Author Archives: Michael Dennis

About Michael Dennis

I live in Austin, TX, married, two kids, and starting a new church

Clothing Drive

Throughout the month of August we are hosting a clothing drive at North Village Church for ARC. We passed out trash bags for everyone in our church to stuff with clothes. In addition, they will give the bags to their neighbors, co-workers, and family to give also to help people who are in need in Austin. Individually it is just dropping off some clothes, but together we can have a huge impact and be a blessing to others in our community.

If you would like to donate just drop off the clothes at Lucy Read Pre K at 10am on Sunday mornings throughout the month of August.

God’s Love

God’s love is a popular topic these days. Especially when we are seeing as many painful events in the news, however, God’s love is completely different than our love. We typically love out of guilt, obligation, or what we get in return, but Scripture teaches us God’s love is completely different.

It is sacrificial because He lays aside His deity to take on human flesh and when He dies on the cross it isn’t for His sin, but our sin. He is pierced, beaten, and mocked for our sin and in that moment He becomes sin. The Father turns from the Son, and Jesus cries out, “Why have you forsaken me?”

It is a love that is sufficient. It isn’t just an act of kindness but through it is a love that brings peace between us and God. It is because of His love that we experience forgiveness, clear conscience, hope for the future, power to love others, and it is sufficient.

It is also a love that is a delight. He wasn’t forced, but willingly laid down His life and endured the cross for the joy set before Him. He endured the cross to bring greater glory to the name of His heavenly Father. It is sacrificial, sufficient, and when we experience His love through faith in Jesus’ work on the cross it moves us to love other people with the same type of love.

Expressing God’s Love to Others:

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How to write a sermon?

I am by no means a great communicator. I am not saying that just to sound humble, but as an honest evaluation of my speaking ability. I am okay. There are times when everything clicks and it is great, but they probably happen once every 6 weeks and the other 5 weeks are okay messages in terms of delivery.

Nevertheless, I have tried to find some common threads in the messages that seem to go better than others and I have created an outline that you might find helpful, or even add to if there is something I am missing. I am not providing this as a formula that I follow every Sunday, but more so a skeleton that I refer to when I am preparing a message.

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Obedience

I can’t think of a place in Scripture where Jesus calls us to worship Him, but He does call us to obedience throughout Scripture. Obedience is one of those words that will often times make us twitch. We will feel the weight of not obeying, we will feel guilty, we will feel defeated, and some of us even feel indifference when it comes to obedience.

It doesn’t mean we don’t try to be obedient because we do. We will tie strings on our finger to help us remember, make sticky notes, wear wrist bands, tell our friends to punch us in the face when we disobey, and it might work for a little while, but it seems like over time we slowly wander back into a pattern of disobedience.

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Austin Soccer Camps

Starting Monday June 13th, we are going to host a FREE soccer camp at Brentwood Park (6710 Arroyo Seco) each day of the week from 9am-11am.

This FREE Soccer Camp is for aimed for kids around the elementary age and welcomes all skill levels. They will spend time learning drills, playing soccer and having fun!

You can register here.

Life @ North Village Church

Life change is at the heart of what we strive to see at North Village Church. We know that the gospel of Jesus Christ is powerful enough to produce it in all of our lives. We’ve seen it time and time again. Each time we see and hear it, we want to celebrate it. Take a look at some of the lives God has moved in and through at North Village Church.

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Money and Church

We are close to celebrating our second year as a church and as we looked back on these last two years we were encouraged to see we have been able to set up some guard rails when it comes to giving. Below is a list of a few of the things we have in place to be as effective as possible as a church.

As a pastor I don’t touch money. Sometimes people will try to give me money on Sunday mornings and I decline. I don’t know who gives, and I don’t know how much people give.
We have a team of people who collect and count money on Sundays. They count in teams so there is always accountability.
We have a budget that we create each year that we pray through as God leads us as a church, and we present that budget to North Village Church.
We also have an outside church who looks at our budget to give us insight and wisdom on our budget.
When the pastors spend church money we have someone in our church who looks at what we spend money and we have to turn in reports each month.
We have someone in our church who takes care of the accounting in our church.
We have someone outside of our church that we pay who looks over our finances each month to make sure it is done accurately.

