Please Pray for Matt Chandler: Update

UPDATE: Matt will undergo surgery Friday afternoon

Pastor Matt Chandler will have surgery Friday afternoon to remove a tumor located in the frontal lobe of his brain. The surgery will be performed by Dr. David Barnett.

Dr. Barnett told Matt that he was positive about recovery but won’t know the full results until the surgery is performed. The doctor was uncertain about the malignancy of the tumor, and a biopsy will be performed as part of the surgery.

The outpouring of support and prayers from all over the world has been overwhelming to Matt and Lauren. Continue to pray and fast on behalf of the family. The church’s monthly prayer service will be Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Highland Village, Denton and Dallas Northway worship centers. We encourage you to fast throughout that day and join us to pray that evening. If you cannot join us, pray wherever you are.

We continue to rest in the knowledge that Matt is in the sovereign hand of our heavenly Father who loves him immensely more than we can comprehend, and He alone understands the reasons for this trial. Along with your prayers, continue to give Matt and Lauren and their family time and space for their continued rest.

Organic Discipleship: The Process

Organic Discipleship Process

The four points of organic discipleship are not a program or a curriculum; rather they are four essential movements that you can adapt and apply to your local church context and setting to rapidly make disciples in the 21^st century. Regardless of your culture or context these four foundations will help you begin to make missionally minded disciples of Christ who are committed to changing their world by reproducing themselves in others with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Gospel

The Gospel is the seed and foundation of the entire discipleship process from beginning to end. Without the gospel, discipleship will become works based and will eventually dry up and die. Each stage of our discipleship process should also be gospel-centered.

Missional

Missionality is the outreach impulse of making disciples. It is the force that compels us to go out and make disciples through word and deed. Without it, discipleship would be inward focused. There are groups who focus merely on inward spiritual disciplines without ever taking seriously the call to make disciples. Missional ministry moves us beyond ourselves to share the gospel with our friends, family, and neighbors.

Community

The third element of the organic discipleship process is to develop pathways for people to build authentic Christ centered community. Discipleship must take place within the context of the Christian community. Disciples are made in community not isolation.

Reproduction

Reproduction is the ultimate goal of discipleship. We need to rediscover the reproductive nature of the church. We are called to select, train, and send missional disciples of Christ out in the world who will be able repeat the process of discipleship. What we need in our day is an organic disciple making movement that will train and send men and women to be reproducing disciples of Christ.

HT: Winfield Bevins

What Is Advent?

By Elliot Grudem

The celebration of Advent (which means “coming” or “arrival”) helps us focus our attention on Jesus Christ’s birth and ministry as well as his promised return. It starts the fourth Sunday before Christmas and ends on Christmas Eve.

Celebrating Advent helps us cut through all the distractions of the Christmas season and focus our attention on Jesus Christ’s birth and ministry as well as his promised return. Since we can’t anticipate the day or the hour of Christ’s return, we are filled with both a sense of joyful expectation and humble reverence, with our spiritual focus being on lives of prayer and preparation.

Throughout the season we are constantly reminded that Jesus Christ is the promised Messiah and Savior of the World.

Read more.