The Big Serve is a Big Deal

The Big Serve is coming up! Registration is closing in just a few days! Please consider registering and please consider being willing to coordinate a site. The Big Serve is such a joyful event at Grace every year. We gather together and worship and hear from God’s Word and then we make our words into action and we go out to be the church. This event has the chance to have a massive impact on our community. Not just because it might look nicer, but because people can see the love that Jesus put in us for them. 

It is special that we would give up part of our Sunday to serve our community. This can impact not just people through our service but through our being willing to give up “our day” for others. Most people who have any knowledge of Christianity know that Sunday is a special day for us. Us being willing to give time, effort, and energy to them on a Sunday can speak something significant. 

But what if landscaping or light construction aren’t your thing? There are other ways to serve! We will be doing a diaper drive for a local community pantry and all it takes to serve there is a smile and a willingness to explain to people what we are asking for as they go in and out of Walmart. In fact, our first diaper drive two years ago was so successful that the Heartland Pregnancy Care Center here in Newton still does not need more diapers. That previous drive wasn’t a short-term blessing to them but a long-term one and we are hoping it will be the same for the Porch Pantry as they seek to provide basic needs for new or struggling moms in Newton. 

We have seen some long-term relationships come from this yearly service and our reputation as people who love where they live has grown. If you cannot be with us as we serve on April 21 please come worship with us at 9 AM and then pray for us as we go out. That the blessing of that one day will last and that lasting relationships will be born. Praying with us and for us is just as real of a role as swinging a hammer. You can also ask about the projects another person did afterward or encourage someone who you know has skills to serve. 

Thanks to all of you who have already registered! We are so excited for those who have stepped up to be Site Coordinators already. This is a great role to serve in. You do not have to know how to do every aspect of the project. We will find you those people. You just have to coordinate communication on the days ahead of the event and on the day of the event. 

I am always grateful for our church. We have so many wonderful people so ready to serve Jesus. It is rarer than we might be used to here at Grace for people to be so willing to serve and it is so worth celebrating. I am looking forward to sharing this day with all of you and loving our community like Jesus would!

Register now by clicking this button!

Pastor Will

Eggs with a Side of Truth

Breakfast food is my favorite food. I like eggs but I love bacon, sausage, biscuits and gravy, and hashbrowns. I can eat breakfast food at any meal and be very happy. With my beard, any meal can turn that beard into an unintentional food storage device. Many of you have probably heard the expression “egg on your face”, as much as I like breakfast food I also like to look up the origins of phrases like that. This one doesn’t have a clear origin but having egg on my face has clear ties to a childhood insecurity I have often felt and sometimes relive today. I have never felt like I can trust people who will literally or figuratively let me walk around with egg on my face. If there is something obvious I can do to make people’s experience of me more pleasant then I would want to do that and those people who have shown to be my friends in life have been the ones who love me enough to tell me I have something I need to wipe away, I have something I am blind to that I need to correct. When I read Ephesians 4:25 it makes me think of what a true friend or good community should be like. 

Ephesians 4:25 (ESV) says “ Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.” This verse highlights that we are connected with each other and that one of the best ways to live that out is to speak truthfully with one another. I am sure not many of us would think about lying directly or intentionally to one another. However, on the other side of every sin of doing something to someone, there is the other side where we do not do what we should do for someone. The verse doesn’t just say not to lie but to “speak truth” to one another. 

When I was working at Miracle Camp, my previous ministry before GCC, I was exposed to a list of communication rules that made me feel as free as I ever had and squashed the insecurity in me that people were letting me walk around with egg on my face. I want to highlight the key to this free and unifying communication. As much as it hurts at times, hearing the truth from a friend is so freeing because you know you have somebody watching your back (and your face) for things you can’t see about yourself. Trust starts to happen at a deep and ever-deepening level. 

Here they are with short explanations:

Candid and Authentic Communication- Say what you want to say and say it in your own words. Talk about things when they are small and can be candid before they need a meeting.

No Triangulation- Talk with someone directly, don’t talk to someone else hoping that things will get back to the person you should talk to. They will get back to them but it will foster bitterness and not trust. 

Speak for Yourself- The theoretical “they” that don’t like something should never be referenced. “They” may have something to say but “they” don’t matter. 

Bring a Solution with Your Issue- This is very akin to “walking a mile in someone else’s shoes.” When trying to bring a solution (and “do better” doesn’t count) you have to consider the resources and circumstances a person is working under. Maybe they haven’t thought of a solution on their own because their situation is a hard one. This exercise shows love and compassion. It builds that membership in one another's lives Ephesians talks about.

Confront Issues within 48hrs- Deal with things fresh, this helps guard against triangulation, judgement of others and keeps things small. The tagline is “no hands from the grave” and that means that if you don’t make it a point to talk about something with someone quickly then you give up your right to talk to them. 

A family of people who tell the truth to each other in these ways will be unbreakable and will have so much joy and security in each other. These are all framed in the negative about issues but following this same model for praise, encouragement, and thanks is even more powerful. 

Will Regier

Acts 2 and You

We are working hard to pass our faith on to our kids as I know any of you parents are. Some of you have adult kids and they have made their decisions either for our joy or for our heartache. In my reading lately, I read Acts 2, specifically Acts 2:14-28, and I was struck by a few phrases that made me think about how my kids think about Jesus now and how I want them to think about Him. Give that section or better yet the whole chapter a quick read.

