I’ve had a great (but exhausting) time speaking to and working with the World Changers groups this week. 10 sermons in 5 days. Whew. But it’s worth it … over 350 students are in town doing service projects for the least of these and learning how to follow Jesus more authentically. There are some great stories about how God has been moving. Because of their work in the city, six individuals started following Christ this week!

Yesterday, I supervised a team of nine students from High Point, NC, who were helping with the renovation of our BCM building, which is well underway …

And about that ….

You’ll notice on Sunday several inconveniences — mainly both restrooms upstairs are being demolished and will be unusable. Our crew today worked really hard to clean the downstairs facilities/restrooms for our use on Sunday morning. I apologize in advance for the inconvenience for the next few weeks. But once this renovation is finished, it is going to be great! (We’ll even have an extra room for our new babies!) I appreciate your patience with this over the summer.

This Sunday, we will start our summer series entitled “Orthopraxy.” We talk a lot about orthodoxy (right belief) in the church, but we seldom focus enough on orthopraxy (right practice.) We will be basing much of our teaching on the Upstream Collective’s new book, Tradecraft: For the Church on Mission. We will also incorporate our strategic vision plan into this at some point during the summer. Sunday’s topic will be “Rhythms of Discipleship.” I’m looking forward to sharing a couple of diagrams with you. Ha.

Upcoming …
On June 29th, Jaimee and Brett’s Community group will be hosting a neighborhood gathering called “Under the Willows.” This is a great time to get to build some new relationships with people in the neighborhood. It will be at the Easterwoods’ home, and will feature the fabulous music of Quinn Erwin, Brett Rutledge, Matt Brock, Tirzah Payne, and Eryn Jones. Please invite your friends and neighbors and come out and support this great event. For more information, click here.

Also, please remember to keep praying for little Lyla Bryan (and Justin and Grace, of course) as she is fighting off an infection. You can read Justin’s updates here.

Thanks for being my community,
Jason

I hope you’re doing well and have had a great week.

This Sunday, Wayne will be finishing up John 17. If you missed last week, you can listen here. I’m looking forward to diving into the last part of Jesus’s prayer for his disciples — and by “disciples,” that means us:

“I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in methrough their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.” (John 17:20-21, NLT)

I appreciate Wayne’s faithfulness, willingness, and ability to teach. This is a powerful passage and I am excited to hear his take on it. I’ll be teaching the main sessions at the Nashville World Changers project all next week and also leading the Church Planter’s training sessions each morning. So I am grateful Wayne has cut me some slack for a couple of weeks (I’d appreciate your prayers next week, as well. I’m a little overwhelmed right now …)

On Sunday the 16th, we will start our summer series entitled “Orthopraxy.” We talk a lot about orthodoxy (right belief) in the church, but we seldom focus enough on orthopraxy (right practice.) We will be basing much of our teaching on the Upstream Collective’s new book, Tradecraft: For the Church on Mission. We will also incorporate our strategic vision plan into this at some point during the summer.

Upcoming …
Jaimee and Brett’s Community group (that meets at the Easterwoods’ home) will be hosting a neighborhood gathering called “Under the Willows,” featuring some great local music on Saturday, June 29th. This is a great time to get to know some new people in the neighborhood. Be sure to put it on your calendar and invite some friends to come along!

Reminder …
Check with your Community Group leaders about your meeting schedule for the summer. If you’re not presently in a community group, our summer gatherings are a great time to start, as they will mostly consist of fellowship or “hang-out” nights. Contact Brandon if you are interested in joining a group.

Message Audio …
We are now using SoundCloud to stream our message audio. This is a much higher quality than what we had before and also allows you to stream directly from your mobile device. All of our sermons are still available to stream from the church website, but you can also listen to them at https://soundcloud.com/ekklesianashville. You can download the SoundCloud app to your mobile device here: iPhone/iPad  or  Android

See ya Sunday …

Blessings,
Jason

I hope you have had a great week and that your summer is officially off to a great start.

Summertime gets a little crazy for our church, as many of us will be traveling and vacationing and such. Because of that, our community groups will only be meeting once per month in June and July. Be sure to check with your CG Leaders if you’re not sure what those dates are for your group.

