As a Christian, have you ever felt stereotyped?  Do you see the “I’m against EVERYTHING” people on TV, invoking the name of God while hating everyone else?

So many of those who attract the most attention seem to have a dominant message: BAD NEWS.

At Keystone, we are joining so many churches in an effort to change our message.  It’s a RETURN to the GOOD NEWS, the GREAT NEWS in the Bible called “the gospel.”

The GOOD NEWS is summarized as this:

The crucified and risen Jesus Christ is Lord!

1 Corinthians 15:3-6

• It’s important to BELIEVE this GOOD NEWS.
• It’s vital to meditate/marinate on this GOOD NEWS.
• This GOOD NEWS should shape our BELIEFS & worldview.
• The GOOD NEWS is that Jesus is our SAVIOR… taking our sins upon himself.

Jesus is NO LESS than our SAVIOR… but he’s much, much more!

The GOSPEL/GOOD NEWS calls Jesus our LORD (Christ).

Romans 10:15 says

How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!

The bible is CLEAR: Jesus is our SAVIOR and our LORD!

Once we receive new life in Christ, it’s time to put on our GOSPEL SHOES!

Don’t confuse this: You don’t put on your SHOES without the GOOD NEWS!

• You can’t balance the scales between your good/bad deeds.
• You can’t work your way into favor with God
• Works-based religion leads to UTTER EXHAUSTION or COMPLETE PRIDE.

Good deeds are the RESULT of a relationship with God, not a WAY TO  a relationship with God!

So, let’s get with it – GOOD NEWS / GOOD SHOES!!!

*This post is a summary of my weekend talk… check it out HERE:

This weekend we are launching a new series, KICKS. I am convinced that if you really invest in these messages, OTHERS will thank you!

You see, we are ADDICTED to LIFE-CHANGE at Keystone Church! We just can’t get enough of it.

It is SO SATISFYING to hear the stories of lives impacted by Jesus, marriages healed, and families united. Yet, in order to experience so much transformation… it requires massive investment! It’s HARD WORK to change the world!

Here are some tangible ways we give LIFE-CHANGE a priority place at Keystone:

1. We pray about it. Prayer reveals your passion. God will honor your prayers, if they align with his passions!
2. We talk about it. Each staff meeting we remind ourselves of the people and their stories.
3. We beg God for it. If we are running out of new life-change stories, WE BEG GOD to trust us with his broken people… We will pray as a staff for more opportunities to help others.
4. We plan for it. Each service includes a FILTER for the unchurched or de-churched. We don’t assume biblical knowledge of basic characters, for example. We lay out bridges (songs, jokes, videos, illustrations, etc.) to bring the good news of Christ to interested ears. We also have strategic ‘harvest weekends’ that mobilize the church for evangelism.
5. We anticipate it. We believe that many will be spontaneously baptized, so we have everything ready for them. We are not SHOCKED when God moves… we are BLOWN AWAY!
6. We fund it. Mailers, Community-wide events, Street Teams, and many more strategies are funded for life-change. We put our money where our mouths are!
7. We empower it. This one is HUGE. We have many things at Keystone designed only for believers (community groups, men’s/women’s groups, communion gatherings, etc.). By doing this, we are empowering evangelism through TRAINING, ENCOURAGEMENT, PRAYER, SCRIPTURE, etc.
8. We evaluate it. We hold ourselves accountable at a staff level to a 1/10 ratio. In other words, for every 10 people you see in the lobby on a weekend… at least 1 of them has been baptized this past year. This is not a biblical mandate, but we believe it honors the biblical mandate of Matthew 28.

How can you EMPOWER life-change on a personal level?

Check out WEEK 1: as we introduced the series… IN & OUT of LOVE!  We discussed the MAJOR DIFFERENCE between ‘contract love’ and ‘covenant love.’

IN-N-OUT of LOVE – Part 1 from Keystone Church on Vimeo.

IN-N-OUT of LOVE – Part 1 from Keystone Church on Vimeo.

This weekend is WEEK #3 in our VERY FUN series, ‘THIS PREACHER LIKES TO DANCE.’

Throughout the series we are discussing how God has WIRED THE WORLD for celebration. This weekend, we will explore how God has created us for pleasure and how we tend to take that pleasure (sex, food, drink, entertainment, etc.) and bend it toward pain. In my preparation, God is putting some hard topics on my heart… some that might not be great for ‘little ears.’

Without giving too much away, I strongly encourage all the parents out there to please be sensitive to drop your kids off at our amazing kids’ ministries to protect their little ears as we GET REAL this weekend!!! Otherwise, the ride home will be very memorable!

See you this weekend… and INVITE EVERYONE YOU KNOW!

This Preacher Likes to Dance Video Blog from Keystone Church on Vimeo.