Mcc Podcast

There is an organization from Europe known as BLTC Research. The company was founded in 1995 in order to promote what they call “paradise-engineering.” One of their stated goals is to deliver “genetically pre-programmed well-being.” According to their scientists - using our “super-minds” and genetic engineering - mankind can abolish both physical and mental pain altogether. They plan to create super-health and usher in a cruelty-free world. No suffering.   Now that’s an interesting world-view, but you know as well as I do, it’s absolutely ridiculous. We saw last week that we live in a fallen world and that bad things happen to good people. In fact, both God’s Word and human experience demonstrate that human suffering helps us mature and that the experience of suffering forces us to lean more heavily upon God.   Last week we read the story of Job that so many people are familiar with. This week we will see what we can learn from the conversation between Job and his friends who came to “comfort him.”

Job lived 4500 years ago. And the book of Job was probably the first book in the Bible. He predated Moses who wrote the first 5 books of the Bible.   Q: Why, you may ask, am I telling you that?  A: The first divinely inspired book written deals with humanity’s age-long mystery; why do good people suffer? Some things never change.   There comes a time in every life, just like in Job’s, when you will wonder the same thing. It’s as if all hell has broken loose. Suddenly. Unexpectedly.   It happens to all of us. No one is exempt. One way or another, tragedy strikes every life. And then the doubts begin. The questions:  Why is this happening to me?  What have I done to deserve this?  God, what’s wrong with me?  God, don’t You still love me?   I want to warn you now:  There will be lessons in this series you won’t want to hear. We will likely read verses that will raise more questions than they answer. Some painful memories may come rising to the surface as we lo

If you’re one of the 115 million Americans who heads to work in a vehicle on a daily basis, odds are there are few things that frustrate you more than getting stuck at a red light. According to the National Association of City Transportation Officials, the perfect amount of time for a light to remain red is between 60 and 90 seconds. That means that, ideally, an urban driver would spend an average of 75 seconds waiting at each red light.   According to AAA, the average American spends 17,600 minutes driving each year. That’s 3,520 minutes, or 58.6 hours, spent waiting at red lights every 365 days.   But it’s not just waiting in line that challenges our patience, challenging situations and frustrating people, test our patience as well. Sometimes even the best of friends can test each others’ patience.   Patience can be an Achilles’ heel, depending on how it affects the example we are leaving of our faith and how being a disciple of Jesus plays out in real life in real time.   And this Sunda

Conflict is a universal experience with all people.    It doesn't matter how well you get along, it doesn't matter how much you love each other, it doesn't matter how mature a Christian you are, there is still going to be some conflict in your life.   In fact, in any relationship with another person, no two people are going to see eye to eye on every issue. The more time you spend together, the more opportunities you'll have to disagree.   However, that doesn't mean we can't live our lives in peace and harmony either. Conflict is inevitable, but it doesn't have to be fatal. This week we’ll be looking at what James says about two of the most common roots of conflict in our lives, and how we can avoid allowing that to be an Achilles’ heel in our faith.

Dr. Louann Brizendine is a neuropsychiatrist and a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. She wrote the books, “The Female Brain” in 2006 and “The Male Brain” in 2010. She states that, “A woman uses about 20,000 words per day while a man uses about 7,000.” Now there is a lot that could be said with that type of statistic. But I won’t say any of them. But I will remind you that Proverbs 18:20 (Good News Version) says, “You have to live with the consequences of everything you say.” Have you ever noticed that some of us are born with a silver foot in our mouth? We have this natural ability to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Nothing is opened more wrongly at the wrong time than our mouths. James talks more about the tongue than any author in the New Testament. Every chapter in his book says something about managing your mouth. This Sunday, I will be sharing 2 reasons that James reminds us of why our mouth can be an Achilles’ heel, and what we can do to make sure it

We continue our series through the book of James which we’re calling Achilles because, regardless of how mature we are in our faith, we all have at least one, Achilles’ heel (weakness). Maybe more than one. I’m going to bet that most of us think that what James talks about next, that we have totally under control. This is not a problem for us. And big picture, maybe it’s not a problem here at MCC. Maybe. But I wonder if you will discover what I did as I prepared for this message, at times I do struggle with this. This week we see how favoritism was an Achilles’ heel in the early church and can be in our lives as well.

