Purpose Teams

PURPOSE TEAMS

When asked what the most important commandments were, Jesus replied with these words:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbour as yourself.” (Mark 12:30-31)               
Back in November when we met for a Vision Sharing meeting we thought about the idea that there are some vital components within these two commands of Jesus which have to be present if we have any hope of doing what Jesus said we should do.
1. Respond to the love of God
We love God because he first loved us and through Jesus we know that we can turn to him. Our response to this amazing God and this amazing love is to want to focus on him, praise him, to offer our lives to him for him to use for his honour and glory. In other words, we want to worship him.
 
2. Receive from God
 
However our relationship with God is not just about what we offer to him but he is a
living God who moves, speaks, teaches and trains his children through his word and by his Holy Spirit. He offers us a new way of living through following Jesus. God’s people become disciples. 
3. Relate to one another           
The people of God are just that, a people. They are family.  Relating to one another is an important component of loving God. In fact the Bible tells us we can’t love God without also loving our brothers and sisters. This relationship to one another involves meeting together, caring for one another, giving one another accountability, supporting one another and working alongside one another in loving community.  The word we often use to describe this is pastoral care.

4. Reaching Out in with the gospel 

Worshipping God, following Jesus as disciples, caring for one another pastorally are vital but something is missing if the people of God are not reaching out to those who do not know about the love God and his plan of salvation. The people of God have a mission to the world to share good news.

5. Rebuilding communities through loving action              

The separation from a relationship with God, which is experienced by people because of sin leads to damaged individuals and communities. Hearts that are filled with the love of God and people who have committed to follow the example of Jesus will want to find ways bring restoration and healing where there is brokenness. We are called to care not just to one another but to care in our wider community.

So you will have hopefully picked up that there are 5 very important things individuals and the people of God need to be engaged in if they are truly going to fulfil the command of Jesus to love God and love others.

Worship                        

Discipleship

Pastoral Care

Mission

Community Care

Most churches and I believe this corps has each of these aspects or purposes going on. However the challenge is to make sure that we do them all equally well. It is also important to help everyone play their own part in fulfilling God’s purpose for this corps.  

Last year we shared the vision of organising our structures to help us to do this. The vision is to set up teams around each of the 5 purposes and the reason we are meeting today is to communicate and hopefully to encourage you to think about where God is calling you to get involved.  

All of these teams are open to you to get involved in. You can join as many teams as you believe God is leading you to be part of and according to what is realistic with the demands on your time.

A leaflet is available for you where the remit of each team is outlined and space  is provided for you to express your interest in finding out more about some of the suggested areas the team might explore together. Please remember that the activities listed are suggestions and if they are taken up may take time to implement. The development of Purpose teams will take time.

The word of God shows us that everyone has been given gifts and ministries that need to be used in building the kingdom.

So may we ask that you open up your heart to God to allow him to speak to you about what it is he is asking you to serve?  At the same time may I ask that you also open up your heart, to allow him to speak to you about what it is that God wants you to receive from the ministry the corps is offering.

Now let’s have brief overview of each of the 5 Purpose Teams.

WORSHIP                              

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due to his name;             
worship the Lord in the splendour of his  holiness
Psalm 29:2

a) We can worship creatively               

In the Old Testament, the worship of God’s people used all the senses. There was the beauty of the Tabernacle, lots of music. Touch was used as the head of the animal to be sacrificed was touched to symbolise the fact that it was taking their place. They raised hands in praise, worshipped God in processions to the temple, expressed their love through sacred dance, beat their chests in penitence and knelt before God in submission. The sweet smell of incense pervaded the atmosphere and all the festivals involved food.  If the characters of the Old Testament could be that creative there is no reason that we can’t. In fact we have even greater freedom because are free of so much that held them back.

2. We can worship differently
There is no one size fits all approach to worship and you certainly don’t bring glory to God by trying to be somebody else, yet so often the church expects a whole bunch of very different people worship God in the same way.

 3. We need to worship sincerely          

It is also very easy to get stuck in a rut and worship can easily become routine.
 
Isaiah 29:3 “These people claim to worship me but their words are meaningless and their hearts are somewhere else. Their religion is nothing by human rules and traditions which they have simply memorized.”

