Hello everyone.

Well, I have decided to make a commitment for once in my life. I am not going to straddle the fence any longer. I am tired of being active in church, teaching Sunday School, and following someone else’s lead on how they think our relationship with Jesus Christ should look, feel, smell, and sound. So, I feel the Lord calling me to plant a new style of church in the St Louis Metro East area. It will be different, and I even hesitate to call it a church. Most people consider the word Church to be a verb, but I think it should be a noun. I think this concept will force me to stop calling Sunday services church and start calling it a gathering point for believers. In fact, we’ll call it The Point.

I am convinced many people have blurred the concept of going to church with their personal relationship with the Lord. It is important to fellowship with other believers, and to gather as a “Body of Christ”, but to gather as a corporate body just because we feel we should be gathering is not what I believe Christ wanted us to do when He commanded us in Mark 16:15 to, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. We will strive to redefine the relational, personal meanings of what it means to worship the Lord, spread the gospel, feed the flock, and commune with God.

Let me set forth some basic, primary beliefs that will help embrace the concepts of The Point:

1) We believe that there is one living and true God, eternally existing in three persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, equal in power and glory; that this triune God created all, upholds all and governs all.

2) We believe in God the Father: an infinite, personal Spirit, perfect in holiness, wisdom, power, and love; that He concerns Himself mercifully in the affairs of mankind; that He hears and answers prayer; and that He saves from sin and death all who come to Him through Jesus Christ.

3) We believe in Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son, conceived by the Holy Spirit. We believe in His virgin birth, sinless life, miracles, and teachings, His substitutionary atoning death, bodily resurrection, bodily ascension into heaven, perpetual intercession for His people and personal, visible return to earth.

4) We believe that all people are sinners by nature and choice and therefore under condemnation, that God regenerates by the Holy Spirit those repenting of their sins and confessing Jesus Christ as Lord; that Jesus Christ baptizes the seeking believer with the Holy Spirit and power for service. often subsequent to regeneration.

5) We are a Bible based gathering. We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, fully inspired without error in the original manuscripts, and the infallible rule of faith and practice. Our teaching will come out of the Word of God. We will use supportive texts, but the primary message is God’s written Word. It is endless, timeless, unchanging, and applicable to our every day lives. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. As Christians living in a postmodern world, the Bible serves as our plumbline, or our guide for living. God’s Word is the only truth that endures forever. Isaiah 40:8 says, the grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever. The Word of God, through the Holy Spirit and God’s perfect timing, will provide us with insight and application in our daily lives.

6) We believe in the universal church, the living spiritual body of which Christ is the head and all regenerated persons are members. As such, our desire is to take our ability to worship to a new level. Worship is a two way process of communicating with the Lord. We worship and adore Jesus Christ for who He is, so our worship must flow out of our desire to elevate Him to His place of prominence as the Lord of Creation. At the same time worship provides us an opportunity for us to look inwardly and savor our individual personal relationship with the Lord. We are only meaningless specks on the horizon of time, but somehow the timeless Creator of the Universe believes that we are important and has chosen us to have a relationship with Him. These concepts should be the inspiration behind all that we do whether it be music, media, drama, message, and fellowship.

7) We believe in the Holy Spirit. He was sent by the Father and Son to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment, and to regenerate, sanctify and empower for ministry all who believe in Christ; We believe the Holy Spirit indwells every believer in Jesus Christ and He is an abiding Helper, teacher and guide. We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit and in the exercise of all the Biblical gifts of the Spirit.

8) We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ committed two Ordinances to the Church: (1) baptism and (2) the Lord's Supper. We believe in baptism by immersion and communion open to all believers.

9) We believe in the personal, visible return of Christ to earth and the establishment of His Kingdom; in the resurrection of the body, the final judgment and eternal blessing of the righteous and endless suffering of the wicked.

10) The Point is a non-denominational fellowship of believers. Our desire is to know Jesus as our Lord and Savior and to be conformed into His image by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said: Learn of Me

Therefore: Our services are designed with great emphasis on the teaching of the Word of God that He might instruct us on how to live our daily lives.

