A Special Midweek Note
My new book, “I Quit Being A Christian To Follow Jesus,” just came out on Amazon.com today. In this work, I point to Cumberland a lot. It’s a privilege to do so. Would you take a look at something I wrote in chapter twelve? As a result… if you haven’t registered for F.I.A. and this compels you, would you register? I’ll provide a link after this brief excerpt:
“When our church in Atlanta decides to go outside our walls on Sunday mornings, we chase away the “me” monster. We call these Sundays “FIA Sundays” (Faith In Action). Serving side-by-side beyond our normal Sunday morning confines makes life and church no longer about what I need, want, or get. We give these special Sundays over to poor, title one schools for supernatural makeovers. Our army of Jesus followers are able to restore brokenness as a visible act of the Gospel. Four to five times a year we intentionally shut down our church building so people are afforded an incredible opportunity to be the Church and serve. On these Sundays, we do church right. Some initially argued how church is not really church unless we’re meeting in our building on a Sunday morning. I still remember the e-mail I received from a local pastor who found out what we were doing. Through a cowardly e-mail, he preached at me to repent. This kind of Sunday morning shenanigans was just wrong. It wasn’t, in his thinking, church. I agreed. It was better. It was being the church. It put meaning behind our sign that said Cumberland COMMUNITY Church.
I believe our faith is not really faith unless there is some kind of action attached. Sitting, taking, and being fed in a climate-controlled environment doesn’t take a whole lot of faith. On most Sunday mornings faith is not necessarily exercised. Closing down shop on Sunday mornings so the body can serve our community feels more like church than when we do church. On our FIA Sundays we experience worship, evangelism, prayer, community, service, teaching, and God. Everything we hope to happen within a long string of Sunday mornings happens deliberately and deeply on one FIA Sunday. It’s doing church in a way that creates and builds Biblical faith.”
Here’s a link to register for our F.I.A. Sunday… THIS SUNDAY! (you have til midnight tonight — March 19th — to register).
http://www.cumberlandchurch.org/events/13113/fia-brumby/
Blessings… and see you in your jeans and t-shirts on Sunday!!