Heartless worship is not worship and God is not pleased with us carelessly using clichés or just repeating what we have heard others say.

It is envisaged that the worship team will work alongside Alan and I in the organisation of worship gatherings including Sunday worship, prayer meetings and special meetings. Obviously as the spiritual leaders of this Corps we need to take the lead in shaping the pattern for preaching and teaching.

Please do not imagine that this means sudden and dramatic changes to what you already know and experience. It is simply that the worship team will have opportunity to introduce new additional worship services which can bring a fresh approach, offer more variety and creativity which takes into account styles, culture and ages.  It is also good to facilitate worship for people who are at different stages in their spiritual journey. 

The team will also focus on encouraging and facilitating opportunities for prayer.  It will also be responsible for organising stewarding and welcoming teams for worship events. 

 DISCIPLESHIP TEAM                      

In Matthew 28:19 Jesus gave this great commission to the church.

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded.”

We often focus on the therefore go of this verse and rightly see this instruction of Jesus as a spur to share the gospel and bring people to the point where they commit their lives to Christ.  But if we leave it at that our fulfilment of Christ’s instruction is incomplete. First of all Jesus tells us to make disciples and disciples are by definition people who are involved in on going learning and secondly it neglects the final part of his instruction to teach people to obey everything Jesus commanded.

The early church was committed to the apostles’ teachings.

“They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. (Acts 2:42)

Commissioner Robert Street in Called to be God’s people writes,

“The Salvation Army cannot exist without people who are cultivating their faith. Without them there is no real growth. Faith is not static. It must develop to stay alive. It must be exercised and it ceases where it is not applied

The purpose of the Discipleship team is to encourage and provide opportunities for followers of Jesus to understand what it means to live a life rooted in Kingdom values, to develop faith and to mature in their relationship with Christ and with others.

This team’s role is also to explore ways to nurture new Christians in their faith including the preparation of recruits as soldiers or adherents.   It has the task of organising home nurture groups and will seek to offer opportunities and resources for spiritual development.  

PASTORAL TEAM                                 

We return to Acts 2:42 to get a picture of the early church. We have already seen that there was a focus on discipleship as believers met together for teaching. However the verse also recognises that believers also come together for a mysterious thing called fellowship. 

“They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship.”

True biblical fellowship is about more than friendship it is about people being committed to each other’s emotional, spiritual and physical well-being.

There are three particular areas that a pastoral care team can help to us to be a loving and caring fellowship/

1. Helping people feel that they belong         

So speak encouraging words to one another. Build up hope so you’ll all be together in this, no one left out, no one left behind. I know you’re already doing this; just keep on doing it. (1 Thess 5:11The Message)

One of the hardest parts of coming to a new church is making a connection with the people who are already there. People need answers to questions like:    

How can I make friends?
What is this church all about?
Where do I fit in?
Do I belong here?
Where can I help?
 
It can feel a bit like coming onto the motorway from the slipway. A Salvation Army Corps can be a place which is, full of busy people, who find it difficult to slow down to let other people get in.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could have a team of people who are actively helping people find their way in?   This might simply be through befriending people but could also in time lead to creating more groups which act as connecting points. 

2. Helping people stay connected                  

There are times when circumstances arise, which mean people are unable to share fellowship through participation in the Corps programme.  The circumstances can range from illness, lack of mobility to pressures of work or family. It is important that we help anyone in that circumstance to feel that they are not forgotten and that they are supported and that they can stay connected.

We already try to do this through visitation and through the DVD ministry. One of the pastoral teams roles will be to make sure that this ministry is joined up and that those involved feel that they are supported in what they do. This team will also organise with the CO the visitation of those who are ill, shut in, bereaved or in crisis. 

3. Authentic relationships  

The third thing that is a feature of true fellowship is that our relationships are able to go beyond a casual greeting and that we can be real with one another. Knowing that there are people who care, who will listen, who are non-judgemental and who will provide support through the ups and downs of life is vital and provide us with accountability is vital. The dream is to build a team of people who will use their caring and listening skills but also help us all to live this out.

