Over the past few months I have said that I would be sharing some exciting stuff regarding our efforts in planting a church, and today is one of those days!

As we begin to plan and prepare for the year ahead, we’ve already been working on many items necessary to plant a new church. One of those items? A church name. And as we considered naming options, there were a few things that went into the decision-making process, such as:

1. It had to be a name we really liked (obviously).
2. It had to be a name that wasn’t already being used (to my knowledge) in North Carolina.
3. It needed to be fairly short.
4. It had to be a name not currently being used by any large, well-known church in any other part of the country.
5. We wanted it to represent our vision and mission.

A couple of these came down to understanding that we live in a digital age, and to pick a name that will make the church more difficult to find online just isn’t smart. And let’s be honest, in this age of online everything, we knew it would it would also be good to create a church name that would have a short URL, as well as allow us to have short social media handles.

And one final, but important, consideration that went into the name choice? This scripture that really spoke to us during the naming process: “You are the light of the world–like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.” (Matthew 5:14)

So…drum roll, please…the name of our Raleigh church plant will be:

New City Church

BUT…now it’s your turn to help us bring it home by helping us choose a logo design. We’ve narrowed it down to these six options and would love for you to cast your vote for your favorite design.

CLICK HERE TO CAST YOUR VOTE

                       Logo 1                                                         Logo 2                                               Logo 3

                        Logo 4                                                       Logo 5                                              Logo 6

]]> http://dd.cinderstudios.com/cast-your-vote/feed/ 0 http://dd.cinderstudios.com/what-gratitude-has-to-do-with-following-jesus/ http://dd.cinderstudios.com/what-gratitude-has-to-do-with-following-jesus/#respond Tue, 05 Jan 2016 02:21:12 +0000 Dylan Dodson http://dd.cinderstudios.com/?p=1418

Do more good than bad, don’t make him angry, become a better person before you approach him.

That’s how many people view God, and most of us have at some point in our lives. And what is there to be grateful about a God you always have to appease?

Prominent Welsh pastor of the 20th century, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, once asked his congregation what they would do if while they were away from home one day, a friend who as at the home visiting paid an overdue bill for them. If it were a small bill, unpaid postage on a letter, you’d pat them on the back and say “thanks.”

But if the IRS had finally caught up to you after ten years of unpaid taxes and had come to take you to jail, and your friend paid off your entire debt, you would not pat them on the back and say, “thanks.” You would fall at their feet and say “Command me!”

And this is actually a lot like what it means to follow Jesus. Following Jesus is not about following rules and doing all the right things to make God happy.

The reality is, if you do anything because you are told to, you are forced, or simply because you think it is the right thing to do, you’ll eventually become frustrated and want to quit.

And not surprisingly, this is what happens to many people who try be religious. They think if they do the right things their life will improve. But when things don’t go as they planned, they get mad at God for not holding up his end of the deal.

But that’s not what it means to follow Jesus.

In the illustration above, if the police were coming to take you to jail and ruin your life as you know it, and someone comes in a saves you, you would want to do whatever you could to express your gratitude for what they had done.

Not to pay them back, you couldn’t, but to show them how thankful you are.

This is what it means to follow Jesus.

We don’t do it to try and earn something. We don’t do it because we are trying to pay Jesus back (we can’t), we do it out of gratitude for what he has done for us.

When you do something because you want to do it and not because you are told, you’re going to keep doing it. Following Jesus isn’t easy, but when we remember what he has done for us, our gratitude leads us to keep doing it.

I thought I would share this with everyone who may also be interested in what I’ve been up to.

As I mentioned in the video, we do invite anyone to join us this coming Tuesday night, you can also let is know if you are interested in coming by clicking here.

I’m excited for what’s ahead on this journey and look forward to sharing more soon!

Thanks to everyone who has spent time reading any of my posts. My prayer is that you have found them helpful in some way. Below are my most read posts of the past year.

10) The Sexually Atheist Christian

It is one thing to struggle in the area of sexual purity, it is another thing altogether to regard it as unimportant.

9) Can You be Like Jesus if You Don’t Read Your Bible?

Many people have an opinion of what Jesus was like and what it means to live like him. But many miss one major thing that Jesus did a lot of.

8) Telling Your Money Where To Go: How To Budget

A follow up to the post on how to save thousands of dollars, this gets into the practical details of how to actually do it. It’s also easy to follow and implement!

7) Doing Exactly What I Know I Shouldn’t

My struggle with doing the exact thing I know I shouldn’t be.

