Why does Hiawatha Church Gather on Sundays?

Why do we gather as a church on Sundays? Is it simply for our own encouragement and edification? Or do we meet for a service on Sunday mornings in order to reach out to the community, intentionally and deliberately gearing everything we do for them? For us the answer is both (although we lean more towards building up the body of believers through the gospel).

We want everything we do when we gather on a Sunday morning to teach, equip, and encourage the church to be on mission with God to make disciples AND to be missional in itself (missional means to be on mission with God as he saves the lost, making disciples for this glory and our joy). At Hiawatha Church, nearly everything we do during our Sunday gathering is intentionally both. Let’s go through a typical Sunday gathering and show how each aspect sets the agenda for mission and is also to some extent missional in itself.

Gathering: We gather on the Lord’s Day to remember Christ’s resurrection, which gives us the desire and ability to live on mission with Him. We also gather as one body to remind us of our need for each other, the relational aspect of God’s love, and to serve and encourage each other. These gatherings show the world that we are his disciples by our love for each other and display a community (a spiritual family) that attracts many.

Everything we do when we gather is centered on the cross, the good news of Jesus' death on our behalf.

Being Greeted as We Enter the Building: This reminds us of the gospel in a particular way. At the cross Christ brought us into fellowship with himself. We also purposefully put a few people at each door so that every single visitor is greeted, given a smile, and is welcomed. We want a newcomers’ and non-believers’ first interaction with Hiawatha Church to reflect how Christ has welcomed us spiritually to God through his death and resurrection.. 

Hospitality: We’re reminded that Christ is our spiritual sustenance and gives us true friendship, nourishment, rest, and satisfaction through the ospel. To non-believers it gives us an opportunity to meet and talk with them and demonstrates that we care about both the body and the soul. It also demonstrates Christ's generosity to us and hopefully makes the church feel like more of a safe place to check out.  

Welcoming and Fellowship: We welcome both visitors and members at the beginning of each service, reminding us that our God has welcomed us (his former enemies) and has brought us back into relationship (fellowship) with him through the cross. This also gives us the ability to forgive and to be reconciled to our neighbor. All are welcomed in a spirit of non-partiality as we shake hands, introduce ourselves, share stories, and cross aisles of all types to bring unity and show that we’re all sinners in need of a savior and his grace.  

Communion: We remember the gift of Christ's body and shed blood regularly and communally as a church. As we do this, non-believers understand that they cannot partake in all parts of church gathering and realize that they are still in some ways an outsider, in need of forgiveness and grace. But they still continue to hear the gospel explicitly and are called to belief, repentance and faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. 

Reading the Word: We read the Bible because it is God’s Word, a missional text to us, telling us His story and inviting us into mission with him by the power of the Holy Spirit. It prepares us for the rest of our worship service by re-centering the mind and soul around something (and someone) much bigger than us and whatever we bring into the room. 

Prayer: When we pray we remind ourselves that we’re in need of grace, the ever-present Holy Spirit to empower us to be on mission and to do good, and to praise and thank our God for the cross. Prayer also is missional in that it gives the non-believer a glimpse into the intimate communication between a Christian and their heavenly father that we can have because of the gospel.  

Worship: We respond to the good news (gospel) through worship, reminding ourselves of what we’ve been saved from and saved to. We choose to sings songs that proclaim the gospel, remind us of our sin and God’s mercy, and are done in a relevant and culturally appreciated medium in hopes of creating no stumbling blocks to the gospel, other than the gospel itself.  

Preaching: We need to be continually reminded of who we were, who we are, and how we’ve been redeemed. These reminders spur us on to more belief, to love and good deeds, and are used to give us a heart for the lost as we see own stories in theirs. This is our most explicit form of missional intentionality as the lost are saved (and the saved are saved afresh) through the hearing and preaching of the Gospel. 

There are many more things we do to intentionally be missional and set the agenda for mission (i.e. children's ministry, giving, testimonies, music, etc.) that we could mention as well but this is a good start. We are not perfect at this, by any stretch, but we have been deliberate in crafting our Sunday gatherings for both the believer and unbeliever who attend. And the main strategy for this is to make the gospel central to everything we do.

SPENCER PETERSON / COMMUNITY LIFE PASTOR

Dunking, Drinking, and Eating: What are baptism and communion and who are they for?

What are baptism and communion? Why do we observe them often at Hiawatha Church? Who are they for and why do we do them? We hear people ask these questions often, especially as we just had several baptisms last month and will rearrange our service in order to focus on communion this coming Sunday. Since both baptism and communion are integral parts to our church gatherings (and the universal church's for all time), I wanted to share briefly what they are and how they exist for both Christians and unbelievers, yet in very different ways.  

Baptism and Communion are the two main and central sacraments that the universal church regularly exercises. Pastor Mark Dever describes these as the front and back door to the church. Baptism is the outward sign of the inward change when someone becomes a Christian and thus is the front door to the church. What baptism symbolizes is how one enters the church. 

The Lord’s Supper is what he calls the back door. One reason Jesus gave it to his church is to use as discipline when someone is in continual, unrepentant sin. The church is to keep Communion from someone who is persistent in habitual sin without repentance with the hope that being outside and treated as an unbeliever will bring about repentance and reconciliation. Baptism and Communion are both for Christians and non-Christians alike but in different ways. They remind the church of the mission God has called them to and can be missional acts in and of themselves. We approach both of these sacraments this way at Hiawatha. 
 