Also, our Sunday mornings will be a little more laid back this summer. (Parking is easier, too!!!)  We will be discussing some really practical missional and discipleship skills starting in a few weeks with a series based on The Upstream Collective’s new book Tradecraft: For the Church on Mission. I’m looking forward to walking through that together. Remember, all of our sermon audio is online on our website if you miss a week and want to stay caught up.

This Sunday …
We continue our Doxa series for the next two weeks. Wayne will be teaching the first half of Jesus’s prayer for His Disciples in John 17. I am excited to hear what God has put on his heart.

(Also, we could use a couple more Ekklesia Kids volunteers for this Sunday and the first Sunday in July. If you are interested in serving in this way, please contact Shelley orSarah, ASAP.)

Upcoming …
Jaimee and Brett’s Community group (that meets at the Easterwoods’ home) will be hosting an exciting neighborhood gathering called “Under the Willows,” featuring some great local music on Saturday, June 29th. This is a great time to get to know some new people in the neighborhood. Be sure to put it on your calendar and invite some friends to come along!

Thanks for all that you do!
See ya Sunday …

Blessings,
Jason

Wow. It’s been a crazy week. We are so excited to welcome little Lyla Bryan into the world — but with no small dose of drama! She is truly a miracle baby. Justin and Grace also continued to re-affirm to all of us why they’re so awesome, through their faith and their willingness to trust God through this whole thing. We are so incredibly proud of them. And thanks to all of you for stepping up to the plate and praying pretty much non-stop, and being so supportive of the Bryans when they needed you there, and also when they needed peace and quiet. You truly are an awesome church.

Remember, Justin is keeping us all updated through his blog: http://lylagracebryan.wordpress.com. He’ll also let you know through that, or on the Stewards facebook page when they are ready for visitors. If I have anything to communicate of importance, I will do it on the Stewards page or through an email like this. In the meantime, if you signed up for the prayer chain, please keep that going for a while. If you didn’t sign up, just keep praying for them anyway  The chain’s purpose is just to organize people to be praying around the clock.

The 3rd Annual Day in the Rain … I mean Day in the Park, is still on for tomorrow! We are having it at our house, rain or shine, from 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM. If (when) it rains, we’ll just move it inside and eat and hang out together there. Our address is 913 Glendale Lane. A list of all you need to know is on the facebook event page.

(I’m thinking a new ministry for our church could be to go to some drought-ridden area this summer and try to put on a Park Day. It will be sure to rain.)

This Sunday …

We will be jumping back into our Doxa series for a few weeks. We will be studying John 15:18-16:15 and Jesus’s teaching on the sending of the Holy Spirit. This is one of my favorite passages in John, because the work of the Holy Spirit is one of the most misunderstood areas of theology in the Church today. So this really should be fun

Whew.

Thanks for being the Church. You all inspire me every day.

Blessings,
Jason

Mother’s Day is not as simple as I once thought. Lots of emotions, for lots of reasons. Being a parent has definitely changed my perspective. And pastoring a young flock, walking with them through the joys and pains of life, from marriage to childbirth, to adoption, to miscarriage and infertility, to broken relationships with families of origin, has revealed myriad layers to a day that I would have once treated nonchalantly.

A few people asked me if I would share what I said and prayed. Here it is. I hope it is encouraging to you, no matter what season of life in which you find yourself.

Mother’s Day is a joyous, yet also difficult, day.

It’s joyous as we celebrate our mothers, and the profound influence they have in our lives. But it’s also difficult as some have lost their mothers, or have a strained or less-than joyous relationship with them.

It’s joyous as many of you celebrate being a mother … some of you, for the first time this year. But it’s also difficult as some of you long for the day that God would allow you to become a mother.

It’s joyous as we take this day to honor the role of women in the church – to say you are valued, you are honored, you are necessary. But it’s also difficult, as we acknowledge the fact that the role of women in the church has often been undervalued, not honored, and sometimes even deemed unnecessary.

So we are going to pray today, giving thanks in celebration of our mothers, but also asking for comfort for those who no longer have theirs and for healing of or from relationships that are broken.

We will pray in celebration of those whom God has blessed with children, but also pray for those for whom that is your heart’s desire.

