The Greatest Compliment

Saturday afternoon and evening Laura and I kept a little girl so her parents could celebrate their anniversary. At one point Emma asked, “Can I just ask you questions about the Bible?” (Is the Pope Catholic?)

“Tell me about the princess who found Moses in the river.”

“What was Joseph’s wife’s name? Was she beautiful?”

“Do you think Eve was beautiful?”

After 30 minutes of questions, Emma asked a question that demanded that we look in the Bible. As she got up to look on our bookshelf, she said, “Mr. Andrews, I see Jesus in you.” (Causing me to wonder, “How many times she’s thought, ‘I don’t see Jesus in him’?”)

Historic Christianity calls the challenge to live like Christ the imitatio die, the imitation of God. Imitatio die is our highest calling. That’s why we encourage everyone to read the Bible and pray daily. Walk near to God and He will be near you. Want a good book recommendation? Consider Charles Sheldon’s 1896 classic, In His Steps.

Brett Andrews, Lead Guy

Looking Like Jesus

Next week, “Lord, Save Us From Your Followers” opens in our area. If you haven’t heard, this film is a documentary about a guy who traveled America interviewing people about Jesus and his followers - Christians. My immediate response is, “Why do we need another reminder that Christ followers don’t act like Christ?” Later, I realized the answer is clear: because we live in the same world as people who don’t give a flip about anything. Or could it be something else? Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?” I’m guilty! I’m guilty of the same looking-down-my-nose, Bible-thumping, beat-you-over-the-head philosophy of Christianity. My guess is that if you have been a follower of Jesus for any length of time you are probably guilty too. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. So here’s the good news: you can change that today. You can slow down, look around and talk to someone you don’t know or meet someone's need, and you can do it without telling them you are a Christ follower, just letting people see Jesus in you.

This is the very reason that I think we need to occupy the Bud building. Imagine a place where people come every day to take their children to a sporting event and happen to bump into someone who is willing to share a cup of coffee and just be nice. Imagine a place where you could take your kids knowing they would be safe, where you could hang out with people who need Jesus, and they could see Jesus in you. Imagine almost 2 acres under roof where children are playing basketball, lacrosse or baseball, or where adults are working out while they are watching their kids doing all of these things. The size and scope of this facility is limited only to our imagination.

I can imagine such a place. I can! It's on Lee Road, and it's available to the Centreville/Chantilly area. You can be part of telling people about Jesus through your behavior; and, if necessary you could use words. BTW, that last line is centuries old. I think Augustine said it first.


Creed Branson, Executive Guy

Boldness Revisited

I was out in Indiana a couple of weeks ago. Didn't want to be there. Oh, I like Indiana just fine. All the family is there. But I was in town to do the funeral for Bill, my brother-in-law. Tough stuff. But I find it's easy when I'm doing my "minister" thing to spot the moments for boldness, for speaking out. For example, we couldn't stay with family members because other family was packed in there, so we stayed with John and Jeannie, long-time friends of Bill's. I'm sitting at midnight at the computer working on the funeral message when John walks in and tries to look over my shoulder at what I'm writing. After just standing there for a while, he just says, "Well, I know I'm going to hell." You don't have to be brilliant to know "Hey, here's a opportunity for boldness."

At life group yesterday, we were kicking around Psalm 139 and Ephesians 1 and talking about boldness. Here's another reason to be in life group--my understanding got broadened as we kicked this around. It struck us that boldness might not look the same for everyone. Depending upon how God has fearfully and wonderfully made us, it might look like a funeral message, but it also might look like cooking a meal for a neighbor. It might look like letting someone in front of you in traffic, especially if you've got a fish on your rear fender. It might look like asking if you could pray for someone at work whose family member has taken ill. It might look like offering to babysit a neighbor's kids so they can go out and talk. It might look like paying for another couple's meal that you don't know sitting across the room at a restaurant, or maybe a huge tip to bless the wait staff. Maybe it looks like raking a neighbor's leaves or cutting their grass. Maybe it's saddling up to the outcast at work that no one else likes and being a friend.

Maybe it's not always talking, but maybe it's doing life in a way that will make people ask you what the deal is with you, make them ask why you're different, why you're being nice to them. And when they do, you can talk then.

Ephesians tells us that we've been saved, we've been wiped clean, we've been given the Holy Spirit for a reason, for a purpose, to accomplish an end. And that end is amazingly not so we can just do our thing and "be happy." It's all for the purpose that we would be "to the praise of His glory."

It changes things a bit when you walk out the door in the morning if you consider that your purpose today, no matter what the day holds, is to testify to the glory, the beauty, the majesty, the might, the awesomeness of the One who made you. That testimony can be as varied as the stars, as God has put you together uniquely.

Want to go to sleep tonight fulfilled? Live, exist, operate to bring praise to His glory.

Oh, and have a nice day.


Dwaine Darrah, McLean Campus Pastor

Big Week - Pray Big Prayers!

Since the Bud Building has come back on the market, we've been scurrying like... really intense scrurriers. Every week is huge. Every meeting is weighty. So, everyone praying every day matters!

This week we will be meeting with bankers about a loan. The banker we are working with is a Christian man with long time connections to New Life. He knows our church. He knows the Bud Building (he made the first loan on the building when it was initially built). And, he is more excited about our potential with Bud than I am! His words last week, "If you can get this building at that price, it will be something that only God could have done." That's been our prayer!