MISSION TEAM                                     
 
Jesus stated His purpose for coming to earth in Luke 19:10 “for the Son of man came to seek and to save what was lost.” He then commissioned His church to take the gospel to the nations in Mark 16:15 “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.” Jesus predicted that when this task was completed the end would come.

 So what would a mission team be for? 

1. Enhance personal evangelism          

All believers are commanded and encouraged to be a witness for Christ in word and deed. This commission was given to every follower of Jesus. If you are part of God’s family, this is your commission.

The setting up of an evangelism team is not about getting a group of keen people together within our corps who will “do” evangelism for everyone else.  In fact, these days there is a greater understanding that a lot of people come to faith in Christ through friendship with Christians. Large scale crusades may still have a place but even their success is more dependent upon individual believers having the courage to invite their friends than on general advertising.

So a corps mission team will first and foremost be about finding ways to enhande and support the personal witness of each of us. This might be through working with the discipleship team in providing some training in how to share our faith or putting on an event which can confidently bring our friends along to.   

 2. Build bridges to the lost                           

Of course if we Christians only concentrate on witnessing to people they know there may be people who will never hear the good news because they just don’t know any Christians and too often the only friends some Christians have are other Christians. Somehow there has to be a bridge between those in the church and people who have yet to hear the gospel.

In the past sometimes the approach of the church has been to invite people to cross the bridge from their world into ours where we can welcome them in. Surely, a better way would be for us to cross the bridge and meet people where they are. It has often been said that at the heart of the great commission is the word go, not come.

Therefore one of the tasks of a mission team will be to seek to understand the people in our community and to seek out opportunities to connect with people in their own environment.

3. Stir us to action                    
 
The third thing is that the Mission team will have a role in stirring us all to action. There are times, when a church can get caught up in its own organisation and programmes that it starts to become insular. It is important to keep an outward focus and the mission team has an important role in encouraging the corps to keep the reaching the lost at the heart of our life together.

COMMUNITY CARE MINISTRY                           

The Salvation Army has caring in its DNA.  We have long since dealt with the theology of whether churches should get involved in social action. To simply preach the word of God without practically serving those in need is not an option for us.

In fact it was initially felt that our caring for the needs of people is mission and this ministry should simply a part of the Mission Team.  Our community care is motivated by the love of God and is a vehicle through which we express that love and is a way through which the good news of Jesus is made known.  Caring for our community’s needs whether it be through providing a meal for the homeless or a present for a child at Christmas has to have evangelistic values underpinning it or we are in danger of failing to communicate that we believe that everyone needs more than community care, they need Jesus to be their Saviour. Nevertheless, we came to the recognition that we have a very needy world and the call upon us to serve and meet that need is great.  At this time, more than at any time I can remember during my time as an officer, secular organisations are looking to the churches and asking, “Can you help us?”  So we feel we need a team which focuses on this ministry.

We cannot hope to meet all our community’s needs and in setting up a community care ministry team we know that we must work at the pace the Holy Spirit sets and under his direction.

Like the mission team, there is a need for careful research and a need to seek wisdom about how to best use the resources available.  

We also need to remember that the community of the Salvation Army is bigger than just its expression in Exeter and we have a responsibility to support the social and community outreach of the Army on the UK and overseas. One of the ways we do this is through taking part in the Big Collection and through our own giving.

We believe that we are in challenging times as we live in what seems like an increasingly secular society but they are not any more challenging that the days of the early church.  And look what God did with a handful of people empowered with this Spirit.  God has not changed, the power of the Spirit is still available, and if we will trust him we are convinced there are new things God wants to do with us and through us for his glory.

 God bless you

Alan and Carol

 

Burning, cleansing flame

Exeter Temple Message notes

Sunday 25^th May 2014

 1. Fire changes things.  Acts 2: 1-4

For many Christians today the Holy Spirit is a fact of doctrine far removed from every day experience. In Acts the Holy Spirit is not a silent influence but an experienced power

At the end of Luke’s gospel Jesus tells the disciples that they are already witnesses of many things. Yet their ability to proclaim what they had been witnesses of was weak. It was not that they didn’t want to do what Jesus asked, just as they hadn’t wanted to run away when Jesus was arrested.  As Jesus had said the “spirit was willing but the flesh was weak.”

