Serving Together

This morning we talked about how we all pitch in together. In the church, we each contribute our part, and God turns the whole thing into a wonderful instrument of his power. We shared about how every ministry is missional--that is, it advances the mission of the church, "to meet people where they are on their spiritual journeys and lead them to become fully devoted followers of Jesus."

This doesn't happen by accident. It happens by design. It's something we have to be intentional about. Instead of departments, our church is organized into ministries. Instead of committes, we have teams. What's the difference? Isn't it just semantics? No! A department selfishly hoards resources; a ministry selflessly serves others for a purpose. A committee discusses and decides what other people can and can't do; a team actually does it.

And all of our ministry teams are integrated into one seamless process that advances our mission:
We serve together on teams, and our teams serve together to advance the mission of the church. And now our church is going to be serving together with other churches to accomplish our vision "to become actively involved in planting new churches to reach the 100,000 people in Jackson County with no church family."

We'll be talking more about that next Sunday, but I'm really excited about this new direction that the vision is taking because it is an extention of this highly biblical principle that we are BETTER TOGETHER! God wants to bring his church together!

This 40 day focus on community is not a study about how we can just enjoy a great spiritual community for our own gratification (in fact, if that were the point, it would turn it into something other than a spiritual community!). Instead, we are partners with a purpose, a community with a cause, an organism with an objective. We are united by our mission, vision, and values, which is more powerful than anything that could ever divide us.

Today's Ministry Fair was a great opportunity to plug into service (and to eat Hinkley's Donut Holes!); I hope you didn't miss it! If you did, it's not too late. Send me an email and let me know what area of ministry you might want to help with, or if you don't have any idea, we can just start at square one and start talking about what might be a good fit for you. (And make sure you get to Hinkley's early--they're always busy!)