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//Counterfeit God #1. Romance

November 4, 2009 – 1:37 pm

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Right now I’m reading a book called Counterfeit Gods by a pastor named Tim Keller.  The book is based on the idea that we all have something or someone we hang out hopes on in this life to give us peace, security, hope, happiness, and relief.  We all feel restless and anxious and churn at times because we long for more from this life, but can’t seem to find it. Keller’s premise is that God is the only one who can fill the ache in our soul but we don’t always start there. So we fabricate meaning and hope or security and happiness in other things. Things he deems counterfeit gods.  We’ve always done this. Read your history, study the ancients. Deep in our collective human experience lies, well, lies.  Lies that we can find rest in almost any other place except in knowing and being known by our Creator.  So for the next several weeks or when it hits me, I will share some nuggets I’m collecting from the book. Maybe it will entice you to read it for yourself. I bought 12 copies of this book and will be giving it to key influencers and leaders at Engage. My hope is to spread this book like an idea virus through our community….if we take it to heart it will mean that Engage will continue to be a place that celebrates honesty about these parts of ourselves that go searching for life or salvation in everything else but God….I would love to have you comment and start some dialogue.  Check out the video teaser for the book. http://www.counterfeitgods.com/

page 39 - Speaking about our tendency to look for fulfilment in romance. No person, not even the best one, can give your soul all it needs. pg 40  The failure of romantic love as a solution to human problems is so much a part of modern man’s frustration…No human relationships can bear the burden of godhood….However much we may idealize or idolize him (or her, the love partner), he / she inevitably reflects earthly decay and imperfection….After all, what is it that we want when we elevate the love partner to this position? We want to be rid of our faults, of our feeling of nothingness. We want to be justified, to know our existence has not been in vain. We want redemption–nothing less. Needless to say, human partners cannot give this.

Keller at one point quotes C.S. Lewis about our human longings which nothing can satisfy:
Most people, if they have really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. . . There was something we have grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry maybe a very interesting job: but something has evaded us.

U2 was right. We still haven’t found what we are looking for….

jon

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//hit us up…questions and thoughts on prayer

August 22, 2009 – 4:37 pm

So next week Aug. 30th we are going to take break in between our series at Engage on Sundays. We will have wrapped up our three weeks on Be Who You Are: Discover, Develop, and Leverage…all of the skills, passions, and past experiences (good and bad) we have had to fully Engage with what God is doing to bring life to the world.  I’ve personally talked with several people who are saying, “I don’t know who I am, how I’ve been shaped, what I’m good at, what makes me unique? And I want to begin figuring this out so God can get the most out of my life.”  This is totally exciting since we are a relatively young church. The average age of Engage right now is 31…about 10 years younger than most non-mainline Protestant churches in our area.  So we have a lot of people who feel “stuck”, they feel like they can’t move forward in career and in self-understanding until they have a better sense of who God made them to be and how to use that in the world….

Next Sunday Aug. 30th we are going to chat for a week on Prayer. Very confusing topic. You know the ‘ol, if God knows everything why bother praying? Or, isn’t it going to happen anyway of God’s in control? Or, prayer is just weird and awkward whenever I attempt it seems to go nowhere.  So those are a few of the ideas and questions floating around out there about prayer.  I want to know what you think…what questions do you have about prayer!! What insights could you share? Join us on the web site, leave a comment or a comment on a comment and let’s take a few days to discuss this.  Who knows…what you say may just end up in the talk on Sunday morning….

Hey, you! Yes, you the one reading this right now.  I know you don’t want to be the first one to post something…but go ahead. Break the ice. If you do it, others will follow.  Be courageous!!

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//Speaking the language. . .

