We talk about LifeGroups a lot. It is the best way that we can see to best be a part of deeper community. If you are not a part of a LifeGroup, would you mind shooting me or someone on our staff an e-mail and letting us know if there is a way we can be of better help to you so you can best connect!

I love hearing the good news of what God is doing in our midst at 121! Let's continue to pray scripture for one another, especially that our love would increase and abound for one another and for all people!!

love y'all, ross

"Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone, and we sent Timothy, our brother and God's coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your faith, that no one be moved by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we are destined for this. For when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass, and just as you know. For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain." - 1 Thessalonians 3:1-5

Paul gives an excellent example here for us to follow. In the midst of it being difficult for him to do, he sent Timothy, his brother and coworker in the Gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort people in the faith. He gave up one of his best people.

Do we think this way? Are we willing to give up our best? Are our LifeGroups full of our very best people?

These are some tough questions we have to ask in order to determine if we are about advancing the Gospel. Building relationships is huge and that typically is the reason we don't give people up, but there can come a point where we are actually hindering the Gospel if we are not careful.

Here are 3 reasons from Sunday's Service "Giving Up Our Best People" that the Church should give up their best people for the sake of God's name and advancement of the Gospel:

Help Believers With Strength & Encouragement

We can reach out to more people with strength and encouragement as we build each other up in areas previously unreached if we didn't give up our best people. Imagine someone in your LifeGroup who is a great encourager leaving to go start a new LifeGroup or come alongside a new one. What kind of impact would they have? Chances are it would benefit the other LifeGroup in huge ways and help them build up to again, give up their best. 

Help Believers Endure Persecution

To have help from other believers is huge when we face persecution in many ways. We can build each other up with the Word reminding ourselves that if Jesus was persecuted, that it will indeed happen to us. With that same Scripture, we can help each other remember that the Holy Spirit will work through us and provide our never need, including comfort during these times with a reminder to rejoice.

Help Believers Fight Off The Tempter

Satan seeks to steal, kill, and destroy us. He would love nothing more than to hinder us from advancing the Gospel and one way he does that is through isolation. We need to give up our best people to help others fight off the tempter. There is great strength in community on top of the fact that God designed us to be in community. We need to help each other fight off the tempter with the Word of God and to spur each other on.

Most of all, we send out our best people for the message of the Gospel. That is the reason we do anything, and the driving force behind why we love people - because Jesus first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

We would love for you to get connected to a LifeGroup near you. Visit our LifeGroups Page for more informaiton and to search for a LifeGroup.

Marriage is perhaps the most complex and challenging of all human relationships. The joining of two people in a relationship which is intended to last a lifetime takes an investment of time, effort, and a commitment to your partner and the relationship. There are many benefits for those who make the commitment to marriage and manage to maintain a successful relationship. Happily married couples tend to have better physical and emotional health, greater financial stability and increased wealth, more sexual satisfaction, and children that do better academically, relationally and emotionally than those of single or unhappily married couples.

Even more importantly, as Christians we know that God designed marriage to be a picture of Christ and the church. Paul calls this a profound mystery in Ephesians 5:31-33, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”  This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. 

John Piper in This Momentary Marriage asks the critical question “How clear and well-focused is the portrait of Jesus that our marriage is displaying?“ 

It doesn’t take long after the wedding ceremony and blissful honeymoon that each persons sinful desires begin to clash (James 4:1-3), conflict erupts, producing heat and pressure that threatens to blow the marriage apart.

Last summer 121 hosted the Art of Marriage conference for over 100 people who filled The Theatre in the West End to the edges of its capacity. It encouraged us that so many couples want to invest in and enrich their marriages. The conference received great reviews. Yet studies show that people who attend marriage conferences and seminars come away inspired, but few put the principles to work in their marriage.

Seminars and books on marriage are good resources, yet they don’t speak specifically to your situation, your family relationships, your struggles, your strengths as a couple, or your personality.

In response, this year we are introducing The Marriage Adventure Weekend on June 21-22 (Friday evening and Saturday) for dating, engaged or married couples. The Weekend starts even before June 21 with a personalized online assessment unique for each couple. The assessment identifies current strengths and growth areas as a couple.  During the weekend couples will understand the results of their assessment, celebrate strengths and identify growth areas, gain a better understanding of relationship issues, and practice important relationship skills.

Marriage is an adventure. It helps to have a guide.  

More Details & Register

That is why I am so excited to be bringing the Legacy Moms Mother Daughter Workshop to 121 Community Church on June 22. We created this event so that moms and daughters could spend a whole day just focused on their relationship, and looking at what the Bible has to say to us as mothers and to our young daughters. Through one-on-one discussions, games and crafts, age-appropriate and inspirational talks tailored for the girls and their moms, this is a day designed to build a bridge between you and your daughter and create a bond that won’t easily be broken. I hope you will join us. See our website at www.legacymoms.org for more information and to register. Registration ends Friday.

One of the best options (there are many good ones, but to keep it simple here is just one really good one) is Samaritan's Purse.

Basic Info:

OKLAHOMA:  http://www.samaritanspurse.org/article/oklahoma-tornado-response/

GRANBURY: http://www.samaritanspurse.org/article/texas-tornado-response/

To VOLUNTEER: http://www.spvolunteernetwork.org/projects/oklahoma-tornado-response.aspx

How is he prompting you in that regard today?

