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{"id":588,"date":"2015-05-08T12:44:49","date_gmt":"2015-05-08T19:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/searchingfortomsawyer\/?p=588"},"modified":"2015-05-08T12:44:49","modified_gmt":"2015-05-08T19:44:49","slug":"why-church-matters-to-your-kids-part-4-reason-3-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/timwright\/2015\/05\/why-church-matters-to-your-kids-part-4-reason-3-is\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Church Matters to Your Kids\u2014Part 4: Reason #3 is\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

If Jesus matters to us, then what matters to Jesus will matter to us.<\/p>\n

If it matters to us that Jesus matters to our kids, then what matters to Jesus will matter to our kids.<\/p>\n

The Church matters to Jesus because:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
Reason #1: It is his Body<\/em>\u2014the Church is intimately tied to him and he to the Church. He gave his life for the Church. For Jesus, the Church is a matter of life and death and life.<\/li>\n
Reason #2: Your kids matter to Jesus. <\/em>Jesus wants your children to live in his unconditional grace. The Church\u2014his Body\u2014is the place where kids experience, learn about, see, touch, feel, and live out that grace through a variety of opportunities.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Reason #3: The Church Matters to Jesus because the World Matters to Jesus\u00a0 $\"1439493_92421426\"$ <\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son\u2026God became a human being and went to the cross in order to win back his lost children\u2014his lost world. The world matters to God. It\u2019s a matter of life and death for him. And he has chosen the Church to be the vehicle through which his love in Christ is communicated and demonstrated to the world.<\/p>\n
Some will argue that you can know God in nature. True. But what do you know about him? Is he the God of creative, inspiring awesomeness seen in the sunrise and sunset, in the grandeur of the mountains and the power of the oceans? Or is he the God of devastating, life-destroying tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis? Creation doesn\u2019t tell the whole story about God\u2014or, depending on how you see things, tells a conflicting story about God.<\/p>\n
Some will say that you can hear a sermon on TV or the internet? True. But you can\u2019t receive the sacraments\u2014God\u2019s gifts of life\u2014through the TV set or computer. Nor can the TV\/internet pastor counsel you or grieve with you or marry you.<\/p>\n
The Church is the place where God fully communicates himself to the world\u2014through the proclamation of what God has done for us in Jesus. The Church is the only place where God breaks into our lives with grace through the sacraments of baptism and communion.<\/p>\n
The Reformer Martin Luther says that the Church is to be for <\/em>the world\u2026that the work of the Church is to be the bearer of the Gospel.<\/p>\n
God\u2019s passion is for the world. And that passion is spread out into the world through the Church\u2014the Body of Christ. To be a Christian, then, is to be connected to a Church\u2014a local expression of the Body of Christ\u2014and to participate in the mission of the Church to bring God\u2019s grace to a hurting, broken world.<\/p>\n
A Quote from Sacred Roots\u2013Why the Church\u00a0Still Matters:<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
\n
If an entertainment-driven, individualistic view of Church is defined as \u201cexperts putting on exciting events to meet personal expectations,\u201d then the primal call of Jesus reminds us the Church is more daring, subversive, transformative, and provocative than we have been numbed to believe\u2014that we are not destined to be spectators but active agents of grace and redemption in the middle of the brokenness of our world.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\u00a0<\/em>If Jesus matters to us, then what matters to Jesus will matter to us.<\/p>\n
If it matters to us that Jesus matters to our kids, then what matters to Jesus will matter to our kids.<\/p>\n
The Church matters to Jesus. He\u2019s staked his death and resurrection on it. And his invitation to us is to raise our kids to follow Jesus\u2014through his Church\u2014on the bold, reckless adventure of bringing grace to the world.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If Jesus matters to us, then what matters to Jesus will matter to us. If it matters to us that Jesus matters to our kids, then what matters to Jesus will matter to our kids. The Church matters to Jesus because: Reason #1: It is his Body\u2014the Church is intimately tied to him and he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1621,"featured_media":1108,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,3,13,6,10],"tags":[2,4,5,64,14,65,230,231,9,232,23],"class_list":["post-588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boys","category-church","category-girls","category-kids-2","category-sunday-school","tag-boys","tag-church-2","tag-girls-2","tag-grace","tag-jesus","tag-martin-luther","tag-mission","tag-sacraments","tag-searching-for-tom-sawyer","tag-the-world","tag-tim-wright"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Church Matters to Your Kids\u2014Part 4: Reason #3 is\u2026<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If Jesus matters to us, then what matters to Jesus will matter to us. 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