6) The Loss of a Friend; A Hope for the Grieving

This year a childhood friend of mine passed away by taking their own life. Here are some words for those in pain for any reason at all.

5) How to Save Thousands of Dollars a Year

What if I told you that there was a way you could save thousands of dollars this year, and the chances are that you aren’t doing it? Best of all, I’m being completely serious!

4) My Weekend With Finley as Told by Twitter

One weekend earlier this year it was just me and Finley for the first time. I documented the whole experience on Twitter. Certainly my funniest post of the year!

3) I Would Be a Better Person if I Wasn’t Married

Marriage exposes a lot about you, many things of which you can hide from everyone else but your spouse. So much so that I have occasionally thought I would be a better person if I weren’t married. But is that really true?

2) Can a Christian Suffer From Depression: My Story

This is actually a post from 2014, but continues to resonate with many people. It’s my story of dealing with depression and what I learned from it.

1) We’re Taking Our Next Big Step

This fall I began my church planting residency. Here is where I shared what I would be doing and how you can be a part.

The Christmas season is the time of year where we celebrate that the hope of the world has come to shine light into the darkness.

But for many, this season can bring the exact opposite of joy. Whether it’s a reminder of loved ones no longer with us, or the capping off to really difficult year, there are many reasons why this time of year can be particularly difficult.

And yet, this time of year is a reminder of a very important truth. That you are loved and cared for, regardless of how you may feel. Christmas is a reminder of something that we cannot afford to miss. That God cares for you.

Here is how one of my favorite pastors/authors Tim Keller puts it when it comes to not knowing why God allows so much suffering in this life. He says there is one thing we can know:

It isn’t because God doesn’t care, because if he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have come.

God cares or he wouldn’t have come.

With that here are some of my favorite quotes I have seen this Christmas season that can give hope to us all.

Caesar was in his palace, surrounded by luxury and splendor. Jesus, in a manger, flanked by animals. Yet who do we celebrate today?

-Trevin Wax

Christians believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. Materialists believe in the virgin birth of the cosmos. Choose your miracle.

-Glen Scrivener

Christmas is telling you that you could never get to heaven on your own. God had to come to you.

-Tim Keller

God can use the PhD’s (Paul) and the GED’s (Peter); the doctors (Luke) and the tax collectors (Matthew).

-Tony Merida

If Christmas is about presents, the poor are hopeless. If it is about family, the orphan is hopeless. If it is about Christ, none are hopeless.

-Chelsea Patterson

And of course, the best news the world has ever received:

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.

-Luke 2:11-12

In every other religion of the world, if you do the right things, then God will love you, or forgive you, or give you what you want, etc. At it’s core, it’s basically about improving yourself in order to appease God or some other sort of Supreme Being or Thing.

This is the standard from which we all tend to operate. If you do good you deserve good, and if you do bad, you deserve bad. So it makes perfect sense that religions would teach this in some form.

Imagine if this is how I viewed my relationship with my daughter. That if she would be good then I would love her.

So if she holds in all her poops until her mom gets home (been trying to train her to do this for quite some time, still hoping it will work), sleeps through the night, takes good naps, and doesn’t cry during Duke games then I would love her.

But that’s not how it works. She doesn’t hold her poops in until her mom gets home, she often doesn’t sleep through the night or nap well, and whether or not there is a game on TV I want to watch, it has no bearing on whether or not she’s fussy. But I still love her. Her actions have absolutely no impact on whether or not I love her.

And so the God of the Bible is often initially approached, like every other religion, in a get what you deserve way kind of way. We naturally think that God may be willing to forgive us, but we have to get a few things together first before we approach him or approach church.

But that’s not the message of the Bible.

The message of Scripture is this:

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—  but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

-Romans 5:6-8

Which means, Jesus came for you as you are today not for some better version of you. While you and I were still sinners, Christ died for us, not after we improved ourselves.

Jesus does call his followers to obey his teachings and commands (Matthew 28:20), but this is after we have been forgiven and loved by God, not before.

Matt Chandler says,

So this idea of God’s love for us, according to the Scriptures, should create two things. It should repentance, and it should create gratitude that we are loved by God. And we are loved by God today. It’s not you when you get everything straightened out that God loves. It’s you now. It’s not some future version of you that God has affection for. He loves
 you now.

He loves you now.

So if that’s you, someone who isn’t sure about this whole God thing or thinks God won’t love me until I [fill in the blank]. I hope you come to know that’s not true.