We will pray today in celebration of the women of this church – honoring you, valuing you, and equipping you to serve as equals in the the Kingdom and in the Church. But also we will pray today in repentance for our sketchy history in the institutionalized church, when we have undervalued, dishonored and marginalized your influence and worth

And then finally I want to commission you, the women of this church. You have been uniquely designed and shaped for a purpose in the Kingdom, and we want to empower you and send you out to change the world in ways that we males cannot.

———————

We pray today, Father, grateful for how you created us in your image, male and female.

We celebrate and give thanks for those in this body whom you have blessed with children …
an incredible gift and responsibility.

Give them strength, wisdom, patience, and rest.

And we intercede for those for whom that is their heart’s desire – to have children – but it has not yet been in your timing.

We pray that you would give them the desire of their heart, and guide and comfort them along the way.

We pray today in celebration, giving thanks for the women of this church
who play such an integral and irreplaceable role in our body.

We pray that our words and actions would honor them,
and value them, and that they would be equipped to serve
as equals in your Kingdom and the Church.

 

And we pray today in repentance
for the times in the Church’s past
where we have undervalued, dishonored
or marginalized their influence and worth.

May we lay down our pride and our power and turn …
and may these things never be so again.

 

And now, we commission the women of this church
to lead, to serve, to minister, and to take with them the Gospel
to their children, their families, their professions,
their pastimes, their friends, and their co-workers,
in this city and around the world.

May they be empowered by your Holy Spirit
and know that they are equipped with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus.

And we ask these things
in His Name … Amen.

I hope you’ve had a great week!

This Sunday, I’m calling an audible…

We had planned to only spend 3 weeks in our Ethos series, but in thinking through everything, there’s one more message that needs to be taught before we move on… We’ve talked about our beliefs, our values, and our design as a church, but I want us to look at God’s design for THE Church according to Scripture, and explore how this beautifully dovetails with our ethos. So Sunday, we will look primarily at Acts 2:42-47 and identify the core context of a New Testament Church. If you’ve missed any of the previous messages in this series, you can listen to the audio of the message here.

Additionally, Wayne and I will be taking some time near the end of the gathering Sunday morning for Q&A. Be thinking about questions that may be unanswered or ideas that might be unclear from the past three Sundays or your Community Group discussions, and we will do our best to explore those together.

Here are a few other items of interest …

Our Ekklesia Day in the Park (YARD!) is next Saturday, May 18th, 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM. Due to the reschedule, we will be holding it in my own backyard. We’ll grill burgers and dogs, play corn hole and participate in other shenanigans. (Also, feel free to bring your leashed dog.) See the facebook event page for more details and pray for good weather!

Community Groups will only meet once per month in June and July. Talk with your group, if you haven’t already, about when those times will be. It’s up to your group to decide when and where! This will give our awesome leaders a chance to catch their breath and allow us to build some momentum for the fall.

Finally, mark your calendars for the World Relief Run With the Nations 5K on June 15th at Shelby Bottoms. This event is in celebration of World Refugee Day and all proceeds of this event will directly support the self-sufficiency programs and relational ministries of Legacy Mission Village and World Relief who work to economically, socially, and spiritually transform the lives of refugees in Nashville. Jordan Hendricks of World Relief will be with us this Sunday to share briefly about this and other opportunities to serve refugees in our city. (For more info or to go ahead and sign up for the 5k, click here.)

Looking forward to gathering with you this weekend!

Blessings,
Jason

I can’t believe it’s May already. 2013 is 33% in the books … that is a crazy thought!

This week is the third of 3 weeks in our series, entitled Ethos. The goal is to lay the groundwork or foundation for the Strategic Growth Plan that we will roll out later in the Summer. On Sunday, I will share our Core Values and Wayne will be teaching about our unique design as a church. If you’ve missed either of the last two weeks, I encourage you to listen to the audio of the message here. We are setting the stage for where we are headed as a church, and it is important that we are all on the same page.

Additionally this Sunday, Emily Landham will be joining us and sharing her story about t-615. t-615 is a local for-profit fashion business that uses a portion of its profits to fight human trafficking. Emily’s story is an example of how God uses a person’s passions and abilities to make a difference in the world. I hope it inspires you as she has inspired me.

