New Life Assembly

Revolution: Communion

This week's talk centers around the communion meal between Jesus and his disciples as an invitation for us to receive grace and mercy from our relationship with him:  Download 23 Revolution - Communion

Short Week Monday

Good Morning!  Hope you're ready for the short work week and the holiday on Thursday.  We're getting ready for the McNamar clan to gather at our place for Thanksgiving, which means lots of cleaning to be done first, and then lots of cooking to be done later.  I'd gladly do all the cooking if Rita would let me out of cleaning, but somehow I don't think that's in my future.

So, right to the weekend...yesterday we celebrated communion together, as we finally landed on the passage in Mark where Jesus and the disciples share their last supper together.  I took it as an opportunity to remind us that sitting in the room were 12 guys who'd followed Jesus for three years, and that not one of them would be coming to his defense mere hours later as he was arrested and sentenced to death.  I wanted us to remember that we're not all that different from them - they had their moments of failure, and we have ours.  But the failure is never the last word when Jesus is involved.  Grace is always the last word, always the defining moment.

He offers the bread and wine of redemption and new covenant to each of those 12 in their turn, even to Judas.  He invites men and women like us to have fellowship, relationship and a new life together with him.  So every time we celebrate that supper we celebrate our liberation and our new life with him.  As I said yesterday, we come to the table because, fundamentally, we are people of hope; people who believe in a God who makes all things new, starting with us.

It's been great to see some new faces at the church over the last few weeks.  If you're a regular, take some time to get to know them - I think you'll find it's worth the investment of a few minutes of your time on Sunday!

Grace.  Peace.  Thanksgiving!  Let the first two flow towards you, so the third can flow from you.

Random Wednesday Thoughts

Wednesday's a weird day, it's the day I always feel like makes or breaks a week.  If I get a lot accomplished today, I feel like I can take a deep breath and Thursday and Friday flow nicely along.  When I struggle on Wednesday, I start dreading the last two days.  So I'm hoping today is productive.  Some midweek thoughts:

• Involved in some good conversations with a group of pastors about discipleship, commitment and what it requires to truly follow Jesus.  It's good timing for me as we work on re-vamping our process for making disciples at our church.
• Just signed up yesterday for an account at Twitter.  We'll see if/how I like it.  Not sure the advantage over Facebook status updates, but I've wanted to give it a shot for a little while, and now that I'm mobile with the Blackberry, figured now was as good a time as ever.  I question, however, whether I'm really interesting enough to follow.  Doubtful.
• Our Sundays have been a struggle family-wise lately.  Rita and I are in conversations about how we can make Sunday better for our kids.  I'm becoming increasingly aware as they get older of the particular challenges of being a pastor's kid.  We still haven't figured out how to balance all of it out, so if you're a pastor reading this, feel free to hit me with an email (keith.mcnamar@gmail.com) and let me know how you've handled it.
• Wrote a brief article on Seth Godin's book, "Tribes", a couple weeks ago for Alex McManus and the International Mentoring Network.  You can find the article here.
• Working on putting some of my recent thoughts re: discipleship into an article form and submitting it for publication.  It's been three years since I submitted anything (and got my first rejection), so hopefully I can find my courage again :)
• I've lost 17 pounds since Labor Day.  Looking forward to the next 18 coming off to get to my goal weight.  Also hoping that next Tuesday when I weigh in, I've lost more than Jim, otherwise I have to pay for our Texas Roadhouse dinner :)

Revolution: Extravagance

This week we talked about our calling to worship Jesus wholeheartedly, and to practice that in every area of our lives: 

Download 21_revolution_extravagance.mp3

The Monday After

Welcome back.  So glad you stopped by again.  I'm looking forward to my second cup of coffee (Starbucks, indeed!) and hoping you're ready for the beginning of another week.

We had another good Sunday yesterday - good crowd, good music, good (I think) message.  We talked a little bit about our money and priorities, but I tried to steer us towards the idea of what our worship really is worth.  Our passage this week was in Mark 14 with the woman who anoints Jesus with the expensive perfume set over against Judas who chooses at that same moment to betray Jesus for a sum of money.

