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Sunday: First Steps in Rediscovering Christ as the Head of the Church

Building off of last week’s sermon where we asked, “Who’s going to be the head of the church”, this week we looked into how we could rediscover Christ as the head of the church.  And for direction there, we take our cues from our Protestant Roots.

Last week, I mentioned the Protestant Reformation, the time when the Protestant Church emerged.  I also mentioned how the people of the Protestant Reformation believed that all people could access and understand Scripture and in the process have a direct relationship with God.  We still believe this, but we often have a hard time putting it into practice.  With our unique mediator-less situation at Baylight, we have the opportunity to honestly pursue a direct relationship with the Lord.

Our basic challenge is this: We must connect directly to Christ through the Scriptures.  And to accomplish this, we’re asking you to join us in reading the Bible in two years.

In tandem with this challenge, we’re laying out five tools which may be helpful for your journey through the Bible.

1. A Bible reading plan.  Starting Feb. 8, 2010, we’ll start a chronological reading of the Bible.  That is, the ord.er you read the Bible will be dictated by the likely chronological sequence of events (ex. Job will be read before Gen 12 because it is believed that Job lived before Abram).  You can find a google doc of the first 6 months of the reading plan here.

2. The internet.  Starting Feb. 8, 2010, the daily reading will be posted on the Baylight Church website.  There you can then leave your thoughts, observations, and questions in the comment box.  You can also have the daily reading sent directly to your email inbox by leaving a comment here, contacting Kenneth, or physically signing up during a Sunday gathering.

3. Sermons.  Sermons will follow the reading plan, capping the previous week’s reading.  The hope is that they’ll serve as a celebration of the last week’s reading and as an encouragement for the next week’s reading as well.

4. Accelerated one year accountability groups.  These groups will gather once a month and be for those people who want read at a faster clip and want an added accountability component as well.

5. Deep-dive study group.  These groups will gather once a month and be for those people who want to stay on the two year plan but also want to take some time to look in-depth into a small portion of Scripture using exegetical tools (i.e. original languages, historical context, history of interpretation, sentence structure analysis, etc.).

I look forward to journeying with you in rediscovering Christ as the head.

P.S. One thing I didn’t mention this morning is that this is by no means a Baylight restricted thing.  If you know someone who may be interested in joining us in this journey, let them know what we’re doing.  All of the gatherings and resources are and will be open.  Thanks T for the suggestion.