Jesus said: You must worship God in Spirit and truth

Therefore: We give great place to worship in our service and desire to remain yielded to the Holy Spirit, in order that He may guide us into true worship.

Jesus said: Men ought always to pray

Therefore: We encourage everyone to fellowship daily with God through prayer that we might be filled with the fullness of His love and power.

We believe that the true basis for Christian fellowship is God's (AGAPE) love. We believe in expressing that love one to another.

Please come back for more information. I will be posting here frequently.

Take risks and live for the Lord,

Rick Marshall

I talked to my brother Steve the day before yesterday. He is dong quite well at work. In fact, he just got a promotion and is moving to what has always been his and Tracey's promised land, "Las Vegas." I am proud of him. To take this job he has done what I never thought he would do. He cut his hair. You can see the before shots on his website. When I get an after photo I will post it. He hasn't cut his hair in 18 yeara, other than a minor trimming, so this is a "Big Deal" for him. Way to go bro!

Well, I've been gone for a while, but I'm back! Lots of things going on right now in my life. I will be retiring in a week and am anxiously looking for a job. But I know that as long as I keep my heart right before the Lord,and continue in His will that He will work it all out.

Things are going well at church. Our small group of College and Career students is growing rapidly both in numbers and in depth of relationships. I feel that we have made some breakthroughs in the last few weeks. I can hardly wait to see where the Lord is leading us.

Interested in how the next generatioin views church? Look at the Voices of the Next Generation article by Jason Evans on THEOOZE. It is pretty interesting. What the generation that grew up under President Clinton and mass marketing is seeking in a church, and their relationship to the Lord, is authenticity! It is very refreshing.

So long for now. I'll be back

My Resume

My stint of over 20 years in the Us Air Force is about over. I am in the job hunting mode and thought it would be good to post my resume on this site. My Resume is pretty long and is hopefully interactive enough to give someone a good idea of what I have been doing with my life.

Lukewarmness

Here's a pretty good article in THEOOZE about luke warm spirituality

Being Seduced by a False Gospel

This month's Next-Wave contains a super article by Tom Ponchak that deals with Christian legalism. How do we balance our lives once we become a Christian. Our justification (salvation) is assured because as soon as we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior we are deemed worthy and our sins are cast away never to be seen by God as it says in Psalm 103:12. All God the Father sees is Jesus' blood when he looks at us. But how does that play out with our sanctification. Paul says in Philippians 2:12 that we are called to live a sanctified (or set apart) life. Our life as a Christian exists on that fine line between the freedom that Christ brings us through out salvation and living the sanctified life that God demands of us. This article by Tom Ponchak does a good job of highlighting the major issues as we live our Christian life.

Doing the Right Thing
Next-Wave has a pretty good article on Doing the Right Thing. Sometimes we get trapped into thinking that if we just do the right thing God will always reward us by making good things happen in our lives. What about learning the lessons God wants to teach us through character building events in our lives? If following God's will for our lives and doing the right thing always results in God's rewards, then how do you explain God letting Peter be thrown in jail and James being martyred in Acts 12:1-19?

Drinking and Smoking: Biblical or Cultural Sins?
I am an avid anti-smoker. Part of the reason is health related, my mother died from Lung Cancer 12 years ago, and I hate the health problems the use of tobacco has caused in our society. The other reason is relationship related, although smoking is a socially oriented activity, my nose can't tolerate the smell of cigarette smoke or the bad breath and smelly clothes it gives users. As much as I dislike both smoking and drinking I have never personally considered them Biblical sins, and I haven't found any Biblical evidence that these are sins. So, I have wondered how the taboo on smoking and drinking come about in the Christian Church. Christianity Today has an interesting and thoughtful article on the history of smoking and drinking within the Christian Church. It makes for good reading and brings up some issues on why smoking and drinking are looked down on in today's Christian circles. So, how exactly are we as a church supposed to integrate our cultural heritage into our personal relationship with God? And how do we relate our personal relationship with Christ without tying our cultural heritage onto it. I'm interested in your thoughts.