My kids are young so things are very straightforward for them and I hope in some ways they never lose that. In Acts 2:24 (ESV) it says “God raised him (Jesus) up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.” My son gets this statement as clear as day. Jesus is bigger and stronger than anything and He was too powerful for even death to hold him. My son gets that concept all day long. He understands the full gospel that Jesus died for his sins, and rose from the dead, and that he has to believe in that to live with Jesus forever. But in his kid mind one of the most important things is that Jesus would protect him from “bad guys” or that Jesus in general is out there in His strength stopping “bad guys” right and left like a holy superhero. We remind our son that we are all bad guys sometimes and that’s why Jesus came, to change bad guys into Jesus followers so that we can be covered over by Jesus’ goodness in God’s sight. Though I don’t think that 100% computes for my son I think he gets it in the basics. 

But as I look at Acts 2:28 (ESV) where it says “ You have made known to me the paths of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.” I see that my kids still have a ways to go in the growth of their faith. This verse is a quote of Psalm 16 which is also well worth a read. This whole section in Acts is a record of a sermon the apostle Peter preached. I know that my kids still often get their “gladness” from toys or fun or praise from a job well done. They are still very early on in learning to find their full joy in Jesus their Lord. But in every judgment of another person we always need to turn the lens on ourselves, yes even when we correct or teach our kids…. Ugh… It is zero fun sometimes to make sure everything I am teaching my kids that I am also living out! 

When I start to then look at myself this is what comes out. Am I letting good or bad work circumstances change my gladness over God’s presence, am I even taking the time to pursue God Himself, am I being quiet enough to hear Him, and am I taking time to savor His presence? These are the questions that start rolling around in my heart. I both pass and fail regularly. As I consider a new year I do not make resolutions but I do try to set or reset my mindset. Is the simple but real presence of God enough to make me “full of gladness?” Not for it to just be something that I hope gets better this year but to exclaim that it is true? My hope is that for every day God’s presence is not enough to fill me with gladness that there are two days that it does. Aside from hope I am setting my mind in this new year not just to “try” but to commit to it being true that I am full of gladness with God’s presence. I want to daily remember that He is with me and that there is not a single thing better than that! We all hope that “things” go better for us in the new year but I am committing my mind to be set not on fixing any of those “things” but on the presence of God with me. I will work on “things” and then be fully aware that my savior is there with me when I do. God bless each of you first and foremost with His presence and your commitment to be glad in it this new year!

- Will Regier

Things that the God-breathed nature and Lack of Errors of the Bible Don’t Mean

2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NIV ‘84)

16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Simply put this verse teaches us that God’s word as contained in the Bible are His Words! His words are useful to us to make us more like Jesus. Through this process, which cannot be done alone, we are made more complete and ready to do the good work God has for us. But scripture being rock solid, perfect, and life changing can get misunderstood or misused. I am going to highlight a few of the ways that I have seen this happen.

There are some dangers that some of these ideas can lead us into. Inerrancy, Inspiration, and authority of Scripture are so good when we remember who did the inspiring what is inspired, and why God did it. It is a good exercise to look at what it doesn’t mean and it isn’t useful for. Scripture, reading, studying, and having others bring it into your life is not for proving to yourself that you are complete. Scripture is part of the process of that happening and the work is never done. If we cannot see the next thing that God has to teach us or the next point of connection with God that we haven’t explored yet then we need more people ti live in authentic community with. The Bible is not a pass or fail report card on our lives, everyone of us has failed, and if you aren’t sure how you are failing then it’s pride. I don’t say that to accuse you or make you feel bad. Knowing where we start and where we are before God is a joyful thing. When we agree with Him about where we are then He lights a raging fire of connection and change. We should always be holding our lives up to the standard of Jesus, seeing we fall short, and running to Him. For you perfectionists out there you have special dangers in this. This is not a checklist and perfectionism does not help you be godly it actually uses shame and self punishment as a fuel to move you in your own mind closer to your standard you have for yourself. God want to walk alongside you as you become more like Jesus and He cares a whole lot more about being in a relationship with you than you thinking you know what you should be like or you trying to do it with your own effort. The rock-solid nature of scripture cannot lull us into a sense of security, it is solid we are not and until we see Jesus face to face we aren’t supposed to be. (Psalm 1, 1 John 3:2)

Knowing Scripture or living in a community of people with a high level of Biblical literacy or theological understanding is great. The danger comes in when we think we can settle on theological preferences and unverified explanations of certain verses. All Scripture is inspired by God but all of our interpretations of that are not. Do you know when a theological principle was first written about? Do you know who promoted it to the church? Do you know what the church taught before or after this theological stance became prevelant. If you can answer those questions you are a giant leap towards taking something you were taught or maybe something that is convenient to believe back to the Bible, and back to the community of believers you connect with on a soul level. Then you can really decide if what you believe comes from lots of verses in the Bible and not just one or two. You can learn about the interpretation that people did to come to that theological conclusion and decide if you trust their work and their conclusion. What the Bible says is never in question, what people have said about it should always be. It is definitely ok to have long held beliefs and it is ok to be passionate about them. It is ok to have confidence in what you believe the Bible teaches that far outweighs your doubt. But if you have never searched out how accurate something is that you hold passionately to or put it to a historical test you can never be confident that you have weeded out as many human errors from that theological principle as possible. (Acts 17:10-15)

