Pastor Chris teaches us on where Christians should draw their confidence in uncertain times.

Having Confidence in Unstable Times

Discussion Questions

1. What particular challenges are you facing at this time?

2. Have you noticed any tendencies on your part to become fearful or anxious? Can you trace back to the source of those concerns or anxieties?

Psalm 62:5 For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. ⁶ He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. ⁷ On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. ⁸ Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Selah

3. In an effort to place more of your confidence in God, what practices have you found helpful?

*** Attached is an article written by Karl Vaters that I’ve found to be very helpful. It gives Christians a great perspective as well as some practical ways to continue growing as a disciple of Jesus in these times.

Church Canceled? 6 Ways To Respond – And 5 Ways Not To

By Karl Vaters

March 13, 2020

The church is always at our best, not when things are going well, but when we respond in a Christ-like manner to a difficult circumstance. This isn’t a decision made out of panic. This is a decision based on prayerful consideration and social responsibility.

The current global health crisis is causing congregations all around the world to make the difficult decision to close their buildings this weekend – including the church I serve. And they may be closed for several weekends to come. (If your church is meeting, that does not make them irresponsible – especially if it’s a smaller congregation. That’s a choice each location needs to make for themselves.)

But if we don’t have a church to go to this weekend, what should we do?

Whether you’re on your own, or with your family, here are several ways you can participate in a faith-building worship experience this Sunday from the comfort of your own home.

1. Watch An Online Service

If your church offers this alternative, take advantage of it. In fact, there are a lot of churches that don’t normally offer an online experience who are doing it now.

If your church doesn’t have an online alternative, that’s okay. Find an online church experience that you can be blessed by until your church opens its doors again.

2. Listen To Worship Music

Whatever your preferred music style is, there’s an app for that.

It’s great to spend time listening and singing along to your favorite worship music.

From YouTube, to Spotify, to Pandora, to your phone playlist or even hauling out the old CDs, it’s great to spend time listening and singing along to your favorite worship music.

3. Prayer

As the church, we should always be praying for each other and for the world around us. Especially now.

Pray especially for the following:

• The elderly and ill
• Medical personnel
• Emergency responders
• Pastors and faith leaders
• Political leaders
• Those being financially impacted
• and anyone else you know who is especially hit by the current crisis.

4. Online Devotionals

Many churches, including ours, are encouraging their members to follow along on a daily devotional from an online app like YouVersion, Bible Study Tools and more.

This allows church members to learn together, encourage each other and feel a sense of community until they can gather in the same room again.

5. Give

The financial needs of your church and other local charities do not decrease just because the doors are not open for public gatherings. In fact, for most of them, the financial needs will increase as we try to meet the needs of those who are hardest hit by the current difficulties.

Use your church’s online giving option, mail a check, or bring your gift to the church building during the week. They’d appreciate it, and they’ll use it well.

6. Meet A Need

In addition to giving financially to your home church, look for other ways to help people who need it the most.

Look for ways to help people who need it the most.

Delivering meals, caring for kids whose schools have closed, and running errands for those who are ill are just a few of the ways we can be a presence of hope instead of fear.

Caution: 5 Ways NOT To Respond

1. Don’t panic

The church, the community and the world have been through worse than this. If we stay calm, trust God and help each other, we’ll be okay. But if we panic, the result of that has the potential to be worse than the disease.

2. Don’t hoard

This is always the result of panic. And it always ends badly.

When we hoard, the resources don’t go to those who need it the most, but to those who have the physical and financial wherewithal to shop, pay and store it all.

When this happens, the people who need items the most (the sick, the elderly, the poor) have fewer resources because those who need it the least (the healthy, the young, the rich) are hoarding more than they can use.

If you’re able to hoard (even if you call it stocking up), you’re able to give. Turn that energy and those resources outward and bless your less-abled neighbors.

3. Don’t politicize

No one is behaving perfectly in this situation. Not those on your side of the political aisle or those on the other one.

Let’s work together for the betterment of everyone, no matter their political party.

4. Don’t spread falsehoods

The only thing that spreads faster than germs and viruses are lies.

Confirming the truth is always hard in a crisis. Don’t make it worse by passing anything along until you have fact-checked it from multiple reliable sources.

As a rule of thumb, the more spectacular the claim, the less likely it is to be true. And if it’s a meme, it’s a lie.

Better to say nothing than to pass along a lie.

