Archive for the ‘Gospel Identities’ Category

Wow, Sunday was a great day! Jesus was lifted up & the Spirit moved as we celebrated the power of the gospel to reconcile people back to the Father & to one another. The children & teens did a great job reciting Dr. King’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail, Wayne Stapleton of Grace Community Church [...]

OUCH! When Helping Hurts

Posted: December 7, 2011 by mikehanafee in Gospel Identities, social justice

Giving a buck to the guy on the corner. Blanketing a neighborhood with an ongoing cadence of quick hit mission teams. Constantly providing meals to the same people for years. To be sure all this is help…but often it is help that ultimately hurts. It’s like giving Tylenol for head pain to someone who has [...]

Restore Church put on our service project for October this past Sunday (Oct 09 2011). Our goal was to bless our neighborhood by putting on a free yard sale.  I think though we were blessed far beyond the blessing the folks in our neighborhood and surrounding areas received.  So many people came up with tears [...]

“Sign your burial form”

Posted: October 6, 2011 by mikehanafee in Colossians, Gospel Identities, Restore Church

When David Sitton (barely 20 years old!) arrived in Papua New Guinea with just a suitcase, surfboard, & Bible, the veteran missionary leading his first patrol into the bush slid him a burial form to sign in case he died on that mission. Pretty alarming as you can imagine! But Sitton embraced the possibility of [...]

Sunday about 45 people gathered at the Bontrager home for worship (I’m starting to wonder if we can build a balcony in their living room!). In message 2 in our Colossians series we looked at the supremacy & sufficiency of Jesus. You can check out the sermon & some pics below.

This past Sunday (4/17/2011) we sponsored our first service project in our little corner of the world. We have participated in doing projects with other groups, but had a great time heading this one up. I want to thank Ruth Bontrager and Alaina Grojean for all the hours of planning and prep time to pull this off. Thank [...]

Apostle Paul- The Ultimate Supermodel?

Posted: February 4, 2011 by cletebontrager in Gospel Identities, Uncategorized

When you think about the life of Paul, usually the thought of him being a supermodel doesn’t find its way into your mind. But, examine his life.  He was the ultimate model of Christ Jesus or you could say he reached SUPERMODEL status.  Of course the ULTIMATE MODEL for us is Jesus Christ. Paul wants [...]

The 32/6 Initiative

Posted: December 27, 2010 by mikehanafee in Core Values, Gospel Identities, Vision

“When is your launch date?” That is a question we hear frequently. Certainly it is a fair question & a good question. And no doubt the approach of planning for & advertising a big launch service has worked in some contexts. As one who loves to preach & looks forward to regularly preaching again this [...]

Contextualization

Posted: September 18, 2010 by mikehanafee in Core Values, Gospel Identities

In this video I share some brief thoughts on another missional implication, contextualization. This topic has received much attention in recent years, often more in the way of rhetoric & tradition, rather than reality & Scripture.

In this video I share a second implication of the missional church. Not because of any contemporary fads but because of the ancient text of Scripture the church rightly understood is not a time & place but the people of God empowered by the Spirit of God to make known the Son of God to [...]