Church and Money

Unfortunately money has become a taboo word in church. It is associated with images of people in jets, mansions, and taking advantage of the poor as eternal life is dangled in front of them like a carrot. It makes my heart sad. As a result money is something we just don’t talk about in church. It is personal. You can talk to people about the Bible, their marriage, and even parenting, but don’t talk about money because that is crossing the line.

Scripture teaches us money is something we shouldn’t avoid talking about, but really it something that should become more common within the church. Specifically there is a church in Modern Day Greece that is such an example that throughout the New Testament their giving is referenced as a picture of God’s grace. Can you imagine money being something that is a picture of God’s grace? We recently talked about money at North Village Church in the hopes that we can continue to grow in the direction of our church being a picture of God’s grace.

In our culture today we don’t see money as a picture of God’s grace, but more so the means by which we pursue security or pleasure. When we pursue security it means we like to save money and the more money we save the more secure we feel. We love things like savings accounts, 401K’s, and Roth IRA’s, because it makes us feel secure. If anything dreadful should happen in life, don’t worry, money will come to our rescue. Sometimes it makes us feel so secure we will judge other people for not being more responsible with money. We will think to ourselves, “Didn’t they know better?” or “Didn’t they have any self-control!”

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Let go and let God

It seems really common to hear people say we need to trust God. Just trust God. When painful things come up or things happen and we don’t understand why, we always conclude, “Trust God.” The statement is true, but when we look at Scripture we don’t see God telling us we need to trust Him, but more so teaching us that He is trustworthy.

If He was just a God up in heaven telling us we need to trust Him or that we need to let go and let God He would be a wicked God who is toying with our emotions, however, Scripture teaches us He has revealed Himself through creation, throughout history, through Scripture, through our relationships and ultimately through the cross. He doesn’t just call us to trust Him, but shows us He is trustworthy.

Therefore, when we have times when we are struggling to trust God then instead of trying to “trust God” more we would do better to turn to His glory and see that He is trustworthy.

Counterfeit Gods

This summer we are going to gather the men of our church to read through “Counterfeit Gods” by Timothy Keller. If you haven’t heard of this book I highly recommend it. Keller talks about how idols are just as relevant in our time as they were in earlier generations, but they aren’t always as easy to see. Most of us could see how things like money or sex could become idols, however, Keller suggests anything that captures our heart and mind to the point that it determines our happiness can become an idol. Anything from serving the poor, family, jobs, or ministry.

Start: June 7th (Tuesday, 7pm)

Location: Live Oak Bible Church.

Easter Sunday 2011

On Sunday, April 24th we are going to celebrate the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. It is something we are stepping into with great anticipation. We just spent the last 35 days preparing our hearts for this season going through a spiritual journey as a church as we prayed, fast, read, and reflected on the holiness of God. I know for me personally this Easter has been different.

It is different for me because my family is in a different place. Our children can hold conversation and talk about the subject of Easter. On Good Friday we sat around a fire on the back porch eating s’mores and talking about why Jesus had to die on the cross for our sin. It was a lot of fun. It is also different because I feel like my heart is in a different place. I didn’t grow up celebrating Easter and when I trusted in Jesus I was in college so Easter weekend was really about getting caught up in school before the final exams. After college I worked as a college pastor and most of the students would go home for Easter and for some reason it still seemed like a busy holiday weekend. Our church would have Easter Sunrise services, we would attend, but I almost found myself thinking, “Why are we going to this much trouble for Easter.” Looking back it saddens my heart to know there was such a disconnection for me around Easter.

The last couple of years Easter has continued to carry a deeper and greater meaning, and I am hopeful that trend will continue as I consider the price that was paid for my sin so that I would no longer have to carry the shame and guilt, but know that it was completely accounted for at the cross.

Why do we feel like failures?