I think that Judas had hedged his bets and was looking for something better to come along, while the woman with the perfume realized that nothing better was coming along - Jesus was the best that she was ever going to find.  When you walk into the room and realize the only one who can save, rescue and redeem you is sitting right in front of you and when you realize that he's worth everything that you have to give, then you give everything you have without reservation.  She wasn't looking for another, better opportunity to come along - she had found exactly what she was looking for in Jesus.

I think that's the way we should approach our worship of Jesus - as if there's nothing better coming along.  I think many times we spend too much time and effort looking for the next, best thing, as if something or someone is going to come along and give us a better offer for our happiness and pleasure than the one Jesus has given us.  That way we can avoid stuff like the cross, self-sacrifice and wholehearted commitment to him.  The only problem with that is that it's not discipleship in the way of Jesus, and so it won't cut it for us if we're going to follow him.

So this week give your heart and soul, your everything, in worship to your King.  Worship him in your family, your job, your school, in everything you do this week, give it all you have and watch him multiply your worship for the advance of the Kingdom and the gospel.

144 hours until we get together again next Sunday - make 'em count for the Kingdom!

Revolution: Watch and Work

This week's talk focuses on Jesus' words to his disciples about the future - it's an invitation to have an attitude of both watching and working for the arrival of the kingdom of God: 

Download 21_revolution_watch_and_work.mp3

Monday, Wish it was a Sunday

Good Morning...it really is an amazing fall morning here; blue sky, sun shining and I don't even have to turn on the heat.  So pull up your chair, settle in with a good cup of coffee (or if you prefer Dunkin Donuts, an average cup of coffee) and I'll rewind a bit of the weekend that was.

We had a great service yesterday from beginning to end.  I think everyone showed up yesterday all at the same time, which never seems to happen, which made for an excitement in the room that you could just about feel.  I think the worship team did a GREAT job leading yesterday - it's been awesome for the last couple weeks to have a full band leading the worship time, and I am having a blast working with some great musicians who want to bring glory to God when we play and sing.

I spoke from Mark 13, which is the passage where Jesus talks about the future - his return and the coming of the kingdom of God.  I think it's really comical to hear all the apocalyptic rhetoric in Christian circles now that the election is past.  It's all started to step up again, and it honestly reminds me of my childhood growing up in a church where we got just a little obsessed with the whole "end times" discussion, and forgot to actually be busy with the work of the kingdom here and now in the time God has given us to get it done.

I tried to give us the perspective that we should be both watching and working at the same time.  God has given us each an assigned task in the Kingdom that we're going to be accountable for.  There will come a day when Jesus returns and establishes the kingdom in all of its fullness, and when he does we will give an account to him for what we've done in the area of our assignment.  My prayer is that we can move towards that day with hope, not fear - hope because all along we've been fully engaged with the work of the Kingdom, and we've kept a watchful eye out for his return.

Since September we've been doing a once-a-month evening service for worship, prayer and communion.  Last night I just felt like there was such a sweet presence of God's Spirit among us.  There wasn't a lot of praying "out", but it seemed like God was stirring our hearts in a deep way as we worshiped, prayed and shared the communion elements together.  I love times like that when we can just sit and soak in God's presence around us - I left last night feeling uplifted and encouraged, and if you came, I hope you did as well.  If you didn't come, you really should make an effort to check out the next one, I think it will be good for your soul!

If you're following the blog, I'll see you back here Wednesday for a midweek check-in.  For now I'm going to go plan sermons for 2009, and spend the rest of the week thinking through some church systems and getting ready for a season of change next year.

History-Making Wednesday

I'm going to make an attempt at giving a weekly sort of midweek status update for those who might (or might not) be following the blog.  I guess it'll be bullet points of what I'm thinking at the moment - some personal, some church-related, so here goes...

