Sermon Seeds for Sunday Morning Teaching Series

The sermon starter notes and wonderings that emerged from participating pastors reflecting on the passage together:

SENT BY

• We are sent by the King
• GO!Where am I to go? How am I to go? Am I going? I am sending you...
• Sent by the King who is Lord of the harvest; its his harvest
• “Appointed” - by the Lord; 70 others were appointed
• Equipped 
• Sent after -  what was the context before this
• Important to spend time talking about what was happening before (Luke 9)
• Sent ahead of Jesus - to the places he was about to go
• Prayer - ask the Lord of the Harvest; “His” harvest, we are doing this for God

Song suggestion:

• Facing a Task Unfinished (Getty)

SENT FOR

• Why are we sent?
• To bring / proclaim peace; the kingdom of God is near
• Shalom
  • What does this look like?
  • Where is it needed in my community?
• Proclaiming the kingdom is here; promoting and proclaiming peace
• Pronouncing - blessing or curse
• The kingdom - what is the kingdom?  What does it look like? What does it entail?
• Eating...curing...saying      Community/Relationship first...healing second...message third
• We are sent to EAT...its that simple.  What if we would just do that?
  

What do need to give up to make space for in order to be SENT FOR

SENT INTO

• We are sent into His harvest
  • What is the harvest
  • How do you know where the harvest is?
  • How do you enter into it? Eat / Drink / Stay
• We are to be with people (people are not projects). Stay / Eat / Drink / Do not move
• In the great commission, we are sent into progressively more difficult / challenging areas...to Judea (people familiar /similar to us), Samaria (to people we don’t care for or like), and the ends of the earth (all kinds of different types of people).
• Into the wolfpack - it may not be easy, might be awkward, might be difficult, “Don’t make me take up a cross.”
• Unpack the cultural setting of hospitality here; are our expectations today different
• How do we enter a house today?
• What is / are the comfortable places today?  Where we can meet people today?
• The House - house is repeated 5 times in the passages
• Sent into the harvest. Sent into the community: Why, where, who, what, how

SENT WITH

• Partners / People / Holy Spirit
• Relational component permeates this passage
• We are to go with others (two by two)
• We are to be with people (people are not projects) Stay / Eat / Drink / Do not move
• We are to go with the Spirit
• Sent with a kingdom partner; “in pairs”
• Sent to be with people - even playing field; equal relationship
• With a message - “kingdom of God is here; peace/shalom; its wonderful and hard; Connect it to alcoholism - offer a way out to sobriety; but have to take it WITH
• communal rather than an individual approach

Relational Process

Weekly application / experiment ideas for our congregations during this series

• GO! -  What is one place in your community that you could go that would be new and different?  Go there. Examples could include:
  • A sporting event at a school that your kids / family do not attend
  • Restaurant nearby
  • Park
  • Store
• OFFERED - Ask someone else to help you with something this week.  Instead of trying to serve and help someone else, ask someone for their help...to help you with something...let them serve you.