Scripture is not for you to weaponize against others. Our first temptation can be to see how awesome scripture is and then decide we will teach, rebuke, correct, and train others. Before we can ever do that we have to let it first be done to us. We have to be taught and be rebuked before we can offer that to those around us. It is a commonly held principle that you cannot give to anyone else what you do not have. If you don’t have $5 you can’t give someone $5. The same holds true with change in someones life from Biblical teaching or correction. If you have never experienced correction yourself or rebuke then you cannot hope to change someones life with a word from Scripture or a principle learned from it’s pages. At best you will say the right thing in the wrong way. When the Biblical king David talked about Scripture he first said it was a “lamp to my feet and light to my path” Psalm 119:105. This means real life change only happens for us in community. We need others to see our blindspots not only to help us but so that we can learn how to see blindspots in others. Then we have to learn how to infuse our relationships with Scripture and it’s principles but first it needs to be infused into us. Like the tea has to touch the water and steep this process requires both time and closeness. If we get excited about what the Bible says because we see how wrong it makes other people look we are in danger of weaponizing it. If we keep those thoughts to ourself then we are at least quitely judgmental and we have only infected our own hearts with bitterness. But if we open our mouths we run the risk of giving people a bad tast for God or His Word when He has the sweetest flavor (Psalm 34). Jesus had a lot to say to the Pharisees who made a profession out of weaponizing Scripture and it isn’t flattering. (Matthew 23:1-4 read it in the ESV and the NLT)

Every one of us is susceptible to using Scripture and our interpretations incorrectly. Rest assured though. We have a great foundation to our faith and we can rely on the direction we are headed because many people throughout history have resisted these dangers. The challenge is to be one of them yourself and to be an entire family that takes the Bible for what it really is. It is better than we can imagine to make us complete and ready to do God’s work but we only shine a candle to it in the amount that we light a beacon piercing the darkness out our collective humanity, always holding ourselves up to to its great light.

Will Regier

Sheep

`Psalm 23 is well-known to many of us. The basic premise is that God is our shepherd and we are well taken care of. He leads us beside peaceful water and to the best pasture. He protects us from enemies. This all sounds awesome at a funeral or in our personal devotions.

But are we willing to be sheep? Are we willing to let ourselves be thought of in that way outside of our chair where we read our Bible or when we are at our best not at our weakest?

Sheep never have a positive connotation. Oh, they may be tasty but they are also not considered strong or smart. Are we willing to accept that reputation in the world? Weak and hapless are not on the top of the list when I hear people dreaming about what their kids will be like. It seems very logical though that if we want God to be our shepherd then we need to be the sheep. We cannot avoid the necessity of this arrangement. We have to be humble and willing to follow. We also have to let it slide when outsiders or even those close to us view us differently than we want them to. The reason we will look this way is because we are all following the shepherd's voice if we are doing what we are supposed to. We know from other parts of scripture that we do not all have the same gifts and we do not all have the same roles in the church. That means if we are listening well to the shepherd what we are doing may not be exactly the same as the next sheep we are next to. And here is where it breaks down for many of us in the church. We readily understand that because we are following Jesus instead of the system of the world what we do will be different than what non-believers do. However, inside the church, just as sheep do, we all wanna look alike, and move alike, and we don’t understand the sheep that is acting differently. 

If each of us is willing to let ourselves be viewed as sheep to each other then at times we will not look strong. We will not look like the wolf who is so effortless and smooth in his hunting. We need to remember too that as sheep, both for ourselves and for others, we will not always be hearing the shepherd's voice well and that is where the power of the flock comes in. We both need to listen to the shepherd as individuals and as a church. We experience the goodness of this when we are not hearing the shepherd’s voice clearly. Then we can move with those sheep around us that we have come to trust. That’s the positive of the flock of sheep but again it will always just be a flock of sheep. It won’t be a herd of sleek and powerful horses coursing the plains. The flock will always be a bunch of jiggly, jumpy, fluffy sheep. To the outside and even at times to other churches, they will see us that way. But the choice is clear, be seen as a sheep because you are one and be seen as a bunch of sheep because we are or don’t follow the shepherd. There is no other choice. All the benefits of the shepherd await if we are willing to give up the trappings of the sleek efficiency and power of the corporate world. We cannot strive to be like to wolves or horses. Sheep are humble and our only hope is to grow in that humility if we want to be close to the shepherd. Growing in humility as a flock will keep us following Him together. 

Psalm 23 and all the beauty of its language is ours if we can put on the humble garb of the sheep. It’s not always gonna feel great when we see how others view us but it always feels great to be with The Shepherd.

Blessings,

Will

Summer Quest is the Best

First of all the disclaimer: I am about to mention negative feelings I have about a place that many of you love. This is not a commentary on that place, your choice to live there, or anything like that! Keep in mind too, my criticism is very specific and I hope the way you live proves me wrong!

I have built quite a few homes, not as a builder but as a carpenter. I have built most of those homes in subdivisions or housing developments whatever you choose to call them. Though I loved the inside of many of the homes we built I couldn’t stand the outside… Not because I thought they were ugly but because I thought the outside of every one of them portayed a lie… I would wager that not many of us like lies, being lied to, or any kind of falsehood in general. God doesn’t talk about lying in favorable terms in the Bible, my parents hated it and the times I have tried to slip a half truth or incomplete truth past my wife have not ended well for me. But I contend that almost ever house in every housing development lies each and every day and the lie is permanent. You ask how can a building lie? Well this is how. Every house I see in every subdivision has a front porch on it… to me that says that by design there is enough value placed on using that porch to justify the extra cost and loss of square footage in the home. 

Now I know practically the porch serves a lot of purposes in a mechanical way to protect the door opening from leakage from wind or air. But most often that door rarely if ever even gets used. Everyone uses their garage door and a garage really protects that entry door much better. 