On any given weekend, I think it would be fair to say that, some of us who gather for worship come looking for answers and you know God’s Word has those answers.  I would think it is equally fair to say that the majority of us are here because, at some point, God’s Word did change our lives. And we were determined to give ourselves to Him.  And, there will be some in worship, online or in the room who have not made a commitment to Jesus through their baptism who are still trying to figure the Book out.  For those who have had God’s Word change you life, let me ask you this, does it still? Does the Word of God still change your life? Because the Bible can become an Achilles’ heel in our lives. How is that even possible?

Achilles; Do you know who he was? Do you know what he was famous for? There is no evidence that Achilles was a real person, but he was the central character of Homer’s Iliad. You’ll understand why I want to make that disclaimer in a moment. Achilles was one of the greatest warriors and heroes in Greek Mythology. He was considered a hero because he was the most successful soldier in the Greek army during the Trojan War. But to be clear, Achilles was a literary character, not a literal character. I make that clear because, as the story goes, after Achilles was born, his mother wanted to protect him from harm. She held him by the heel and dipped him into the river Styx. In Greek Mythology, the river Styx was located in the Underworld and had special powers. Achilles became invulnerable everywhere but at his heel, where his mother held him. Which is also where he was hit by an arrow and subsequently died. So the term 'Achilles' heel' refers to a weakness or vulnerable point in someone. Even someone very strong.

We believe we should be a church of disciple-makers, who look for opportunities to restore the world around them in service, and who pray every day for clarity, insight, and strength as we trust that God is in control and we are doing the best we can to follow Him well. But, what does that look like as the church gathers each week? What does that look like when we serve in ministry areas? How do we protect from organizational drift and stay focused on our mission? It will take work. It will take putting some things together. It will take all of us committing together to this fundamental work that Jesus calls us to; discipleship.

June 27, 2022, offered a vivid reminder that Americans believe in prayer.  On that Monday, the Supreme Court’s decision in Joseph Kennedy v. Bremerton School District supported the former assistant football coach’s right to pray in public. For seven years, Kennedy took a knee on the football field after games, and as Washington Post reporter Robert Barnes stated, “From the stands, it might have looked like nothing more than someone tying a shoe.”  The Supreme Court documents identified it as “30 seconds of personal prayer at the conclusion of a football game.” Barnes noted of the court brief: “The school district decided it had a problem in the 2015 season, when an opposing coach told Bremerton’s principal that he ‘thought it was pretty cool how [the District] would allow’ Kennedy’s religious activity.”  Fearing repercussions for what an opposing coach called “pretty cool,” the Washington high school suspended Kennedy and then later placed him on administrative leave. The challenge weaved its w

Paul would write this to Timothy (1 Timothy 4:7b-8) - train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.   Look at that: Physical training is of some value. We all know that.  Lifting weights, cardio, yoga, martial arts training, running, swimming, etc…all of those have benefits for our body. Taking a walk is better than just sitting and watching TV Surprisingly, you don’t get in better shape watching ESPN all day. Although if you did, we would most likely have some pretty healthy people around here.   Paul says the same thing is true of our faith. In other words, with our faith, there is Some Assembly Required. But it's important because it holds promise for both the present life and the life to come.

What we’re going to talk about for the next few weeks, let me just say that there are 3 words that strike fear in some people’s lives. If you had to guess what those 3 little words are, what would you say? Some of us, when we read those 3 words, we just…sit back and stare at them. We sweat just a little. When you buy a grill at the hardware store, those words are right there. You buy a crib for your baby, those words are staring at you when it arrives. Those 3 little words are: SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED It’s interesting to me that there are other people who do not have that fear at all. When it comes to cars, my friend Tim, takes them all the way down to nothing and brings them back up. It’s pretty cool. Usually we lean one way or the other. But most of life is Some Assembly Required. So is our faith.It doesn’t just happen to you, you don’t just sit in church once a week and bingo bango bongo you’re a growing follower of Jesus. I want to be real clear, this is not about earning you salvation. Rather, for those w

