On Sunday, February 7th worship service will be held in the morning instead of the evening. We will be joining Hope Chapel Gateway at their 9am & 10:30am services. Our regular worship service time will resume on Sunday, February 14th at 5pm.
Hope Chapel Gateway
312 Maple Ave Torrance, CA 90503
As I write this article it is with deep thanksgiving and gratitude for the one who allows me to help advance his kingdom and make his name known. The one, Jesus Christ, has grabbed a hold of my heart for the South Bay and City on a Hill, my church. I wanted to take the time today to share about a few happenings at CoaH. First, at the beginning of the year CoaH has embarked on a study of Francis Chan’s book “Crazy Love.” The book literally starts with the statement, “We all know somethings wrong.” If that doesn’t get your attention, nothing will. Chan poses the question, “How many of you have read the New Testament and wondered if we in the church are missing it?” and from there on challenges us, the church, to fall in love with God and when we do allow ourselves to be changed. “Because when you’re wildly in love with someone, it changes everything.” We’re going through a ten week study of the book together both on Sunday’s and in our small groups. Many of us have bought the book and are reading one chapter per week as a further way to get its content. I encourage you to join in our study. The book is available at www.crazylovebook.com.
Second, we’re experiencing a movement of the Holy Spirit in corporate worship like no other time. Folks are coming out of the woodwork to get a taste of what God is doing with us together. There’s a great atmosphere of worship and love for God, a hunger to learn from his word, a deep desire to declare his holiness, and a committment to share God’s love with one another. Each and every Sunday night God surprises us with his grace, joy, love, and presence. If its been a while since you’ve worshipped with us, now’s the time!
Lastly, though there are many, many things I could share about CoaH and its happenings, we’ve started a live web cast. That’s right. If you can’t join us on Sunday evening you can watch from home or wherever you have an internet connection and you’ll get the whole enchilada. Praise songs, prayer, the message, announcements, all the good stuff! If you can’t catch us live the service is automatically saved on our site for your viewing pleasure anytime. So, visit us at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/city-on-a-hill-church-south-bay.
God is alive and active at City on a Hill in Torrance. I look forward to his work in, with and through us in 2010, I hope you as well.
Have you ever felt like more of a spectator at church than being “the church”? I used to feel that way at other places of worship I attended. I’d go to hear a message each Sunday and maybe participate in a weekly Bible Study however, I did not feel like I was ‘the church,’ but instead that I came and went without ties to being very important to the structure of that church. It was not until I began attending City on a Hill that those feelings began to change.
As I sit and think about our church I realize that we really are a relational group of people who follow the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ characteristics of A) being accountable to one another, B) rooted in the Scriptures and C) working together to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission to go and make disciples of all nations. We are the church!! We the people of CoaH create ministry teams, we lead them, we volunteer our time to see them through, we work the sound board, we bring the coffee and cookies (thank you so much for that!), we lead the worship and we lead children’s ministry. This follows with what Paul teaches in the book of Ephesians. In verse 4:16 he writes “Under His (Christ) direction, the whole body is fitted together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing full of love.” City on a Hill really feels like the body of Christ with each of us bringing our gifts and sharing them with one another. There is no other church I have ever been to where the people give so much with hearts of compassion and joy in giving.
The first church recorded in the Bible sounds like ours today. In Acts 2:42, 46-47 the Scriptures read “They joined with the other believers and devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, sharing the Lord’s supper and in prayer…They worshipped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared meals with great joy and generosity-all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people.” I know of a number of people at CoaH who go out for dinner after church, who meet for coffee during the week, who volunteer to bring dinner to their Bible Study. It is amazing that the people of this church love to be together and worship the Lord together as well.
If you have not felt this sense of being the church here at City on a Hill I would encourage you to get involved. God is active and working in each ministry team, and small group so that His work can be glorified. You have a gift to share, a gift given to you by our heavenly father and He wants you to use it for His glory. Our church is the body and in order for it to work efficiently it needs all of the parts working together for a purpose. I have experienced that there is nothing sweeter on earth than giving your life for others. My hope is that you experience that as well, that church becomes less about you and more about God, also that you get to know the people you say hello to each Sunday evening and that you are fulfilled when sharing your gifts to further the ministry of City on a Hill. We are each called to be the hands and feet of Christ, and there is no better place to start than in our own church.
