INSPIRE NEWSCAST

I reckon that little two or three letter words are easier to remember than big words.

That’s why I am using the words UP, IN, and OUT in my current talks about how the church functions.

UP represents our focus on God. Worship is the highest calling of the followers of Jesus and we need to learn how to put God as a priority for every part of our lives.

IN represents the focus that we have on the church and the need to develop a healthy church. I suggested on Sunday that among many other things we need the following qualities:

The Prayerfulness of Anna (Luke 2:36-38)
The Grace of Stephen (Acts 6:15)
The generosity of Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18:1-4)
The trust of Barnabas (Acts 9:26-30; 19:11-26)
The faith of Lois and Eunice (2 Timothy 1:5)

Finally, OUT represents the need for the church to reach outside itself to represent Jesus in its involvement in the world. I’ll be talking about that next Sunday.

Last week’s video shows how the three elements come together.

The nifty thing about “Up … In … Out” is that focussing on one without the other two doesn’t make a lot of sense. Put all three together, and hey presto! you can see the cross.