My beef was always, “why have a front porch, beautiful or not, if you are never going to sit on it!” It feels like a lie to me every minute of every day… Building concrete steps, cedar posts and beams, expensive outdoor furniture that needs replaced from sun damage and not use, and outdoor decor for every season. I know Home Depot and Hobby Lobby both love those front porches but I do not. 

If the porches get used all of my frustration goes away. Really a house can’t lie, it is the cultural value that we put on a front porch that we never use, it’s us, the people that lie. And really this criticism is not pointed at any of you individually. If you have an HOA or a contractor worth his salt they are all going to require or recommend a nice front porch on your house. It’s not an individual problem its a cultural one. Now that we have airconditioning the necessity of sitting outside in the shade to catch the breeze is no longer advantageous. If I were really consistent with my line of thinking I would maybe critisize airconditioning and you will never catch me doing that. The two things any house I live in needs are a coffee pot and air conditioning, everything else is optional.

It is this cultural loss of the front porch culture that grieves me. In many parts of the world or even in more urban parts of our own country this is not completely lost. In our Central Plains western culture though it is on life support if its not completely dead. At the end of the day though I can be ok with it. It is what it is. Rather than try to fight the battle of the physical porch I want to highlight two things that I think we lose and that we do have to fight for. The porch provided both regular interactions and random interactions with our neighbors or those travelling through our neighborhood. Sitting out in the best parts of the day on your porch would facilitate interacting with neighbors. Try and have 6 or 8 kids living on the same block stay on the porch with their parents who are trying to relax or cool down in the breeze… It’s not happening. They will be in the street playing or all collected around an event in one yard or another. The adults too couldn’t avoid interacting completely, hello the playgroupnd of the extrovert! To the dismay of every introvert they would be at the mercy of their talkative neighbor unless they were so committed to isolation that they would rather drip sweat than sit outside. We also lose those random people walking or driving by that might stop and chat because they see us out on the porch. For a person like me who love community and connection I feel like the richness we lose is immeasurable by not having more of these regular and random interactions with other people.

How is this all about Summer Quest? I promised that in the title… and so far have been a liar myself. I think Summer Quest is the spiritual and literal front porch of our church. It puts us outside, unignorable to the neighborhood and passers by. We get a chance to be together on mission with our regular people, fellow church memebers and our actual neighbors where we live, and it sets us up for random people that we either invited or who see us and come to check it out. Sure we are outside and in my case always a little sweaty but we are giving that chance that a relationship will spark. My kids have friends with other families at church simply because we all walked together to pass out invites for Summer Quest together. Now that I bought a house and am no longer renting I know that kids in my immediate vicinity and see lots of others that are totally near enough to be invited. I know they will be bored this summer because every kid is and that like any kid if they get an invite to come off their porch to something fun and engaging it will get their serious consideration. Summer Quest to me embodies the true spirit of the front porch. Though Plumbrook Park, which is my site for this summer, looks nothing like a front porch I hope our site is as inviting as I imagine the best porch was in days of old. I can’t guarantee that any meaningful relationships will happen but the opportunity is there and I am praying God moves to do His work in creating them. Summer Quest is a great tool in His hands for this to happen. 

Please consider your role in Summer Quest this year. We still need Site Coordinators and since God has identified the sites that means He has also prepared some of you to fill those roles. Reach out to Amy, our Children’s Director, to get your assignment and enjoy the beauty of our front porch. amy@gccnewton.com

Blessings,

Will

What is the Big Serve and why does it matter?

The Big Serve is simply a Sunday that we take to serve our community and its local residents. We take the morning to have different rhythms, we meet as a gathered body for a short time, but then we head out in teams to work… But, this event is so much more than just a service day. 

The work matters, getting a project done that makes a difference for a person or organization fills real tangible needs. When we take time to live out in concrete ways all our rhetoric about “loving people” we actively do love people. God smiles when things move from conviction to action among His people. People can feel the love Jesus has for them when Jesus’ followers take the time to show it.

The work really does matter but what matters just as much is the posture that this event puts us in. We can only give to others what we have received from God. Serving others is not primarily the strong helping the weak. It is actually or should actually be those who are plugged into Jesus following His leading to do good works. The need that some might have does not dictate our actions, though needs should never be ignored, rather Jesus' love should direct our action and meeting felt needs is a great way to do that. So we, those who look to serve, must be connected with Jesus so that we have something to offer. All the best skills under the sun are meaningless much like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13; if we don’t have love it don’t matter (Will Paraphrase Version). Serving people can show them love but it’s not a guarantee. Only being connected to Jesus’ love and then following Him in how He wants you to show it provides the surety that you are showing love.

Events like the Big Serve matter so much because we do them together. Working together with each other builds relationships in a different way than Sunday mornings. It’s not better or worse but when we build relationships with each other in different ways it strengthens our bonds. It also builds relationships outside of our fellowship when we serve other organizations. When we connect the love of Jesus to each other, to those we serve, and to organizations not like us we will see Jesus’ kingdom advance in our town. I hope you will all register for the Big Serve but I also hope you will each be prayerful, asking Jesus to fill you with His love and giving you opportunity to share it with others. That’s what life is about, and that's why we do the Big Serve.