Baptism screams the gospel in a visible manner. We describe it with great detail each time we perform, teach about, and prepare people for baptism. It reminds Christians that we die to our old selves as we go under the water, symbolizing our death to our flesh and fallen nature. Baptism also reminds us how we’ve been raised again spiritually with Christ as a new creation. We also have those getting baptized give their stories, sharing the power of the gospel in their lives and how God has saved them from their sin. Baptism preaches to the unbelieving visitor who watches from outside. With words and deeds it demonstrates the beauty of the gospel. 

Communion also demonstrates the gospel visually. Each time we take the Lord’s Supper (another word for communion), we describe it with great detail, teach about it, and prepare our people for communion. Before we take it as a community, we describe what communion is, why we take it, what it symbolizes, and who it is for. We remind Christians who they are in Christ beforehand and as we take communion we remember what Christ did for us on the cross. In Christ, we’re no longer separated from God but are in now in communion (hence the name) with Him and with his Body, the church. We ask unbelievers to not take communion but invite them to trust in Christ first and then participate. The Lord’s Supper is one of the few ways we want visitors who are unbelievers to feel separated and different. Communion helps them to know that they’re not okay spiritually and not a true part of the church. They can still participate in many aspects of the church and we do want them there. However we wouldn’t be loving them if we fooled them into believing they were okay with God when they’re not. 

This is how God beautifully and intentionally designed both communion and baptism. They demonstrate to the believing and the unbelieving world the Gospel in deed and preach the Gospel through word. They remind the Christians of who they are and what they’re called to while reminding the non-Christians that they’re not in but shows them the way to be reconciled with their God and join the community of faith.

SPENCER PETERSON / COMMUNITY LIFE PASTOR

Who is Hiawatha Church?

As a church plant that just celebrated its ninth birthday, I am amazed and humbled by what God has done in and through our church. We were sent from Hope Community Church and began as a launch team of about 25 (and about 5 kids) and have grown to a church of 225+ adults (and over 100 kids)! We recognize that this is the work of the Spirit and are honored to be a part of his work in South Minneapolis, the Twin Cities, and across the globe. 

Summers are a very busy time for us at Hiawatha Church, with many people visiting and checking out our church on a Sunday morning. So if that is you, someone who is new/er to Hiawatha, we want to welcome you.

Over the next few weeks we'll be doing a series of blogs on who we are as a church. For some it will be a reminder and for others, a helpful look into our DNA as a church. Also notice that this blog's title is Who is Hiawatha Church. We're intentional about reminding ourselves that Hiawatha Church is a gospel centered community of people, not a building, business, social club, or organization.

So Who is Hiawatha Church?

Hiawatha Church is a community of people who don't think much of themselves but who do think much of Jesus. Our vision is to bring glory to God by spreading, promoting, preaching, and living out the gospel of Jesus Christ in all that we do so as to help the church grow in its faith and, at the same time, introduce Jesus to people who have never heard about him.

We are a church who lives as a large, extended family by serving each other, bearing each other’s burdens, encouraging each other in the faith, sharing our time, talents, and treasures, and seeking unity within the Body of Christ.

We are a church that knows we've all got issues and don't claim to be perfect. As Christians we are in the process of sanctification and know we will never reach perfection until Christ returns. We will let people down and inevitably some will get hurt. But that is the point. We are a community of sinners who aren't perfect but whose Savior is perfect. Because He lived a perfect life, we don't have to. Even Paul, a guy who was used by God to plant a ton of churches and write nearly half the New Testament, called himself the worst of all sinners. We believe that when we're honest with ourselves and see the insurmountable amount of sin in our lives, we realize our need for a savior, seeing the beauty of the grace and mercy we have access to at the cross.

We are a church that loves the Trinity, the gospel, the Bible, and the church (both local and universal). Our beliefs, values and vision guide everything we do as a church.

We as a church strive to live missionally (living as missionaries wherever God has placed us) both as a Body and as individuals. We are empowered by the Spirit to embody the Gospel of a God who was the ultimate missionary on our behalf. We have seen God use us as a church in this way. Our members use the gifts and passions God has given them as well as their locations, circumstances, and stages of life to connect with the lost, move towards them, serve and love them in Christ’s name as they build relationships and preach the Gospel in word and deed.

We are a church that strives to create an environment where members want to bring their non-Christian friends, neighbors and coworkers and a place where they feel these people will be welcomed, cared for, spoken to and not be judged. We want to be a church that moves towards the lost as Christ moved towards us when we were still his enemies. This has looked many different ways including serving the elementary school across the street (Hiawatha School), pulling up buckthorn along with fellow South Minneapolitans, raking neighbors’ leaves, doing VBS and Day Camp, serving the Aliveness Project, partnering with Tapestry Pregnancy and Family Resource Center, and giving gifts to Minneapolis children whose parents are in jail.

Finally, by God’s grace, we’ve continued to grow each of the past 9 years since our birth, making disciples, maturing believers, preaching the Gospel, building unity within the church, serving our neighborhood and city, teaching our people, sending missionaries and church planters, and fostering worshipers of a holy, just and loving God who expressed this ultimately in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. All of this has been and will continue to be done by the power of the Spirit, in Jesus' name, for the glory of the Father and for our joy!

SPENCER PETERSON / COMMUNITY LIFE PASTOR