Matt's Blog

Some Monday morning thoughts…

• I’m blown away by the passion and excellence of our volunteers!  I believe we have some of the best volunteers in the world.  Yesterday had excellence and the love of Christ written over all we did
• One person came up to me after the message yesterday and said, “I wish someone would have told me all this 30yrs ago!”  So even though the material for this series is sensitive it’s worth the risk.  I’m tired of lives being damaged and destroyed because we lack the courage to talk about sex in the church.
• I’m both pumped and nervous about next weeks message addressing “same-sex-attraction”.  People matter deeply to God – so they matter deeply to us.  If you remember could you keep my in your prayers as I prep for this message.  Our hope and prayer is the SouthPoint will be a SAFE place for people to encounter Jesus.
• btw – just a reminder.  It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to change people not ours!
• Kudo’s to our children’s team…I continue to get rave reviews from parents and visitors whose kids love what happens on Sunday mornings.
• I excited that SouthPoint is about to take the next step in acquiring a potential piece of property and can’t wait to share the details as they get finalized.
• Amazing…in January we will CELEBRATE our 5 year anniversary as a church.
• Can’t wait to see how God will use the staff and creative team this week to prep for our Christmas Eve service – start inviting now, you won’t want to miss it!
• I’m really looking forward to spending some quality time with Stephanie today – just me and her.  Can’t believe I’m married to her – yeah :  )

Enjoy today…

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Halloween may be this week, but at SouthPoint we’re doing something even scarier than that.  We’re going to talk about SEX (yes, that’s right) for four weeks straight.  We decided to roll the dice and do a message series at SouthPoint called “seXplicit”.  From November 1st through 22nd we’re going to talk about sexuality, porn, same-sex attraction, and great sex in marriage.  I feel pretty passionate about doing this series – no pun intended!

Why am I so bent on talking about this subject?  Well, I’m tired of hearing story after story of broken and destroyed lives because people have bought what the world sells when it comes to sex.  How many times do I have to hear about someone being molested when they were little?  How many times do I have to hear about an adulterous relationship that has ship-wrecked another marriage?  How many times do I have to hear “I’m  pregnant” or “I caught an STD and now I’m damaged goods”?  How many times do I have to hear how porn has a person locked in a dungeon of shame?

Not only am I tired…I’m mad.  I mad that the church as a whole EITHER doesn’t talk about sex at all or we guilt people and make sex irrelevant.  Jesus died and rose again so our sexuality can be redeemed – it’s part of who we are!  Why can’t we talk about sex and our hurts in a way that allows GRACE to win!

So I was wondering if you would be willing to help me.  I would really appreciate your PRAYERS over the next month.  I’m begging God that He will give me the courage and wisdom to speak graciously and boldly about the issues that people deal with in real every day life.

Invite a friend…cause I believe God is going to do some amazing things over the next four weeks!

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I’d like to steal a portion of a quote I heard and make it my own.  I believe,  “Whatever you say about the Church is probably true.” You could say the church is irrelevant and in some cases you’d be right.  You could say the church has become an institution only concerned with its own survival and in some cases you’d be right.  You could say the church is full of judgmental and hypocritical people and in some cases you’d be right.  You could say the church has abandoned sound Biblical theology and in some cases you’d be right.

But this is one statement I think gets thrown around in church circles especially here in North America that may be more myth than true.  “The church is dying!”  Yes, some churches are dying.  However, “the Church” with a capital C is not.  I mean Jesus Himself said in Matthew 16:18 that the gates of hell will NOT prevail against the Church.

I just came back from the Innovate 09 conference sponsored by Granger Community church and all I can say is WOW!  They had two sessions, one called the arts mash up and the other was the film festival.  Man…are there some innovative churches knocking it out of the park to be Jesus to the world around them.  I mean these weren’t all mega-churches, these were regular churches with passionate people on -fire for Jesus who wanted to bring “up there down here”!  I know in some evangelical books and blogs it’s hip to say churches suck…but there are so many awesome things churches are doing to be Christ to the world around them: One church is making meals for inner city football players who often play on empty stomachs; a church in Florida has this thing called “Flavor Fest” and another church came up with “Dirty Water”  campaign to build wells in Africa.

So, yes whatever you say about the church MAY be true.  However it may be a myth that the church is dying.  If we looked and listened we just might discover that God is still using the church in amazing ways to point people to Jesus.

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