Jeremy Hoover

Last Sunday I introduced the concept of four transformational relationships. My point was simple: if we will commit ourselves to growing in relationships with four "categories" of people--as defined clearly in and by scripture--we will be transformed.

The four categories (or areas) of relationship are: with God, with other believers, with neighbors, and with strangers. You can find more about these four transformational relationships, including my presentation outline and slides, by clicking the link. The actual presentation can be streamed or downloaded here.

Below the graphic I explain how to begin practicing, or living, these four transformative relationships.

Building off this outline, I recommend starting with your relationship with God. Because we are dealing with spiritual relationships (not merely social) our base point must begin with God. I suggest combining your regular worship attendance with a regular commitment to prayer and bible reading. You can begin simply: prayer can be either intercessory or thanksgiving, and your bible reading can be as little as one chapter each day. But begin. It's the beginning of this process and the time that you carve out for it that create the space for God to teach you and draw in to a deeper, growing relationship with him.

Next, I suggest that you focus on one of the other areas of relationship. Suppose you want to develop transformative relationships with other believers. The associated action for this area is mentoring relationships. One of the best ways to achieve this is to attend one of our bible classes on either Sunday morning or Wednesday evening. At the bible study you will be around other believers. You can then invite one or two of them to join you for coffee where you can discuss the lesson further or talk about your bible reading our spiritual growth. Look for others that you can share something with, but be careful to realize that this is a two-way street: you need to receive also, not just give.

You should be regularly participating in your relationship with God and in at least one other area. You balance this out with occasional work in the other two areas. For example, you can practice evangelism with your neighbors (biblically, your neighbors are anyone you encounter with a need) merely by being friends with and serving co-workers, family members, and even geographic neighbors.

In the bible (primarily the Old Testament), "strangers" refers to foreigners or those who pass through the land. Symbolically for us, "strangers" are those who pass through our lives. I recommend that we seek to serve them in order to leave the impression of God's love upon them. You can accomplish this by volunteering somewhere, walking your neighborhood and seeing what develops, or by some other way that puts you in contact with people that you will not see too often. Make it your goal to serve them in a gentle, humble, and loving way.

To grow spiritually, you need to take action. God calls us to action. Jesus told us to "go and do likewise (Luke 10:37). These four transformative relationships balance our spiritual growth and help us to grow and minister in the areas of relationship the bible instructs us in.

Please pray about how you should begin this journey...and then begin!

The church is whole when is of one heart. We break God's heart--and the church's heart--when we practice deception within the church. Are you breaking the church's heart or working to mend it?

Please review these study notes on possession from Acts 4:32-5:11, Sunday's sermon outline, and the slides.

I read a report of a survey that indicated, out of 800 people, only 16 percent viewed churches as a place to meet up with or make friends. As a minister, this disturbs me. In this 8 minute audio, I discuss the survey, my thoughts about it, and a way forward. Please leave your comments below, on Facebook, or at Twitter.

Group Publishing Survey: The Friendliest Place in Town

This is a follow-up to a post from last week where I wrote about how we used Twitter and Facebook in our church. That post detailed the basics. This post will detail the specifics of our follow-up.

1. I began the day by posting two tweets from our church Twitter account. The first tweet encouraged tweeting church members to provide thoughts, commentary, and questions during the sermon. The second tweet contained a theme sentence for the sermon as well as links to my sermon outline and slides.

2. Just like last week, I had someone in the office tweet the main points of my sermon while I preached. These points were tweeted in real time.

3. We used the Twitter hashtag #hrcc to organize the sermon tweets as well as any responses.

4. In the afternoon, I went back to Twitter, searched the hashtag, and responded to the tweets that came in during the sermon. For example, one member noted a similarity between the Joseph story and a movie, and I responded, asking for more information on that connection. Another member commented that goals help us persevere and I replied by asking if that part of the sermon was unclear and stating what I thought the goal should be.

5. As the week goes on, I plan to follow up both with questions to help church members apply the biblical teaching from Sunday as well as questions to help me focus my sermon for the upcoming Sunday.

6. I did pretty much the same thing on Facebook. On our Horton Road Church of Christ ministry page, I requested that church members leave a comment detailing their reflections on the sermon. To facilitate this, I had earlier messaged several church members to ask them for their participation.