Scripture teaches us that our lives are eternally changed through faith in Jesus work on the cross, but I think if we are honest we don’t feel eternally changed. When we look in the mirror we don’t see change. When we think about what we did last night it doesn’t feel like change. I think if we are honest, we feel like we are letting people down a lot of the times and we feel like a failure.

Here is why. We live in a world of chaos and frustration. Often times that chaos and frustration leads to pain. We experience pain through verbal abuse and how we talk to each other, sexual abuse in how we treat one another, and sometimes it is so painful we keep people at a distance because we are afraid they are going to hurt us or even worse, that we would hurt them.

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Austin Dog Fair 2011

On Sunday, March 20th, we are going to host Austin Dog Fair as a church. Why would a church host a dog fair? Well, primarily because people in North Central Austin love dogs and Jesus loves the people of North Central Austin so this is just a really easy way to bring those two together.

What will we do at the dog fair? We invited over 20 local pet businesses in North Central Austin, local vets, local trainers, an agility course, games, contests and prizes. It will be a great way for local businesses to gain exposure, and neighbors to meet each other.

This will be our 3rd year of hosting Austin Dog Fair and we are really excited. The people in the community are becoming familiar with it and that has created some excitement also. Hopefully we can capture some video this year and everyone will get to enjoy the dog fair!

Group Project with God

Somehow we have created this illusion in our culture that our life is a collective effort between us and God. It is a group project and we are working together. God does all the research and we do the presentation. Pretty good partner to have, right? We work really hard for a while and when we get tired God works at it for a while. When we need some help on a test God comes through for us. When we need help getting a job we ask for God to help. When we get sick we think this is a job for, “God.” This mentality works great when we pass the test. We give God a high-five, thank him for doing what we asked, and then we go back to our lives.

This mentality is horrible when we fail the test. When we don’t get the job. When we don’t get healthy, and we start thinking, “God isn’t doing what I told Him to do.” God isn’t very helpful. God isn’t very powerful. If God was so great then why isn’t He making everything better! Why isn’t God doing what I want Him to do! Sometimes we find ourselves getting to a point where we start thinking, “God doesn’t care, God isn’t real, and God doesn’t matter, because if He did care or was real He would do something.”

The problem is that when we have that perception we have placed ourselves in the position of God and we have placed God in the position of our servant, and when we find ourselves with that perspective we have a really distorted view of ourselves and a really distorted view of God.

As we take the next 35-days to press into Jesus it isn’t that we are trying to be more religious or trying to be better people, but that we are praying that the Holy Spirit would open our eyes so that we can see Him in such a way that that we are in awe of who God is and what He is doing.

Why is life so difficult?

In the Scriptures Jesus calls us to put our hand to the plow and not look back. Most of us have no idea how to plow a field but Jesus uses this illustration because life is really difficult. This might be difficult for some of us to understand because when we want food we just run to a restaurant or a grocery store and pick it up all neatly packaged. It isn’t difficult at all. However, plowing a field is really difficult and Jesus uses this illustration because life is really difficult. The kingdom of God is difficult, marriage is difficult, raising children is difficult, working a job every day is difficult and that is why Jesus calls us to put our hand to the plow and not look back.

The reality of it is that our life is like a field and God has apportioned a field for us to plow, and it is difficult because we live in a world that has been tainted by sin. Our world naturally produces weeds and thorns. We live in a world where sometimes it will feel like nothing is working and it is because everything is broken. Sin has taken everything God created to be good and it is completely broken. That is why God entered into human history. That is why Jesus died on a cross. That is why He is calling out, “Follow me.”

It is important to remember when Jesus is having this spiritual conversation He also has His hand to the plow. His plow is facing the cross and He is plowing a row that will lead to great difficulty. He has His hand to the plow, His face toward the cross and He is pressing forward. He is not looking back. He isn’t looking back remembering the good old days. He isn’t look back remembering when He had less responsibility. He isn’t looking across the street at His neighbor’s field, but instead He has His hand to the plow, feet moving forward, and eyes on the cross.

Therefore, we shouldn’t be surprised by the difficulty of life, but instead allow that difficulty to keep our eyes on Jesus and all that we have been given through the cross.