Back To Basics Series

Alright, okay, so we obviously have a lot of things to talk about over the next several weeks, and we are going to do that, but before we jump into that let me say this. Good morning, welcome or welcome back to this place that we call DCC. We want to give a special shout out and welcome to all of our friends who are out there today watching us online, to all of our new friends who are with us today for the very first time, and to all of you who came for the first time last week and decided to give us another shot. We are so glad that you are here. Whether you are tuning in or sitting here today if you are fairly new we think that it is important that you know that you we are not people who used to be like you, tolerate people like you or fix people like you. This is safe place full of people just like you. We all have stories and want you to know that all of yours is safe and welcome here regardless of how it reads and that you belong with us regardless of what you believe. We are glad that you’re here and it’s not a secret, we hope that you come back.

ILLUST> Okay. Let’s do this. Before we jump into the world that we live in today, let’s start with how things used to be in this great country of ours which all really started back at Plymouth Rock almost 400 years ago. So, the pilgrims that landed there signed the Mayflower Compact that said this…”having undertaken for the glory of God and for the advancement of a Christian faith.” Does that mean that all of the pilgrims and all of the founding fathers were Christian? No. It does mean that God and Christianity was a part of how this thing we call the United States of America all got started though. In 1636 America’s first University, Harvard University had this precept…”let every student be plainly instructed to consider well the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life and therefore lay Christ at the bottom, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning”. What? That’s Harvard. Doesn’t sound much like Harvard today. Something has shifted, something has changed. Let’s keep going. Finally, we have the US Consitution and then the first ten amendments specifically the first amendment from which this concept or terminology emerged called the separation of church and state. This idea that we need to be sure that we separate church and state emerges. Now watch what happens after that. Since then Abraham Lincoln talked about God in the Gettysburg Address, President Woodrow Wilson asserted that "America was born a Christian nation, On DDAY, President Franklin Roosevelt got on the radio and prayed while the nation joined him, the New York Times printed the prayer, the New York Daily times printed the Lord’s Prayer in the paper that same day, in 1950 we adopted the Pledge of Allegiance…one nation under God, in 1956 by an Act of Congress a new national motto was declared…In God we Trust. We were on a roll, but since that time something has shifted, something has changed.

Now more than ever before there is more and more of an outcry and a push for the separation of church and state. Could it be that the major push these days on this hot button issue of the separation of church and state is primarily because of this? There is not and has not been enough separation of church and hate. That is what I want us to think about, that is why we are doing this series...lots for us to think about and talk about over the next several weeks. Let me say this as we jump into this. When I watch television I get frustrated when I get to the end of a great show and there is no resolution those dreaded three words hit the screen “to be continued”. As much as I hate that this series is much the same. It has taken the church over 2000 years to end up where we are. It is going to take more than a week or two to talk through how we begin to change that. Hope you understand that. So here we go, let’s do this, let’s start by getting back to basics.

If you have a Bible you can turn there. If you want or need a Bible, we have Bibles on the back tables that you can grab right now if you would like if you close or on your way out. Or you can hit read off your program, hit our app, and then hit You Version, and it will all be right there in front of you. Everything I read is also going to be on the screens. Here we go John chapter 13 beginning with verse 31...