You probably sense that something is going on around here.
We keep talking about being on mission: In the Jonah series. In The Plow. Now in the Acts message series.
You may wonder what’s going on? Why all this mission talk? What’s Blue Ridge planning?
The truth is that God hasn’t given us “a plan” yet — meaning that we don’t have any grand scheme to plant a church or start a new missions project. But God has given us an approach to living missionally, and we see that beginning in Acts 1.
There, Jesus speaks to the disciples for the last time. He tells them to go into all the world proclaiming the gospel, but for that moment, he also asks them to wait.
“Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about … you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:5-8
So what did the disciples do? They waited, but they also did what they knew to do. They met together and prayed.
That’s how we approach ministry here at Blue Ridge. We meet together, we pray and we wait for the Holy Spirit to direct our plans.
Back in the summer, the elders went on a retreat and we read Acts. With this series, we wanted to share this experience with the church in a broader way.
Why Acts? The Book of Acts provides the original model for the church. So we want to look at this book through the grid of what it looks like to live on mission.
What can we learn from the early church? This Acts series builds on our previous two series, which showed how individuals lived on mission, and delves into how we do that as a church.
We want to be church doers, not just church goers — participants, not just observers.
We should see ourselves differently. Church is not an add-on in our lives. The gospel is not just something we agree with, it's something we're living.