Many of us are doing something different for this Labor Day weekend and before we get back into our routine, I wanted to encourage you to pause a moment and examine the role that labor and rest play in our routines. For me, this is my peak season at work. Recruiting work in general is a sentence that doesn’t have a period. There is always someone that could be hired, strategy that can be worked on – in short, work to be done. With peak season, if I wanted I could work from 6 in the morning to 10 at night all week and go to bed knowing there is more that can be done. Maybe you can relate to this. I can see my wife Laura with our sons, Bert and Benji, working on school plans, taking care of their needs -- sometimes getting up at 6am and staying up until 10pm. And with our kids, if we choose to, we could always go to bed feeling like there is more to be done. So where does Christ fall into our work – and our rest? Our Work Co...
Do we really need another church? Every church planter hears this question at some point if they don't ask it themselves first. The short answer is yes. Let me give you three reasons why we need to continually plant new churches and then apply that to the context of Covenant Life in Lakeside. 1. Jesus commands us to plant churches. He does? Where?! Actually it's contained within a verse that you probably know very well. In Matthew 28:18-20 Jesus says, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have command you." Jesus doesn't just call us to go and evangelize in this passage, but he calls us to make disciples and to baptize them and then teach them all that Christ commands a follower to do. Baptism isn't just a meaningless ritual, but is the beginning of incorporation...