March 11, 2009 – 4:30 pm

Wow, its been a few weeks since I’ve updated the blog. Engage is about 9 weeks old now!  Since we began we have seen some pretty exciting things happen at Engage.  We made the paper the other day. Click here to check it out. Engage exists to help people find life with Jesus. The people we hope to engage (no pun intended) are people who would not typically imagine themselves going to church on a Sunday morning or something crazy like that. People like my friend Amy B. Here is what she said:

“I like Engage because it is a comfortable atmosphere that makes it easy to build friendships and ask difficult questions (though I haven’t actually had the courage to raise my hand and ask a question yet, the topics get me thinking about my beliefs, which is something I haven’t done for a very long time, if ever). So thank you for that. So why did I start going to Engage?  Well, I am at a point in my life that I would like to discover my beliefs and build a relationship with God.  I am trying to become a more positive person.  Nothing in particular has happened to bring this about, I was just invited to your church at a perfect time.  Since the first time I went, I knew I would love it and feel comfortable there.  And I’m meeting the most wonderful people!  I would like to get my husband involved too.  Like myself, he was not raised in a religious environment, so it might a little difficult to get him interested. I know he would like you a lot because you very down-to-earth friendly people. I think he might be intimidated because he doesn’t want to feel like someone is pushing their own beliefs on him or looking down on him for not being very religious…but I know he wouldn’t feel that way with you.  I think it would also help strengthen our marriage.”

How many more people are out there who feel like something beyond them is calling them to explore, investigate, and discover what else is there beyond the routines of family, work, and weekends.  We want as many people as possible to hear about the relational message of Christ.  One of the things I love about God as we know him in Jesus is that he always speaks our language.  Over the last 400 years the Christian Church has sent out people to different countries and cultures to introduce people to the message and teachings of Christ.  Often times a tribe or specific culture has trouble grasping the irreligious message of grace, sacrifice, death, forgiveness, and resurrection in Jesus…that is, until the messages gets translated in their language.  One person said it this way after hearing the message of Jesus translated in their own language, “I didn’t know how to know my Creator until he started speaking my language.”

Engage is committed to speaking the language of the people in our area who are somewhat skeptical of organized religion and for whatever reason, maybe, turned off to faith in Jesus.  We are a Church that says, “We may not agree with all of your beliefs, ideas, and criticisms but we understand where you are coming from. Now, let’s dialogue and get to know each other.”  Now we are at a point where we want to introduce ourselves to the surrounding community in a unique way that hopefully speaks their language.   As you can see we are going to send this mailer to thousands of addresses later this month.  We are doing this because we believe there are others out there who may be looking for God in some way…but not know where to go or how to take the next step.  Maybe they would see the mailer and begin to realize that God has already been looking for them. Engage Mailer April 5th

We are going to send this mailer to roughly 12,000 addresses–encouraging people to join us on April 5th for a visit to Engage and exploring the theme, “Why Jesus thinks religion gets in the way of knowing God in a relational way.” Click here to learn more.

During the month of April we are sending another batch of mailers to an additional 10,000 address inviting those people to join us at Engage on April 26th.  Now, I know what you are thinking.  What if??? What if?? All of those people actually show up.  Well, first, that is a good problem to have. I’d rather have that problem than the opposite.  Secondly, our mailer is not targeted at the average person living in our area.  Most people living in South Central, PA are fairly traditional, conservative, people who believe they should attend church on Sundays.  Engage isn’t trying to reach that person. There are many other churches around who are doing a great job helping those people find deeper life with Jesus.  Therefore, I don’t think we are going to have thousands of people show up.  But we may have 60-80 people?? We don’t know! All we know is it is a risk, you are right!! We think, however, that it’s an appropriate risk, a God-sized risk.

If you are a praying person…we need you to pray.  We need you to pray that the right people show up as a result of the mailers.  We need you to pray that we aren’t totally overwhelmed on the 5th, 12th (for that matter–Easter), and the 26th.  And we need you to pray that we have enough helpers and volunteers at Engage who can step in and help with Engage Kids, or help with greeting our guests, etc.  We don’t want people to have a horrible experience if they risk their time to come meet a bunch of strangers at Engage. So we will need all the manpower we can muster on those days to ensure our guests have a favorable experience and want to return to further engage with Christ and what matters most.

We need you to pray that people can see Jesus in a way they have never thought of or imagined.  We want them to know that God speaks their language!!!

