like every other Scott’s Thoughts post lately have made this point about our method of preaching and teaching—and perhaps I am insecure and fixated on building an apologetic against my detractors?! (Nah!)—nonetheless, it’s worth saying, again, as we embark on a new series on Exodus and for how it relates to your participation and growth.

If you’re expecting a nice feel-good and namby-pamby pick-me-up to help you make it through the week, you will likely be quite bored here at FCC. We are not particularly interested in dumbing down to humanity’s intellectually lazy self-interests. (Ok, well, I’m not interested. Or at least I’m trying, and sometimes failing, at not being interested in dumbing down.)

Anyway… If you want frothy warm fuzzies, want to hear someone preach in a way that assumes God’s Word is meant to validate your feelings, have little interest in actual spiritual growth, and assume everything good must be easy, understandable, and manageable, your search may be fruitless at FCC.

(Two parenthetical thoughts. (1) I occasionally hear feedback about “how wordy” and/or “complex” our sermons are. Yes, I occasionally talk too fast and string together a series of somewhat difficult words. But most of us have no legitimate reason for our refusal to learn other than time constraints. Notice I did not include our lack of humility nor laziness as legitimate reasons. (And no, I am not including your internally militant trauma-based margins of control. Are they real? Yes. Should they guide you? Not if they keep you or others under your care from growing. Join us in re:gen to work on applying the gospel of grace to… all that. (And to your lack of humility to learn more.) Seriously… if you’re that “mature Christian” who is sure you “have already deeply processed” your stuff, re:gen is about much more than that, stubborn goober.) Now, when it comes to laziness, if ~85-88% of the global population has a smartphone on hand (statista.com), you can look up the word, lazy bones. I basically fundamentally reject one’s refusal to learn and grow as a valid reason to not engage with the sermon. (2) As it relates to the idea that studying the Scriptures is somehow less emotionally satisfying, heart-based, or spiritual, I am increasingly convinced that some of the source of the current obsession with personal emotional validation is an entirely false and inhumane separation between the mind and the heart. For me, the idea that intellectual truths are somehow unrelated to and divorced from real emotion is total… farcical… bunk. When I am studying the truths of the Scriptures, even as an exercise of the mind, I feel myself being strengthened by them! I am experiencing, in my body, the emotions associated with what I am reading and thinking.) Parenthetical rant over.

So, as a way to produce producers who have a 7H vision for their lives, instead of more lazy spiritual consumers who care only about self, we very intentionally preach and teach in order to engage you with and from the Scriptures themselves—to help ensure that we are taught not by man but by the Great Shepherd. (It’s all over John 3, 6, and 10, where Jesus speaks of how the sheep hear God’s voice, so that (John 6:45, e.g.) there will be “one flock, one shepherd” (John 10:16)). We preach and teach so that you will need to have a Bible open for yourself if you’re going to get anything out of the message. We teach so you will learn how to rightly handle and wisely apply God’s Word—not so you will make it through the week but so you will make it through your life!

For the sake of your soul, marriage, kids, this community, and the integrity to live as if your trust in Christ is rooted in eternal truth and not merely emotions-as-identity, don’t settle for being yet another bump-on-a-log consumer—learn to be engaged by and from the Scriptures themselves!