God loves you now, and he wants more for you than you can imagine.

In my last post I shared a dream of mine. A dream of reaching a lot of people with the love of Christ. A dream that can only happen if God does what only God can do.

Most of the time when God moves, he does it through ordinary people. The Bible is full of stories of people God did big things through. Surprisingly, other than Noah in the Old Testament who God said was a righteous man (Genesis 6:9), we have no reason to believe God chose to use the people he used other than his undeserved grace.

People like Abraham, Moses, and Joseph. In the New Testament we look at Jesus’ disciples, and if you were around that day, you would ask yourself why? Why did Jesus choose them?

One of his disciples, Matthew, was even a tax collector. Which in that time meant that he stole from his own Jewish people to give money to the government so that they could oppress and rule over his family and those he grew up with. Why would God use him? It certainly was not because he deserved it.

Because God is gracious toward us, he allows us to be a part of his mission of saving people. Not because we deserve it, and even though we usually get in the way, but because of his grace.

In Wake County, the area in which we live, 88% of people do not attend an evangelical church on a given Sunday. In fact, the Barna Group recently ranked Raleigh as the 69th most post Christian city in America. What this means is that Raleigh is increasingly moving away from the Gospel.

This isn’t some other country or a traditionally non-Christian part of the county we’re talking about. For those who like me live in this area, it’s here, right in our own backyard, and in our own neighborhoods.

But this isn’t about statistics, it’s about people. People for whom God cares for and loves. People like your family, neighbors, and coworkers. People who don’t know what they are missing, many of these people willing to admit that there has to be more to life, but they just aren’t sure what.

So we are going to gather together to pray. To pray for our area and for us to reach more people with the Gospel. Pray that would God use us and allow us to be a part of what he is doing.

Tuesday, January 5th, at 7 PM we are going to do just that. If you’re on Facebook, you can find the address by clicking here and let us know if you are interested in being a part. We hope you’ll consider joining us that night as we pray together.

Last week I spent some time in Chicago at a NewThing Network gathering. NewThing is a network of churches and church leaders who desire to plant more churches and reach more people for Jesus.

On the plane ride back I spent some time journaling about my new dream. It is a bit to intimidating to share this, but if it gets others excited it’s probably worth it right? Here is what I wrote:

I have been frustrated lately because I’ve felt a lack of direction. I have known planting a church was what I was working towards and what I felt God calling me to do, but it seemed like I was spinning my wheels a little bit. One morning during the first main session at the NewThing event when they were talking about writing your dream on a napkin, I felt myself slipping back into thinking something like this.

“Well, I know I want to plant a church that reaches people, and of course I want to raise up other leaders to do the same. But not because I am special in any way or because I can “do church” better, but for the simple fact that we need more healthy churches to reach more people. Especially in an area like Raleigh that is growing so quickly. And I’m willing, I’m willing to do something about it.”

Yes there are certain ways I want to do things and plans and specific passions I have, but it’s driven by the fact that we need more churches where people can live in community with one another. Not because I can do anything better than anyone else.

And this is when I felt the Lord say, “that’s not good enough.”

I realized the problem wasn’t God not giving me direction. The problem was me. I wasn’t asking God for what could be, my mentality instead was simply to fill a need, that need being more healthy churches.

But that’s not good enough.

So I carried the napkin they gave us for the rest of the day having no idea what to put on it. What was my dream? Not what can I do to fill a need, but what is it that I would love to be a part of?

And it couldn’t be something easy, that wouldn’t be good enough either. It needed to be something only God could do.

So during the last session of the day I still had my blank napkin. I knew at the end they were going to pray over our napkins, but I figured mine would be blank for now and I would try to think of something later.

But with about 15 minutes left in the last session I simply felt I should pick up my napkin that was on the floor near my feet. I put it in my lap and told God whatever I wrote would probably be embarrassing to tell people, but that I wanted to give myself to something that only God could do. And then I wrote this:

My dream is to be a part of a movement that is actively reaching 50,000 by the year 2040.

Now that doesn’t mean I want to lead a church of that size. I don’t, and I honestly couldn’t even if I wanted to. But if we can plant a church that God uses to reach people with the Gospel, that creates environments where Jesus changes us, and then sends people out to do the same thing, 50,000 people can be reached.

Churches that plant churches over a period of time will always reach more people with the love of Christ than one church or one leader can, always. And I want to see God do just that.

My dream is to plant a church that produces disciples that reach 50,000 people in 25 years. That dream seems to be a little bit more exciting that just filling a need.