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//Why a new church??

December 31, 2008 – 8:52 pm

This video is an attempt to answer the question of “why a new church” in Carlisle??

Here are some random thoughts. Top 7 reasons why we are starting Engage! Enjoy. I would love any feedback or thoughts. jon@engagecommunitychurch.com

top 7 reasons to start a new church.

10. Look, there is no such thing as a one size-fits-all anything these days.  Everywhere you go you find smaller niche’s.  This is because as the world grows more diverse (even in Central, PA) we form smaller communities or tribes of people who share common interests, hobbies, tastes, and the like.  We need all kinds of churches to reflect the many different kinds of people in our world.  Starting something new is an attempt to help people cultivate meaningful faith in Jesus for those who currently aren’t connecting with God through church as they’ve known it. This is a tradition that has been a part of the Christian story for the past 2,000 years.  This is how the message of Jesus finds its way into the places and people who have yet to experience the gospel of Christ…even in our own backyard.

9. New churches can innovate and re-imagine how to be the church in our world.  New churches can change and adapt faster than more established churches. Tim Keller says, “New Churches are the Research and Development wing of the larger Church.”

8. According to Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, most people can only handle a closer friendship network of 10-15 people.  Most people have a capacity to stay somewhat connected with up to 150 people.  This means that new churches offer an easier way to stay connected with the other people in the community of faith.  We believe church is not simply an institution.  It’s more! It’s allowing people to know you well enough to share your struggles, support you, and walk with you on the journey of faith.  We say all the time, ” You can’t really know Jesus without the church.” And the church is people in meaningful friendship with each other.

7. We believe the church exists primarily for the benefit of its non-members.  It is easier for new churches to be focused outward on meeting the needs of people in our community.  Church is what happens during the week, not simply some songs and teachings on Sunday.  Those are important and helpful.  Church is an incubator, a place people are nurtured by Scripture, Worship, and Friendships to be extensions of God’s beauty, generosity, and self-sacrifice to the rest of the world during the week.  ( i know this is an run-on sentence, of which i am king)

6. New churches best reach a. new generations.  New churches are one of the best ways to surface creative, strong leaders for the whole Church.  New congregations tend to attract a higher percentage of venturesome people who value creativity, risk, innovation, and future orientation.

5. New churches tend to be an easier place for new residence of a community to find meaningful friendships.  Not all, but many established churches tend to be friendly, but saturated in their friendship networks.  This can lead to the feeling of it being hard to “break in” to the established friendship communities.

4. New churches best reach new groups of people who currently don’t have a vibrant faith in Jesus. Dozens of denominational studies have confirmed that the average new church gains most of its new members (60-80%) from the ranks of people who are not attending any worshipping body, while churches over 10-15 years of age gain 80-90% of new members by transfer from other (mostly dying) churches.

3. Jesus gave his followers the mandate to multiply communities of people who are seeking to follow the ways of Christ.  Yes, we really believe that knowing our Creator through Jesus causes us to be people who deeply reflect the life of God from the most to the “least” significant aspects of our lives.  We live under the conviction that we need to live in relationship with God to be the best of who God created us to be.  We simply can’t and won’t experience the fullness of what our Creator intended for his creation if we live independently from God.  This doesn’t make us judgmental of people who aren’t “like us”.  It’s the opposite. This actually causes us to love better, respect more, and self-sacrifice deeper for those who are not a part of the Christian community.

We hope you can join us on January 11th for our Day of Beginnings Celebration.  We will celebrate the official start of Engage with a meal to follow after our gathering.

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//Remembering Dec. 15th, 2007

November 26, 2008 – 3:01 pm

On December 6th from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m Engage Community Church is partnering with New Life Community Church to winterize vehicles for single moms.  We need your time. We need you to donate money. You need to meet these tired, anxious parents who are doing their best.  Read more to find out why…

It was a year ago next month.  We were blasted by the shrill early December cold as groups of us stood huddled like warriors on the 30 yard line in the parking lot of Project Share.  We danced around trying to stay warm as we waited for the vehicles to arrive.  We were ready.  We stood armed with numb fingers clasping cold wrenches, stiff hoses, and gallons of motor oil.

