Disturb Us, Lord

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask you to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

____

Sir Francis Drake - 1577

Pair this poem with Sunday’s Sermon, Two Doors. Available at risenchurch.com/media.

Our Marching Orders

We exist to make disciples of Jesus who will join God in the restoration of all things. 

At RISEN - this is our marching order - it’s what we strive to do in every aspect of what we do. The goal is to point people to Jesus and equip them to serve Him, using the gifts, talents and passions that we each uniquely possess. It’s an incredible and weighty calling that we have as a church community in Santa Monica. 

In about a month, we have the opportunity, as a family, to live out this calling in a very specific way. Together, we’ll spend some time serving a ministry that exists to bring safety and support to mothers who need a place to stay and grow during their pregnancy and even after the fact. And as we prepare for that day, I’ve been thinking about how often we go into the community because “it’s the right thing to do”.  After all, who would argue that fixing up a shed, cleaning up a house, and sorting through storage in order to serve this group is a good thing? But if that’s the reason we do it, just to do the right thing, then we miss the point.  The point is to humbly show up for people who don’t have a lot of people who show up on a consistent basis for them - so that WE (together) would see Jesus.

For the past 4 months, a few RISEN family members have been holding a Small Group bible study at Harvest Home so that WE (together) would see Jesus. From the get go, we chose to approach this study not as “a church group” that was helping out a ministry, but rather a group of broken people spending time with another group of broken people. Together, through the study of God’s word, we all are growing in our understanding of who Jesus is - and it’s impacting our lives. Not just the women who sleep at this place at night, but all of us who come.

That’s the approach I believe we need to take as we do any type of outreach or ministry. It’s not a whole, complete person serving a devastated, wretch. But two people coming together as broken people - one has a heart to love the other with their gifts, so that they could both come to a deeper understanding of who Jesus is - so that WE (together) will see Jesus.

And the awesome part about this - if we approach each other this way, we experience a seriously deep joy in discovering more about who our Savior is and why He told us to pay attention to those that others might miss.

If you come to RISEN, I hope you’ll join us on June 2nd. It’s going to be a blast. It’ll be a golden opportunity to spend time with people in our family who are really excited about learning more about our Savior - the one who humbled Himself enough to wash the feet of those who would later deny their relationship with Him. He chose to love them on His knees. If you don’t attend RISEN every week, I hope you’ll find some people to love, serve and behold in this way. Are you ready to kneel? 

-Amy Wolff, RISEN Leadership Team

Being Christian In The Real World

I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with some old friends.  It was a celebration and reunion. Several of my friends clearly had too much to drink, but at 1:00 AM, I asked if we could pray… and we prayed, not for just five minutes, but for a good while.  

One of my friends who used to go to church said that it seemed “weird” to drink and then pray.  I told him that it was never “weird” to pray.  We were there for celebration and reunion.  Most of us would not have known each other if not for God causing our lives to intersect.  The occasion was festive and joyous and, thus, appropriately “tucked in” with prayer.  More than that, since prayer is about God—honoring Him, seeking His will, coming to Him honestly and wholeheartedly—I think it was great to end in prayer, giving Him His due respect.

Since that time, I have thought about that night quite a bit and I still think it was appropriate to end in prayer.  If we make mistakes, isn’t that when we need prayer the most?  Isn’t that when we need our friends to bring us before God’s throne of grace?  Isn’t that when we need to be reminded of God’s love for us and place in our lives?  

No one questions that when someone has cancer, falls victim to tragedy, or loses a job.  We think it’s great to be “honest” and “open,” “broken” and “humble” with God, but somehow Satan has convinced some people that they can’t do that after having a drink, going to the club, or “having a night on the town.” 

I think that is a perversion of the truth God wants us to live by.  Jesus only condemns people for praying on two occasions.  Jesus condemned religious people for being pretentious in prayer; either praying in front specifically to be seen or praying long prayers just to impress people (Mk 12:38-40; Mt 6:5-8).  The second was in Luke 18:9-14 when a religious leader thought he had it together and compared his “goodness” to the “badness” of others.  On the other hand, Paul tells us to pray continually (I Thes 5:17) and on all occasions (Eph 6:18).  Jesus, Himself, wanted us to “always pray” (Lk 18:1-14).  

