We just completed our annual consistory retreat celebrating the leaders God has called to serve Cedar Hills. Our guest speaker, Dave Bartlett, raised our awareness of the two key callings we have as Elders, Deacons, and staff. We are called to grow and lead.

Our first priority as leaders is grow spiritually as we follow Jesus. We grow in our walk with God in the same ways we expect the congregation to grow. Our next priority is to lead as people surrendered to God’s plans for the congregation. It is God’s
church not ours, and so we lead with our hands open ready to receive from God. Leaders lead by surrendering to God’s leadership.

God has been leading us to grow a ministry to make disciples who make disciples in the everyday stuff of life. (Matthew 28:18-20) This means that we want every disciple to follow Jesus 168 hours every week. In 2018 we believe that God is calling us to grow disciples who make disciples by developing missional communities. Missional communities are committed to look out to those we live with every day—family members, co-workers, neighbors, classmates—and love them in intentional ways.

Missional communities are not an activity or program added to our already full lives, they are communities who take Jesus everywhere they go. Please pray for the Consistory and staff as we grow and lead! Pray for the vision of missional communities as we explore and discover God’s leading in the next year.

Cedar Hills Consistory

“For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” ~ Habakkuk 2:14

This verse speaks of a day when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Waters covering the sea! That’s saturation.

Later Jesus promised that “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’“ (John 7:28). Gospel saturation starts with lives filled with Jesus so that Jesus shapes everything we do every day. When this happens good news flows out of us to others. God’s plan is for the whole earth to be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord one day. This is gospel saturation.

God longs for the day when every man, woman, and child in every corner of the world will have a daily encounter with Jesus in word and deed through His people, the Church. Gospel saturation is God’s vision for the world. God plans to accomplish this vision through normal, everyday people saturated with the presence of Jesus in the everyday stuff of life.

Ephesians 2 describes this life: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:8-10).

While most consider Ephesians 2:8-9, the key to making disciples, Ephesians 2:10 is often overlooked. Salvation by grace alone is a cornerstone of our faith and it is also clear that after receiving salvation by this grace, God-ordained, good works are sure to follow. According to Matthew 28, we make disciples of Jesus by “teaching them to obey everything,”

Jesus commanded. In his ministry, Jesus consistently performed unbiased acts of love and service, modeling compassion for all people. Jesus’ love for his neighbors was undeniable.  In the parable of the sheep and the goats, Jesus sets the expectation that true followers will care for the hungry, thirsty, isolated, imprisoned, or naked. (Matthew 25:31-46). These words cannot be ignored if we are making disciples who look like Jesus. Disciples who follow Jesus’ love.

Gospel saturation focuses on making disciples who make disciples who love in the everyday stuff of life. These disciples are equipped to do the works God desires (Ephesians 4:12) so that one day the whole world will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God, as the waters cover the sea.

Following Jesus,
Pastor Kent