It’s not easy to reach a city when you stay inside a church building and your ministry model revolves around growing the attendance numbers. Gathered environments grow churches: scattered servants reach cities. Scattered servants are a movement of people empowered by the Holy Spirit and sent to go and bring life to cities. When they show up in the streets, carrying hope for the city, everything changes. Our cities and their inhabitants are longing for life. But to reach them we have to rethink our approach because broken cities need something more than bigger churches. Buildings and programs don’t change a city – scattered servants do.
“Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.” -Acts 8:4 NIV
(1) arise: Sunday, april 11th
Often, the way forward is not to stay where we are currently at but to arise and reposition ourselves. Until the church arises, the city can never rise into it’s destiny. God desires better cities not services, better people not programs, changed lives that change lives and disciples that make disciples.
Jonah knew the reputation of the city of Nineveh, but failed to believe in the restoration of the city. He saw Nineveh’s failure, but failed to see it’s favor with God. Jonah is sent to rewrite the story of Nineveh by seeing its promise and potential, despite its problems. Arise is the word God uses when he wants to call us out of contentment with where we are currently at, to where he wants us to go.
“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message I tell you.” -Jonah 3:2 NKJV
(2) everyone everyday: Sunday, APRIL 18TH
The revered British evangelist Smith Wigglesworth once said, “It’s not called the book of thoughts. It’s called the book of Acts.” And it’s called the book of Acts because the believers did something. They acted on what they believed. Everyone of these early Jesus followers were moved by Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom message, and then lived on a mission to share it everyday.
Scattered servants are sent people because God is a sending God. He sent Moses to Egypt; his prophets to his people, Israel; John the Baptist to prepare the way for Jesus; and Jesus because God so loved us all. The church is those who are sent to bring life to cities and regions and nations. God doesn’t send the lost to his church. He desires to send everyone in his church, everyday to reach those that are lost in relationship to Himself.
“For the Son of Man (Jesus) came to seek and to save the lost.” -Luke 19:10 NIV
Everyone Everyday Message Notes
(3) everywhere everyday: Sunday, april 25th
Jesus stated that when his followers are under the influence of the Holy Spirit, they show up wherever he pleases – everyday, bringing life everywhere they go. Scattered servants unleash the kingdom of God everywhere, everyday. It’s what we were made for as new creations in Christ. We were made anew in Jesus to step into a much bigger story than we can find inside the walls of the church. Jesus sends us beyond the church walls and services to rewrite the story of education, health and business in our cities.
We must reject that idea that God’s kingdom work happens mainly in services, on stages, or on street corners and respond to the invitation of the Holy Spirit to join him in his work of transforming the world everywhere, everyday. God’s kingdom carriers are jewelers and gardeners, carpenters and bricklayers, shopkeepers and engineers, lawyers and doctors, architects and designers.
”The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is for everyone that is born of the Spirit.” -John 3:8 NIV
Everywhere Everyday Message Notes
(4) kingdom carriers: Sunday, May 2nd
Everyday is a day of encounter, where we experience divine appointments everywhere we go. Everyday is designed to be a day in which we as Jesus’ followers are carriers of God’s kingdom everywhere we go. We all have an obligation to partner with the Holy Spirit to continue the ministry of Jesus everywhere, everyday unleashing His kingdom here on earth, as it is in heaven, before a watching world.
God has invited us to be more than observers but stewards of the gift of the Holy Spirit. He invites us to discover that when we go out among the lost: the big is in the small; the awesome is in the awkward; the fruit is where you face your fears; and the momentum is in the moment in order to become successful as kingdom carriers.
“… Peter said to them all, “People of Israel, listen to me! Why are you so amazed by this healing? Why do you stare at us? We didn’t make this crippled man walk by our own power or authority.” -Acts 3:12 TPT
Kingdom Carriers Message Notes
(5) bigger hearts & better cities: SUNDAY, MAy 9TH
God’s desire and destiny for the poor is not the removal of poverty, but to rebuild broken cities. This is the genius of God’s divine plan that is revealed in Isaiah’s prophesy of the coming Messiah, Jesus (Isaiah 61:1-4). God’s plan is to meet the discarded, destitute and diseased, partnering with them to create new life in the city. The movement that transforms the city is to be started by the broken not the brilliant. Not just God helping the poor, the brokenhearted and the prisoners, but the rescued becoming the rescuers.
Generous compassion is the culture of heaven. It is the sign that we are carrying the life of God, because the Lord is gracious and compassionate. As He breathes His life into us, we build bigger hearts for a better city. Although compassion may start in the church, it never stays in the church building. It is too great to be confined to either a building or a program.
“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.”
-Isaiah 61:1-2 NIV
Bigger Hearts & Better Cities Message Notes
(6) loving our city into life: SUNDAY, MAy 16th
It is our privilege as the people of God to love our cities back to life. Much of the church has confused bringing life to the city with “taking our cities for God.” In this worldview, the city is an enemy that is approached with a heart of militancy and not mercy. Scattered servants do not look to take over their cities but rather to lay their lives down for their cities. They do this instead by washing the feet of the city by releasing peace and compassion rather than an attempt to take dominion. Scattered servants partner with the city believing God for creative solutions to the city’s challenges.
It is our task of the church to rewrite the story of our cities.
“They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.” -Isaiah 61:4 NIV
Loving Our City Into Life Message Notes
(7) stubborn perseverance: SUNDAY, MAy 23rd
God’s kingdom culture is full of dreamers. It is far more important to send out these dreamers into our cities than to recruit them to serve ministries that only support church structures. When our dreams center upon the church we are confining the dreamers in the church. Instead we need to catalyze kingdom dreamers that release their dreams all over our cities into every area of life.
God is about summoning all these dreamers and visionaries to be set free from the patterns of this world to create a new pattern for this world that is creative, redemptive, generous and expansive. In order to cultivate courageous dreams that awaken our cities we need to challenge these dreamers to lay aside every hindrance and with stubborn perseverance pursue the good works that God has prepared for us to do that lie beyond the doors of our churches.
“… let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, …” -Hebrews 12:1 NIV
Stubborn Perseverance Message Notes
