What does Tribe teach about church anniversary?
Drawn from the message where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At Tribe, the teaching on church anniversary starts with the recognition that a birthday Sunday is not just a celebration of the past but a moment to locate the congregation inside a larger story. When Tribe turned seven, Pastor Brian preached on Isaiah 62:1 against the backdrop of the Hamas war that had just broken out, pressing the church to see that what Isaiah models, a refusal to keep still, to remain silent, or to stop praying, is not a posture reserved for an ancient prophet. It is the posture the Lord calls His people into, and a church anniversary is a fitting moment to ask whether that posture has actually been formed in the congregation.
Pastor Brian drew a direct line between what God had done at Tribe and what He calls Tribe to do in the world. The Wind River rec center, built debt free by the church, was held up as evidence that God works through willing people rather than around them. The twenty-one day fast for Israel that the church had done earlier that fall, which ended the same Saturday Hamas invaded, was named as preparation the congregation did not know they would need. These were not coincidences to celebrate and move on from. They were markers showing that the church had been shaped by encounter with God the way Isaiah was shaped in chapter six, and that shaping carries responsibility. Brian says, "We have not seen the perfect fulfillment of that yet. That's an honest answer, but in my mind it is also dripping with hope."
The thread running through the anniversary message is that a church is not measured by how long it has existed but by what kind of people its years have produced. Staying neutral, changing a profile picture, or posting a line online does not count as faithfulness. Brian was direct that the conversations are happening whether Tribe fam initiates them or not, and that a congregation shaped by God's own heart for the world cannot stay on the sideline as spectators.
Taught from Isaiah 62:1 · Isaiah 6 (broader passage) · Psalms 122:6 · Zechariah 12:10-11 · Zephaniah 3:17
“You cannot claim to be a Christian and have a narrative that is contrary to God's narrative on Israel in this situation.”
From I Will Not Keep Still
The passage taught · Isaiah 6 (broader passage)
1 In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple.
2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two he covered his face. With two he covered his feet. With two he flew.
3 One called to another, and said, “Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh of Armies! The whole earth is full of his glory!”
4 The foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- October 30, 2023 I Will Not Keep Still Tribe Church marks its seventh birthday with a study of Isaiah 62, exploring what it means to pray, speak up, and act on behalf of Israel in a time of war.