-Will Regier

Mothers

I know it is not Mother’s Day, but this topic is heavy on my heart today, and for those who know why, I hope this will be a balm for you. Mothers and Fathers are both equal parts of God’s plan for the family. For those of you whose parents did not stay together, either through tragedy or divorce, this is not to say that you got a raw deal from God. The world is broken and it was not your fault. God is in the business of healing any hurt that any of us let him heal. I say all of this for qualification because I will be writing this from the framework of a loving mother in the context of a biblical family.  I don’t want any of you who did not have this experience to think I am leaving you out. Quite the contrary and I hope that for the sake of this short essay, you can simply picture the godly mother you wish you had or are striving to be yourself. I too am writing this from a guy’s perspective, so I am sure I will miss so many nuances mothers or daughters would not. This is not exhaustive but hopefully edifying.

I grew up in the ’90s, a little in the ’80s, but my memory begins in the year 1989… Before that, I remember very little. So I, and rightfully so I think, consider myself a child of the ’90s. That decade has many things I love about it; the Chicago Bulls, pump shoes, and objectively the best music of any decade. Sorry for any of you that think I am biased… it’s not biased if I am right… One thing that is true, past any sarcasm I just wrote, is that in the 90s loving our mothers was the norm. TV commercials about soup with famous people and their moms, pop songs about men who loved their mothers, and even “your mom” jokes, which were negative but telling about our thought processes, all pointed to the fact that our culture was mom-centric. In the 90’s we loved our moms. It was socially acceptable to hate your dad or make fun of him but “don’t you be talkin’ ‘bout my momma” was used as no vain threat in schoolyards everywhere. 

For many of us raised in loving Christian homes, we never did the dad bashing and those same dads would have never allowed us to disrespect our moms in any way. I remember distinctly the day in 5th or 6th grade when I looked over at my mom, eye to eye, and cracked a joke because I was now taller than her (she is a towering 5’3”)... With zero hesitation I heard my dad, using his deep “dad” voice, say “you may be bigger than her but I still enforce everything she says…” My dad is not 5’3”, in fact at that time he would have been 6’4” and about 250lbs of farm muscle and facial hair. My dad was kind and loving. So loving that when he set a boundary, a real one, I knew it was set in concrete, inside of bedrock, on a tectonic plate that all the other tectonic plates got out of the way of… 

All that to say that I never remember disrespecting my mother. We had weaknesses though in the culture I grew up in and in the ‘90s too. As perfect as both of those things were, a weakness I had was being able to talk about my feelings with my dad or men in general. My dad was better than most, at drawing it out of me and not squirming too much when my emotions came out of me involuntarily, but it was a weakness I grew up with. That weakness isn’t worse or better than any other, it was just weakness. That means that my mother was an island of comfort, a safe haven of sweetness, and a refuge when my hormonally charged emotions raged. 

I set this all up as color for this simple but stark truth. Mothers are like nobody else in our lives. They are specially designed by God to give us life itself. They are the first people to disciple us, before we are even conscious, in the womb. They love us and share their very life with us in that womb. We know their name (Mommy) before we ever know the name they have been called their whole lives (Debbie in my mom’s case). There is the imagery of God being like a mother to us in the Bible that does not contradict in the least a biblical, complementarian worldview that I hope we all share. For further reading check out Isaiah 49:15 and 66:13. My favorite, because chickens are also one of my favorite animals to raise, is Matthew 23:37. God is compared to a mother hen gathering her chicks under her wing. There are many reasons chicks go under their mother’s wings; to escape danger or perceived danger, to get shade from the sun or warmth from the cold, to hide from predators who are too small to attack the hen, and last but not least to simply snuggle with momma and build that familial flock bond. Our own mothers are no different and God’s design for them was the same. To be all of that and more for us. So show some love to your mom today (if that is appropriate and safe for you) but more importantly thank God for her (even if she is far away, even so far as heaven). This is for you, adult son of a wonderful mother: You are not just a son anymore but a godly man and by that a default leader in the world… Be the godly son that your momma needs, be a son and let her love you but also be a man… Love her well and lead her at times if she needs a helping hand... How you love your wife someday will be reflected by how you have loved your mother well in the here and now… Don’t shirk the hard stuff and don’t run from the sweet/mushy stuff… As much as God made her to be your mother, He called you to be her son. 

- Will Regier

Church Planting is Still Awesome!

I first came to Grace in 2014. My wife and I had moved to Newton and I had heard about this guy named Dave Reimer. We decided to check his preaching out one Sunday as we were tired of driving to the church we had been going to in Wichita. The church we were driving to is now closed so I guess that means we made the right call!

We were welcomed by people right away, I won’t name names but they know who they are, and we later saw Pastor Kyle at Applebees. He and Mary were on a date night and I could tell he was cool (and he didn’t even bribe me to say this). I am a Moody Bible Institute grad though, so it’s tough to impress me with a church. Friendly people, pastors who are good husbands, and even good preaching would not have been enough to make me decide that Grace would be our church home. Don’t get me wrong all of those things were present at Grace and they all tipped the scales toward our decision to go here, but one of the biggest factors was that church planting was part of Grace’s history (recent history at that point) and it was still part of the DNA here. That’s something that will get a Moody Bible guy fired up! 

At Moody, I learned to deeply and forever love the local church. It is without a doubt God’s most chosen vessel to use in the lives of His children throughout the world. Regardless of language, income, race, education level, or any other factor you can name God is at work in those people and in that place through His local church. Even in places with no Gospel presence, there are local churches in other parts of the world praying and working to get the Gospel there. While at Moody I did not know if I wanted to be a pastor or a missionary but either way I knew I wanted to be part of the local church or sent by the church to make churches where there weren’t any.

So when we came to Grace in 2014 and I heard about the church plants in Hillsboro (Grace Fellowship) and Moundridge (Grace Crossing) that were a few years old by then and the brand new one (New Anthem) that was just launched by a basketball player I knew from the area who graduated from high school the same year I did… To say the least I was elated! I knew that God was at work at Grace Newton if He was mobilizing this place to be a sending church for new church plants. We had found our church home, done deal!

