We’re back! This week, we ended our series talking about core beliefs, convictions, and preferences. So, what place do each of them hold in the church and how do we approach them in society? It’s a big question, but we’re taking it on in this week’s Level UP!
Do you have questions about what we talked about, or have something for us to cover on Level UP? Email us: media@lscc.tv
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This week we packed 10lbs of sermon in a 5lb bag as we talked about church leadership. Today on Level UP, we answer some of the questions that we’ve heard from you.
As always, if you have more questions or something you’d like to have answered, reach out to us at media@lscc.tv
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Being a part of the church, Ekklesia or the “called out ones,” is worth celebrating. But, how often do we leave it at that, and what else comes with being “Called Out?” In this week’s Level UP we tackle that question and ramble a bit too.
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Last week we started a new series exploring what the Bible defines as “the Church,” so we’re taking some time to talk about where we’re headed in the series.
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Level UP is a place where we get deeper into previous messages, talk about things happening in our church, our community, or questions that you have. Join Cory and Walter in their conversation on Youtube, Facebook, or anywhere you download Podcasts.
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In this week’s message we saw Nehemiah take an extremely aggressive approach to discipline in chapter 13. Today, we’re taking a deep dive into why challenging each other is so needed and actually positive.
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Why is it so important to keep our “foot on the gas” when we’ve reached our goals? Why should we embrace conflict? We get into that today in Level UP.
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Level UP is back and we’re getting UNpolitical! What are your beliefs rooted in, how do you support your beliefs, and why does that even matter?
Let us know what you think of Level UP. We’d like to hear your feedback or questions you’d like to have answered. Email me directly at walter@lscc.tv
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Walter
Hey, Church, Walter and Cory here. We’ve been toying around with the idea of producing a midweek segment for quite a while now, where we can expand on something from the past week’s message, look ahead to an upcoming message, answer one of your questions, or cover a topic that’s just relevant to our faith our church or our community.
So what’s the real point of Level UP? So when I’m out on my mountain bike, I’m constantly searching for better ways to hit technical sections, more efficient ways of climbing, or improving my ride times, or just pushing my limits as far as I can while still avoiding hospital bills. And you find yourself doing the same things in our workplaces. We’re finding ways to work better, faster, reduce stress, balance work and home life and so on. Well, level up is a tool for us to do the same types of things with our faith. We’re going to be going a level deeper into scripture, answering questions that you have, and more, all pointing towards the goal of gaining a better understanding of Scripture, or leveling up on God’s word and growing closer to him as a family.
So this week, Cory, your message on Sunday was called the “Power of a Name.” Now, you use this illustration to highlight something that I don’t really think many of us have taken any amount of time or put much thought into. I’ve heard a lot of positive feedback about this this past week. Could you talk more about that and what your intentions were using the illustration that you chose?
Cory
Sure, sure. Well, as a church we’ve been studying through the Old Testament books of Ezra and Nehemiah, sort of verse by verse chapter by chapter format. We’ve been doing that since the beginning of June of 2022. And so for those of us that have been here for the entire study, we know that throughout those books, we encounter a number of chapters, a number of verses, that include these extensive lists of names, families, places and other things. And so, as we’re closing in on the end of Nehemiah, we’ve covered this same type of information so many times that… we use this phrase that it can become kind of like “white noise.”
Yes, I can tell the congregation something like 2 Timothy 3:16 that ..”All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness…” Or maybe we come to a verse like Romans 15:4. For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction…” And it would be right to do so. And obviously that’s the scripture that should compel us to not overlook areas of Scripture that can seem repetitive or redundant like we’ve encountered in these two books.
But the reality is we’re fickle. And when we think that we already know something or we perceive something to have limited meaning or value, we can just skip over it because there’s so many things that are vying for our attention. And so as I prepared throughout the week, I was praying about finding a fresh way and then hopefully a memorable way of highlighting the importance of the names and places and these various lists that we’ve encountered so many times,
Walter
If I’m being honest, I’ve skimmed past these sections far more than I’d like to admit. So I can definitely understand how and why this could definitely be a struggle.
