As you may have noticed over the past few weeks there has been a lack of blog posts on our site. I wanted to give you an update and let you know what the Dive Deep group has been up to recently.

Over the past few weeks most of our staff have been starting classes on various college campuses around the nation. This means for a little bit we had to focus on a few other odds and ends, but now that those are tied up we can get back to delivering a weekly blog post for all of you who support us. We have also had the chance to start up some really cool things on one of the campuses in North Georgia.

I am pleased to announce we have started a Dive Deep Ministries Toccoa Falls College campus group. Toccoa Falls College is a small Bible college nestled in the North Georgia mountains. There is a huge opportunity for us to grow our organization in reaching those on campus, and we are quite excited about what God is doing there. This group has already started a weekly event called “Prayer at the Falls” where students meet for worship, devotions and prayer. Our sole focus of the Dive Deep TFC group is to create a community of believers who live in a lifestyle of prayer and wish to grow deeper in Christ. On the other side of things we hope to help believers on campus learn how to share their faith with others and reach people for Christ.

Another endeavor we are embarking on is the making of our first music video! While there aren’t many details we can share now as we are still working on the specifics we ask you to pray for God’s blessing on this new avenue. We hope to use this video as a way to share our message much farther than we can by just talking about our faith. More to come on this as we get closer to finishing the video.

Starting next week we will be launching into our new series called “Remix” where we will be talking about some Christian stereotypes and common conceptions of Christians as a whole. Our purpose for this series is for us to begin to change the way Christians are viewed in society and align ourselves more with the original mission of Christ. To give you a sneak peak to next week’s post we will be talking about “Remix: God is dead”. Now before you begin sending in all of your objections, we would urge you to stick around and check out the blog next Monday for an in depth look at this topic and what we mean by that.

Thank you again for your continued support of our ministry and we look forward to reaching more people with your help!

Dive Deep,

KC

The “turn or burn” approach takes the path that we all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. This statement is quite true. Although this approach has truth in it you can attract more bees with honey than with tar. After hearing this message people are made to feel like God is angry at them and if they don’t accept Christ they will burn in hell for eternity. The whole concept of hell has been skewed by cartoons of a red horned devil with a pitch fork. Hell as a place is not the bad part of not believing in Christ, but it is eternal separation from God and being enslaved to the most evil person that will hurt our souls more than any physical torture could ever hurt.

In the “come and live” approach we begin to invite people into a life that is much better than they have right now. We know that Christ loves each and every one of us and never wants to see us to live a life away from Him. The thought of someone going to hell because they did not believe in Him as their Savior pains Him. When we suffer the Bible says that He suffers with us. Instead of using that suffering to pull people to Christ God wants us to share the love and grace that he has poured out on us to everyone. God does not send people to hell.  He does not want nor wish for that to happen. He wishes for all that he created to be in eternal fellowship with Him.

To fully understand how to share the “come and live” Gospel with others we must understand as a community what it means for us to be loved unconditionally. In everything that we have done Christ loves us. In our shame, our guilt, our successes, and everything that we will ever do Christ’s love is endless. If we want to look at what love is we have to turn to 1st Cor. 13:4 which says:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

This verse is used in alot of different instances, but it truly is the most perfect form of love that we can find. Christ wants us to love everyone like this so our message should not be one that goes against this.

“Come and Live” is an approach that inspires us and allows us to use the love that God has given us. While we know what the ultimate reality is everyone wants to know what it is like to be loved. If we have been shown the ultimate love,it would make sense that we would share it with everyone no matter who they are.

Over the next week continue to pray for those who are lost. Begin to show love to those around you, and ask God to show you more love so that you can give it away. Look for others that are wanting to reach out to those that are lost and join them in this. Let us become a community that loves on everyone no matter who they are. God loves us, and sharing the message of salvation is the ultimate expression of that love. We have to do it in a way that is pleasing to God.

Dive Deep,

KC

Something that is evident throughout the Bible is we as a people were created for community. Starting with Adam and throughout generations of our Christian history there are examples that we were made to do life with others. Christ presented this with the calling of the 12 disciples. When you really think about it, Jesus was God in the flesh and He didn’t need people around Him to complete what the Father had set forth. He was showing us that we all need to be in a community of believers. If we were made for community, it would make sense that we would worship with other believers as well.