There is for all of us a tension we feel at the gap between what we know we ought to be and do and our performance of it.

Our level of spiritual knowledge may be high while our level of performance may be much lower. There is a sense of frustration when we recognise that we are not living up to our understanding of what God expects of us. 
It’s the fire that brings the change.  “They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of the. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”  Acts 2:3
Fire changes whatever to touches.  And the changes will go on doing that in your life and mine.
Fire will go on burning whilst there is still fuel for it.  The Holy Spirit is like fire, He is not satisfied with touching your life, he wants everything of you.  “Our God is a consuming fire.” Hebrew 12:29  
There are many people who don’t mind being touched by the fire, as long as it’s containable and controllable. They are happy as long as they determine its heat and intensity. But God will never be satisfied just to touch you, He wants to consume you.

2. Fire brings energy and warmth    Isaiah 6:1-7

Alexander MacLaren says in his commentary on Isaiah’s experience of being touched by the hot coal from the altar,
“There is no ice in God’s presence and the nearer we get to him in truth the more we shall glow and burn. Cold religion is a contradiction in terms, though, alas, it is a reality for many.”
Even after the disciples heard the amazing news that Jesus was alive, they were not ready to launch the church.
The disciples  were not in the winter of despair that they had been in on Good Friday, Jesus was alive and when He appeared to them you could see them thawing out.  Peter’s sense of failure, Thomas’ doubts and Mary’s grief started to melt away. 
When Jesus is there He is like a ray of sunshine but when He goes away the clouds seem to gather again and the cold fear starts to grip them again.
If they had been left to themselves the flame of enthusiasm for building the kingdom would soon have burnt out when weighed up against the huge challenges involved. 
This is why at one of His post resurrection appearances which we read about in Luke 24, Jesus instructed the disciples to “stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high”
On the day of Pentecost we see that promise fulfilled and the effect it has on the disciples is amazing.  Doubts, fears disappointments are gone and they are lit up with enthusiasm, passion and renewed love for Jesus. 
Have you ever got to a stage in your service for God when you feel like you are just going through the motions?  Passion has ebbed and enthusiasm has waned and you feel drained.  
It is not that God’s fire has gone out but that we have ceased to let it warm us.  We need to draw near again and allow the precious Holy Spirit to renew our energy.
This is true of individuals and of His people together.
Charles W Conn wrote these words back in 1966; “There is nothing more pathetic than a drowsy and lethargic church. When a church loses its ardour for Christ, it ceases to be an organism and becomes merely an organization. Lacking the spiritual strength to operate as a true church for God, it will rely more and more upon mechanics and machinery.”
For us as Salvationists, to let that happen is to deny our heritage.  Our motto is still “Blood and Fire.” To write those words on our flags but not actually avail ourselves of the cleansing of the blood of Jesus and the empowering of the Spirit in our daily lives makes us hypocrites.  

3. Fire makes things work.

Now when the New Testament Church first went out into the world, there was a great demonstration of power.
When Simon the Sorcerer saw the great signs and miracles that Philip did he was more than impressed. We know he offered them money in order to get in on the secret of their success.  But of course Philip and the other apostles were not in Samaria to impress an audience.  The reason for their activity and their presence in that area is found in Acts 8:5 “Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ there.” 
The display of power that we read about in Acts has direction and purpose. It honours God and changes lives.  Power without purpose is rather futile.  CH Spurgeon once said, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is power for the accomplishment of divine purposes.”
Both in his memories of Corinth and of Thessalonica Paul recalls that it was the power of the Spirit that enabled him to do a work for God.   “My message and my preaching were not with persuasive words but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom but in the power of God.” 1 Corinthians 2: 4-5
 “Our gospel came to you no simply with words but also with power with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.” 1 Thessalonians 1:4
John Stott wrote, “Before Christ sent the church into the world he sent the Spirit into the Church. The same order needs to be observed today.”

