To close out Visioneering, we did something a little different. Pastor Jason and Pastor Howie joined a panel conversation moderated by John Rowa to help prepare our church for the marathon ahead: 48 weeks in the book of Ephesians, beginning next weekend.
The goal of the panel was simple: give us context and set our hearts so we don’t just learn information this year, but experience formation.
1. Why Ephesians, and why now?
Key idea: ancient faith for a future world
Pastor Jason introduced the framework for the year using a cultural metaphor from Greek mythology: Prometheus.
While we obviously don’t believe the myth, he used it as a symbol for something deeply human: the impulse to define and build life outside God’s authority.
That’s the tension we’re naming in this series called, “Facing Prometheus: A Letter to the Ephesians and the Future Church Dilemma.”
The Promethean, worldly instinct says, “Become who you choose.” Paul says, “Become who you were chosen to be.”
Ephesians will confront the ways our culture (and our own hearts) try to build identity, ethics, and meaning apart from God’s design. It gives us a rooted, structural, reality-based framework for:
- identity and salvation
- the church and belonging
- marriage, singleness, parenting, work, sex, money
- everyday ethics and spiritual resistance
This is why the series title for the year is:
Facing Prometheus: A Letter to the Ephesians and the Future Church Dilemma
2. What was Ephesus like?
Scripture: Acts 19
Pastor Howie set the historical scene.
Ephesus wasn’t a small religious town. It was a major Roman city in Asia Minor, full of cultural influence, commerce, politics, and religious power. It was also spiritually chaotic.
Key realities in Ephesus:
- The Temple of Artemis (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world) anchored the city’s religious identity.
- Their worship was full of contradictions and syncretism (blending beliefs together).
- Pastor Howie summed it up with a memorable line: Artemis was a “virgin fertility goddess,” a contradiction that reflected the confusion of the culture.
- They also worshiped Caesar, giving him titles like:
- “Savior,” “Lord,” “Son of God,” “Bringer of Peace”
Titles that Scripture reserves for Jesus.
- “Savior,” “Lord,” “Son of God,” “Bringer of Peace”
- The city was marked by deep divisions:
- social, ethnic, and economic separation
- especially tension between Jews and Gentiles
Pastor Howie’s point was clear:
Ephesus was a city marked by confusion and division.
Which sounds… familiar.
3. What is the central purpose of Ephesians?
Key idea: God’s order for life and faith
Pastor Jason summarized the heart of the letter this way:
Ephesians is dedicated to establishing God’s order for life and faith.
He emphasized that Paul is not only trying to inform the church, but form the church. Knowledge matters, but knowledge alone doesn’t change a person.
A key theme for the year:
God forms His people in His house, and from His house He sends them into the world.
Pastor Howie added that the structure of Ephesians itself reinforces this:
- Chapters 1–3: who God is, who we are in Christ, and our identity
- Chapters 4–6: how we live because of that identity
Pastor Jason warned against “white-knuckling” obedience by skipping identity and jumping straight to behavior.
He put it bluntly:
When you know who you are, your behavior has no choice but to catch up.
And that identity isn’t self-created. It comes from the One who made you.
4. The Five Pillars guiding the year
This 48-week journey will be shaped by five core pillars:
- To know what the church is biblically
- To know and understand what God is building in me individually
- To form practices that strengthen my life and faith
- To understand biblical work, singleness, marriage, family, and money
- To form an understanding of what it means to belong to God’s people and the church
These are not “topics.” They are formation goals.
5. What is the “Future Church Dilemma”?
Key idea: choosing our own adventure
Pastor Jason described the future church dilemma as the temptation to build:
- a life of faith
- a church
- a society
outside of God’s control and authority
In other words: “choose your own adventure Christianity.”
But following Jesus is not mix-and-match. God has something to say about every part of life, and Scripture isn’t silent where we wish it was.
He used a metaphor from the movie Inception to make the point: when we build a reality that isn’t real, it eventually destabilizes. Our “tells” show up under pressure.
Pastor Jason and Pastor Howie both connected this to real life:
- what we fake won’t hold up under stress
- what we manufacture collapses in suffering
- the “fruit” that isn’t real eventually reveals itself
Which is why we need more than information.
We need the Spirit of God forming us into real people with real faith.
6. How does Ephesians challenge modern assumptions about the church?
Key idea: God lays claim to everything
Pastor Jason was candid: Ephesians will offend everyone, at some point, because it shows us what God has laid claim to.
Not just the “religious” parts of life. Everything.
He named examples straight from the themes of the letter:
- salvation is God’s work, by grace
- God speaks to marriage, family, parenting, and identity
- the church is not just a comfortable community gathering
- the church is meant to be a carrier of truth that shapes people and sends them into neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, and families
The panel emphasized the posture we want to carry this year:
- compassion and care
- without shrinking back from truth
7. What could happen if we lived Ephesians over time?
Scripture: Ephesians 2:1–10
John closed the panel with the big question: If a church actually lived this letter, what visible difference would it make in its people and its city?
Pastor Jason answered with bold faith:
- healthier marriages
- reconciliation across divisions
- freedom from addiction
- healing from depression
- young people grounded in identity and hope
- a church that actually looks like Jesus
And when it felt “too big,” he brought it back to the center of Christianity:
A man got out of the grave.
If Jesus is alive, then transformation is not wishful thinking. It’s possible.
Pastor Jason read from Ephesians 2, highlighting the turning point of the gospel:
“But God… who is rich in mercy… made us alive with Christ… you are saved by grace.”
Pastor Howie closed by praying that we would stop faking spiritual fruit and instead live with the real work of the Holy Spirit producing real change in us, for the good of our homes, our neighborhoods, and our city.
Reflection Questions
- Where do you feel the “Promethean instinct” in your own life (self-definition, self-control, self-design)?
- Are you trying to live from behavior first, or identity first?
- What parts of your life are you most tempted to keep in “choose-your-own-adventure” mode?
- What would it look like for your faith to reshape your home, relationships, work, and neighborhood this year?
Prayer Prompt
Jesus, expose where I’ve tried to build my life apart from You.
Form me through Your Word and by Your Spirit.
Ground me in who You say I am, not what I can manufacture.
Make our church a people of truth, humility, and love who bring Your life into our neighborhoods and our city.