Just as we are stronger as a group, worship can be stronger within a group than by yourself. Although that does not mean we can go without private worship. When we worship with a group it may be easier for someone to connect with their Father or step out and experience God because the people around them make them feel comfortable. It also provides a since of community and you actually see other believers pressing into the same God that you worship. When I get the opportunity to watch a worship service while serving in an area of ministry, there is something that makes a deeper connection when you listen to a few hundred voices joining together in praise to the Lord of Lords.

Being in a worship community is very important in our spiritual development, but we should not neglect the act of private worship either. Sometimes worship in a large setting can become routine or even a little bit clique because we begin to just go through the motions of worship. It is in this time that our private worship becomes extremely important in the development of our community worship. We can only change from the inside out, not the outside in. When we begin to go through the motions we think that what we are doing outwardly will become what we are inwardly. Instead we become like the Pharisees that looked good on the outside and horrible on the inside in the area of worship. We lose the connection we once had because we are no longer sowing what is good for us.

Private worship builds self discipline within us and gives us a greater understanding of our Father. This can come in may different forms like prayer and quiet time or maybe having your own personal worship service in your bedroom. Whatever is the pathway for you, we encourage you to pursue that in your private life so that you may benefit in your outward life. Just to clarify, you should be worshiping because you love our God and not because you receive something in return. Worship was never meant to be self beneficial but a way of being obedient and praising our Creator King. After all, God gives us 24/7/365, the least we can give him is some set aside time of private worship and even that should not be enough for us.

One of my favorite worship songs is a song by Hillsong.  It is called “Desert Song” and one of the verse says:

And this is my prayer in the fire
In weakness or trial or pain
There is a faith proved
Of more worth than gold
So refine me Lord through the flames

It captures one of the hardest examples of life that we can go through, but it is in that time that we need a worship community around us. We need people to lift us up and help us along the faith journey. It is in times that this song talks about that we will begin to reap in public what we sow in private.

Mathew West in his song “The Motions” not only gives us a good summary to what we have been talking about over the past weeks but also encouragement in our private pursuit of worship. The lyrics to the song say:

I don’t wanna go through the motions
I don’t wanna go one more day
Without Your all consuming passion inside of me
I don’t wanna spend my whole life asking
What if I had given everything?
Instead of going through the motions

This should be enough to encourage us to pursue private worship time and encourage us to have a deeper appreciation of our worship in community. We would encourage you to pursue both of these things with a hunger that can not be satisfied. Our prayer for you is that you will never have enough of God and continue to dive into his amazing deep waters.

Next week we will be launching into a new series called “Sea of Faces”. The ministry team has been praying for great things to happen by God’s hand over this next season and we would ask that you would join us in this prayer. Over the next series, we will be looking at the reality of our world feeling like a sea of faces. We live in a world that is lost, and we are the ones that God has put here on earth to reach those far from His arms. He sent His son to die for everyone and our mission is to share that with the world no matter what differences we may have. We are much stronger as a community, and we want you and your friends to be a part of this. Look for our new post next week and some pretty cool things that we will be doing over the summer to help with our mission of reaching those who are lost.

Dive Deep,

KC

There is a rap artist called Lecrae, and he just produced a CD called Rebel. His first song, Rebel Intro has sparked me to think of a few things, like what it means to be a rebel. I also ponder about the difference between a rebel, and a revolutionary.

Rebel

To refuse allegiance to and oppose by force an established government or ruling authority

Revolutionary

 constituting or bringing about a major or fundamental change

Rebels seem to be more of in favor of just standing in opposition to the normal standards. They chose to stand up, and not back down. This is not a bad thing, but if we just stand in opposition to something, we can not influence a change. This has been my way of thinking for a long time until I listened to Lecrae’s song Rebel Intro. At one part in the song it says:

I know that in our day rebel means sinner, but everyone is sinning so it is no longer rebellious to sin. Jesus was a rebel who was counter cultural

You are just a conformist, if you are drunk and naked, driving around on a lot of motorcycles,smoking cigarettes and breaking commandments, and getting pregnant out of wed-lock. Everyone has do that it is so tired. If you really want to be a rebel read your bible, because no one is doing that…. that’s rebellion that’s the only rebellion left.