“That’s the people I have been looking for sooooo long time, so I think I’m lucky to join your church!”

“I think I need learn about God from you, your church, in the future i will always take part in the activities of your church! Thanks for choosing me to join!”

“I could say that I always think about the question : Who i am? Why I live in the world, So when you were talking about it, suddenly it seems like the Sunlight, warm wind, blows in my window heart, No one answered me before”

“…he will give the gift to you, that’s Grace!”

If only we could all be as excited about Jesus as we were in the first days of our relationship with him!

I am in awe to 500+ salvations in one week at churches like Newspring in South Carolina and Elevation Church in North Carolina. I am in awe of churches like Central Christian in Las Vegas baptizing 3000 people in a single day!!!!! This is nuts!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This…..this….looks like, like……well…..the book of Acts!

And I am so tired of a generation of Christians who are criticizing such moves of God because they are too busy worrying about the audio levels of their Sunday morning church service and the audacity of the outside-unChristian -world believing something other than the Bible. I am so tired of Christians who expect the fish outside of the tank to look like the fish inside of the tank before they ever come in—-the tank.

Friends, Christianity is beginning- once again- to spread around the world like wildfire; and WE NEED TO PUT DOWN OUR HOSES!!! And we need to start fanning the flames- not only with prayer, but with our words and with our actions with the outside world.

(Building Block #2) Vision- Who We Are

“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.”

-Proverbs 29:18 (KJV)

With our Mission in focus, it is crucial that we are given a vision of how it will be accomplished and what it will look like as we accomplish it.

It is so true what King Solomon wrote in Proverbs nearly 3,000 years ago! Without vision, the people will perish. Other Bible translations say the people ‘will be unrestrained’. We need a vision to aim for, to hope for, and to dream of as we are taking part in the mission. If we don’t have one, we will have nothing to unite us together and nothing to keep us on mission- we will perish.

We choose our Vision Statement to be the ultimate description of ‘who we are’ in Christ and ‘who we desire to be’. This vision is our slogan- our battle cry! It is our intent that it would define us to those who encounter our people or something with our name or logo on it.

And just like the Gospel, like Jesus, and like our Mission; our Vision should never change, only our plans or our methods.

Sam Walton

Sam Walton’s, the founder of Walmart, Vision Statement for Walmart from the beginning was, “Providing value to the customer in order to make people’s lives better.” And his vision never changed. Plans came and went. Methods were constantly changed. New and creative ideas were always experimented with, but the vision stayed the same and the company was and is successful because of it.

Big Fish, Little Tank:

Without Vision; our boundaries, our boarders, and our bowls are too small. Without Vision; we will never grow to our fullest potential to reach the lost for Christ. We will be shooting into the dark with no target to aim for.

Big Fish Little Tank Continued

Without having a Vision or even simply having a small Vision; it is almost as if you have an anti-Vision: a limit that you place on yourself or your organization of how far you will go and how large you will grow- the answer to which is very little or not at all.

In a very small bowl, a goldfish will not grow to its largest possible size. In a large bowl, the goldfish has great potential to reach his largest possible size. Because there he has room to grow; he can see a greater distance in which he can travel and at some genetic level his body will know how large he can get.

Often times as a church, we shoot ourselves in the foot. Too often, we are like the large goldfish in the small bowl. When people ask us about our church, we say things like, “it’s a little church behind Les Schwab” or, if you’re more religious, “we’re a small body of Believers who are faithful with what God has given us.” But if you say that we are small when you are telling others about our church, often what they hear is,” we’re too small for you”, “we don’t want to grow”, or “we don’t want you here with us.” And if you say that we are a small body of faithful Believers; what you are really saying is that your relationship with Jesus is something that is personal and something to horde jealously to yourself. The truth is that you cannot be faithful unless you are being FRUITFUL.

But if we had Vision for this church; who we could be and where the Lord could take us, then we would have great unlimited room to grow and faith in God to see it through.

So in response to our Mission Statement, our Vision Statement is:

“Our Vision is to be a Community of Grace, Love, and Hope.”

We choose this Vision Statement because:

- We are (and we will strive to be) a community, a people, of Grace. Grace is when you get exactly what you don’t deserve. Grace is what God has given us. When we absolutely did not deserve it God gave us His Son as a living sacrifice to live a life that we could not live, to die a death we deserved to die, and to rise from the grave to conquer sin and death so that we can have an everlasting relationship with Him.

Grace is what we choose to offer those in our community- welcoming them with open arms regardless of who they are or what they have done into the new life that Christ offers them.

- We are (and we will strive to be) a community, a people of Love. Love is what you do to show someone how much they are worth. God is Love. In Love, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. God loved us first and because of that, we choose to Love Him and the community around us.

- We are (and we will strive to be) a community, a people of Hope. Hope is something that we can assuredly look forward to. Our Hope is found in Christ. The Hope we have is that someday Jesus Christ is returning to restore His creation to perfection, to rid the world of sin and death, and to

Why We Choose This Vision Statement Continued, Hope

forever have fellowship with and reign over those He has saved. We choose to live out this blessed Hope in our lives so that all those we come into contact with can be impacted by it.

With a beautiful God-sized Vision such as this; there is no limit to what God could do through this church for our community if, and only if, we are willing to live out such a radical Vision-based lifestyle.

This brings us to our next Building Block:

Let’s talk about your experience at local establishments.

What motivates you to visit a new restaurant or store?

What are some things you might do before visiting, to make sure that you will visit?

Upon visiting, what are the first things that you notice?

What are other important factors during your visit that you take in?

What is the most important thing to you during your visit?

What will make you return?

What would make you never return?

What would make you tell a friend about this business, or invite them to visit it with you?

This is the Reality of Church in Our Culture As Well:

If a mattress store, who sells MATTRESSES, puts forth great amounts of money, creativity, effort, sweat and tears in order to get a customer to come in, buy a MATTRESS, tell their friends, and come back; we too as a church need to be serious and intentional about how the public perceives us, how we market the Gospel, how we receive people when they join us, how we present the Gospel to them, how we can get them to come back, and how we can get them to invite their friends to come check us out!!!!!!

Culture always changes. New cultures always emerge. Old ways of doing things always die out.

Christianity has always made attempts to keep their message the same, while changing their methods in order to keep up with culture and to reach it. Sometimes this is done with great success; sometimes it is not.

The early Church was very good at this. The Apostle Paul used philosophies, religion, and art from the cultures he visited in order to win them for Christ and plant new churches within the area. Because of his efforts, we are here today. The early Church adopted the rhythms of pagan holidays and replaced them with new holidays to reflect the core doctrines of the Christian faith, so that people could be reached. And because of pioneers like Martin Luther, the printing press was used to distribute Scripture into the hands of the common person so that the religious establishment could no longer lord it over people.

Today revolutionaries of the faith are utilizing the internet, social networking, secular music, podcasting, mobile phone applications, and controversial culturally relevant preaching to reach the lost in huge ways not seen for generations.

We become so inward focused, that it’s hard to know what to do when someone new wanders into the tank.

We’ve created our own sub-culture in the tank that the new fish we are trying to catch cannot relate to.

While the early Christian Church adopted cultural practices of the ancient Roman and Jewish worlds to catch new fish for Christ and ultimately let Christ transform them, we have expected the fish outside of our tank to adopt to the culture of our tank before they are welcomed and can be transformed by Christ.

This is the exact opposite of the Biblical approaches of evangelism by Jesus and His early followers. And it is the exact opposite practice of Christians in countries where Christianity is spreading like wildfire and churches in America where new believers are being welcomed into the Kingdom in astronomical numbers and revival is happening.