Fast forward and long story short my wife and I felt called back to Grace after years of Christian camp ministry in Michigan. We are so glad to be back! One of the sweetest full-circle moments we have experienced is getting to attend the 10 yr anniversaries of both the Moundridge and Hillsboro churches this past year. We were here when those church plants were new in the 2012-2014 years. God brought us back in 2021 and then in 2022, their 10 yr anniversaries started! What a gift to see the good work still going! Most church plants don’t last long, I don’t know the exact stats but it's probably 1-2 yrs… To have two that have lasted 10 yrs and a third (in Park City) that will hit that milestone next January is an obvious affirmation of God’s direction and provision. God will grow, God will reproduce, and God will protect His local church! 

Another fun connection for me was when the Admin Director from the camp I worked at in Michigan started dating this guy from Ohio. Boy meets girl, they get married, he is a pastor… and they were the planters of our most recent church in Lyons KS (Kings Cross) in 2020. Her husband had spoken at camp many times while I was there too so both of us couples, one in 2020 and the other in 2021 left the mild summers and snowy winters of Kalamazoo to come to these great plains to work at churches. 

In between those first three plants and this most recent one Grace also helped plant a church in Bolivia and in the near future, and for the first time in my pastoral ministry, I will get to see us help plant a church in our neighboring burb of Eldorado. This is so much more goodness than I deserve to even be witness to… let alone get to be a part of in our Synergy Kansas church planting meetings. 

This is a long story and you have been patient to read it but I would ask that you ditch patience… get impatient! Get impatient to see more churches planted! If all the people even in our small town came to know Jesus we would not have enough seats in all the churches combined to give them a place to sit on a Sunday morning! That doesn’t factor in that Newton is probably going to grow and if we don’t surrounding towns will. With 8 billion people in the world, we are plenty of seats short and the gap is broadened if we are hoping for people to have a healthy, Gospel-centered, Bible-preaching church to attend. We have to get busy planting because God is already busy drawing people to Himself. Jesus’ kingdom is what we are supposed to seek first (Matt. 6:33) and if we convince other people to follow Jesus we have to be planting churches so that they can grow themselves and do the same for others. God loves His local church and He will plant more of them whether we join Him or not but I am definitely hitched up and ready for the ride! I hope you are too!

Will Regier

Goodie Bags and What’s Really Good

I grew up in a medium-sized country church with 300-plus people on a Sunday. There was so much I loved about growing up there but one thing stood out when I was under 10 yrs old. Every year the kids would do a Christmas program. For all my years that meant listening to my mom sing Away In A Manger while trying to get the 2 yr old kids to sing and do the motions with her. But what really got me excited in the weeks and even months leading up to the Christmas program was the goodie bags we would get afterward. It was like the sweet payoff from going to church every Wednesday night and Sunday morning. You might be thinking that it was really easy to buy me out. A few cookies and maybe some peppermints... wow Will it’s easy to bribe you. Those are the kinds of bags I have seen at other churches but not my church. As great as those bags were to my friends I had truly experienced something that was at another level. What I was used to were the common simple brown lunch bags but they were absolutely packed full! There was always a piece of fruit and some unshelled peanuts for bulk but there was also at least one if not multiple full-sized candy bars along with a generous handful of other candy. Adding to my joy was the fact that unlike getting candy at other times of the year my parents placed no limit on how much of it we could eat. Maybe they were feeling generous because of the Christmas Season, maybe they were happy that I was excited about church, or maybe they thought the fruit and peanuts balanced out the massive sugar load! I don’t know but it was awesome!

I look back on those years with fond memories but I realized in thinking about those goodie bags that I would think about them very differently now. I am a pastor, dad, and adult. Like most parents I want my kids to experience some of the good stuff that I did as a kid and hopefully, I minimize some of the other stuff. We take our kids to see Christmas lights, enjoy meals with extended family together and we try to travel around the holiday to have that good road trip time together. But, I realized if I were trying to recreate those bags (I don’t know if the church I grew up in even still does them) I would think through an entirely different lens than I did as a kid.

In that post-childhood lens I think about all the emails and texts I would have to send to mobilize volunteers to pack the bags. I would have to make sure the expenses came from the right budget line or that I got volunteers on board to pay for the items. I would have to organize a time and place to pack the bags, get them stored before the event, and make sure they got passed out. It would be so expensive to supply all that food for all the kids (we probably had 120 kids in our Christmas program growing up) and I don’t know where you even buy 50 lb bags of peanuts because I am sure it took two of those.

I am walking through all of this with the bags to make a point about Christmas itself. I was taught from a young age not to make Christmas about material things like getting gifts for myself and that lesson of focusing more on Jesus than the consumer trappings in this season has stuck. But as an adult, I can still get trapped by them in a different way and that’s what thinking about the Christmas bags of my childhood made me realize. All the logistics of this season. Sure I can avoid making Christmas all about the money and though I like getting gifts I honestly think I could go without and be just fine. Steph and I often forgo getting each other gifts because we would rather travel to see family or get our family bigger presents. We make a gift budget when we do get gifts. What I realized I can still get trapped by are all the logistics.

Planning family gatherings and events is my jam. Thinking about 100 activities to do with my kids so they have fun is also something I love to do. Steph and I love road trips so all that goes into those is exciting. Even as a pastor this season is a high point for the church so we wanna get everything right that we can. I have found that what crowds out Jesus from my Christmas season is not wishing and hoping for gifts or material things but just the busy scramble of trying to make it good... Did you feel the pain in your heart reading that sentence that I did typing it...