In His amazing love,
Cheree Whorley
If you’ve been around City on a Hill for the last few weeks and haven’t heard about what we’re doing this Christmas then you must be totally out-of-it. In partnership with two other churches in Torrance, Hope Chapel Gateway and Pacific View Church, we’ve embarked on a journey to rethink Christmas this year. We’ve joined with hundreds of churches nationwide in the Advent Conspiracy movement (www.adventconspiracy.com). We’re tired of all the commercialism, syncretism of faiths and culture, and the hijacking of one of Christianity’s most celebrated occasions, the birth of Christ. So, we’re taking it back! Christmas that is. We’re conspiring together to take back Christmas, its celebration, its meaning, its spirit, its joy, its peace, its giving, its truth, its real purpose.
We’ve all been encourage to do three things this Christmas season. First, to tell the real story of Christmas to one other person. Perhaps you know a family member, a co-worker, or friend that just hasn’t heard the simple story of Christmas. Not the Santa story or the Frosty story or the Rudolph story, but the story of Jesus. What a conspiracy it would be if each of us simply told one other the real story of Christmas. Here we were also reminded that the Christmas story, the story of the birth of Jesus, includes us. Each of us has our own story of how Jesus incarnates (makes flesh) our lives. We can’t tell the Christmas story without telling our story because the Christmas story necessarily includes us. Second, to buy one less gift and give the money you would have spent away. Simple choose someone on your list and don’t give them as much or not at all. I’ve made this easy on those folks at CoaH who are in the habit of giving me a gift to say give my gift away to someone who really needs it. When you do this, make sure the person who doesn’t get their gift knows what you’ve done. Third, Do one act of service as a family to someone(s) in need. Serving together as a family not only helps those you serve but strengthens your family as well.
Thus far as Torrance has been rethinking Christmas mighty things have been happening. And the best part is that we’re hearing about those things. literally dozens of acts of service, giving to the needy, and Christmas storytelling are going on right around us. To check out what’s happening, and you won’t want to miss this, visit our blog at www.torrancerethinkingchristmas.wordpress.com and join in the conspiracy!
Have you ever had the Lord work in a way that surprised you and caught you off guard? This has been my story over the past four months.
In February our Bible Study led by the Hershbergs, took on a challenge from the book If You Want to Walk on Water You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat by John Ortberg. It was a challenge to pray for something of your choice everyday for six months and see how God answers your prayer, and if nothing happened after six months we could write to him and he would send us a refund on his book. It was a challenge we all felt like we were up to, so we each chose our prayer item in anticipation of something big happening. Some of us chose to pray for people, for our schools, or for our government. I chose to pray for a girl in Zimbabwe named Bongiwae whom I support through an organization called World Vision. I had never met this nine year old girl, nor had any previous contact with her, so in all honesty I didn’t really think anything would happen to me through this challenge. God on the other hand had some plans of His own.
From that time on I would pray each morning for Bongiwae. A week went by, nothing big had happened, a month later still nothing. The frustration set in, but I continued to pray. Two months and still I had not heard of any miracle God had performed in the country of Zimbabwe nor had I heard from World Vision about my sponsor child. In fact, I had only heard stories of how this African country was worsening through AIDS, cholera, and numerous government scandals. It didn’t seem like God was listening to my cries at all. Looking back however, I realize I was focused on the wrong aspect of this challenge the entire time.
Despite the lack of change I could see from my prayer request I was realizing that I felt closer to God through my conversations with Him. The more comfortable I became in prayer the more people I would start praying for. Then one day I made a list of thirty people to pray for. I would pray for five of them each day along with my prayer for Bongiwae. As time went on I realized that the Lord was answering my prayers for those thirty people, so each time He did I would draw a smiley face next to the item in my journal. This time of prayer each morning became my hang out time with God and it completely transformed my relationship with Him. I woke up anticipating conversation with Him about anything and everything in my life. He became more important to me, my first priority of the day. He became my focus.
It is now June 16th, four months after the start of Bob’s challenge. There are fifteen smiley faces in my journal of prayers answered for others in my life and there are still two months to go awaiting God’s answered prayer for Bongiwae. This challenge has changed my perspective of our Father as well as my awe of Him. John Ortberg was right when He said God will act if we pray. But we must remember to expect something so much more than what we think is possible.
Peace and Grace,
Cheree Whorley
I was convicted this week in my personal time with God when I read Nehemiah 13:15-18. In this passage Nehemiah was upset with the People of Israel because they were not keeping the Sabbath holy. They were “burdening” and “profaning” the day they were to set aside for the Lord, “What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the sabbath day? Verse 17. In my meditation and reflection on this passage God convicted me that I hadn’t spoken to this issue in my (our) context as I should. The thing I felt strongly on my heart was that I had downplayed corporate worship at CoaH and for that I must apologize. In my attempt to highlight other aspects of our Christian faith and its disciplines I have not highlighted the importance of regular worship together with the body of Christ. Again, sorry.
