JR. Forasteros - December 31, 2017
New Hope for a New Year
Christmas is such an intimate celebration – a time to gather with friends and family – that we often forget the global sweep of the story. But two often-overlooked encounters with the infant Jesus remind us of God’s faithfulness – not only to us, but to the whole world! As we look toward a new year, how can we be filled with hope at what God will do?
From Series: "To Be Continued"
Advent is the season in which we prepare to welcome Jesus into the world. It's a season of hope - the light has not come, but it is coming into the world. It's the time of day just before the sun peeks over the horizon. As we anticipate Jesus' birth, we come to realize that God's story didn't end at Christmas - it was only beginning. And the story is still being told today - a story of love, hope and promise. What does it mean to say that God is still telling the great story of love through us?
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The year was 2005. The biggest movies of the year were Star Wars Episode III, the fourth Harry Potter movie and a superhero reboot called Batman Begins. Gwen Stefani was insisting she ain’t no Holla Back Girl while the Killers were insisting they were Mr. Brightside and Kanye West was warning to keep on the lookout for Gold Diggers. In 2005, Comedy Central launched the Colbert Report, a few people started watching a new little website called YouTube, and Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah’s couch. 2005 was the beginning of George W. Bush’s second term as president and the year Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans.
And it was the year a group of young Christians began meeting in a living room in East Dallas. They wanted to do church differently than they had before, in a way that felt more welcoming, more relevant to their daily lives. They wanted that old time religion, but in a way that made sense in the cutting edge world of 2005. They called themselves Renewed Life Church, but they would soon become known as Catalyst Church. We’re going to talk about Church today – what it is, and what it’s not.
What does it mean to be Catalyst – this particular church, and how do we relate to the larger Church, to Jesus?