5. Don’t scapegoat

We love to cast blame. Somehow we feel better if there’s a country, an ethnicity, a politician, an ideology, or even God himself to blame.

Right now is not the time for blame – and it’s never the time for scapegoating (which is casting undeserved blame). It’s the time for courage, wisdom, unity, and faith.

Finally: Be The Church

You know all the times you’ve heard someone say “we don’t go to church, we are the church?” I happen to believe it’s both, but now is our time to prove it.

Right now a lot of us can’t go to church but, more than ever, we can be the church.

The church is always at our best, not when things are going well, but when we respond in a Christ-like manner to a difficult circumstance.

That is our calling right now. Let’s step up.

Our Sunday Service on March 15th, 2020.

We discuss what a Godly perspective on the current coronavirus is, how Christians should respond, and what our church is specifically doing in this time.

Joe Crocker preaches on spiritual habits that bring the presence of God in our lives.

He poses questions from “Exponential” by Dave Ferguson:

1. How would you describe your relationship with Christ right now?
2. What does it look like when you feel closely connected to God?
3. Which spiritual disciplines seem to help you draw closer to Jesus? Prayer? Journaling? Worship? Solitude?
4. Who is holding you accountable to practicing the disciplines?
5. What has God been saying to me lately through His Word? The Holy Spirit? Other Christ Followers? Prayer?

He also gives us questions to help build rhythm for spiritual fitness:

1. How many times a week will you set aside intentional time to pursue spiritual disciplines?
2. How long will each of your prayer times be?
3. When can you consistently set aside time?
4. When are you going to start?

Everything, our thoughts, words, actions and choices should be to the glory of God.  We all worship because we have been created for that purpose.  The big questions is, “Who or what will we worship?”  Chris Brannon speaks on the priority of worship.  If we don’t place Jesus in the number one place in our lives, we will never fully worship Him.

Because of our God’s unimaginable generosity towards us, God, in all of His glory, chooses to respond to us through worship.  The promise is that when we worship God with extravagant love and extreme submission, God will come and commune with us.  The promise is not that we will feel great or that our heavy load will be lifted, but that God will come.

Guilt produces fear, and fear makes us want to run and hide.  Chris Brannon talks to us about regeneration and how it affects us.  He starts out with the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:6-11. Ordinarily, Adam and Eve would have run to meet their God, but they had become sinners.  Sinners cannot cover their sins by their own works, nor can they hide from God.  Immediately there was a loss of innocence and glory and a sense of guilt and shame.

The immediate effects of the Fall are fourfold.  The first one is the discovery that something is wrong with oneself.  The second is the effort to try to hide shame with a self-provided cover.  The next one is the fear of God, which prompts one to hide.  The last one is the persistence in excusing instead of confessing.  There are also some trade off’s that sin caused.  Death replaced life, pain replaced pleasure, meager subsistence by toil replaced with abundance and alienation and conflict replaced perfect fellowship.

Chris continues by talking about renewal and regeneration.  He shows us three way that regeneration affects us.  The first is that we have peace with God.  The second is that our minds are transformed.  Lastly, we are empowered to live like Christ.

Spiritual transformations, mending of relationships, healing, God’s intervention in our everyday lives – these are all evidences of the “alreadyness” of the Kingdom at work in everyday life.  Even the existence of the Church itself is evidence of the Already.  Chris Brannon speaks on what it means to live in the tension of the already, but not yet.  The Not Yet is what we see in the world within all the tragedies.  The church enjoys the “alreadyness” of the community of the redeemed, but her “not yetness” reminds her to uphold her purity through discipline.  She must guard against false teachers and immorality.  Christians should be dealt with as forgiven sinners: neither above reproach or wholly incapable of any good.

What happens when we live well in the tension of the already, but not yet?  It causes us to hope for the complete fulfillment of God’s promises.  Living in the tension also gives us strength to deal with our current situation – whether good or bad.  It shrinks our doubt and empowers us to trust in God.  Living in the tension also builds our desire to know Him more.  Lastly, it causes us to press on toward maturity.

What should we do about this tension?  Chris gives us nine good habits to pursue in 2018:

1. Resolve to live with eternity in mind
2. Resolve to kill sin
3. Resolve to pursue holiness
4. Resolve to be thankful
5. Resolve to read and meditate on the Scriptures
6. Resolve to give more
7. Resolve to commit to a local church
8. Resolve to worship God through song
9. Resolve to aim for the glory of Christ