So, where to go from here. I hope you’ll join me as together we begin to reclaim Sabbath as an important aspect of our Christian walk and faith. I’d encourage you to take a quick listen to my message from Sunday that will give more specific information how we might do this like Preparing to worship together, Coming more regularly, Listening and Responding, and Going forth from worship to be in the world but not of it. I know God will bless us from our efforts. Looking forward to seeing you on Sunday at corporate worship.
Sunday I preached my first message in this new sermon series at CoaH. And boy was it powerful if I do say so myself (feedback indicates this as well). Anyway, I wanted to let all of you out there in cyberspace know what you missed out on. By the way, my sermons are taped and on this site if you’d like to listen on-line so in reality you don’t really have to miss out. Back on point, I read the following from Erwin McManus’ book, Uprising, “We were created with a passion to live. When a person loses his will to live, he has essentially begun the first stage of dying. This is why some people live until their final breaths and others die long before their bodies are laid to rest…We simply assume that this is just the way it (life) is. We surrender ourselves to the mundane. It is not antipathy that defines us, but apathy. The first leads to the violent and abrupt ends of our lives; the second, to a tortuously slow decay. To be apathetic is literally to be without passion” (emphasis mine). Apathy, the lack of passion, slowly kills us. It’s not quick, it’s not easy, it is mundane and tortuously slow. A very difficult way to live and die.
Unfortunately, many of us live our lives in apathy. We pour our lives into jobs we don’t like and get nothing out of and at the end of the day mean nothing to us or anyone else. We waste our time, effort, money, and energy on things that don’t really matter and have little to no value. We keep ourselves busy with tasks, schedules, busy work so we don’t have to think about our pathetic apathetic lives, because when we slow down we just get depressed. We spend our money on things we don’t need to temporarily give us reason to live and find joy. We plan times to escape our dreary conditions with vacations, excursions, and activities just to run away from our bleak reality. And the list goes on! Still think you’re not living a tortuously slow decay in apathy?
So, what’s the antidote? Passion. But not just any passion but a passion that makes a difference, a soul passion. We may have a passion to vacation, a passion to play, a passion to succeed, a passion for good food but do these things matter or are we yet again running from the real issue, God? What saves us from a pathetic apathetic life is developing a passion for the one who created us to live with him now and into eternity, Jesus Christ. No other passion will do because no other passion compares.
I hope you will join us, City on a Hill, as we dive into discovering again or perhaps for the first time the God who will change our lives. My goal for this series is no secret and one you should know. It is that God changes you. I’ll do my best to pray and use God’s Word to communicate knowledge and information about him and give you tools to create and develop your passion for God but at the end of the day I can only do just that. I can’t make you more passionate about God, your faith, and your following. Only God himself through the power of the Holy Spirit can do such a thing. So, I’ll pray for you and encourage you and support you as God faithfully changes your life as you get to know him better. Enjoy the ride!
There is a phrase about being a witness or bearing witness. What does that mean? When I looked up the definition of “bear witness” it was broken down as “bear”: to hold up; support and the word “witness” was defined as: one who can give a firsthand account of something seen, heard, or experienced. I first learned about this expression when I was in college. It was explained to me that this idea originated from World War II and the persecution of the Jewish people. Because of the atrocities that transpired, there was a need for firsthand accounts or witnesses to share what had occurred so the world would know and these horrendous actions would not be forgotten.
This got me thinking about the verse in Galatians 6:2 that say “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” As human beings, we each need people to come up alongside us and shoulder the weight of life. There is a concept called, “facetime” where you are actually with someone not on the phone, texting, emailing, Skyping, etc…but are actually with that person…face to face. As humans we need this “facetime” with another person who will listen to us and bear witness to our life.
How can I bear witness to others in my life? At first I was thinking globally…then I realized that was a bit grandiose, so I began to narrow my focus…to my husband, friends, church partners, co-workers, etc…What is the most effective way to bear witness? It is simply being with someone and asking them how they are doing…really doing. It is about growing relationships so that the people I come into contact with feel comfortable telling me what is truly going in their life. It is about people allowing me to be a person that they can trust to bear witness to their life. Isn’t that what Jesus did? He was with people face to face and he is our ultimate role model for “bearing witness.”