Here are a couple of other things of interest …

Ekklesia Day in the Park has been rescheduled for May 18th, 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM. We were unable to reserve a shelter on this late of notice, so we will be holding it in my own “park-like” backyard. We’ll grill burgers and dogs, play corn hole and other fun “park-like” games. (Also, feel free to bring your well-behaved dog.) See the facebook event page for more details.

Finally, mark your calendars for the World Relief Run With the Nations 5K on June 15th at Shelby Bottoms. This event is in celebration of World Refugee Day and all proceeds of this event will directly support the self-sufficiency programs and relational ministries of Legacy Mission Village and World Relief who work to economically, socially, and spiritually transform the lives of refugees in Nashville. Jordan Hendricks of World Relief will be with us on May 12th to share about this and other opportunities to serve refugees in our city. (For more info or to go ahead and sign up for the 5k, click here.)

Looking forward to gathering with you this weekend!

Blessings,
Jason

I hope you have had a great week.

Last week, I introduced our new series, entitled Ethos. The goal of this series is to lay the groundwork or foundation for the Strategic Growth Plan that we will roll out in the Summer.

Ethos is defined as “character; the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community; or the spirit which motivates ideas and customs.” It’s very important that we understand our ethos as we move forward. If you missed last Sunday, I highly recommend you listen to the audio of the message here.

This Sunday, we will also be commissioning Laura Edwards, as she will be spending her summer working in Kenya. We will hear her story and then pray for her as we send her out. We are very proud of Laura and super excited for what she will do this summer.

I’ll be teaching from the following passage in Ephesians 4:7-16, as we look more deeply into our beliefs and values:

… [H]e has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ. That is why the Scriptures say,

“When he ascended to the heights,

he led a crowd of captives

and gave gifts to his people.”

Notice that it says “he ascended.” This clearly means that Christ also descended to our lowly world. And the same one who descended is the one who ascended higher than all the heavens, so that he might fill the entire universe with himself.

Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.

Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit 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 and full of love. (NLT)

“… so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.” I’m not sure there is any better goal for our church than this! I’m looking forward to talking about how we can get there this Sunday.

Due to the weather, we are canceling our Day in the Park this Saturday. Apparently, if rain is needed, we only need to schedule a Park Day. (Am I right, Kate Hays???) We will reschedule for Saturday, May 18th, 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM, at Egly Park (AKA, my big backyard.)

Also, mark your calendars for the World Relief Run With the Nations 5K on June 15th at Shelby Bottoms. This event is in celebration of World Refugee Day and all proceeds of this event will directly support the self-sufficiency programs and relational ministries of Legacy Mission Village and World Relief who work to economically, socially, and spiritually transform the lives of refugees in Nashville. Jordan Hendricks of World Relief will be with us on May 12th to share about this and other opportunities to serve refugees in our city. (For more info or to go ahead and sign up for the 5k, click here.)

As always, can’t wait ’til Sunday!

Blessings,
Jason

As you can see from the artwork above (thanks, Matt Brock), this Sunday we will be starting a 3-week “mini” series called Ethos. Ethos is a word that has been tossed around in our church leadership discussions for a while now. It is defined as “character; the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community; or the spirit which motivates ideas and customs.”

Over the summer, we will be introducing a Strategic Growth Plan for Ekklesia. It’s essentially the document that will lay out the vision and direction for our church for the next few years. But before we get there, we want to communicate the foundation, or ethos, that this vision is built upon — literally why we exist and who we are as a church. We will address three areas over the next three weeks: What We Believe, What We Value, and How We are Designed. This Sunday we will dive right in with a fast-paced discussion of What We Believe.

I’ll be teaching from the following passage in Ephesians 4:1-6:

Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father, who is over all and in all and living through all. (NLT)

There are exciting days ahead for our church, and I’m looking forward to sharing these things over the coming weeks!
 
Don’t forget our 3rd Annual Ekklesia Day in the Park will be next Saturday, April 27th, from 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM. We’ll have some fun and games and grill some burgers at Sevier Park in 12South. This is a great opportunity to invite some friends to come hang out and get to know some people at Ekklesia. Details are on the Facebook event page, or you can contact Kate Hays for more info (i.e., what food you can bring.)

