JR. Forasteros - December 15, 2013
Shepherds
Even during the Christmas season, many of us feel far from God. Our journey toward Bethlehem looks remarkably like the shepherds. They were born and raised as God's people, but still considered second-class citizens. They were insiders who felt like outsiders. And at Jesus' birth, God left the Temple and appeared among the Shepherds to announce the king of kings could be found not on a throne, but in a manger. The good news for them - and for us - is that God is not found in Temples and Church buildings, but out among us, in our every day lives!
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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?