Christian Webpage Usability Study
There are some great things happening online in the Christian Community. I have spent quite a bit of time reading the daily weblogs of Andrew Careaga, Tim Bednar of e-church.com, Jordon Cooper, and blogs4god. These are some of my favorite webpages and I highly recommend them to anyone interested in learning what types of ministry are effective online. e-church.com is currently soliciting people to review Christian websites and Tim is also asking for people to nominate Christian websites for the study. I believe this is an important study. Most churches are overly concerned with their webpage looking nice and the result is that they are not very functional or informational. They may have large quantities of information on them, but it may not be timely or accurate any longer. We should all strive to have our webpages current and functional, not just as a place to put information, but a place for sharing and building community.

The St Louis Weather
Praise God last night between 3-4am thunderstorms rolled through the area and brought us some much needed rain (about 2-3 inches) and some cooler weather. It has been about 20 straight days above 90 degrees. Today it will only be in the mid 80s and a little less humid. We sure needed the weather to change. I was worried about the hot weather affecting the FBC O'Fallon Kids Kamp this Wednesday through Saturday. But, now the weather looks like it will be cooler and much more enjoyable for the kids.

Another Warm Day
I sure hate the hot hot weather during July and August in St Louis. Today it is supposed to be 99 degrees with about 75% humidity. It sure makes for an uncomfortable time outdoors. But, inside my office it is 75 degrees and about 50% humidity. Much nicer than the hot, humid, hazy (the triple H) weather outside. I'm not much of an inside person, but for about a month per year I do everything I can to stay indoors.

Kids Kamp
I'm looking forward to serving as a Kounselor at FBCO 'Fallon's Kids Kamp next week at Lake Williamson in Carlinville, IL. I will have 9 Elementery School age Kampers, another adult bunkmate (who has been doing this for the last 5 years), and a Junior High School age helper (the bunkmate's son). It should be a lot of fun. I guess my wife, kids, and myself will probably start doing this each year as a good way to take a family vacation with a purpose. On a secondary note, I will check out Lake Williamson for a possible College and Career retreat later in the year. I have heard some wonderful things about the camp.

e-church.com
I have been reading Tim Bednar's weblog each day at e-church.com. Tim is a postmodern internet pastor and has been redesigning his ministry's concept and webpage over the last couple of months. He has some great ideas that cause my baby boomer brain to think out of the box. I am not a very creative person by birth and Tim is very talented. Anyhow, he wrote an article on his weblog that dealt with living in the world and how we should be in the world, but not of the world. Parts of the article sounded a little like he was exploring new thoughts while writing and as a result didn't have the most compelling arguments. Happens to me each and every day as I put together this weblog. But, bsically Tim did nothing wrong and was only writing his own personal beliefs about where he could best serve the Lord. He could have made some of his arguments a little more substantial, but that is fine with me. The problem came though when another pastor commented on his article with a personal attack on Tim. He basically put down Tim and his thoughts saying that he had no guts and no substance. The comments were well thought out, but not delivered in the spirit of Christian brotherhood. Which brings me to my point. When do we to let our brothers and sisters in the Lord flounder a little and learn a good lesson in the process, and when do we jump in and offer our help in a brotherly or sisterly way? I don't exactly know the answer. I am a firm believer in learning by doing, and in this case I think it does good for someone to put their thoughts out there in print and then to mull them over and see shere they can grow. The pastor that attacked Tim stopped that entire process. The whole crux of postmodernism is that my experience is not the same as your experience, so my truth may not necessarily be the same truth that you are experiencing. I say that in the context of brotherly Christian postmodernism the pastor is way out of line in criticizing Tim for his thoughts. Just because the pastor has fire in his belly and doesn't mind torquing everyone off that hears him doesn't mean that Tim should be the brunt of his misplaced anger. Boy, would I not like to be in his church's community of believers!

Daily Bible Reading
Ezra 1 & 2
Proverbs 1
1 Timothy 1
Luke 13

Bible Verse of the Day
1 Timothy 1:5-- But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith (Directly applicable to what happened in the e-church.com webpage)