Ladies Christmas Tea (photo essay)

Meals As Ministry (pt3) by Daniel Williams

Meals open doors for God to work in and through our relationships with others, and we have been looking at specific ways we can see this at work! Today, we will look at 2 areas we can see in the Bible where God uses meals as an opportunity to serve and teach one another.

Meals are an opportunity to CELEBRATE

Culturally, we celebrate things with meals and food. Not only big holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, but most special occasions tend to incorporate food. Jesus celebrated with people because the gospel was good. Christians should be celebrating as well and should be throwing the best parties because we have the best reason to rejoice! Our salvation! Jesus never leaves us or forsakes us, He is for us…so we should continually be excited and thankful!

Luke 5:27-29 says, “After this He went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax    booth. And He said to him, ‘Follow Me.’ And leaving everything, he rose and followed Him. And Levi made Him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them.”

Invite people over to a party and celebrate God’s goodness! 

Deuteronomy 14:26 says, “And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household.”

When we have people in our homes, it allows people to see what our lives are like. The kids arguing or making a mess is part of real life! People can see that we don’t celebrate because we have everything together, but because God is so good and we rejoice in HIS goodness!

Meals are an opportunity to CARE FOR PEOPLE

Sometimes, we can forget that there are people in need of something as basic as food. We know it is a problem in the world, but we can forget how much providing a simple dinner for someone can make a difference for them. John wrote in 1 John 3:17-18, “But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” 

Opening your home to people not only meets a physical need, but can also meet the even more important emotional need to feel loved and accepted. There is nothing worse than feeling out of place or unwelcome. When we open up our homes and our lives to people and make them feel at home there, they feel it. People know when they are truly welcome in your home and loved.

Hospitality is a very big deal for Christians, because LOVING PEOPLE is a very big deal! 

Romans 12:13 says, “Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.”  Being hospitable is even a requirement for elders in the church. We should be looking for opportunities to show hospitality to people! And watch how the Lord uses these times to show His love and mercy to people through you. You may not see the impact in that moment, but you can be sure that God will use it!

So, let me challenge you to ask God what opportunities you have to use meals to show His love to someone. Look for ways that you can share COMMUNITY and CONVERSATION (see part 2 of this series) with someone, CELEBRATE the goodness of God by having a gathering, and genuinely CARE FOR SOMEONE in need through hospitality. God will use you!

-Pastor Daniel

Christmas Booth (photo essay)

PERSPECTIVE RESET (Psalm 139) by Alesha Sinks

{This post is an excerpt from my devotional ebook Perspective Reset: 28 readings and meditations from the Psalms. The devotional is FREE to all of my newsletter subscribers and I would love for you to download it. Click HERE to subscribe and download the ebook.}

Psalm 139:1-18

In this Psalm, David meditates on and praises God for His intimate care for every detail of our lives.

He starts by recalling God’s knowledge of every detail of our day-to-day lives, from our very first to our very last heartbeat. First David reminds himself that God knows our sleeping and walking and every breath that crosses our lips (v 1-6). Then he moves on to meditating on God’s complete presence and His ability to be with us no matter where we are (v 7-12). Next he begins to praise God’s detail and care in forming us as babies, and His knowledge of our life and purpose as he creates us (v 13- 16). And as David concludes this meditation, he once again breaks into praise…

"How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you." (v 17-18)

Perhaps you’ve read this Psalm before. I know several people who would pick this Psalm out of all 150 as their very favorite, and I think that’s because it shows the very tender, intimate love and attention that God bestows upon us.

I can’t help but read this Psalm and feel like small, tenderly loved child in God’s presence. In the New Testament, Jesus affirms God’s attentive and caring love for each of His children with statements like this one.

I can’t help but read this Psalm and feel like small, tenderly loved child in God’s presence

“...Even the hairs of your head are all numbered." (Matthew 10:30)

How can we read these verses and not bow in worship of a God so great who still chooses to intimately involve Himself in the details of our lives?

The next time you are tempted to believe that He doesn’t see you or doesn’t hear you or doesn’t care about you, remember, He knows your every breath. He cares about you deeply and knows you intimately. Rest your heart and mind in that truth today.

{Verse to Meditate On Today}

"How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!"
Psalm 139:17

{Take some time to meditate on the implications of serving a God who loves you so intimately and cares about you so deeply that He knows the number of the hairs on your head. Allow your heart to rest in this great love.}

My Story by Bethany Massey

How Great Is Our God by Redemption Kids

We had a sweet performance by the children in Redemption Kids last Sunday, and everyone who was able to attend was blessed by their song, “How Great is Our God.” The kids, ages 2-11, worked on it weeks in advance, and we hope you will enjoy this video of their performance.

