Prayer, Teaching | by Pastor Randy Lundy

If you’ve been running with us for some length of time, you’ve probably noticed that we often incorporate a form of confession into our Sunday gatherings. That confession can take the form of a prayer, a period of silence, or even a song. We do this regularly to highlight the fact that our faith is a living faith and our battle against sin is an active, daily battle.

In light of the season of Lent (read more HERE), we wanted to give a little more weight and emphasis to this element of our services, and specifically bring a corporate, collective nature to our confessions. Reading the words of a thoughtful, Christ-centered confession together in unison is a very unique and rich expression of our gospel identity as a people.

But for many of us, confessing our sins together can feel strange, uncomfortable, and clunky. The thought and practice of confessing our sins personally with God can be scary enough right? Why add another layer of complexity, awkwardness, and public acknowledgement of our sin when we already struggle to confess our sins privately? I’d like to answer that question, but first we should look at where we get the idea of corporate confession in the first place.

Corporate Confession in the Bible

The first question we should be asking is whether corporate confession is merely a liturgical practice or if there a biblical premise for confessing our sins together? I would submit to us that corporate confession comes first from our biblical heritage before any other church tradition:

Leviticus 16 – An entire day – the Day of Atonement – was set aside yearly for corporate confession among the people of God.

Nehemiah 9:3 – Upon returning from the exile to Assyria, Nehemiah led the people of Israel as they corporately “made confession and worshipped the LORD their God.”

Ezra 9-10 – In a time of widespread revival and reawakening to the Word of God, Ezra led the people in weeping, trembling, and confessing their sin together “before the house of God.”

Psalms – the psalms include numerous prayers and songs of confession, intended for use in the corporate worship of Israel. (e.g. Ps. 51:1 “Have mercy on me of God, according to your loving kindness; according to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.”)

Lamentations – the entire book of Lamentations is a corporate confession of Israel’s sin and national mourning over the consequences of that sin (e.g. Lam. 3:40 “Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD!”)

James 5:6 – we are invited as the church to “confess [our] sins to one another and prayer for one another”

Revelation 2:5 – the church of Ephesus is admonished by Jesus to corporately “remember” and confess where they have gone astray and to corporately return to their “first love”.

As we see from these passages, biblical confession is often more than a private encounter with God in our own hearts.There is something unique that comes from experiencing confession together, that God has designed to be formative and restorative for us as His people. So why is corporate confession a vital part of God’s means of grace to us? I think there are a number of reasons, but I’ll suggest just a few here:

#1 Corporate confession helps us see our sin for what it truly is.

The reality of sin is that we oftentimes don’t see it for how dark it is, until we bring it into the light. We don’t realize how deeply it has ingrained itself in us. We don’t see how pervasive it is in our actions, words, thoughts, and affections. The beauty of corporate confession is that it provides an opportunity to speak of our sin, exposing it to the light as Paul speaks of (Eph. 5:11-13). When done rightly corporate confession can help us identify species of sin that we otherwise wouldn’t have seen. And God uses these prayers to awaken us, renew us, and give us eyes to see the ugliness of our sin and the beauty of His grace. Corporate confession is meant to lead us to Jesus.

#2 Corporate confession give us words when we have none.

You may feel the same way – sometimes it’s hard to know what to say when we’re confessing our sins. We see the selfishness, we see the pride, we see the greed, anger, lust, and self-righteousness, but we lack the words to articulate how much we want to detest and turn from that sin, as well as humbly ask for true repentance. Corporate confession gives us language – biblical, thoughtful, meaningful words – to express our sorrow and grief over our sin as well as our true and unshakeable hope in the gospel.

#3 Corporate confession reminds us that we are not alone in our need of grace.

This is a beautiful reality and unique benefit of being a member of the body of Christ. We are all humbled at the cross, every one. As we confess our sin together, we see quickly that we are not alone in our struggle against sin (1 Cor. 10:13). We see that we are as much in need of grace as everyone else around us. And we see that the same Savior has died and risen for all of us. Corporate confession gives us the permission to own our sin with each other, lean into his grace together, and walk out our growth and sanctification in a community marked by mercy and hope.

#4 Corporate confession exhibits the unity that we have “in Christ.”

To be “in Christ” is to be joint recipients of all the benefits that come from trusting the gospel of grace and the God of grace. By joining in one voice together to acknowledge our need and embrace his provision, we collectively magnify the One who has united us together through his blood, that is Jesus (Eph 2:11-14)! Corporate confession is a living, dynamic parable and apologetic for the gospel as we embrace our corporate identities together as those “in Christ” and invite everyone everywhere to the same hope in the gospel.

Closing Thoughts

Hopefully you can see that there is much more going on when we confess our sin together, than may first meet the eye. It’s not just a private, isolated encounter with our need for grace. That is by God’s design. He wants us to experience redemption not just individually but as communities of faith together. It’s as we acknowledge our need for grace together that we experience our unity in Christ and we give testimony to the watching world that the gospel is enough, even for us. Jesus gets all the glory in that.

May Jesus give us the courage and grace to be a people who can regularly acknowledge the depths of our sin and the corresponding heights of his grace! The gospel is truly astonishing! His grace is sufficient for me. And His grace is sufficient for you. Let’s remind each other of that often as we gather. Love you all.

Soli Deo gloria,
Randy

Community, News, Prayer | by Pastor Adam Sinnett

Being part of a church plant is like watching God unfold a miracle over time. It was not long ago that we, as a people, did not even exist. God is gracious! It has been one of the greatest privileges of my life to be part of what He is doing in and through this church. Without question, every church is a unique work of the Holy Spirit, but I am deeply grateful to be part of this one.

