Storehouse Rules
1. The first rule of The Storehouse is that you do not talk about The Storehouse. Just kidding!!!! This is not the fight club we want want you to talk about the storehouse and invite all your friends, family, co-workers and whoever else you feel God is calling you to talk to. During service feel free to uplate your Facebook page, tweet, take a pic on instagram or whatever you wish. We love communication so all tech is welcome here.
2. The second rule of the Storehouse is no mean people please. Now let me be clear we welcome all regardless if you have it mostly together or are a mess, weather you are black or white, male or female, young or old. All are welcome as long as we all treat each other with respect and dignity.
3. Rule three is we believe that God will bless us in order to be a blessing to other people. Therefore, at the storehouse we give as well as receive. We give our time, our talents, and our resources to show the love of Christ. and to spread the Gospel. The Storehouse is not a place where some give and others consume. We all give and receive understanding that we all have different gifts to be used for the Glory of God.
4. Number four is a long but important one. The Storehouse is based on Methodist principles. Mathodism is a Christian way of seeing the world that emphasizes the Grace (unmerited favor) of God. Here is an understanding of Grace.
Grace is central to our understanding of Christian faith and life.
Grace can be defined as the love and mercy given to us by God because God wants us to have it, not because of anything we have done to earn it. We read in the Letter to the Ephesians: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Our Methodist heritage is rooted in a deep and profound understanding of God’s grace. This incredible grace flows from God’s great love for us.
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, described God’s grace as threefold:
prevenient grace
justifying grace
sanctifying grace
Excerpt from Teachers as Spiritual Leaders and Theologians. Used by permission.
Prevenient Grace
Wesley understood grace as God’s active presence in our lives. This presence is not dependent on human actions or human response. It is a gift—a gift that is always available, but that can be refused.
God’s grace stirs up within us a desire to know God and empowers us to respond to God’s invitation to be in relationship with God. God’s grace enables us to discern differences between good and evil and makes it possible for us to choose good….
God takes the initiative in relating to humanity. We do not have to beg and plead for God’s love and grace. God actively seeks us!
Justifying Grace
Through the work of God in Christ our sins are forgiven, and our relationship with God is restored. According to John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, the image of God—which has been distorted by sin—is renewed within us through Christ’s death.
Again, this dimension of God’s grace is a gift. God’s grace alone brings us into relationship with God. There are no hoops through which we have to jump in order to please God and to be loved by God. God has acted in Jesus Christ. We need only to respond in faith.
Following Paul and Luther, John Wesley called this process justification. Justification is what happens when Christians abandon all those vain attempts to justify themselves before God, to be seen as “just” in God’s eyes through religious and moral practices. It’s a time when God’s “justifying grace” is experienced and accepted, a time of pardon and forgiveness, of new peace and joy and love. Indeed, we’re justified by God’s grace through faith.
Justification is also a time of repentance—turning away from behaviors that separate ourselves from relationship with God and others and toward actions that express God’s love. In this conversion we can expect to receive assurance of our present salvation through the Holy Spirit “bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:16).
Sanctifying Grace
Salvation is not a static, one-time event in our lives. It is the ongoing experience of God’s gracious presence transforming us into whom God intends us to be. John Wesley described this dimension of God’s grace as sanctification, or holiness. (Excerpt from Teachers as Spiritual Leaders and Theologians. Used by permission.)
Through God’s sanctifying grace, we grow and mature in our ability to live as Jesus lived. As we pray, study the Scriptures, fast, worship, and share in fellowship with other Christians, we deepen our knowledge of and love for God. As we respond with compassion to human need and work for justice in our communities, we strengthen our capacity to love neighbor. Our inner thoughts and motives, as well as our outer actions and behavior, are aligned with God’s will and testify to our union with God. (Excerpt from Teachers as Spiritual Leaders and Theologians. Used by permission.)
We’re to press on, with God’s help, in the path of sanctification toward perfection. By perfection, Wesley did not mean that we would not make mistakes or have weaknesses. Rather, he understood it to be a continual process of being made perfect in our love of God and each other. (Adapted from Who Are We? : Doctrine, Ministry, and the Mission of The United Methodist Church, Revised: Leader's Guide by Kenneth L. Carder, Cokesbury, p. 46.)