Worship | In Action by Travis Sinks

Worshiping God in our actions is well known idea amongst Christians. Though, just because it’s a common idea doesn’t mean it’s well understood.

A primary verse for worshiping God in action is Colossians 3:17 where Paul writes:

"Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father."

But the question is HOW do we do all things “in the name of the Lord Jesus”?

The answer is straightforward. As described in Hebrews 11:6, it’s "impossible to please God without faith" (Hebrews 11:6a). All faith responds in action, whether it’s song, prayer, etc - yet what we’re looking at now is, what does it look like in the normal actions of life?

Hebrews 11 has many great examples of “heroes of faith” such as Abel, Abraham, Moses, and others. The common thread is that they acted in faith towards who God is and what He told them to do.

What does this mean for us?

I trust that God has spoken to you. In fact, I know He has. If you have sought to hear from God, He promises that He will speak to you. I don’t guarantee that He will open the heavens and speak audibly to you, I don’t even assume that you have “felt” God saying something specific to you. However, God’s Word has many things to say about how God desires us to live. It tells us how He desires us to love others, to encourage others, to flee sin, to repent when we sin, etc. There are many things God has asked us to do, and when we act on these things in faith, we are worshiping God in our actions. 

Faith in action

Look at it this way, you can wake up and pray out of duty, or even a good habit, OR you can choose to pray because you have faith that what God has said about prayer is true. That because of your faith in Jesus, God desires to hear from you and desires to be a part of your every moment.

We can give to the church we attend or help out the homeless person on the street, but Hebrews 11 tells us that all of these things are not worshipful to God unless they’re done through the eyes of faith. Faith that believes that God has called us to do something that will have impact because He is working through us.

Now, you can be sure that God will be working through you no matter what. We see God using people throughout the Bible who had no intention of seeking God, or obeying Him. However, although your actions are used by God regardlessly, it has to be your choice to have your actions be based in faith towards God, and therefore, done in worship to Him.

Worship is an internal decision with outward consequences. So the question remains yours to answer: why do you do what you do? Is it because God has told you to and you desire to please Him, or is it because it’s “how you were raised” or “it’s just the right thing to do”? The answer to this question will determine how much of your life is wasted effort and how much is truly worship to God.

It’s a lifetime process, but I hope we can all answer these questions more and more with:

"I do ___________ because of what God has done for me, and what He promises to continue to do."

Meals As Ministry (pt2) by Daniel Williams

In Part 1 of this series, we talked about how using mealtimes as an opportunity to encourage someone is something we can all do! In the following post, you can read about several important ways that the Bible helps us view even our meals as opportunities for the gospel and discipleship.

Meals are an opportunity for COMMUNITY

Community is a real need that we all have. Having been made in the image of our triune God, we can see that God designed us to need one another and to meet this need through His people. We were made for community!

Genuine community takes time. 

Relationships with people do not develop without time and effort. Welcoming a person into our day, listening and sharing experiences—each of these things build on each other to create a friendship. Jesus did not only teach his disciples from messages—he traveled with them, ate with them, and shared experiences with them. Jesus is our perfect example of how we can use every opportunity to demonstrate the love and truth of God. 

Building friendship and establishing a sense of community will happen one step at a time. Even if it feels awkward in the beginning, every relationship has this stage of establishing common interests, getting to know the other person better, and finally feeling a sense of community and comfort with one another.

Remember that when we give our time, we show people that we love them. When a person feels loved by you, they will be much more open to allowing you to speak into their lives, and this will open doors for ministry to take place where it may not have before. 

Meals are an opportunity for CONVERSATION

Meals force us to be people oriented rather than task oriented. Sitting and eating with one another is an opportunity that we have to be still and have conversation. When we can no longer hide behind a project or busyness, we expose who we are in our conversation. We know that out of the heart, the mouth speaks which allows us to really get to know people through conversation. 

Let God fill your conversations.

God can use our conversations to help demonstrate His heart for people and encourage them. Proverbs 16:24 says, “Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.” So, consider meals as an opportunity to love people with your words. Speak about the goodness of God. Bring up the promises of the Bible. Mention how you are seeing God at work in your own life. We are bombarded constantly with the lies and half-truths the world offers; we need to be hearing the truth of God more! 

So, remember to pray beforehand, that God will prepare you to speak His words during your time together! Once you begin to view meals as a way to be used by Jesus, you will be much more intentional about doing it! Look for Part 3 of this series for a few more ways to view mealtimes as opportunities for ministry.

