Many of you missed the opening of our purpose series entitled Transforming Relationships because you were on a ladies retreat. You can hear the message here. In a joyous coincidence, Laura Johnson talked to our ladies about true community as sisters in the Lord - in other words, transforming relationships.
Recently, after many hours of work emerging from our surveys earlier this year, we have refreshed our purpose statement as a church.
Purpose: Discipleship through relationship
Grace Community Church exists to shape lifelong followers of Jesus Christ through transforming relationships.
To make this our purpose means that this is everything to our ministry. This is who we are, and what we are about. This is our mission. It is the mission Christ gave his church in his final words to us (Matthew 28:18-20). If we fail at this, we fail altogether. If we do other things great, but miss this, we have missed the mark. It should affect how we do other important things. It’s everybody’s job even if some of us have unique responsibilities.
Relationships are the soil of true discipleship. To know the teaching of Christ would take perhaps a one semester college course. Master the content, pass the test, and presto! You know Christ’s teaching.To know him experientially, to love Him passionately, to experience Him regularly, and to obey him out of love - this takes a lifetime. And it takes the intimate involvement of other Christ followers in our lives. It’s nearly impossible to be transformed without relationships that transform us! Jesus commanded his disciples to teach new disciples to obey all of his commands. Knowing the commands is not enough! Teaching obedience requires that we are growing ourselves, and can point others to resources to help them grow.
Are we just talking about small groups? Is this just a new way of saying everybody needs a small group? Not exactly. There are men in our church who meet together outside of any group structure, and relate to one another in a way that encourages their love of Christ, their faithfulness to their families, and their witness in the world. Small groups can be a source of transformation. Sometimes they are just a bible study, or just a social group with prayer at the end.
It may not mean that we change everything we do at Grace. After all, this is just a refocus and refresh of our vision. Thinking about this with more intentionality could change how we do various things at Grace. It will influence how we train future small group leaders. It may change some of our model for adult education. We hope it will infect all of our thinking so that all of us are looking for ways to connect people we meet with believers whose friendships will influence them to follow him.
I look forward to talking to you about this in the coming months. There will be opportunities to hear from your elders, and to interact and respond!
In Him,
Don