Ten years ago, my Dad took over the pastorate of our home church, Peerless Road Church of God of Prophecy, in Cleveland TN. Dad is an evangelist at heart. The church was a great group of people, with some wonderful "fellowship" groups and friendships, but it seemed like it had been years (at least from my perspective) since any non-Christian had found a relationship with Jesus. For the first year or more of Dad's pastorate he instructed the worship leader to include one specific song in almost every service. That song was entitled "God Loves People" I can still hear the chorus in my head. The lyrics were:
God loves people more than anything
God loves people more than anything
More than anything He wants them to know
He'd rather die than let them go
Cause God loves people more than anything
After a year of wearing this song out, we finally convinced Dad to please stop making us sing it. At the time I was sick of hearing it. But, the message stuck. God really does love people more than anything.
For the past couple of weeks my thoughts have turned back to that powerful truth. I've been listening to Jesus Culture's perfomance of the song "How He Loves Us" (check out the youtube here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoC1ec-lYps) which really drives home the intensity of the love of God.
Every Christian is familiar with John 3:16 - For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life (NLT). We can quote it robotically. But how often do we stop to think about the impact of that verse? God loves each individual person that has ever lived so much that he sacrificed his own Son in order to rescue them. That means God radically loves my neighbor, my realtor, my doctor, my friends. God radically loves each and every person that I come in contact with. God radically loves me.
That love should be life changing. That love should rearrange our priorities. Truthfully, that love should be life consuming. Paul says it best when he wrote that "For the love of Christ compels us because we are convinced that one died for all and therefore all died. And he died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again."
The love of God is pushing me. I want it to consume me. I want to know how wide, how long, how high and how deep it is. I want to experience it. I want to know it.
And I want to give it away.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Refining the Vision
So it's been a very busy couple of months. I'll probably write a lot more about what has transpired in our life in the last eight weeks in some future posts. Suffice it to say that God has really been stirring up my creativity and giving me some great insight into what he wants us to do here in Lexington.
For eight years now I've had a burden and a desire to plant a Spirit-empowered, life-giving church in Lexington, Kentucky. In my mind and heart I could see some of the end product of what I believe God wants LifeGate Church to become. I see thousands of people in Lexington coming to Christ. I see a house of prayer for all nations. I see a church that has a missions focus and an international impact. I see a multiplying church that plants other churches in Kentucky, the U.S. and eventually around the world. I see a training church that raises up leaders for the Body of Christ. I have a lot of big picture ideas and dreams from the Lord. My problem has been that I'm not sure how to get from our living room Bible study to where I sense God is taking us.
For the last two months I have been really challenged in this area and I've been asking God to give us some inspiration. Jesus said that the principles of prayer are pretty simple, "Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be open to you." After having what seemed like writer's block for nine months, the floodgates of inspiration and creativity have opened. The vision that God is giving me for how LifeGate will function is simple. Basically, we're going to build a house (spiritually speaking) that will look something like this:
Foundation - This is the first and most important thing that you do when constructing something. The depth and strength of the foundation will determine how high and how large the building will be. The foundation for LifeGate church is found in Matthew 22:37 - "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." Our foundation is going to be intimacy with Jesus, loving Him, expressed through prayer, passionate worship and the practice of spiritual disciplines. From that foundation, we're going to build four walls for ministry.
Reach - LifeGate is going to be focused on reaching non-Christians with the hope of the good news of Jesus Christ. The passion and purpose of Jesus was to seek and save the lost. The epistle of John tells us that whoever claims to be a Christian must walk as Jesus did. In other words, our purpose needs to line up with His. If there is anything that we can do to Reach non-believers, we are going to do it.
Renew - Paul tells us in Romans that we are not to conform any longer to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. LifeGate wants to not just reach the lost but to also make fully devoted, mature disciples of Jesus Christ. As a pastor said to me a couple of weeks ago, "We want a full-service church" where people can experience the freedom, purity, transformation, power and maturity that Christ intends for us to experience.
Refine - LifeGate will be a church focused on helping people refine their God-given gifts, talents and abilities in order to expand the kingdom of God. We will train leaders who will impact their circles of influence with the message of Jesus Christ.