Last year at this time a group of friends from church decided to reach out to tired, struggling single parents in our area. In the days and weeks prior we put up posters, handed out vouchers, and invited as many single parents as we could to come take advantage of an opportunity to get their cars prepared for the rough winter months.  The lifeline for single parents is their vehicles.  If their vehicles aren’t safe or running properly they can’t get to work. If struggling single parents can’t get to work they could lose their jobs. If they lose their jobs they could lose their home or apartment.  If they lose their home or apartment they could could lose their children.  You get the point. If these people don’t have safe, maintained vehicles it could unleash a chain reaction that has no end…

The cars came driving in one after another.  Cars were parked side by side, each one reflecting the hard working, tired lives of its owner.  The long line of cars was a whose who of car maintenance no no’s.  There were bald tires, blasting mufflers, broken wipers, black gooey oil, chipped faded paint, and scabbed over rust spots.  I will never forget the helpless youthfulness of one mom in particular. We will call her Tara. It was towards the end of the day and we were ticking off the last task on her vehicle. With check sheet in hand, I thanked Tara for coming and told her the bad news.  “Miss, your tires are bald. I mean bald. You need to get new tires as soon as possible,” I said.  Tara looked at me with a helpless stare. She tried to muster a grateful thank you. “Um, thank,” was all that she could say before her eyes began brimming over with tears.  As her tears spilled over onto her dark cheeks she quivered, “I don’t have it. I can’t do it. How am I going to pay for tires?”

I found out that this young mom works two jobs, raises her children, and tries her best to be a descent hard-working person.

We believe in a God who created humanity in order to love us.  I know what you might be thinking.  Well, if God created us to love us then why this or why that? If God is so loving why doesn’t he do a better job of taking care of people if we are so valuable to him? Great questions. I don’t have answers. All I know is God came to us in self-giving love personified in Jesus. He suffered with us. He identified with our struggle, our pain, our greatest fears.  Now we get to do that for people like Tara. Daily we pass single parents on the road. We watch them load their kids up in the grocery cart at Giant. We sense their tired anxieties echoed in the frustrated outbursts at their children.  We see “Tara” everywhere we go.  Here is our chance to be the change we want to see.  As one modern day prophet of love put it, “It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing.” Most of us will never go to the slums of Calcutta, but right under our noses here in Carlisle, PA the needs of the human heart are just the same.

If you would like to volunteer or financially donate to this need, please visit our web site and send us an email from the “contact us” form. Or call 701-9557. Click here to see pictures from last year.

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//Car Winterization for Single Parents

November 12, 2008 – 11:55 am

On December 6th Engage Community Church in partnership with New Life Community Church www.newlifecommunity.us and His Hands Auto Ministry hosted the 2nd annual Car Winterization for single parents.  Last year we helped over 30 families prepare their vehicles for the rigors of winter. This year we helped over 60 families. In addition we were able to give away over $1,100 in gift certificates to area garages where single parents could receive tires, repairs, and further work on their vehicles.  Watch Kim’s story as she recounts what the car Winterization means to her.  Kim attends New Life Community Church.  She was a recepient of help last year and this year she was helping to plan and lead the event!!

Thanks for your interest.

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//You Teach Us - event at the Ribbon Mill

October 3, 2008 – 1:24 am

In October and November we will be hosting a series of events we call “You Teach Us”.  “You Teach Us” is an open forum event where we invite you to share your good or bad experiences with church and religion.  We would love to spend an evening with you of listening and conversation about what you think church should be in the 21st century.  We also want to share a bit of who we are with you. Want to know more about Engage? Contact us to send us an email telling us you either want more info or to RSVP.

“You Teach Us” events will be held from 7:00 - 8:15 p.m. at the beautifully restored Carlisle Ribbon Mill, 320 E. Louther Street on Friday October 17th, and Saturday November 8.  Please RSVP by October 15th for the 17th and RSVP by Nov. 5th for November 8th.

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