Even though I focus on what Christians would call the good things of the Christmas season like family, giving to others, and celebrating Jesus I can still get lost trying to make it good and not spend time with Jesus who is the one who made it possible for things to even be good. I consistently make Jesus coming to earth and the great gift He gave us by being Emmanuel, God with Us the most important thing I think about this time of year. However, I have seen that it is very easy to not spend time celebrating that with Jesus Himself.

That is my goal then for this Christmas to lavishly spend time celebrating Jesus with Jesus himself. I am still going to plan fun things for the kids and spend time with family, I am not necessarily cutting things out but maybe I will be less worried about getting them planned and keeping my focus on Jesus, not just this season that is about Him. The best gift He gave us, after all, is coming to be with us and that’s a present I hope I look for every day!

- Pastor Will

A Good Death…

What a dark subject for the beautiful days we have been enjoying, or at least the cool mornings! I promise not to go too dark in talking about death but it is an important topic. Many of you have probably heard me say that Ecclesiastes is one of if not my favorite book in the Bible. Ecclesiastes 7:2 (CSB) It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, since that is the end of all mankind, and the living should take it to heart.

I never make movie recommendations because I am notorious for forgetting any bad parts, if I fast forward through it I forget it even happened. That’s my disclaimer and by no means am I recommending this movie, the story makes the point without needing to watch the movie! There was a movie I remember seeing called Second-Hand Lions. It is about two old men who do nothing all day until their nephew comes to stay with them. They had both been adventurous in the past and he sparks new ideas for them to take on. Among other things they do adopt a “defective” lioness and they buy an old airplane that they fly under overpasses and in other death-defying stunts. At the end of the movie they try flying the plane through their barn doors but crash and die instead. The impression you get is that they wanted to go out in some blazing glory type of way rather than through age or sickness. If you love history like I do you have read about Vikings wanting their death to come in battle in an epic way. Or you can insert any gladiator/war/Viking movie character you know that might have said “a good death is hard to find” or something similarly bravado. Many of us probably hope to die peacefully surrounded by friends and family. The real point I am hoping to make is actually not about the end-of-life death that we will all experience.

Rather, I am highlighting a type of death that we all have a choice over each day. There is a slow and agonizing death that comes from isolation. Many of us choose or have chosen at times in our lives to isolate ourselves from others. Often addiction, despair, depression, or anxiety will either proceed or result from this isolation. I would bet that none of us would point to a season where we isolated ourselves as also being a season of spiritual growth or closeness to God. The Christian faith is by design meant to be lived with other people, other people outside of our immediate families. 

A common enemy of being connected is our “busyness” and it is a great tool that the enemy or we ourselves use to isolate ourselves from others. When we are constantly going it is hard for us to make time for other or be slowed down enough to actually connect with people when we do have time with them. I am guilty of this as the next person and I am working on it. One thing I have seen though is an intentional busyness that people use on purpose as an excuse to have their own lives separated from others. This is dangerous. 

Relationships are messy, hurtful, and not systematic and for most of us, that means we sometimes like them less than the more ordered part of our lives. The problem is that our rough edges never get exposed or rounded off without them. We also never actually disciple anyone if we aren’t in real relationships with them. The great commission and our own spiritual health are unattainable without healthy connections with other believers. So… join a small group! Or find someone to mentor you! Or be a mentor! If you need any help getting connected email me, will@gccnewton.com.

Blessings!

Will Regier

Hooked on a Psalm

(Yes, that’s a tip of the hat to Blue Swede)

The spontaneous and liturgical work together.

There is a Psalm I have been hooked on for a month or two. I have been looking for encouraging Psalms to share with people. You might be surprised to know that not all Psalms are encouraging, some are downright aggressive (imprecatory Psalms specifically ie. Ps. 69 & 109), and in an effort not to read the ones that are too dark and graphic at a person's bedside I thought it best to do some research when I started here at Grace. That was the orderly part of how I found this Psalm. The spontaneous part happened when I looked at the list I had compiled through quick reading. I knew and had read the Psalms with lower numbers more often, so I decided to go for one with a higher number. That is how I came across Psalm 145. 

Here is the perfect time to take a break from what I am writing and read the Psalm for yourself, that’s where the real fruit is. 

What I loved most about really reading Psalm 145 and taking it in most were the repeated calls to share God’s work with future generations (vs. 4), and to declare all the good stuff God is doing (vs. 6,7). These calls are repeated in various language, multiple times, throughout the Psalm. Overall, the idea is to declare to those around us all God’s work in our lives and in the world; past, present, and future. At that moment really diving into this Psalm I got a burst of joy, hope, and happy memories. I can remember countless times God has come through for me, been good to me, taught me kindly, disciplined me harder than I wanted but I cherish it long after the sting, and times he has done the same for my friends and family. I have younger kids so this was especially applicable to me. Since then we have put a greater emphasis on talking about answered prayer with our kids rather than just what needs to be prayed about. It has been so good to see how it has encouraged them to pray more earnestly, knowing that it’s not just a chore but has real results.

Those spontaneous encouragements we find in our walk with God are great, often we refer to them as “mountain top experiences.” Long ago I stopped trying to avoid these, I had been doing that to avoid the spiritual crash that often followed. Rather, I tried to savor them like the memory of a great meal. Great meals cannot always be replicated, cooks change, recipes change, we change, but memories of good meals (whether the food or the friends were what made it great) can be held onto. We can celebrate those memories many times and enjoy the fruit of joy they bring. 