4. Fire both draws us and scares us.

Knowing that fire is a dangerous thing we could say we want nothing more to do with it.
But that would mean we would never experience the joy of sitting on the hearth rug in front of the fire with a mug of hot coffee on a cold winters evening. It would mean that we wouldn’t know the fun of the BBQ or the unforgettable experiences of singing around a campfire.
Most of us have a love hate sort of relationship with fire.  
Fire power can be used in two ways. It can be unleashed or it can be harnessed. The energy in ten gallons of petrol can be released explosively by dropping a lighted match into the can or it can be channelled through the engine of a car in a controlled burn.
The Holy Spirit’s power can work in both ways too.  At Pentecost and on other occasion His presence has been explosive but at other times His flame has been the unseen but continual motivation behind the work of believers.
What we don’t like is that the fire of the Holy Spirit won’t be dictated to about which way He wants to play it.  And rather than take the risk of having our comfort level upset we choose to avoid Him altogether.  We will only get near the fire if we can tell it what to burn in our lives and how to do it.
God has not changed His plan of how His people are to live the Christian life.  There is no alternative.  It’s fire or freeze.

God bless
Alan

Living Holy Lives

Exeter Temple Message notes

Sunday 18^th May 2014
Bible Reading:            1 Thessalonians 4:1-12
The Christians in Thessalonica were doing well. They had faith, love, endurance and hope. Nevertheless Paul was under no illusions that the Church was perfect. Their lives needed some renovation. Although God accepts us just as we are with all our mess and disorder, he doesn’t want us to stay that way.
In chapter 4:3 he says, “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified.”  The Message translation the verse says, “God wants you to live a pure life.” The CEV, God wants you to be holy.”
What does that mean?

1. Separation

When two people make their vows at a wedding, we say they enter into the “sanctity” of marriage, or holy matrimony.  We say this because we believe that because God ordained marriage and anything that has God’s stamp of approval upon sets it on a higher level than what mere mortals think is a good idea. 
When two people get married one of the things they promise to do is to “forsake all others” There is a separation from all other romantic relationships. In the same way, God calls us into a sanctified relationship with himself.  He calls upon us to forsake all other gods and to worship only him.  The other gods in our lives are not just traditional idols but anything to which we give love, above him.  This could be a person that we put on a pedestal, whose approval we seek.  It could be our career, material things, popularity or a host of other things.
God calls us into an exclusive relationship with God like that of marriage.
Many Christians only realise as they start to walk in their new relationship with God, how many idols there have been in their lives that they are attached to and which still compete with their devotion to him.
At the same time we know that a marriage is not much of a marriage if all the arrangement is that two people agree not to fall in love with anyone else.  Marriage is more than separating ourselves from other people. Marriage vows go on to state that each party will honour, love and commit to one another in sickness and health, till death us do part.
In the Bible sanctification has to do not with separation not just from idols but becoming attached to God. It is living to please, honour and serve him. Paul recognises that devotion in the believers at Thessalonica and urges them to live like that more and more. 
To onlookers dedication to God might look like sacrifice as in order to serve God, some other pursuits may need to be left behind. However for the Christian the desire to serve a God whom they love passionately makes it feel like a privilege.  And you know when we separate ourselves from worshipping anything other than God and devote our lives to God, God is pleased.  Paul says in v 3 “It is God’s will that you be sanctified.”  In other words that’s how he wants us to live.
Entire sanctification is a way of talking about a state of total devotion God. 
As much as we want, in our own strength to be totally separated from anything that displeases God and have our hearts completely filled with love for God we know that our humanity and our weakness makes this impossible. We find it very difficult to let go of our idols as they can have a grip on our lives.
The Salvation Army has always taught that a baptism with the Holy Spirit can cleanse the heart and fill it with the Holy Spirit who empowers the believer for a sanctified life. Just as we are powerless to save ourselves we are powerless to be as pure and devoted as we need to be.  The transformation of the heart is the work of the Spirit.  How do we obtain the power we need for this transformation.  The answer is that our purity is received in the same way as our pardon.  It is by grace, through faith.  We need to come to God and ask him to make all he wants us to be and trust him that he can do it.
2.  Standards
Living a pure life, a life devoted to God means that in our lifestyle will reflect standards of behaviour that God approves of.  
Paul has to be very direct with the Thessalonians they lived in a time and a place which knew nothing of the moral boundaries set out by God in his word.  
We are living in times, when equally many people are in the same position. Many create their own morality and it is pure chance as to whether that morality pleases God or not.
a) Sexual behaviour v 3
The Message translation says, “Keep yourselves from sexual promiscuity.”
Put very plainly this means that God’s will for Christians is that they have no sexual relationships outside of the bounds of marriage.
It has been said, "Hollywood would like to have us believe that the best sex is the passionate, animal-instinct-driven, spur-of-the-moment sex between strangers, co-workers, neighbours, classmates or friends. But study after study shows that the people in life who are most satisfied with their sex life are husbands and wives-married people."
b) Control of physical appetites v 4
The Message translation says, “Learn to appreciate and give dignity to your body, not abusing it as is so common among those who know nothing of God.”
This applies to more than sexual behaviour and is about an attitude we have towards any of our natural appetites. It is to do with the way we respond to hunger, thirst, rest and danger.  We have a physical response to those things but we humans have a tendency not to just meet them but to indulge and abuse them.
c) Neighbours   v11
This verse is to do with how we live in society. Christians should surely be contributors to our neighbourhoods. Paul makes it clear we should so live that our “daily life may win respect of outsiders.” People ought to see us, in such a way that they can’t deny the Lord has been working in our lives. When they see a loving marriage, disciplined children, honesty in our business, a great attitude at work, a joyful spirit and kindness to others, they ought to say. “It’s true. Jesus Christ is alive in those people.”
3. Focus
The culture that the Thessalonians Christians were living in, was not a godly one. And Paul knew that if they didn’t keep moving, they would be influenced by the world’s value system
To live in this world, and not have its values affect us takes deliberate effort.
Far too often our minds are not focused on the things of God, but rather on the things of the world.  How many of us have a passion for trash in terms of the books & magazines we read, what we watch on TV, internet or at the cinema, what language we use and what jokes we tell.
We have to keep moving to overcome the world. We not only need to start well but finish well too.
We will of course only know what pleases God is we stay close to him and learn from him.  It was understandable that the lives of the Thessalonian Christians was a little chaotic at first, they had much to learn but through Paul and through their daily walk with God, they had opportunity to grow and God could use them to shine his goodness through.