Though much has changed over our short amount of time together, our reason for being hasn’t. We exist to build a great city through the gospel of Jesus Christ for the glory of God. We want to see as many people as possible, from the avenues to the alley-ways, meet Jesus and experience life as it was intended to be, in Him, now and forever. We are part of God’s unfolding story, in our generation, in our city.

In our early days we put together a prospectus that outlined who and what we believed Jesus was calling us to be and do in our city. That was four years ago and most of you were not with us then. In light of that, we have created this Annual Report—our first ever—as an updated resource that captures who we are and where, by God’s grace, we are going.

There’s a lot of grace contained within the pages of our Annual Report. In this report we recount evidences of God’s movement among us, articulate who we are, introduce leaders, provide ministry updates, highlight fun statistics, offer a brief financial recap, and share our prayerful focus for the next season of life and mission together. We hope you find it to be life-giving, faith-building and God-exalting.

Jesus is our cornerstone.

We love Him because He first loved us. May He keep us on fire for His supremacy in all things in the year to come. Let’s lean on who God is and all that He is for us, in Christ. His promises are true and they cannot fail. He alone is worthy of our days, dollars and devotion. We continue to envision thousands of people, from many churches and church plants, from many parts of Seattle, united under a new identity in Jesus and sent to love, serve and challenge the city with the gospel. I invite you to join us in being part of seeing that vision become even more of a reality in the days ahead. Together, as always, let’s ask Him to do what only He can.

Christ is all,

Adam Sinnett
Lead Pastor

Follow this link to read a full version of our Annual Report. 

Prayer | by Pastor Adam Sinnett

 One of things we have done as the church, from the beginning, is set aside one night every month for prayer  and song. We call it our monthly prayer night. While we emphasize prayer in our communities every week, throughout the week, during the last week of each month we cancel our normal community rhythms in order to pray together. Corporately, as God’s people, we spend time thanking, praising, considering, asking, and talking to our good, gracious, living Jesus. We want to see Him do what only He can do in and through us, not merely what we can do – so we pray. If you have yet to join us, I invite you to do so on the last Tuesday of each month at the Belltown Community Center (doors open @ 6:30pm).

This is far from a place-holder event for us. We do not pray because that’s what we’re supposed to do or have to do. We pray because we get to. Prayer is one of the unique privileges of every child of God, in Christ. In prayer we set aside self-reliance and cultivate God-reliance. In prayer we turn from self-sufficiency to God- sufficiency. In prayer we relinquish man-made agendas and submit to his agenda. We also pray because:

• We want to know, trust, treasure, and more fully comprehend the love of God. (Col 1:10, Eph 3:14,18)

• We want God’s name praised in this city. (Mt 6:9)

• We need wisdom. (James 1:5)

• We want to see friends, family and neighbors saved. (Rom10:1)

• We want to see the sick healed. (James 5:13-15)

• We want to be unified around Jesus and his mission. (Jn17:20-21)

• We need strength, endurance, patience and joy. (Col 1:11)

• We need protection from temptation and the enemy (Mt 6:13; 26:41)

• We need forgiveness. (Mt 6:12)

• We need God’s empowering grace to complete what he has begun in us. (2 Thess 1:11; 2 Cor 9:8)

• We want to faithfully endure to the end (Lk 22:32)

I’ve always appreciated how AC Dixon once put it:

“When we depend upon organizations, we get what organizations can do; when we depend upon education, we get what education can do; when we depend upon man, we get what man can do; but when we depend upon prayer, we get what God can do.”

We have seen God answer countless prayers. We have seen friends saved. We have seen people healed.

We have tasted a bit of the goodness of God, together. If you’ve had a bad experience in the past with something like this, by God’s grace, we’ll redeem that. If you don’t know a single person in the church, that will change quickly. If you don’t do well in large groups, Jesus will help you. We can, of course, pray in the quietness of our homes – and we do that – but something different happens when the church gathers to pray together. We hope you join us and get a firsthand taste of it yourself. Our next prayer night is Tuesday, October 29 at 6:30 at the Belltown Community Center.

“I believe that prayer is the measure of the man, spiritually, in a way that nothing else is, so that how we pray is as important a question as we can ever face.” – JI Packer

-Pastor Adam

Community, City Life, Event, Prayer

We need prayer

For all our strategizing and preparation, we cannot succeed without the Spirit of God building his church. Please pray with and for us daily. Jesus will build his church, but he does so through the faithful work, service and prayers of his people. There is much spiritual opposition, relational tension, financial strain and physical hardship involved in planting a church. Please join us in prayer to our God who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask, think or imagine (Eph 3:20).

Monthly Prayer Gatherings

On the last Tuesday of each month at 6:30pm, we gather together for an evening of prayer, vision and worship. This event occurs in lieu of our normal weekly community rhythm, and is an opportunity to go before our Father, asking Him to do what only He can do.

What will we do?

Vision. We’ll talk about where we are and where, by God’s grace, we are going.
Worship. We’ll sing to the King.
Pray. Most importantly, we’ll pray. God has been exceedingly generous to us and we can’t help but think that it is due to us asking Him to do what only He can. We don’t ever want to feel like we somehow have this church planting thing covered. This is His church; we are His people.

“Pray then like this: ‘Our Father in heaven…’” (Mat 6:9)
“Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Mat 9:38)
“…that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.” (Lk 18:1)

For more info and location details please check the Upcoming Events or email .