Showing posts with label GROW. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GROW. Show all posts

Monday, January 25, 2010

GROW


We're in the middle of a series called GROW at STORYCHURCH. In week one, we talked about a principle that Andy Stanley describes in his recent book "The Principle of the Path." It basically says "Direction, not intentions, determines your destination." In that first week, we set a vision for our church and the direction we want to go. We described what we believe is the abundant life Jesus is offering in the kingdom - available here and now, not just someday when we die.

This week, we tackled what I think is one of the most important things to consider if one wants to grow. That is, where you are planted matters more than anything else. Or, as we said - SOIL MATTERS. We talked about the importance of learning from someone else who is already experiencing the abundant life of Jesus. Our environment, the people around us really have a huge impact on what we become. So we looked at a guy named Lot from the book of Genesis - and his decision to plant himself in a place that ultimately led to him losing everything.

Now that we're going strong every week, it's pretty fun to be able to build from one week to the next. I'm looking forward to jumping in to some super practical stuff this next week.

Overall, our third service went really well. We're beginning to realize that we need more hands on deck - especially early in the morning for setup. We're starting to get a system down but it's still taking way too long. And that could easily be fixed with a few extra hands.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Week 2

Another amazing morning at Story Church. I seriously can't believe I get to do this. We did a pretty bold thing this week. In only our 2nd week as a church, we decided to call an audible this week and divert from our series "GROW" and tackle head on the suffering we are seeing in Haiti. I spent all week preparing for GROW part 2, but by Friday night I became convinced that we couldn't ignore what was happening in the world. I couldn't say "Hey, let's pray about Haiti, let's take a special offering, ok now back to doing our thing." So instead we talked about suffering and how we understand that in a world where God is supposed to be in control.

We acknowledged the question many of us were asking - "Where is God?" In the end, Scripture is so clear that God is with the suffering. He's on the side of the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, and the have-nots. As a church planter, I think I will look back to this week as a pivotal one for us. It was a week where we took a bit of a risk in order to make a pretty serious statement about our values and our vision as a church. Not many church plants I know have started by changing their plans in week two and addressing an issue like suffering. And no church I know has given away 100% of their offering like we did this week. I'm so proud of our church, the way they stepped up, caught a vision for proclaiming God's heart for the world, and responded with radical generosity. This day will stay with us for a long time.


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