And that brings me to repetition (or what some call liturgy). In our evangelical circles we often look down upon repetitive things. We avoid them not because they are bad but because we build up ideas of bad things that can come from repetitive things. Liturgical prayers can create a dry prayer life, repetitive songs can create a shallow worship experience. Those risks are real, but Psalm 145 has encouraged me, through coming to me spontaneously, that continually remembering God’s good deeds are like the memory of a great meal. Coming to this Psalm over and over again for months, not moving on until its works has ripened in me, and through that continually remembering the good things God has done and is doing, has been a good practice. Since then God has taken me to Psalm 66, it is different but I am excited to see what work it can do on me. 

My latest thing to celebrate is this. That God’s use of His Word and His people in spontaneous and repetitive ways are all worth declaring and celebrating!

Pastor Will

Recovering from Anything Except Denial

What Celebrate Recovery is…

Celebrate Recovery is a small group ministry focused on helping people overcome past hurts, any hang-ups they might be experiencing in life, or any habits they might want to overcome. Please consider volunteering or learning more about Celebrate Recovery to see if it might be for you. You can reach out to Pastor Will with any questions. We meet Monday nights at 6:30pm.

Celebrate Recovery operates on a strict confidentiality that protects anything said in the group. It operates both as a men’s group and women’s group as they split up on Monday evenings. There is also a study group that works through 12 steps of healing if a participant is interested in taking part in that.

Just like you would never do surgery on yourself - the wounds we experience in life, or the coping we learn to do as a result of those wounds, cannot be healed on our own. We need good Christian support and community to overcome anything significant in our lives. We all, each one of us, has brokenness in our lives and Celebrate Recovery, as a Christ centered scripture filled ministry, can be a great tool to heal from any hurt, habit, or hangup. 

What it isn’t…

It is not a scary place where you have to divulge all your darkest secrets. It is a judgement free zone for people who want to help each other. True Christian brotherhood or sisterhood under Biblical principles with lots of joy is closer to the truth. Shame is a great tool that the enemy uses to keep us isolated in bad cycles. CR can help break those cycles.

Why is denial the worst…

Denial, or denying that you have anything to work on, is the one thing CR cannot help with. But if you love good Christian community where people go deep with one another almost instantly, then this is the place for you. If you think you might like that but aren’t sure, then CR is still the place for you. Nobody is coerced to share anything. You can just come and listen to what God is doing in other people’s lives.

How to be a part of CR…

Just come Monday night at 6:30 pm to the Activity Center. We are working with First Presbyterian, First Missionary, First Baptist, and Newton Christian Church but it meets at the Grace building. We also always have needs for childcare, or bringing snacks, if a support role would be something you would want to volunteer for. Reach out to me and I would be happy to get you connected.

Pastor Will

will@gccnewton.com

Small Groups Are Not a Small Thing

Hi everyone! If you haven’t met me yet my name is Will Regier and I am the new Pastor of Connection and Care here at Grace! My wife Steph and our two kiddos Isabella and Malachi just moved here a few weeks ago from Michigan. We have been enjoying getting to know many of you and the almost Michigan-like summer temperatures. Thanks also for the meals, the handshakes, the hugs, and the help moving! We know there are plenty more of you to meet and we are very much looking forward to doing so.

One of the things I am most excited about in my role at Grace is the Community Life Groups ministry. Much of my drive to work with the Community Life Groups come from our story as a family. We have faced many health challenges, spending four of our first five anniversaries in hospitals, when things seemed darkest, often the greatest light was the Christian Community we had in our lives. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book Life Together says,

“The prisoner, the sick person, the Christian in exile see in the companionship of a fellow Christian a physical sign of the gracious presence of the triune God. Visitor and visited in loneliness recognize in each other the Christ who is present in the body; they receive and meet each other as one meets the Lord, in reverence, humility, and joy… But if there is so much blessing and joy even in a single encounter of brother to brother, how inexhaustible are the riches that open up for those who by God’s will are privileged to live in the daily fellowship of life with other Christians!”

I can echo those words in the life of my family! By God’s grace, we are now much more healthy but I pray that we never lose the joy of good Christian Community we learned in those darker days. If we have been in a small group with you then you have been part of that testimony in our lives. I am so excited about pouring my time and energy into this ministry at our church because I know firsthand how much of a difference it can make, and I know from the wisdom of the church and my mentors how important it is for the everyday life and health of the body of Christ. 

One thing we will always need is people who are willing to lead Community Life groups. I want to dispel some myths for you if you have ever been hesitant to lead a small group. You do not need the perfect house, be able to give a perfect lesson, have perfect children to watch other people’s children, and be able to make the perfect baked goods. Hospitality is important and so is being able to keep a discussion within boundaries but primarily it is about the willingness to join in life honestly with other people who love Jesus, to connect over the most important thing we share; not over whether our interior decorator is Joanna Gaines or our 3yr old and his Hot Wheels. Please, if you know someone who you think would lead a Community Life group well or if you feel God tugging on your heart to lead one, reach out to me! We have training throughout the year and we can pair you with an experienced leader to get some practice in. Look forward to GroupLink, August 22nd which is our 2021 launch of groups for the year. 

I will leave you with some parting words again from Bonhoeffer in Life Together,

“Therefore, let him who until now has had the privilege of living a common Christian life with other Christians praise God’s grace from the bottom of his heart. Let him thank God on his knees and declare: It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren.”