Reproduce - The Great Commission (Matt 28:18-20) instructs us to Go and Make Disciples. Jesus tells us to teach these disciples to obey everything that He has commanded us to do. I believe that first and foremost among those commands of Jesus is to go and make other disciples. In other words, the process of disciplemaking should be self-sustaining and multiplying. LifeGate's goal will be to reproduce ministry regionally, nationally and internationally.
Relationships - No building is complete without a roof. The roof serves primarily to protect the interior of the building from the elements. We are not only to love God with everything that we have, we are to love our neighbor as ourself. God's word is clear that we are intended to serve him together with others in community. In doing so, we are protected and encouraged. LifeGate will be intentional about developing relationships among believers as we work together to advance the kingdom of God.
Psalm 127 reminds us that unless the Lord builds a house, those that build it are just wasting their time. I'm excited to see what God is going to do in building the house called LifeGate Church. More later.
For eight years now I've had a burden and a desire to plant a Spirit-empowered, life-giving church in Lexington, Kentucky. In my mind and heart I could see some of the end product of what I believe God wants LifeGate Church to become. I see thousands of people in Lexington coming to Christ. I see a house of prayer for all nations. I see a church that has a missions focus and an international impact. I see a multiplying church that plants other churches in Kentucky, the U.S. and eventually around the world. I see a training church that raises up leaders for the Body of Christ. I have a lot of big picture ideas and dreams from the Lord. My problem has been that I'm not sure how to get from our living room Bible study to where I sense God is taking us.
For the last two months I have been really challenged in this area and I've been asking God to give us some inspiration. Jesus said that the principles of prayer are pretty simple, "Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be open to you." After having what seemed like writer's block for nine months, the floodgates of inspiration and creativity have opened. The vision that God is giving me for how LifeGate will function is simple. Basically, we're going to build a house (spiritually speaking) that will look something like this:
Foundation - This is the first and most important thing that you do when constructing something. The depth and strength of the foundation will determine how high and how large the building will be. The foundation for LifeGate church is found in Matthew 22:37 - "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." Our foundation is going to be intimacy with Jesus, loving Him, expressed through prayer, passionate worship and the practice of spiritual disciplines. From that foundation, we're going to build four walls for ministry.
Reach - LifeGate is going to be focused on reaching non-Christians with the hope of the good news of Jesus Christ. The passion and purpose of Jesus was to seek and save the lost. The epistle of John tells us that whoever claims to be a Christian must walk as Jesus did. In other words, our purpose needs to line up with His. If there is anything that we can do to Reach non-believers, we are going to do it.
Renew - Paul tells us in Romans that we are not to conform any longer to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. LifeGate wants to not just reach the lost but to also make fully devoted, mature disciples of Jesus Christ. As a pastor said to me a couple of weeks ago, "We want a full-service church" where people can experience the freedom, purity, transformation, power and maturity that Christ intends for us to experience.
Refine - LifeGate will be a church focused on helping people refine their God-given gifts, talents and abilities in order to expand the kingdom of God. We will train leaders who will impact their circles of influence with the message of Jesus Christ.
Reproduce - The Great Commission (Matt 28:18-20) instructs us to Go and Make Disciples. Jesus tells us to teach these disciples to obey everything that He has commanded us to do. I believe that first and foremost among those commands of Jesus is to go and make other disciples. In other words, the process of disciplemaking should be self-sustaining and multiplying. LifeGate's goal will be to reproduce ministry regionally, nationally and internationally.
Relationships - No building is complete without a roof. The roof serves primarily to protect the interior of the building from the elements. We are not only to love God with everything that we have, we are to love our neighbor as ourself. God's word is clear that we are intended to serve him together with others in community. In doing so, we are protected and encouraged. LifeGate will be intentional about developing relationships among believers as we work together to advance the kingdom of God.
Psalm 127 reminds us that unless the Lord builds a house, those that build it are just wasting their time. I'm excited to see what God is going to do in building the house called LifeGate Church. More later.
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