7. I went back to Facebook in the afternoon and added my own comment to the thread. On Monday, I posted a follow-up question to help church members apply the sermon. I also posted a thread to generate discussion ahead of my sermon coming up this Sunday.

I plan to keep refining this system, and if you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions, please leave them in comments!

Yesterday we tried a social media experiment. We've been using our Facebook fan page and Twitter account mainly for distributing information. For Sunday worship, we tried to create a backchannel for discussing the sermon, both live and after the worship event. This is how we did it:

1. I sent out a message on Facebook to church members, asking them to access our Fan Page after worship and leave a comment, question, or insight about our worship.

2. On Twitter, I asked our tweeting church members to live-tweet the sermon, and to use a church-centered hashtag (#hrcc) at the end of their tweets. This means that as they had an insight, question, or response to the sermon, they posted it to their Twitter account as the sermon was being preached.

3. In connection with this, I sent out two introductory tweets from the church account. The first was a summary sentence for the sermon and a link to my sermon outline online. The second tweet was a link to the study notes I provided online.

4. During the sermon, one church member tweeted the main points of my sermon along with a link to the online outline and the church's hashtag (#hrcc).

5. After the sermon, I went back to Twitter, searched the #hrcc hashtag, and responded to the tweets so we could continue our dialogue. (You can read these tweets for yourself by going to Twitter Search and entering #hrcc.)

6. On Facebook, I read some replies that came through the messaging system as well as the comments that were placed on our Fan Page. I responded to these, again in an effort to keep the dialogue going.

We don't have a high percentage of members on Facebook, and even less are on Twitter. I'm still happy with our experiment and I plan to keep it up. I think it helped people engage the material better and it will facilitate community outside the weekly worship as we create a backchannel through which we can continue talking and tweeting with each other about God's word and its impact in our lives.

For those who were involved, what was your opinion? What feedback do you have? If you're just reading this, what questions do you have?

Did you know Jesus never taught church (or synagogue) attendance?  Not even once.

He probably assumed the people he taught would attend their respective houses of worship, but he didn't feel the need to teach this as a core value. In fact, the gospels only present Jesus in the temple a few times--and in the one time they all report, Jesus tore the place apart!

Yet, for many of us, church attendance is the height of our spiritual commitment.

We have reasons for this. We point to one big reason in the bible itself: "[Do not give] up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but [encourage] one another" (Hebrews 10:25). We tell others that the bible commands their attendance at church meetings.

So we have church members attending bible studies out of obligation, not love. When obligation is the foundation, little encouragement happens. Lifelessness is prominent.

We have church members attending bible studies and worship services when they are sick. These poor members take the day off work, or struggle through the day, yet muster up their remaining strength to attend a bible study, rather than staying home and resting.

Is this really what God intended?

What if we misunderstood this teaching in Hebrews? One reality in Hebrews is that people were deserting the faith, giving up on it (and Jesus) in the midst of persecution and trial. There are numerous calls throughout this book to retain faith and keep strong (Heb. 2:1). The warning passages (Heb. 6:4-6, for example) are intended to remind people of what they have and what they stand to lose if they leave.

Then we come to Hebrews 10:25.

We need to remember that the early church was nowhere near as developed as we are, two thousand years later. We have buildings, an internal structure, a board of directors, a leadership structure, programs, meetings, budgets, bank accounts, legal forms, policies, things to maintain, and people to pay. The early church had little of this.

What the early church had was each other.

This is the core of what the writer is teaching in Heb. 10:25. If you don't have each other, you can't possibly stay faithful. That's why you need to focus on encouraging each other as a core value. Encouragement builds the body of Christ and keeps others strong when they feel like quitting.

"Meeting together," in Heb. 10:25, is not about attendance at the church building. It's about not giving up on others, or yourself, or Jesus. It's about not giving in to temptation and trials. It's about remembering who and whose you are. It's about being together as a group, sharing the unity and fellowship that are in Christ.

So if you're sick, stay home and rest. There's no need to be around others. No mature believer will look down on you.