Cory
Well, I think that we all find ourselves that way, even people that are fortunate enough and blessed to be able to do ministry every day as a vocation. Well, at some point during the week, I was watching a documentary about D-Day, and the documentary was walking with Eisenhower 20 years after the invasion of Normandy, and he was talking about the events that were happening over the course of that day. And at one point in the documentary, he mentioned how many had died in the invasion, and how each name will go down in history. And it sort of struck me in that moment.
And I made this connection between Eisenhower talking about the names of D-Day and and those that died and then the connection that all of these names and lists that we see in Ezra and Nehemiah. And so I looked for good pictures of memorials that I thought that the congregation and all of us would kind of immediately recognize and know. I chose the Vietnam Memorial, the 911 Memorial and then a screen shot of just an obituary that we would find in the newspaper. And I think I also mentioned Arlington Cemetery. Those are all things that I think that we’ve seen before: encountered before maybe in person but but certainly maybe in a movie or in a picture.
And so I decided to one by one, show that image and for all intents and purposes asked if those names on the memorials, if those names in the obituary were important, and just sort of let that sit. And so I knew that these images and the thoughts and memories that we associate with them would likely, you know, evoke some sort of emotion in each of us since some of us may have direct connections with these different types of memorials: these different events in our history, and then some more loose, but still meaningful because they’re about American history and things that we’ve gone through together or things that we’ve gone through as a country in our past.
And really what I was intending to do is to anchor that same emotion that we feel about more recent things like what these memorials represent… is trying to anchor that same emotion into the various accounts that we read in the Bible, this case, these lists of names and places and I was standing there Sunday… and I was talking through this stuff: you know, when we’re teaching we’re constantly sort of surveying the crowd and and then we’re looking to see whether or not we’re connecting and… and I felt sort of this kind of a palpable feeling in the audience Sunday morning as I worked through that point. And really, I mean, I’m thankful to have found a way to take something that most of us skip over, or probably at best, to skim if we’re being honest, and helped make it relevant and meaningful.
Walter
Definitely, I know, over the past week, I’ve had the chance to talk with people about this. And, well, I’m not the only one that this is affected because it really stood out. But as you’ve had the chance to talk with other people and have had more time to chew on this idea. Is there anything else that stood out to you over the past few days?
Cory
Sure. Um, you know, as a church this week, we began a Bible in the year reading plan, which I mean you can kind of do it in different ways, but the way that we’re doing it starts in Genesis and works forward and so for me as I was reading Genesis one and the creation account, these, these two things sort of came together for me. And then I started thinking about how incredible is that we’re just not and it’s an afterthought to God that he doesn’t just skim over us that he doesn’t skip over us. The Bible says that we’re “fearfully and wonderfully made,” that he knows us by name that that he knows the number of hairs on our head. And so if God doesn’t skip over us, then we shouldn’t skip over His Holy Word any of it. It’s all irrelevant. Somewhere in there, there’s meaning and purpose for us. And it’s not just for the original audience. I mean, obviously, just like the memorial would be for for us, the Vietnam Memorial, the 911 Memorial, there’s sort of this immediate thing that we can go to, would have been the same for the original audience. But even 1000’s of years later, as we’re looking through and reading these lists and seeing these names: they had an impact and God’s story, and let’s just carried with me this week.
Walter
Yeah, definitely. Just because the names are old and difficult to pronounce doesn’t mean they don’t carry weight. Well, thank you for giving us more to think about this week. And I hope that this has been as much of a blessing for you as it has been for me talking today. We’re excited to keep getting deeper with you during the weeks as we continue with Level Up exploring scripture, messages, difficult topics, and well… your questions. Now if there’s something that you’d like us to discuss, head to lscc.tv/connect and fill out the form there to ask your question. Until next time, keep an eye out for future Level UPs on Facebook, YouTube, LSCC.tv, YouVersion Bible app and our podcast and well wherever we throw media. Until then, See ya!
Transcribed from our Level Vlog. You can watch that video here. *gently edited for readability.*
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