Long before opening day of Life Bridge Christian Church, we were prayed for by people over a ten year time span. They prayed for God’s timing. They prayed for God’s leadership. They prayed for God’s provision. God answered all of those prayers with a resounding, “Yes,” so that the timing was 2003, the original leaders were called from Ohio, Oklahoma, and Indiana, and the money was provided to begin services open to the public on September 28, 2003. Two hundred people attended on that day. God had faithfully provide all three (wisdom on timing, leadership, and financial resources) ever since.
These past weeks and months, I have shared a new vision to empower one million to walk together with God. This vision, while it hasn’t frightened anyone away, is one that can take some time to wrap our minds around. It requires “outside the box” thinking, planning, and, of course, lots and lots of prayer. Starting today, we are going to start to look at how this kind of vision is going to be implemented at Life Bridge and then in other places around Indiana, Chicagoland, and, eventually, across the United States. (We won’t be able to empower one million right here in Porter County. There aren’t close to that many people living here!)
In order to understand the vision, we need to give ourselves a “blank slate” when it comes to our perception of God’s Church. We have so many pictures in our minds about Church that it will be really hard to hit the “reset button.” But, with a little help, I am confident that we can “completely erase and clean the whiteboard” and start all over again. (Yes, I know I just used three different metaphors in one paragraph. I’m counting on your grace. 
When Jesus walked the face of the earth as one of us, he never built a large church – at least not in his lifetime. He didn’t build any church buildings. He never wrote his own translation of the Bible. In fact, as far as we know, he didn’t write anything down (except in the sand). Jesus did, however, train up a group of people who carried his message to new people, made disciples of all nations, and fundamentally changed the world. He empowered people to empower people to walk together with God. This is what we are going to set out to do as well.
When we study Jesus’ teaching style, leadership training course, and vision casting, it can get really confusing for us today. He trained is disciples to make other disciples. Not only that, he showed them how to make disciples who would make more disciples. He didn’t train them, however, on how to build the perfect church building. He didn’t talk to them, as far as we know, about the right kind of worship music to sing. He didn’t tell them to do financial capital campaigns and his teachings on finances were even different from those found in the Old Testament. We get confused when we try to learn from Jesus because it doesn’t match our experiences with His Church today. So, we need to erase and start all over again.
When Jesus first approached Peter and Andrew, they were out in their boats fishing. He told them, “Come, follow me…and I will send you out to fish for people" (Matthew 4:19 [NIV]). That’s what they did: followed him. That’s what he did, too: sent them to fish for people. The rest, as they say, is history.
Over the next several weeks, we are going to start writing on a blank slate, playing a new game, and drawing on our cleaned whiteboard. We will be looking at the Church through the eyes of Jesus, his priorities, his process, and his results. As we look at his approach to building disciples who build disciples, we will learn the priorities and process we can implement still today. We will also learn to track our progress in ways that match up with his priorities and process. As we do, we will learn how to make disciples who make disciples as well. We will learn how to empower one million to walk together with God.
No comments:
Post a Comment