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Operation: 611

Many of us are becoming aware that the world has shifted around us. Without our permission, the majority of our culture no longer shares historically Christian values. That’s in addition to other demographic changes that leave many of us feeling confused and like outsiders in a once-familiar world. The good news is that the Christian faith has never depended on majority status in order to be effective, as many members of our faith family have experienced their whole lives. In this series, we’ll learn to embrace the tools that make our faith and witness effective even as we lose prominence and status in society. We may even discover that our true power comes when we let ourselves become like strangers and aliens.

Trading in Your Swords

Apr 10, 2022

Leading up to Jesus’ final days, we see a clear model for how we are to live. Not only does Jesus refuse to fight the crowds (As we saw last week, they were the wrong enemy), but he also shows us how to fight differently. It involves putting away the very things that we have relied on in the past for our protection and sense of safety. But does that mean we’re left defenseless? Or is Jesus showing us true security?

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Fighting the Right Enemy

Apr 3, 2022

When we’re feeling threatened, it’s natural to want to fight, and fight we shall. However, whom we are called to fight against may not be whom we think. When we make enemies of those who oppose us, we obscure the real enemy.

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Endurance and Gentleness

Mar 27, 2022

The last two tools make strange bedfellows. Our mental pictures of endurance (a marathoner finishing his race, a mother delivering a child) are usually anything but gentle. And the gentle among us seem the least able to endure when life gets tough. Yet these last two tools embraced together are powerful for people who are going the way of the cross.

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Faith and Love

Mar 20, 2022

If we’ve been to a Christian wedding, we’re probably familiar with Paul’s famous words, “Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love.” While we may see these as personal values, they actually are powerful corporate values that can work against the prevailing ideas that Christians are irrelevant, out of touch, and even threatening to the good of the whole of society.

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Righteousness and Godliness

Mar 13, 2022

While Christians have tried to leverage the tools of moral superiority and personal perfection, those tools no longer work in a world where we are minority voices. Focusing on righteousness and godliness instead makes us find powerful tools that work regardless of our status. But what’s the difference?

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Threat Assessment

Mar 6, 2022

Something is changing in the world around us. We can sense it. For the first time, many of us may feel “other,” no longer understood, no longer welcomed, no longer in the safety of the majority. While this is alarming for many of us (some of us have never known anything different), are we really in danger? Or are we at a turning point when we get back to true strength?

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