Introducing "Heart Starters"

I attend a LOT of meetings! And, a LOT of the meetings I attend are church meetings! I struggle with the fact that church meetings don't look much different than the secular meetings I attend.

Wouldn't it be great if we could engage in an activity that would change the tone of the meeting? And, wouldn't it be great if these activities focused the meeting on God? And wouldn't it be great if along the way the participants grew together as people, parts of the body of Christ?

I answered "yes" to all three and began developing "Heart Starters: Defibrillation for the Heart of Christian Meetings". Heart Starters are simple activities designed to change the look of our church meetings! And [drum roll please] it is FREE!

Here's the first one:

files.me.com/lon.alderman/b357ja

Please let me know if you have any questions.

If you like these, please let me know and I'll share more of them!

Thanks!
Lon

Build UP: What We Deserve

What We Deserve

Romans 3:23-25
...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.

Most advertising these days promotes the message: "Buy this product because you deserve it!" The world shouts that life ought to be like the glamor portrayed in advertising, because "we deserve it". Do we? Do we deserve luxury and opulence?

Genesis 3:17-19
To Adam [God] said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'
"Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return."

That's what we deserve, and it doesn't sound very luxurious! Our sin separates us from God and that is a bad place to be. What we deserve is hell! But that's not what God gives us. Instead, God gave us His Son to save us! He gave us His precious Jesus to die for our sins! God gave us what we don't deserve.

Praise God!
Lon

Acorn Build Up: Grace Enters

Grace Enters

John 1:17
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

The rules and ordinances of the law of Moses serve to convict us of our sinful nature. No matter how hard we try we just simply cannot live up to them. Our awareness of our sin and our inability to redeem ourselves points the way to the need for a savior.

Grace came through Jesus. Our Savior brought with Him all the grace needed to redeem us. Jesus said, "My grace is sufficient for you..." (2Corinthians12:9)

Praise God for His mercy!
Lon

Acorn Build Up: I Know

I Know

Psalm 51:1-3
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.

This is a Psalm that I can pray with great sincerity! I know my propensity for selfishness. I know the unclean thoughts that invade my mind. I know my impatience with which I "wait" upon the Lord. I know my capacity for judging others. And the list goes on...

It is my awareness of my sinful nature that drove me to the cross. My sin caused a gap between God and me, and there is nothing I can do to bridge that gap. It is only through God's grace that I can be cleansed. And that grace was purchased on my behalf by Jesus upon the cross.

I need the Lord, because I know...
Lon