-Pastor Daniel

Love On Display by Travis Sinks

Our Mission

At Redemption Church, our mission is to Pursue & Proclaim Jesus. We accomplish this through our four main focuses: Sunday Mornings, Community Groups, Leadership Development, and Outreach. Everything we do as a church comes from one of these main sections. We desire to gather together on Sundays to worship and hear the public proclamation of God’s Word, we gather together in Community Groups to encourage, and pray for each other, while also living life together through each other’s joys and struggles. We also desire to specifically build up people in the church who are called lead in larger capacity at Redemption Church by focusing on Leadership Development. Each of these three things are meant to build up and encourage the current Christians that gather together at Redemption Church Delray Beach.

However, God has called us to not only build up each other, but to reach outside our four walls and show the love of Jesus to our local community and all those we come into contact with. We do this through Outreach. Sometimes this means that we host a booth during a city event, other times we run shoe drives, or help the local food kitchen, but it’s not limited to organized group events. Outreach is also a daily activity that every Christian should be engaging in. Paul teaches that we are ambassadors for Christ in our everyday life, and therefore, we never “clock out” of our Christian life (2 Corinthians 5:20).

One way we, as a church, will be equipping ourselves to show the love of Christ to people throughout our day is through our new “Love On Display” cards.

As a Christian, we should be living lives that cause people to ask: “Why?”. People should wonder why we would desire to help them when they can’t pay for their groceries or why we would comfort them when they are obviously having a hard day or why we would go out of our way to help them when their car is on the side of the road. However, sometimes, we can’t always find the words to share why we do what we do, or maybe there’s no time to. We want to help reach out to our community through our actions of love, and we want them to know why.

These cards simply say that Jesus has come to give us life, and life abundantly. The back of the card tells the reader that your act of love towards them was to remind them that Jesus loves them, that He has a great plan for their life, and that He desires them to know HIm. The cards also direct readers to visit "www.redemptiondb.com/love”. This webpage explains the Gospel and invites them to accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior.

We desire for Delray Beach to be one of the most well loved cities in the world because we are a people who have been saved and redeemed by Jesus, Who first loved us, and we want the people of Delray Beach to have the opportunity to know Him as well.

So please, keep some cards on you and be looking for opportunities to love the people around you. God has prepared good works for you in advance that you might walk in them, so enjoy the supernatural opportunities God provides for you to love people in your very normal, daily situations.

-Pastor Travis

When God Says Go by Alesha Sinks

We'd felt a restlessness, a desire for change. So we prayed and sought direction and been frustrated and prayed some more until God pointed us in a new direction. And suddenly it felt like we were pointed in a new direction and then left to drift. We saw what could happen if this new direction didn't work out and it was scary ...And nothing happened. It didn't seem like God was going to come through. Maybe we had heard wrong...

But for months, God said, "Wait."

So we waited. And we felt crazy. And we looked unwise. And we were misunderstood, I'm sure.

And we doubted frequently. And we tried to head different directions. And we tried to plan ahead. And we tried to jump off the path God had laid before us. And we tried to "go" in any area we could while still technically waiting…

But God kept saying, "Wait". So each time we tried to abandon ship or turn the rudder in a different direction, within a day or two we had to repent and tie our rudder back down to the course God had set for us. And simply wait...And that was painful.

From our perspective, it looked like God was sending us straight into the rocks and to certain doom. But the more we prayed and tried different things, the more He confirmed the direction He had pointed us in...and the more sure we were that He was saying, "Wait."

We didn't know how it would work out. We needed a miracle. We were scared of waiting and potentially crashing. But we were more afraid of disobeying...

"We don't have to know how it is going work out in order to obey God." Pastor Daniel Williams

So we waited and prayed and waited and prayed and kept working hard at the things God had set before us.

Then, about a month ago, we began to sense God telling us to "go" in one area. But it was an area that seemed to move us toward those looming rocks even faster, instead of steering us away from them.

So we prayed hard. And we talked about it often. And we prayed together and on our own and reminded each other to pray and set a timeline.

Then we began to tell people. Just a few. And we prayed that if this step really was what God wanted that He would allow the authority in our lives to support it.

A week later God opened one door we didn't think was possible, and another that we didn't know existed. It was as if He began to open up a path in the middle of the rocks just big enough for our ship to squeeze through.

And the first thought I had when the opportunities were presented was, "Why did I have so little faith?”

"Why did I doubt God's provision when He said to wait?""Why didn't I jump faster when He said to go and it made no sense?""Why do I struggle to believe God when He's proven Himself over and over?”

I'm so thankful that we obeyed even when it didn't make sense. And although there are more rocks ahead, my faith is stronger and I'm trusting that the path will open when we get there. He's never let us crash before.

And whether God is telling you to "go" or telling you to "wait", and no matter how crazy the direction He's asking you to take…obey.

Because..."Obedience precedes understanding." Pastor Daniel Williams

We didn't understand. And I know we won't understand again in the future...maybe even the very near future, but I'm more afraid of being outside God's will then I am of "crashing" while inside of His will.