This Week We Explore the Message of Grace

How do you preach to your people? How do you teach them week after week? What expectations do you lay out at the end of your sermons or lessons? Are the lives of your people pleasing to God? Do they experience or sense God’s face shining on them? How do they think about their relationship with God?

Well, there you go, Happy Monday! How about those questions? Do you find them easy to answer, or hard? Perhaps you are wondering if we are setting you up? You might ask, “What are Jeff and Jonny getting at with these questions?” We are attempting to set you up for this week’s podcast, episode 61, with John Lynch.

John has been a pastor at Open Door Fellowship Church in Phoenix, AZ for the past 30 years. He and his pastor/partners, Bill Thrall and Bruce McNicol have written a book titled, The Cure. It is all about the life of grace, and it’s subtitle is: What if God isn’t who you think he is, and neither are you?

At our 200church here in Orange City, IA, we have used this book in small groups and Sunday School classes, and it has changed lives as we learn that we are exactly who God says we are, even on our worst day! We are redeemed, righteous, forgiven, and loved. We no longer have to wear a mask, hide or manage our sin, live in relational isolation, or stress out over pleasing God. There is a remedy in the Gospel, that these guys call “The Cure.”

On this week’s podcast, John talks about, not so much the book, but what the cure actually is. We also have Steve, a member at our church, whose life was changed by this book, share just a bit of his story. Steve and John Lynch join us in the opulent and luxurious 200churches Podcast studio, and are almost overcome by the live, in-studio experience. :)

The Cure will change how you preach to and teach your people. We know, we know, that is a presumptuous and somewhat bold statement. We too are hesitant when someone is only as good as the last book they’ve read.  We’ve read a lot of books over the past few years, and we are not in the business of being affiliate marketers of books. But this book is simply about the Christian life and how the message of grace informs it.

The Authors Will Join Us
Because this book has challenged so many of our people, and literally changed the lives of some, we wanted to share it with you by talking directly with the authors, then sharing those conversations with you on the podcast. They will, over the coming months, be a part of our podcasts. We’ve asked them to begin to share the message of grace, a message that they have worked so hard on over the past years to articulate and model to their own church family. They’ve written several books and crafted a number of message series around this topic.

These guys are pastors who are serving in the trenches along with us. They have several services and their church has run between 700 and 1,000 for a couple decades. They know the struggles, the joys, and the challenges of local church ministry.

Practical Ministry Benefit
Recently a member came to Jeff’s office for some counseling. She was sensing God nudging her to work on some issues in her life. She has struggled in some areas, and knows God wants her to get victory over them. She knows that these struggles are coming between her and a healthy relationship with God. She came to ask for his advice on how she could get past these things, and live in victory, with a life pleasing to God.

Jeff’s advice to her a couple weeks ago was very different than it would have been a couple years ago. That advice became so clear to him after processing the message of The Cure in his reading, and going through it in his small group. This is the message we want you to hear.

We are so excited to share our conversation with John Lynch with you on Wednesday in episode 61 of the 200churches Podcast!