The truth is that God has always wanted His people to spend time with Him in prayer, genuinely and wholeheartedly, regardless of the circumstances.  Being a Christian in the real world means being able to re-center your life at the end of any night, whether it’s a night out with the boys or at home watching the Spurs-Suns game.  Being a Christian in the real world means being able to bring yourself and your friends into the throne room of God regardless of the circumstances.  Being a Christian in the real world means seeing God in every activity, including those that don’t go quite right.  Being a Christian in the real world means being honest and real with God, no matter what. 

-Timothy Jang, Discipleship Pastor

Nothing is worth worrying about.

The Blessing of Hypocricy

I was recently talking to a friend of mine who said that he didn’t have much faith in Christianity or the church.  He said that he knew so many “Christians” who said they were doing “all the right things,” but were just as “bad” or worldly as his other friends.  He said that they did just as much if not more “partying”, getting drunk, being high, sleeping around, pursuing wealth, and on and on. I told him that my faith has never been about “Christianity” (the religion) or the church (an institution), but rather Jesus Christ (a person), the difference being a real historic figure who lived, walked the earth, and died for me.  However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized there is a blessing and a curse to the hypocrisy he observed.

                The Good News of Jesus Christ begins with the claim, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23).  John even wrote, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” (I John 1:8).  In fact, Paul himself wrote, “I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate I do.” (Rom 7:15).  The truth and reality is that we sin, which by the way comes from the Greek—hamartia—meaning “failure” or “to miss the mark.”  No matter how “good” or “together” we have it, we aren’t perfect (which is a problem for Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc and those with religions based on perfectly performing perfect rites and perfectly following perfect doctrine).  I suspect that is why the Bible is filled with so many stories of doubt, disillusionment, frustration, and uncertainty (Mark 9:14-27; John 20:24-31; Judges 6; Psalm 38-40; Psalm 73, etc.).

                Hypocrisy is my inability to perfectly live out what I believe in and am committed to, but since the truth of Jesus begins with acknowledging that I am imperfect, how can my imperfection be contradictory to my faith and, thus, “hypocrisy”?  Instead, my imperfections point to the truth—I’m a mess, I can’t do it on my own, I need someone greater than myself to help me make it through, I need a perfect Savior so that it doesn’t all depend on me, I need someone to call me to excellence because He is excellent.  Hypocrisy proves why Christ had to come to begin with.  It’s a blessing because it reminds me that I need God.

But, the Good News is not that we fall short and need God.  The Good News is that we do not have to be dominated and controlled by sin.  It means we do not have to be measured, characterized, or valued by our performance and, thus, imperfection. The Good News of Jesus is that He offers us forgiveness, purity, and new lives (I John 1:9; Rom 6:3,4), transforms our lives (II Cor 5:17), puts His very presence in us (John 14:15-21), advocates for us (Heb 4:14-16), allows us the privilege of bearing His name (Rev 3:12), and gives us the opportunity to partner with Him for good in the world (II Cor 5:11-21).

                I guess that’s the problem with our hypocrisy.  God calls us to be His ambassadors (II Cor 5:11-21).  In fact, Paul says that God is making His appeal to the world through us (II Cor 5:20) and that we are the lights who are supposed to brighten this world (Phil 2:14-16).  However, if we are not careful, our actions and lives can have the opposite effect on people, even when we say we are pursuing the “right things.” 

Our hypocrisy and short fallings are supposed to remind us that we need God and, in turning to Him, help us to connect with Him so that we can live like Him in the world.  Anything short of that would miss the blessing of our hypocrisy.

- Timothy Jang

Love doesn’t concern itself with fairness. Make peace. Be reconciled.

This past Sunday, The RISEN Family Band released their first official live recording, The RISEN Family Band, Live From The Bridal Lounge.

Download or stream it live: risenchurch.com/media/music

And here’s a little note from the team:

At RISEN, we believe that everything is a gift from God. We celebrate God wherever we find him, and strive to live lives of gratitude and worship. We believe that worship should be a part of our daily lives and that’s why we set out to record these tracks, live from the “bridal lounge” at Trinity Church in Santa Monica, CA. 

This is our joyful noise, recorded in the simplest of settings by several RISEN family members who volunteered their time and talents. Our only goal was to give some songs to our community to worship the risen King throughout the week, monday-saturday.

with love,

The RISEN Family Band

Perhaps “follow me” is the answer to all the questions you have for God.

The future of @risenchurch will not be determined by the number of people in our community, but the spiritual depth of those people.

The best way to avoid the discomfort of conviction is to avoid hearing God speak.