• Sitting at Starbucks this (late) morning, taking my first sips of their new Thanksgiving Blend, which is bold, has a bit of spice to it, and is overall pretty enjoyable.  I bought some for the house yesterday, so it was nice to come in and be able to taste it here.
• Ended up buying a new phone this morning.  My Palm was "watered" about a month or so ago and ever since it's been acting strangely.  Yesterday I got a phone call and the phone vibrated for about 5 minutes straight before Rita got it to stop...I decided it was time for a change.  Bought a Blackberry Curve and finally caved and got the data plan so I can check email on the go and, more importantly, make Facebook status updates :)
• In keeping with the change theme, I was intrigued by the election results from yesterday.  Change is in the air, and I don't know if that's going to be for the better or worse at this point.  Certainly President-elect Obama inherits a political/economic situation in which it would be difficult to go anywhere but "up", so his presidency is primed for opportunity.  I'll be interested to see how he follows through on these opportunities.
• After the Catalyst conference I bought the "Systems" DVD which was a talk given by Andy Stanley at last year's conference about creating systems in the church that will lead us to be healthy and productive.  It was a great talk, and kicked me in the pants to figure out how to create better systems for our church.  In large part our "system" has been disorganized, mainly because I've been disorganized.  I'm trying to change that and working hard to move in that direction.
• I've got a list of 8 systems that I think are part of what we do as a church - I'm going to be focusing on 4 for the next several months:  (1) Guest Experience (2) Communication (3) Discipleship (4) Leadership
• For the last couple months I've been meeting with a good friend, Scott Axtmann who pastors Renaissance Church in Providence, on an initiative that he's spearheading to create a collective of advocates to adopt impoverished communities around the world.  Scott's a big dreamer, and I'm honored that he would ask me to work with him in such an obviously Kingdom-oriented way.  You'll be hearing some more about this effort - we're calling it Beautiful World - over the next several months.

I think that's all for now...back to work for me!

Monday "The Extra Hour is an Illusion" Reflections

It's Monday afternoon and despite a second cup of coffee already I'm feeling just a little bit sluggish.  I remember the days I used to look forward to that magical October weekend when we'd get that extra hour of sleep from turning back the clocks.  Now we've got two kids and a puppy who made sure that the extra hours really is just an illusion.  Rita keeps telling me there will be a day we'll be happy the kids don't like to sleep in - I know that's just the crazy talking of a morning person, so I don't listen...

To the weekend...Sunday I finished up my brief three-week diversion from Mark's gospel.  We've been tackling the idea of discipleship in the way of Jesus as a story, focusing on the immersion into the back story, development of our character and finally this week the advancement of the plot.  I did my best over the three weeks to make the case for God as a master storyteller, and hopefully got each of us to think about our own role in his story.

I'm convinced that there's so much potential in our church (and in yours if you're not part of ours) to add to the glory and goodness of God's story in the world.  I believe that God's story is, and has always been, concerned with the reconciliation of the world and all of its citizens back to himself.  I believe that Paul's prayer at the end of Ephesians 3 should inspire us to pray and hope audaciously for God to accomplish in and through us the things that are immeasurably beyond what we could ask, think, or imagine.  I hope that over the last three weeks I served to inspire us to think and pray that way.

To conclude yesterday I shared three commitments I'm asking us to make over the next couple of months to help us going forward as revolutionary disciples in Jesus' Kingdom.  Here's how I wrote them in my notes:

• Immersion into the Scriptures:  The practical step here is to keep doing what you’re doing.  I want to invite you to keep making the Sunday morning worship and teaching time a priority in your life.  I commit to doing my absolute best to provide for you teaching that is biblical, relevant, and that will help you see the nature and character of God.  I’m asking that you commit to coming here with a renewed desire to hear God speak to you, and then asking you to commit yourself to taking the things you’re hearing here to your home with you, and allowing God to build on them there as you immerse yourself into the story of Scripture.

• Character Development:  I believe that the best way for us to develop our character is when we have a context for accountability and growth.  I’m going to ask you to commit yourself to twice a month meeting together with a friend (or maybe two) to focus on the ways in which God is trying to shape your character to more reflect his.  This is the time and place to share the real challenges you’re facing as you are working on being a better character in God’s story, and the place you find and offer encouragement to keep moving forward in the journey.

• Plot Advancement:  I’m hoping to see a few of those friends begin to band together in missional groups of 6-10 people who will commit to advancing the Kingdom of God together, showing the riches of Christ’s love to the community he has placed us in.  I’m going to ask you to meet together with this group once a month – one month you would meet to plot a way to show the love of Christ to the world, and the next month you would execute the plan.  Repeat until all of South Kingstown and Narragansett has become a follower of Jesus!

I hope you'll join me as we start taking some next steps into what God has planned for New Life!