Pray for God's blessing on our meeting with the bankers.

Thursday, we have a meeting scheduled with the Bud building owners. We are confident that with God's blessing, we can get this deal done. In that meeting, we will present to them our situation: opportunities, obstacles, and options. Our prayer is that the building owners will resonate with one of the options, so we can move forward as quickly as possible.

Pray for God to bless our negotiations.

Hold on to God's promise to do more than we could ever ask or imagine through His power that is at work within us!

Brett Andrews, Lead Guy

The Civility Project

Weary of the harshening of discourse in America? So are Lanny Davis, former Clinton Administration adviser, and Mark DeMoss, president of the DeMoss group. Feeling the same need for change, they have started The Civility Project.

Self-described on their website, The Civility Project is a voluntary, grassroots movement of people from diverse backgrounds who agree that, at this critical time in America’s history, solutions to our most pressing problems will be found only through a more civil exchange of ideas.

Want to read more? Go to http://www.civilityproject.org/index.php.

Jesus followers are called to be salt & light. What better way than with the way we use our tongues, which the Bible says is powerful enough start a powerful fire, or to steer a massive ship – for good or for destruction?


Brett Andrews, Lead Guy

New Life: A Place to Belong

Our mission at New Life is to “create safe places where people discover God.” So, for me to say that we are a place to belong makes sense. If you visit New Life and aren’t a Christ follower we want you to discover God – God wants you to discover God. We also want you to discover God every day through prayer, study and Bible meditation. In fact, we can find God everywhere we look once we have that first experience of what God has done to be with us. However, many people that visit New Life are on a journey to discover God for the first time. This is why we make a concerted effort to be creative and fun. It is also why we play music that you'll find on a non-Christian radio station. I use “non-Christian” because I think some over use “secular” as a description of the music we play. Perhaps I am being a little defensive in this regard but there is a lot of music that glorifies God that isn’t “Christian.” This past Sunday we played an Eric Clapton song, “If I could change the world.” Before time was created God chose people to be his instruments in changing the world. People like you and me.

This past Sunday someone told me that the music we play isn’t Christian music. It would be real easy to disregard this statement as lacking merit but I decided to hear them out. I’m not sure how much success I had in helping this person realize that New Life is a place first to belong, and then to find God. There are many examples of people who came to New Life because they needed the music or the laughter – the escape from the world on Sunday morning. Some needed friends or needed to serve others. In the process they discover God. Many turn their lives over to God and some go into full-time ministry. Many realize that they were created to change the world in God’s name. My hope is that Christ followers would be the kind of people that are really impacted by God to make a difference in helping people find a place to belong. It is in this safety of belonging that people can truly discover God.

Creed Branson, Executive Guy

Who You Talking To?

It's Tuesday. It's life group. It's God using His word to give us a little shot across the chops.

Acts 11. Yeah, we were there last week, but at least we're in the second half of the chapter. Now, Peter has just reported to the folks in Jerusalem about this Gentile fella, Cornelius, who has gone and done the unthinkable--accepted Jesus Christ and received the Holy Spirit without becoming a Jew first. How dare he. And even though the Jewish Christians seemed to offer no resistance to Peter's account, it doesn't seem that they really get what's going on. Why do I think so?

Well, in the very next verse, verse 19 actually, it says that, as the Jewish believers were scattered from Jerusalem because of the persecution there, they ended up in various places--Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch--and decided to talk to no one except other Jews about Christ. No way were they going to reach out to those dirty Gentiles.

This cycle was amazingly broken by Jewish believers from Cyprus and Cyrene. Those ne'er- do-wells show up in Antioch and started sharing the gospel with the Greeks (a highly classified euphemism for "non-Jews"). Not only that, but a bunch of these "Greeks" accepted Christ, causing such a ruckus that the folks in Jerusalem hear about it and sent Barnabas to check it out.

Now, Barnabas is very impressed by what he sees, but he appears very concerned, too, that these new believers might be tempted back to their old ways. Good reason to be worried. Worship of Venus and Apollo in that area included some serious sexual depravity. We found it interesting that, rather than go and report back to Jerusalem what he had seen, Barnabas goes looking for Paul. That verb "look for" doesn't do justice to the sentiment here. It really means that he went searching frantically, like you would if your child got separated from you in the mall. Its the same verb used to describe Mary and Joseph's search for Jesus when he was left behind in Jerusalem. You get the drift. Barnabas was absolutely determined to get Paul, bring him to Antioch, and have him teach these new believers.

There's a lot to glean from this account, but one thing we were challenged with is whether we come to church on Sunday determined to speak only to "Jews", i.e., the people we already know, our friends, people we're comfortable with. I read a list of some new people who've been coming to the McLean campus over the last couple of months to see whether everyone in the group knew them. We didn't. So, we challenged ourselves to be about the business on Sunday mornings of reaching outside our circle of friends and to meet anyone whose name and story we don't know.

McLean is a pretty friendly campus, but keeping it that way requires reminding ourselves from time to time what we're all about. How sad would it be if someone walked in who didn't know Christ and was able to walk out not knowing anyone else in the room, either.

So, the goal is to remember this not just next Tuesday, but on Sunday morning at 11:00. Should be fun to see what happens.

By the way, these guys make life group a highlight of the week!!



Dwaine Darrah
McLean Campus Pastor