So, my invitation to all of us is to reach out and risk being real with others and practicing the art of bearing witness…
-Christy Tercero
The last Wednesday of every month I attend a South Bay Pastors group called Gatekeepers. This morning was no different. When we arrived today we were put into groups and asked to discuss what “evidences” there should be in our community of the Kingdom of God. I said the greatest evidence of the Kingdom of God is that real needs are being met. It didn’t take long to get some push-back. I love these guys. “What about proclaiming the Gospel and telling people about Jesus?” “What about changing lives with the transformative power of proclamation?” “What about speaking about Jesus?” The questions flew! My brothers in ministry, and indeed I count them brothers and friends, were challenging me because I didn’t say anything about “speaking” the Gospel with our lips. One in my group said that there are a lot of “good things” the church can and does do but he’s more interested in doing “God things.” Another said that meeting needs is not necessarily Christian and isn’t Christian without proclamation of the Gospel, he meant spoken. It took a little bit of back and forth discussion before I realized the problem we were having. A problem at the foundation of our theological understanding of what it means to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus and live in his Kingdom.
They were doing, in my humble opinion, two things that many of us do in Christendom. The first is they were defining Gospel proclamation simply as speaking with lips and words. But Gospel Proclamation is way more than that. I argued that we proclaim the Gospel not only with our lips and words but also with our actions. In fact, often times Gospel proclamation with actions is much more effective than Gospel proclamation with words. I believe Jesus knew this and why he so often met the real needs of people as evidence of God’s kingdom having come. Francis of Assisi once said, “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.” I love that! He understood Gospel proclamation to be way more than just words. When we deconstruct Gospel proclamation to just words then we’re really missing the point of Jesus. There certainly is a time and place for words and it is indeed Gospel proclamation but not the only sort.
The second theological underpinning they were speaking from was the delineation between the sacred and the secular. In our society, I think because we deconstruct everything, there has become a dichotomy between the things of God and things that are not. Hence the differentiation between “good things” and “God things.” But I argue that good things are God things and there is no need to delineate. When those who are in Christ reach out to those who are in need we are necessarily doing something “Christian” because we are, in the truest sense, following Jesus. A follower does what the one he’s following did. And Jesus certainly met the real needs of people around him and many times he did this with actions alone.
At City on a Hill we’ve really had to work through these two predominate theological biases carefully. But I really believe we’ve come to some healthy and accurate interpretations and philosophies that help us minister better to the community and advance God’s kingdom. So we proclaim the Gospel through actions and when necessary use words and we bring together the sacred and the secular as is God’s intention. We do good God things!
Okay, I’ve been thinking again. I know, bad news. But, does being a follower of Jesus Christ change you and should it? One of the biggest complaints I get from those outside the church (here meaning a group of Jesus followers) is that we act and look totally different then the one we follow, Jesus. It’s true. They say, “Jesus was so loving, non-judgemental, hung out with sinners, etc., etc. but you (Christians) aren’t like that at all. You don’t love, you judge all too readily, and you only hang out with others like you.” Well, there are two reasonable reasons for this I figure. The first is that their perception of Jesus and of us is in error. This is usually the answer we give ourselves which, conveniently enough, lets us off the hook allowing us to move on. The second is that, though perception may be skewed somewhat, we in actuality don’t really act and look like Jesus. So, is this a problem? Of course it is, silly! Why follow someone, their thoughts, teachings, philosophies, theologies, actions without the intent of becoming more like them? If we do that then all we’re doing is filling our head with knowledge about someone, not truly following. To follow literally means to “behave in accordance or agreement with someone,” to “imitate in behavior.” For real, I looked it up. By definition then if we don’t act, look, even think like Jesus then we’re not really following him are we. Then the name Christ Followers, even Christian, which means Christ Follower, is just a catchy name.
Therefore, I propose we do one of two things. We could change our name from Christians to “Christnizants.” That’s my own word combining Christ and Cognizant (feel free to us as your own). Christ referring to Jesus the Christ and Cognizant meaning “aware or; having or showing knowledge or understanding or realization or perception.” Really, I looked it up again. This way at least our name isn’t just catchy but actually has meaning and significance referring to who we really are and what we really do. We’re aware of Christ, we have knowledge of him but we don’t really need to act or look like him. This way we really wouldn’t have to do what Jesus did and hang out with sinners and fight against the established religious leaders and love those who aren’t like us. We could create little pockets of Christnizants all around the city that speak our own Christnizant language that no one outside of our click understands using words and phrases like, saved, fellowship, blood of the lamb, etc. Of course we would have to build fortresses to gather in with iconic beauty and extravagance. We could be exclusive and allow only those who act and look like us to become members of our Christnizant colonies. We’d know they’re ready to join us because they use the Christnizant buzz words; zeal, brother, walk, and others. We’d create Christnizant schools where our children would be safe from the “world out there.” We’ll hire Christnizant professionals to continue to give us knowledge and heighten our awareness of Christ enduring 20 to 30 minute messages once a week, say on Sunday, so we don’t loose our connection altogether to Christ. Wow, the more I think and dream about this the better it sounds. This might actually work!
Or, we could continue to use the name “Christian” and start following the Christ.
