Here is a fantastic message from Tim Keller. It starts at 6:15 and he teaches until 40:30. The rest is some Q&A. This is totally worth a bit of your time.
A Few FREE RESOURCES
Netflix and Hulu have been having trouble keeping up since we’re all at home catching up on Breaking Bad and Seinfeld. So why don’t you give their servers a rest and spend some time reading or watching some videos that’ll teach you about the Bible? A whole bunch of Christian ministries and schools have made resources available for you to use while you’re at home eating Cheetos and not working out.
Maybe the best one is Ligonier Ministries. They have opened up their collection of teaching series, which represents something like 2,500 lectures. They’ve also added 20+ teaching series to Amazon Prime. This stuff is really amazing. Watch a few videos and pretty soon you’ll be way smarter than Jon.
Tim Challies has gathered a bunch of other free resources to help you dig into the Bible while you’re stuck at home. Here is the link.
Some Ways to Serve SF
Followers of King Jesus have always looked for ways to serve in times of crisis, for ways to love our neighbors. A few very practical ways that you can serve the city that we know of are listed below. If you know of any other needs, please email us.
With the announcement of school closures through Spring Break UESF is seeking volunteers to help distribute food to food insecure students. If you would like to sign up, follow this link.
SFUSD is also seeking additional funding to continue to provide three meals a day to students in need, remote learning resources, as well as other needs through their non-profit partner Spark*SF. You can donate on their website or by texting “4SFUSD” to 44321.
Other ideas include donating or volunteering at the SF Marin Food Bank, Meals on Wheels, or other nonprofits serving vulnerable communities.
Wellness checks—call or text friends and neighbors, especially the elderly or immunocompromised who may not be able to leave their homes for essential services.
Our Plan For the Near Future…
Since the city has instituted a shelter in place policy until April 7th, we are canceling all gatherings and missional family meetings until at least Easter (April 12th) although there is still a good chance that we may end up extending this further. I know that it’s horrible timing for us to launch a church and then take a month—or maybe longer—off. But we serve a sovereign God who wasn’t caught off guard by any of this. And although we can’t meet in person, we are still his church. So we will gladly follow our city guidelines as a way to love the more vulnerable around us. We will pray for this virus to pass and for healing. Lastly, we will continue to trust and love our King Jesus who is always in control.
So what are we going to do for a month if we can’t meet? Well, three things:
First, on Sundays, we don’t really have the bandwidth to put together a live streaming service of our own (we’re still a pretty small church with two staff members). Christ Church SF (one of the churches that helped us launch) has invited us all to join them for Sunday morning services. They are broadcasting their services live on Facebook every Sunday at 10:30am. Note: you do not have to be logged in to or have a Facebook account to view this broadcast. Just click on the link and the live video will be down a little bit on the page.
Second, throughout this time apart, we are having Zoom prayer meetings on Wednesday nights at 7:30pm. The link to join will be sent via email; but for now, you should install Zoom on your computer, phone, or iPad. It’s pretty simple to use, and we’re all figuring it out together. If you’re not on our email list, let Kala know and she’ll add you.
Third, on Sunday we read the second part of Luke. Since we are going to be taking a few weeks off meeting in person, I thought that this would be a great time to give you some additional resources on the book of Luke: there are some videos to watch, articles to read, study guides, and devotional prayer guides to follow. Head over to this special devotionals page for all that info.
Please feel free to email me if you have any questions about literally anything. As a church, we want to make sure that everyone is loved and taken care of during this shelter in place.
-Pastor Jon