Also, mark your calendars for the World Relief Run With the Nations 5K on June 15th at Shelby Bottoms. This event is in celebration of World Refugee Day and all proceeds of this event will directly support the self-sufficiency programs and relational ministries of Legacy Mission Village and World Relief who work to economically, socially, and spiritually transform the lives of refugees in Nashville. Jordan Hendricks of World Relief will be with us on May 12th to share about this and other opportunities to serve refugees in our city. (For more info or to go ahead and sign up for the 5k, click here.)

One last note … the BCM will be starting some remodeling projects this weekend. They are converting the storage room into a conference room and will also be remodeling the restrooms very soon. Please pardon the slight inconvenience, as this will greatly improve the facility. If you’re interested in assisting with some carpentry work, please let me know!

Looking forward to gathering with you on Sunday …

Blessings,
Jason

I hope you are enjoying an absolutely gorgeous day here in Nashville!

I’ll be heading to Clarksville to tomorrow to speak to a few hundred college students from all across the state who are gathered for the Baptist Campus Ministries Spring Leadership Conference. I’m looking forward to this opportunity, but would most definitely appreciate your prayers.

I want to take a few lines here to thank several people. Our Easter Sunday gathering was fantastic, and lots of people participated in making it great. But the truth is, lots of you work really hard to make our Sunday Gatherings happen every week. Setup crews … Teaching the kids … loving on the babies in the nursery … bringing breakfast. And much more. Specifically, there are a few people who go above and beyond each week … Brandon Hays tirelessly comes in every week and manages our audio. Justin Bryan and Josh Nunnally do whatever we need whenever we need it, especially in regard to setup. Sarah Yarbrough and Shelley Egly make sure our childcare is staffed with volunteers and runs smoothly. Brandon Payne is a jack-of-all trades with our audio-visual. And I definitely don’t want to forget my daughter Mallory, who comes early with me EVERY SINGLE week and sets up all the toys, books, and supplies in the nursery.

And so many more of you go above and beyond to make this church what it is becoming … Thank you. You are so appreciated.

A couple of weeks ago, I taught on the New Commandment: Love. We had some fantastic discussions in our Community Groups about what it really means to “love as you have been loved.”  I found this excerpt on love in the book Wishful Thinking, by Frederick Buechner and thought I’d share it with you:

Of all powers, love is the most powerful and the most powerless. It is the most powerful because it alone can conquer that final and most impregnable stronghold which is the human heart. It is the most powerless because it can do nothing except by consent. To say that love is God is romantic idealism. To say that God is love is either the last straw or the ultimate truth.

In the Christian sense, love is not primarily an emotion but an act of the will. When Jesus tells us to love our neighbors, he is not telling us to love them in the sense of responding to them with a cozy emotional feeling. You can as well produce a cozy emotional feeling on demand as you can a yawn or a sneeze. On the contrary, he is telling us to love our neighbors in the sense of being willing to work for their well-being even if it means sacrificing our own well-being to that end, even if it means sometimes just leaving them alone. Thus in Jesus’ terms we can love our neighbors without necessarily liking them. In fact liking them may stand in the way of loving them by making us overprotective sentimentalists instead of reasonably honest friends …

This does not mean that liking may not be a part of loving, only that it doesn’t have to be. Sometimes liking follows on the heels of loving. It is hard to work for somebody’s well-being very long without coming in the end to rather like him too.

This Sunday, I will be teaching from John 14:8-31.  This passage contains some of the first real teaching from Jesus on the Holy Spirit. Specifically, we will look at the Holy Spirit’s role in helping believers to obey Jesus’s command to love. It’s a simple, yet powerful, truth that we often neglect but has the potential to transform the way we live our everyday lives.

Don’t forget our 3rd Annual Ekklesia Day in the Park will be Saturday, April 27th from 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM. We’ll have some fun and games and grill some burgers at Sevier Park in 12South. This is a great opportunity to invite some friends to come hang out and get to know some people at Ekklesia. Be watching in the next couple of weeks for more specific details about what to bring.

Thanks for letting me be your Pastor. I am very blessed.

Blessings to YOU,
Jason