“Therefore, go,” Jesus said. We’ve all heard the verse that closes Matthew, yet too often, the nature of that commandment is lost on us. There is a depth and a historical resonance to what Jesus is telling us to do. He is telling us to make disciples. Disciples that obey. Obedience to his last command means that, by definition, we aren’t genuine disciples until we’ve made a disciple that obeys everything he’s commanded. Our best marker for making a disciple is when the person we are discipling makes a disciple. The goal of the advancing Kingdom of God doesn’t stop with a pursuit of personal holiness (though that’s part of it) it continues to a commission of others into a lifelong mission to make disciples of Jesus. It’s much more than personal betterment, it extends to global restoration.  We get to participate in what God is doing.  But it's uncomfortable and it means releasing those you’ve let into your life through discipleship to go and connect with and disciple others. I can’t wait to be togeth

This week we had a guest speaker, Justin Gravitt, who joined us and talked about how Jesus taught relationally.    Justin is the Director of Innovation and Advancement with Navigator Church Ministries. In his role, he helps churches all over the area grow and develop disciple-making cultures.    This week he spoke about how Jesus' disciples.    The disciples of Jesus left everything and followed. Matthew 4:19-20 makes it look so easy for them. They heard Jesus’ invitation they immediately left their old life behind.    But, what did he do to transform them from ordinary and unschooled into those who walk on water faith?

In Luke 19 we find the story of Zacchaeus, a tax collector who Jesus goes out of his way to step into the story of and as a result Zacchaeus walks away from the encounter changed and begins to follow the way of Jesus. Zacchaeus story doesn’t change if Jesus doesn’t step in. This is true of the people around us as well. Like Mike talked about last week we are called to be disciple makers and part of that calling means stepping into others stories. That why this week we are asking the questions; What would it look like if we lived in such a way where everyone got a seat at the table? And what if I invited the people, who don’t look, act or think like me into the story of who Jesus is?

In our culture there are several words used to describe who we are: MCCers The Church Christians Jesus Followers The Bible word for those who followed Jesus, is disciple. And we are going to take the next several weeks to flesh out what that means to us today and why at MCC, we are using a word that seems foreign to our culture but has great meaning for how we are to live our lives.

One of the passages of scripture that we may find hard to want to say out loud is what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11:1 (NIV): Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. We should all be able to say it. But what does it mean? In real life, how do we do that? Last week we looked at what the pace of Jesus teaches us about how His example should shine through ours. This week we’ll look at the priority of Jesus as we encounter someone who was described as “a woman we might never have remembered had she not crossed the path of the One we could never forget.” And that description gives you a glimpse into Jesus’ priority and we’ll talk about what it looks like for His priority to be our priority as well.

For the last few weeks, we have been looking at what I believe we as a culture have a hard time doing appropriately. We've been in a series we’re calling Play AND Purpose and it seems to me that we either lean too much into one or the other.  Either we can't remember the last time we were not fully absorbed in a work week or we can't remember the last time we forgot about work.  We can’t remember the last time we gave ourselves to something greater than ourselves or we can’t remember the last time we were just silly. We can't remember the last time we were productive or not trying to be productive.   Play AND Purpose.   Two weeks ago Adam walked us through “AND.” Last week Eric walked us through Purpose as we celebrated our graduates. If you missed either of those you can catch them here.   This Sunday I want to walk with you through Play. Come prepared to have fun. Seriously, we’re going to have to have a good time.

Continuing in our Play And Purpose series, Student Pastor Eric Craft talks about how a life of purpose is centered in Jesus.

This morning we are beginning a series called Play and Purpose.  We wanted to take a few weeks to look at these because we’re closing in on summer and I hope you will take some time to play.  And next week is graduate Sunday and we want to talk about purpose and the importance of that. As our students transition out of high school and onto the next phase of their lives - purpose is what will guide them through a lot of decisions that will impact - not just today but tomorrow.   So Play and Purpose.    But today is not about Play - that’s in 2 weeks. but neither is today about Purpose - that’s next week. What does that leave us?   Today is about AND.