If you're tired after a long day, take the night off. Don't feel obligated to attend a Wednesday night bible study out of fear of what others will say or think. No mature believer looks at church attendance as the barometer of your faithfulness. (In fact, they shouldn't be measuring your faithfulness to begin with; they have enough to worry about with themselves.)

Jesus taught that we are to love and serve each other. This happens in and out of meetings, worship services, and bible studies. Church attendance, in any form, is not the goal we are after.

Focus on love, service, and encouragement--and let your attendance serve these goals.

Do you agree? Disagree? Please leave your comments.

This is a follow-up to Sunday's sermon, explaining how Paul extends his teaching about how we need to contribute to and cooperate for the common good. In 1 Corinthians 12:12-31, Paul teaches that we, though diverse, are unified as one body in Christ. Because of that, we are obligated to live a certain way, which includes performing our individual duties so that the whole body functions properly.

Connection has always been an important part of any church, but particularly of Churches of Christ. It's one of the reasons owe have multiple bible studies during the week. It was a heavy influence motivating the beginning of Sunday evening worship services.

The idea was, the more times you could get together, the stronger you would be as a group.

Certainly, there is much to argue with this. Generations of loose acquaintanceships, masquerading as friendships, demonstrate that simply gathering together, even frequently, does not build real relationships. But there is still something about connecting with each other that makes us feel better and feel closer to each other.

Some churches meet this need through the offer of different fellowship activities. Other churches use small groups. The idea behind these is to offer varied points of connection, assuming that if we offer a large enough variety of ways to connect with others, people will find an avenue that fits them and become involved.

But in today's world, many people don't have the time to spend attending multiple classes, services, and activities at the church building. Some live far enough away from where the church they attend that it's impractical to meet more than once each week. Others have work schedules or family obligations that often conflict with meeting times.

But these people still yearn for some kind of connection outside of weekly Sunday worship services. And this is where the power of the internet comes in. Just as previous generations would stay connected to each other during the week by phone, today's generation stays connected by email, text message, or online communication.

These networks provide means of communication and connection by the ways they link people together. Other than email, a couple of the bigger networks online are Facebook and Twitter. Many people use these services to build a profile about themselves, who they are, what they like, and so on, and to stay in touch with other friends.

I personally vouch for both these services. I have accounts at both, and have stayed in touch with old friends and church members through both. Facebook generally keeps accounts private, but you may check out my Twitter account at this link. (Twitter accounts are public by default, though you can set your account to be private, if you want.) If you have a Facebook account, you can connect with me by clicking here.

These services can also be used evangelistically, for fellowship, and for Christian communication. In addition to sharing thoughts and messages with others, I also use these services to share links to my sermons, to good articles I found online, and to other resources that can be used devotionally.

At the Horton Road Church of Christ, we're slowly building our online infrastructure, piece by piece. We desire to deepen our communication with each other. We have set up a Facebook page and a Twitter account and we encourage those who have accounts to use them both to connect with each other and to spread the word about our church by posting a brief update about your church experience on Sunday or after some other activity.

An example of how this all might work is this: A church member is inspired by the Sunday worship service. She goes home and posts about her excitement on her Facebook account. She then contacts another church member through Facebook, asking what she thought about the sermon. This church member responds later in the night, thereby creating a positive flow of communication about the church that can be seen by others who may not even be members of the church! Meanwhile, a friend who doesn't attend church reads this member's Facebook update and responds, opening the door to information being shared about the church.

Another church member hears something during the sermon that really sparks his interest. He pulls out his phone and sends a post to his Twitter account. This post is broadcast to all who are following him. Information about the church and the church's teaching goes out, live, to anyone who is following this church member's updates. Later, when he checks in at night, he sees a couple comments and questions from friends about what he posted. This opens a dialogue about the church and what we believe.

These examples may seem far-fetched, but they are in the realm of possibility. I encourage you to investigate these services and consider signing up, or if you already have accounts, use them for God's glory by communicating with other church members and posting thoughts about our worship services and activities. You never know how someone might be reached. It's up to us to use the tools we can to take the gospel into our world.

Competition with other Christians is dangerous and does not achieve anything useful. The Spirit gives us gifts so we can cooperate in ministry and achieve the common good. How are you contributing?

Watch the sermon slidecast below, or download or stream the audio only at the link below the slidecast.

Please leave some comments.