The first step to any God sized dream is to bring it to him and petition for it. So that’s what we are going to do, we are going to pray. Pray for Raleigh. Pray for more people in Raleigh to be reached for Jesus. Pray for churches and church plants to reach more people in our area.

Tuesday night, January 5th, we are doing just that. If you would like to join us, you can find more info here and let us know if you plan to attend!

C.S. Lewis famously gave us this idea that Jesus is either a lunatic, a liar, or Lord.

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic —on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg— or else he would be the Devil of Hell.

You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

The point is that either Jesus is who he said he is, or he isn’t. And if he isn’t who he claimed to be, why listen to anything he had to say at all?

I am constantly reminded of this when people use Jesus to tell others how they should respond to a situation or how they should view a topic.

The argument goes that Jesus just wants us to love others, and everything else is secondary. Therefore, if you hold a certain view, if it doesn’t come across on the surface as loving, then Jesus wouldn’t agree.

But that’s not how it works.

Here are some claims Jesus made:

• He and God are one (John 10:22-42)
• No one gets to God except through him (John 14:1-15)
• He has the authority to forgive sins (Matthew 9:1-8)
• He is the light of the world (John 8:12-20)
• He has always existed (John 8:48-59)
• Apart from him we can do nothing (John 15:1-11)

And for good measure, he talked about hell more than anyone else in the entire Bible. So if you are going to say Jesus is wrong about all those things, why reference him on the one thing you do agree with him on?

For example, I don’t pick and choose the “good” things that Donald Trump says. Why? Because even if he were to say something I strongly agree with, I wouldn’t want to be associated with all the negative he brings. By simply referencing Trump, to most people my statement loses credibility.

It should be no different with Jesus. Many want to throw out all the potential ‘lies’ he made for the one stance they agree with him on; love. However, if Jesus is wrong on so many other issues, it stands to reason he was probably wrong about love as well.

But he wasn’t.

Either Jesus was who he said he was or he isn’t. There is no integrity in telling others to love like Jesus if you are going to ignore everything else he said, that is simply way too inconsistent.

But if you do find yourself agreeing with him about what it means to love, maybe you should take some time to really look at the other things he says.

You might find that love was simply one of the many things Jesus got right.

A few months ago I watched a video about professing Christians who essentially wanted people to know that they didn’t hold the stereotypically negative Christian beliefs. Basically, the point of the video was that not all Christians are like those Christians, i.e. the “crazy” ones.

Though the video did seem to insinuate that Christians who believe the Bible is authoritative in their lives should be included in those ‘crazy’ Christians.

Anyway, after those in the video said what they didn’t want to be labeled as thinking or believing, they then shared some things they did believe and/or were. And there is one statement that I found really interesting and remember thinking, why?

Here is what that person said:

“I believe in monogamy before sex.”

This was my initial thought: Why? That isn’t a Biblical concept.

Now, the Bible does teach that God created sex to flourish in the context of a committed, martial relationship. So yes, monogamy is part of that. However, the way we use monogamy in our culture today means almost nothing.

Often, we think of monogamy as being committed to one person (which it is), but the problem is we often have no qualifiers by what committed means other than not seeing someone else.

Which means a one night stand can be considered “monogamous.”

That is not the type of monogamy the Bible preaches. 

Surely this person is not alone in their thinking. Particularly with everything surrounding same-sex marriage in the past year, there has been a shift in the way some Christians have expressed their belief.

From believing God created sex to be enjoyed in a committed marriage relationship between a man and a woman, to simply a “committed” relationship, whatever that may mean.

So we must ask the question, what is God thinking? Why take sex so seriously so as to take away from what we think will make us happy?

The fact that God places boundaries upon the ways and forms of pleasure does not imply that He is against our joy. Consider the example of an architect who specializes in roller coaster design. No one would call him a killjoy when he necessitates a safety bar across the lap for his ride which loops and takes turns at 70 mph. We understand that certain restrictions are necessary for such an adventure.

-Geoff Ashley

Sex is a gift created by God, but the reality is outside certain boundaries it leads to hurt, shame, regret, embarrassment, etc.

Now the truth is that we have all sinned sexually in some way, no one is perfect in this. And if you are someone who would say that you are unhappy in this area of your life, what do you have to lose by trying it God’s way?

A fish is made for the context of water. It may jump out of the water onto land and think for a second it has found ultimate freedom, but in the end, it can’t survive and thrive outside of the boundaries it was created to live in. Sex is no different.