It always seems that the busier things get the less time I have to just post a simple photo and put a caption on it. I’m sure this is the same with every blogger I just try to keep up regardless of my schedule, oh well. My house went from a nice calm state over the new year holiday to crazy in a matter of a few days once the semester started back up again, but one other reason is pictured above. I took that photo with my iPhone about a week ago during a planning meeting for Cornerstone at Lee-Scott, our new multi-site location, and right where I am standing is where we will begin worshipping in February. The sheer volume of things to be done by everyone has grown wildly, but the time to open is almost here.
I have been reading Matthew for the last few weeks and this morning I ended with those famous words Jesus spoke after the resurrection in Matthew 28. In the Greek πορευθέντες (poreuthentes) is difficult to determine a proper tense, but when you try to translate it to English, it all comes out to be an action. Having gone, as you go, while you are going, and go therefore, are all common translations, but “GO” puts the emphasis on the imperative character, which gives the sense of a strong “go” in the missionary command.[1]
That’s a complicated way to say, it’s an exciting time at Cornerstone when 9-10 months of planning comes down to two characters in the English language… G-O. That work has been going on for a while, and that part is almost here. Make disciples… (over at Lee-Scott), that work is just about to begin.
[1] A More Accurate Look at Matthew 28:19, By John A. Finton.
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The photo above of our food drop today probably isn’t going to be anyone’s favorite, but it is mine (you can see others at the Cornerstone Flickr Food Drop set). Today was all about motion, going, doing, and I love the look and feel of this shot above with my nephew taking a box in a people train line from the lady next to him. Today was another great day of the church being the church. Cornerstone people collected over 14 tons of food, and then, as planned, today took it out into the community, it was a great day.
I had mixed emotions about this day for months leading up to today, but thank goodness I’m not in charge, God is, and we had probably 3-4 times the number of people show up at church today to help load the boxes and take them out into the areas designated to us by the Food Bank of East Alabama. I’m sure we will make some adjustments for next year, and I know we have learned a lot as a church body today. Hopefully the people in the Auburn-Opelika community were blessed today, and more importantly I hope they saw the love of Christ in those who went out today.
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I love being part of a local church body that takes the GO in God’s word literally, and seriously. Last week I spent as much time as I could studying about mission theology and how it relates to the nature of God for an international missions paper. Even though my study was under the context of international mission, much of the study of mission theology relates to the mission that is being lived out through our local congregation here in Auburn, and local churches all across the country.
Sunday was our very first meeting and worship service for the new multisite location, and it was amazing to see about 150 people there to kick off the new site. With 150 people or more who have committed to making this new site a success it is already bigger than about 80% of the churches in the country. But more importantly, the people here have a huge heart committed to serving people in our area who have never walked into a church before, and that is exactly what scripture talks about through mission theology.
Throughout the Old and New Testament scriptures, God’s mission is deeply related to His own nature. In fact, the two terms are so deeply related to each other that mission can be defined as being part of the “nature of God.” The Latin term missio Dei is often translated as the “sending of God” or the “mission of God” and is derived from the very nature of God himself, “encompassing everything God does in relation to the kingdom and everything the church is sent to do on earth.”[1] When we examine scripture in context we see that “God is the initiator of His mission” sent to redeem his people through Christ, and then through the Church.[2]
While mission is not the only “nature of God”, the nature of God can’t be separated from mission. It is in God’s very nature, and is played out from the calling of Abraham, to the exile and exodus of the Israelites, to the coming the Son of God the Messiah. It can be seen in the setup of the New Testament Church in the book of Acts, and on into our modern day evangelical churches like my own where our leadership long ago decided that this church would not sit idle while “someone else” did the work of mission.
The very mission of God, which is to receive the praise and worship of all nations, is so closely woven together that neither could exist without the other. In modern day cultural terms, mission is not often thought of as a theology, and is rarely related to other aspects of theology. But, when scripture is closely examined, we see God indeed calls all nations to worship him, which then makes it “natural to build a theology of mission at the core of all theological studies.”[3][4]
All that to say, this is an exciting time here at Cornerstone as we move ahead with being one church in multiple locations. We are one of very few multisite churches in our area, or even the state, who are moving through a plan to reach people in our area through more than one location, and doing so with missio Dei as the focus.
[1] McIntosh, John A. 2000. Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, ed. A Scott Moreau, s.v. “Missio Dei.” Grand Rapids: Baker.
[2] Sanders, Van. “The Mission of God and the Local Church,” in Pursuing the Mission of God in Church Planting, ed. John M. Bailey, Alpharetta: North American Mission Board, 2006, 24.
[3] Moreau, A. S., Corwin, G. R., & McGee, G. B. (2004). Introduction to World Missions: A Biblical, Historical, and Practical Survey (1st Edition ed.). Grand Rapids, MI, USA: Baker Academic, 75.
[4] Bosch, David J. 1980. Witness to the World: The Christian Mission in Theological Perspective. Atlanta: John Knox.