Listen to the Sermon

Students

On another note, I am fired up about The Wooden Door, a place and an event!  Beginning May 22nd,  what is behind that door may change the lives of our students forever! Encourage your students, 7th through 12th grade, to be there on Wednesday night beginning at 6:02 pm. Come hungry and expecting!

Love walking this with y'all, ross

"Now the Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Naaman's wife. She said to her mistress, 'Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy."  2 Kings 5:2-3

I was struck this weekend with the picture of this little girl; probably between 12 - 14 years old, taken as a slave, and potentially as an orphan after having her parents killed in combat. And yet in huge FAITH and love, she SERVED those who should be her enemies, and she SHARED the hope of salvation to the man whom she called master. 

What if I had faith like her? What if I served others like her? What if I shared the hope of salvation like her?

This is the call and privilege we have as followers of Christ. We are called to walk by faith, to serve and engage the lost around us with the hope of salvation. 

There are a million different ways we can do this. God has uniquely wired each one of us and has specifically placed us where we are today, for this purpose of serving and sharing. So how can we do this?

1. Start where you are. Look at the people and places God has already put you in and around, and start there. Who are family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers, acquaintances that God has put in your life for you to serve and to share with? 
2. What are your gifts & passions? God has given you gifts and passions to be used for His work. What are those, and how can you use them? Whatever it is, the answer is "Yes"! If you want to partner with one of 121's partners, the list of summer opportunities is attached here. Or you can always email cory.johnson@121cc.com to talk more.

Hear last Sunday's Sermon        Local Mission Opportunities

-Written by a 121 member living and working in Central Asia

“I had become well aware of the numbers. According to Operation World, our new country is over 96% Muslim and roughly 0.01% evangelical. However, it wasn’t until we actually moved here that the statistics became faces, names and friends. 

I hope I never forget the first time the vast lostness of our new home became a reality. We had only been here about a week and a teammate and me were on a bus going to open a bank account for my wife and I. As the bus pulled up to a crowded stop I felt my friend elbow me. “See that guy there with the glasses. He is a believer and member at one of the local churches,” he said.

I didn’t think much of it at the time, but as we passed hundreds, possibly thousands, of high-rise apartment buildings I considered the incident more. “How many people live in our city?” I asked. “Just under 2 million,” he replied. Knowing the answer would not be encouraging I asked the question anyway, “And how many are believers?” His response sent a shiver down my spine, “About 50.”

Now imagine you are living in a city larger than Dallas, and you can identify every follower of Christ in that city. Not because you possess some massive citywide church directory, but simply because there are so few believers in this city that you know them all by name.

It happened again a couple weeks ago. We made a trip to a nearby city to meet people and engage individuals in conversation. That evening as I reflected on the trip I realized something. On that day, the only followers of Jesus in this city of over 100,000 were those with whom I had made the trip. As far as we know, 100% of the 100,000+ people living in this city are one heartbeat away from eternal torment in hell. And unfortunately no one is actively trying to engage this city with the gospel. It is almost certain that nearly everyone in this city will live their entire lives having never met a Christian or read the Bible, and they will die having never heard about the only remedy to their sin—the gospel of Jesus Christ. It has been this way for centuries. Sadly, this city is not unique; there are thousands of them around the globe.

The Lord often brings this passage in Matthew 9 to memory:

“And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”” (Matthew 9:35–38 ESV)

In this particular passage in Matthew 9, Jesus’ compassion led him to do two things. First, he commanded his followers to pray. Pray that the Lord of the harvest would send messengers of hope to the hopeless. Then in Matthew 10 he answered their prayer by sending them out into the harvest. The very ones who prayed for laborers were themselves sent as laborers.

I beg that you do the same. Pray earnestly that God would send more workers into the abundant harvest around the world. As you pray, take into account that you could be an answer to your own prayer. Consider if the Lord of the harvest might be calling you to take part in bring the gospel to the billions of people around the globe who have little or no access to the good news. Consider if, like the Apostle Paul, God might be leading you to “preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named” (Romans 15:20).

Wherever God has called you for this particular time in history, whether in DFW or on the other side of the world, take part in bringing in the Lord’s harvest by leading people to live for Jesus Christ.

If you are interested in being a part of Muslim ministry and outreach, check out two events coming up!

May 10^th – Global Hope Dinner

May 11^th – Crescent Project Gathering at 121 Community Church

1. What is the highest value for you?

2. On what do you base your identity?

The answer to the question will either affirm that Jesus is the highest value and the basis of our/their identity, or it will reveal something else is god in their lives.  Then, we can trust that the Holy Spirit will guide our conversation from there.

Love doing life together with 121!!

Hear Last Weeks Sermon

Join us as we pray this week for the things we sometimes just don't understand. Pray for God's glory to shine in very difficult times. 

A great resource is a series we did a while back called "Habakkuk", Faith when things just don't make sense.

Also a great time as we walk through the current series "Together". It is amazing what true community can do in hard times like these! If you are moved to do something, get with your LifeGroup, gather supplies or just pray.