Apostles Church

Mark 3:13-15. As Jesus chooses his 12 apostles, the text mentions three things he intends for them

Be with Him. This was the language of the rabbi. His disciples were more than students; they were to be his apprentices. Students learn a subject; apprentices learn a skill. Travel with him, walk with him, watch him, listen to him, learn the skill of living from him so that you begin to look like him. The life of a disciple is not simply learning the truth about Jesus, but walking in the way of Jesus that we might reflect the life of Jesus. To be with him is an invitation to learn from him how to live your life. It means that you live with an openness and responsiveness to Jesus, looking at his life and listening to His voice in His Scripture, experiencing his presence in prayer and in the community. You let him write your story and shape your praxis, transforming your affections, ordering your priorities. You let him teach you how to love your friends and your enemies, how to handle your finances, how to deal with crises, how to respond to suffering with hope and perseverance. You let him teach you the skill of wise living. Many of you are students of Jesus - you can quote the bible, relay the stories, sing the songs, say the prayers, but the question is are you an apprentice. Is it your aim "to be with him" and learn the skill of living from him so that your life begins to look more and more like his. This year as a community we want to learn together the skill of living like Jesus so that we form a corporate counter-praxis that stands in stark relief to the pattern of this world. So that how we treat God, money, sex, power, and the poor is radically different from the normal patterns of this world.

Send them Out to Preach - Here is the pattern, Jesus draws us in and then he sends us out to bring others in. We are the gathered community called out the world to belong to Jesus and we are the gathering community sent into the world to share Jesus. God is always sending us out to our city to tell the story of his salvation. We want to be a story-telling community that compassionately, humbly, urgently tells the story of Jesus. It is a beautiful story of God healing this broken world. It is a story that tells us that God has not abandoned us; he has not given up on this creation; he loves us and gave his Son to have us for himself. When is the last time you told the story of all stories to someone? Not in an attempt to prove your point of view but just to extol the goodness of God in giving us Jesus. Apostles church is called to grow, to multiply, but it will do so only as long as we become a story-telling community that gladly tells of God's salvation. It will be our counter-praxis as a community that gives us a context for those conversation.

Have Authority to Cast out Demons. Jesus invites us to join God in this great battle against evil and darkness that destroys his creation. They were to enter into the brokenness of people's lives and bring hope. As disciples we are given the authority to confront demonic evil and every kind of darkness with the power that Jesus supplies. It was part of the first disciples' mission. Not just to announce the good news, but to oppose the forces that were antithetical to it. Those oppressed by demonic forces were liberated, the sick were healed, the hungry fed, the poor relieved, the victim rescued. This is what Jesus called the 12 to. It is what he still calls us to as a community - to confront evil and darkness, and enter into the brokenness of people's lives. To stop playing it safe. To stop sitting on the sidelines. To stop looking at the brokenness and darkness all around you with despair and despondency and to look at it with faith and hope and enter into with love. We will strive to be that kind of community: All over the city, our people are engaging the brokenness of people. ****Bailey Holt House/Men's Bowery/ Women's Bowery/Crisis pregnancy center/ DeWitt Nursing Home, Gifted Hands, Dalit Freedom Network, and more. We are involved in Fountain of Life in Nairobi, Kenya - a ministry that is reaching out to the slums east of the city and rescuing abandoned children, placing them in their Children's home where they are fed, clothed and educated. Because of the generosity of the people of Apostles Church we will be providing tuition and all related expenses for the education10 former orphaned boys. We will be learning more about Fountain of Life and these children throughout this year. That is what Jesus invites us. We are invited to stop playing it safe, concerned about our own security and well being - having our imaginations captured by the dominant cultural story of personal comfort and affluence, but having them captured by the Gospel story of God's incarnation into a broken world to heal it.

This is a great New Year's Revolution - to say I will encounter Jesus and learn from him in ways I never imagined, I will become a story-teller sharing his salvation with humility, compassion and urgency that others might know his mercy, and I will enter the brokenness of this world in tangible hope giving ways. That is what we must be about.