God bless
Carol

Standing firm under pressure

Sunday 11^th May 2014                                                                                             

Bible Reading:  1 Thessalonians 2-3

Without the luxury of modern communications the apostle Paul had the frustration of not knowing how the young church at Thessalonica was doing after he had had to leave then so abruptly.  He therefore sent Timothy to Thessalonica to see if they were standing firm in their faith. Paul admits “I was afraid that in some way the tempter might have tempted you and our efforts might have been useless. “ (1 Thess 3:5)
Timothy arrived back with good news that they are full of faith and full of love both for God and for Paul and Silas.
Despite being left leaderless and suffering opposition and hardship they were staying faithful under pressure. How?    
1. They had more than memories 
One of the ways Satan sought to bring down the work of the Kingdom in Greece was to discredit Paul.  There were those at Philippi, Thessalonica and Berea who sought to plant seeds of doubt in the hearts of believers that they were being duped by Paul’s words and that he was a man who was using them for his own ends. Lies and time could have soured the memories of the believers at Thessalonica and they could have re-interpreted their past. If they began to doubt their own experience and judgement not only of Paul but the message that they had received through him, then when trouble came and times were tough, the easiest thing to think was, “There is no point going through all this for something that isn’t real and isn’t true.
But they didn’t let the enemy re-interpret their experience. Timothy found they had faith, love and pleasant memories of Paul and Silas who they longed to see again. (1 Thess. 3:6)
It took more than happy memories of Paul for the Thessalonians to stay faithful.  Yet is their story that helps us to see that what happened when Paul was among them was what helped them maintain their commitment. 
 “And we thank God continually because when you received the word of God which you heard from us you accepted it not as the word of men but as it actually is, the word of God, which is in you who believe.” (1 Thess. 2:13)

Time, distance and the tricks memory play didn’t rob them of their faith because what they got hold of in the first place was not an event but an experience of Christ.  This opened them up to an on-going relationship not just with Paul but with an ever present Saviour.