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The day has finally arrived and today as our team heads for the Atlanta airport, and I know we all have prepared and prayed as much as is possible for this moment. In a few hours we will be over the Atlantic, at which time comes my very favorite feeling of all, having no control of driving the bus whatsoever by sitting in a medal tube at 40,000 feet for the next 2 days. Of course I did contemplate with Deborah for a short time about taking a slow boat to Africa but she reminded me we wouldn’t make it back before 2012 was here, so I guess it’s for the best we have planes now, I guess.
In case you missed my last trip from a few months ago (just hit Uganda on my blog and scroll down), we travel from Atlanta to Amsterdam, then Amsterdam to Rwanda, then on to Uganda (yes, we fly right over Uganda to land in Rwanda), for a total of almost 10,000 miles in just about 36 hours from start to finish. I timed my trip last time from the moment I left my house to the moment I got into the guest house and it was right at 36 hours, which translated into 1 sunrise and 2 sunsets. By the time we landed last time I remember thinking, this has to be Africa, if we traveled any farther we would start to head back home around the other side.
For those few of you who might want to follow a more exact detail of what’s going on as we board and land etc, you can follow my feed on Twitter @scottfillmer or you can friend me on Facebook. For those who are unfamiliar with Twitter, You do NOT have to be a member of Twitter to follow our trip/team on Twitter, it is an open page, just click on my name above and it will give show you the updates (if you want to respond to something on there you do need to join Twitter if you haven’t already). For Facebook of course you will need to be on Facebook. The information and photos I post on Twitter and Facebook are unique to those two media’s so you won’t see those pics on my blog. I will also be able to update both while I’m actually on the ground in Uganda during the day, so if you are so inclined you can read what we are doing over there as well.
For now, I would like you to meet our team. From the photo above (in no particular order here) we have April Olive, Amy Frye, Bart Hyche, Emile Ewing, Jamie Moussirou, John Dow, Lisa Randall, Prabhakar Clement, and me, Scott Fillmer. Please be praying for each of us through the stresses of travel, and being away from our loved ones, that God will give us the strength needed to make a difference in just the way he has called us to do. See you here when we get to Europe if I can.
Know that we all greatly appreciate all your prayers as we leave and while we are over there. For those who have my cell phone number, please feel free to send text message to me while I’m over there, it’s like getting a letter from home, and I can receive unlimited text messages on my phone, just can’t send a large number. I probably will not reply, but I will receive your message.
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Tonight was our kickoff meal, so to speak, with the Uganda team and our families at the famous Little Italy Pizzeria in Auburn. This was the first time we have all been together with our friends and family in one place, and it was great to all just be in the same room together. Up until now, for months in fact, we have met as a team in preparation for our trip to Uganda, and what a team we have going this trip. Collectively we have such an incredible range of personalities, skills, experience, gifts, and expertise, especially when you include our friends and family that were there tonight. To me, it’s such a great look at how the church body can be so diverse, yet united in Christ together with the desire to follow God halfway across the world.
This will be the first of many upcoming posts from our trip. We leave on Wednesday and I know everyone on the team will greatly appreciate your prayers as we go through the final stages of trying to let go of our busy schedules here and start to focus on the task at hand. For now, here are a few shots from tonight, more to come over the next week to ten days. Thanks so much to the guys at Little Italy for putting up with our large group and all the noise, you guys were awesome (see photo below).
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This week our church lost a dear friend as the Lord brought home Erin Stephens. Erin touched this church and the Auburn community in so many ways, and this was quite evident by how many people came to say goodbye to her today. It was a privilege for me to be a part of that and I felt quite blessed to be able to share this time with her family. It’s always amazing to be able to celebrate a life lived for Christ, and that’s what we did. Her service was as she requested to her husband and family, a celebration of her life and a time of worship. One of my favorite verses from was read, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die”, from John 11:25 along with a great message of encouragement from Rusty. We also sang How Great Thou Art, I Will Rise, and You’re Beautiful, a great song of worship by Phil wickham from the Cannons album. I love the last verse of that song, which says…
When we arrive at eternity’s shore
Where death is just a memory and tears are no more
We’ll enter in as the wedding bells ring
Your bride will come together and we’ll sing
You’re beautiful
Here are a few photos from today’s worship. It really was beautiful.
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Cornerstone has two teams headed to Uganda in July (I’m on the second trip that leaves in two weeks), and the first team left today for Atlanta and then almost 8,000 miles and two 9 hour flights to Kampala, Uganda. I love being around people who are following their faith not just with words but with actions. Our salvation is not ever tied to our works, but we are called to action not just words, and I love that about these people leaving today. Imperfect people following a perfect Savior as best they can. They were all very excited about the days ahead, and if you want to follow their trip, two of them will be blogging as they can from here and here. Please be praying for our team members as they begin to arrive and get settled into their routine. Here is who is on the mission trip in that photo above:
RJ Harris
Dan Harris
Jonathan Savage
Amy Coxwell
April Brown
Jennifer Robinson
Davis Robinson
Casey Huff
Josh Cumberland