Theirs was faith in Jesus, not in the person who had led them to faith. It was a faith they had chosen to embrace, rather than a form of religion they had inherited.  Above all Jesus was in their hearts by the Holy Spirit.  They had accepted Jesus Christ when he was unacceptable in society, in their family and in their culture.  Paul says, “You became imitators of us and the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcome the message with joy given by the Holy Spirit.”  (1Thessa 1:6)

This counts far more than how long they had been in the church. Some people are as vulnerable to temptation, to turning their backs on Jesus and to falling apart when bad times come as they were when they joined the church years ago because they only have sentimental memories happy times with great people. Somehow they missed the point and have never had a real experience of Jesus in their hearts.  They might physically be present in church but in their hearts they are crushed by the tempter, afraid to stick their necks out and angry at God because life is tough.

2) They were not surprised by suffering
Paul had warned them that following Jesus was hard. Not only would they not be immune from the troubles that every human being goes through because we live in a fallen world but there would be trials they faced because of their allegiance to Jesus Christ.  
 “You know quite well we were destined for them. In fact when we were with you we kept telling you that we would be persecuted and it turned out that way as you well know.” (1 Thess.3:3-4)
Although there are plenty of scriptures warning us about these realities, when trouble comes we are nevertheless are often surprised.
We seem to adopt a number of misconceptions about why we are going through the mill at times.
-trouble is a sign of or punishment for your sin and disobedience “He sends his sun on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matt 5:45)  
It is true that our sin and disobedience can lead to difficult times as we face the consequences of our actions but trials aren’t always direct results. They may even be a result of your righteousness and obedience.
- they lack faith
Some wonder that if they just had more faith, the hard times would go away.  Did Jesus lack faith? Did Paul lack faith? 
-we think God’s goal is our happiness
There is no biblical basis for the concept that this is true. God’s primary goal is our salvation and our spiritual growth
Archibald Hart: “He is always more interested in our sanctification and growth than he is in making life simple and easy for us. We want to avoid growing pains; he sees the potential for our achieving maturity through pain.”
In the midst of the trial there is divine appointment. God allows some tough times for us, for our good and for His glory.
1 Peter 4:12: “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.” Suffering is a mark of discipleship, something that is guaranteed for the follower of Christ.
3)  They were ready for more                                                                                      
Paul released Timothy from his team in order to bless the Thessalonians only to find that he himself is blessed abundantly.
“Therefore brothers in all our distress and persecution we were encouraged about you because of your faith. For now we really live since you are standing firm in the Lord. How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of the Lord because of you.” (1Thess 3:7-9)
The two way nature of relationship means that Paul could write back and encourage them again.  Paul’s language changes in chapter 3:11 from what is in the past but now he looks forward. 
Paul wants more. He uses words like increase, overflow and in Chapter 4:1 the phrase “more and more”
Paul urges them to keeping moving on. 
a) Move on in faith  
Faith is mentioned often in this chapter. It was the state of the Thessalonians faith that Paul wanted to know about.  He was pleased with what he heard but that didn’t stop him wanted to be with them so that as he says in 3:10 he could “supply what is lacking in your faith.” The CEV translate that “help you to have an even stronger faith.”
It only takes a grain of mustard seed to move a mountain but God has more grains that one!
b) Move on in love
It’s easy when we go through trials to become focused just on ourselves.  “May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.” 1 Thess. 1:12)
Love is the mark of a successful church. Paul’s concern is that their love for each other would splash over to unbelievers as well.
c) Move on to meet God
Verse 13: “May He strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all His holy ones.” Paul links this with being ready when Jesus comes again.  The faith and love that we have in Christ must be allowed to change our character, to transform us into people who live sanctified lives. William Barclay wrote, “No man can ever meet God without God; the only way to prepare to meet God is to live daily with God.” 
The rallying cry often heard today in our economically challenged world is “Less and less.” Governments are called to balance their budgets. People are urged to use less energy and decrease consumption of limited resources. It is good advice that we should all heed. In the realm of faith, however, there are no shortages of love and grace and strength. Therefore, as followers of Christ, we are urged to demonstrate His love in our lives in ever-increasing measure.

Blessings
Carol