Vision Thoughts

Another Sunday has come and gone, and so has another chance to reach out through our services to those who need Jesus. We had a good couple of services, and better attendance! A rise in attendance figures on one of the biggest “vacation” weekends of the summer is just awesome!!

I continue to be so excited about what God is doing, but MORE excited about what He is going to do through the UC!! Our calling is to bring the awesome news of Jesus Christ to the unchurched of our area through a dynamic, creative, cutting edge and contemporary vision. I’ll be the first to admit, we’ve not hit on all those “cylinders” like we should – but, we’re working hard to do that. It’s what God gave me the vision to do quite a while back and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure we accomplish this.

What really excites me is when we saw 14 people go through the waters of baptism a few weeks back proclaiming they are now on Jesus’ team…and we only launched in January!! That just pumps me up…and I want to see MORE of that.

To do that, we MUST remain focused on the vision. Ours is not a vision of having a “country club” of members who do nothing more than sit around and talk about how “God is so good to us”, and “what we want God to do for us”. YES…God does do great things for us!! BUT, our vision is one of taking people and focusing them on the people who are NOT in church…letting those people know what God can do for THEM!

Sure, we can all gather together and pray for the salvation of the nation and the world…but…if we don’t get out there and DO it, we’re just babbling. Yes, we need to pray for the salvation of others…but, Jesus told us to GO and make disciples – and we are going to be a church that does just that.

I’m in a renewed effort of making sure we’re all on the right track of doing this. Our staff is looking forward to our planning retreat coming in just a couple of weeks. I am praying for God to lay on our hearts just EXACTLY what He wants us doing for the next year at the UC. And it’s going to be my job to make sure it lines up with the vision He gave us for this church.

At the risk of sounding redundant, everything will be put through the filter of, “is it DYNAMIC, CREATIVE, CUTTING EDGE, CONTEMPORARY?” If it’s not, we’ll revise the idea and make any changes we need to make to do what God has called this church to do and to be.

I’m so pumped even thinking about it, because I know it’s going to be something that will reach people who aren’t in church for one reason or the other. We’re going to reach people that others don’t want!

There are those vision detractors who say things like, “when are we going to have some deeper teaching?”…”I need to be fed more.” To those I say, YES…we will offer ways to go deeper in God’s Word through Connect Groups, special Bible studies and more intimate worship formats in services outside of Sundays. We have those things on the drawing board – we’re still only 6 months old. BUT, here’s the thing… you’ve got what you need to go deeper – the Bible!! Open it up…it’s a virtual buffet where everything on the menu is available to consume!! If someone has a question about what you’re reading, we’re here to help you!

It just kills me when someone who’s been a “Christian” for a number of years tells me they need to be fed. Dude, even a two-year old child will grab food and stuff it in his mouth if it’s put in front of him. If you attend UpRising Church and don’t have a Bible, you let me know and we’ll get you one! Then you can go feast!!!

The point I’m trying to make here is simple…we just are not a church that will promote “spiritual obesity” – someone who comes in and sits and only feeds and does nothing to serve or reach out.  For those people we would say, we love you…but we are going to need your seat for those who are willing to invest, be involved and invite…as well as be fed!

Those of us at the UC need to remember, we MUST get out among those who are unchurched. No, we’re not “of” the world, but we are in it and must do what we can to take as many people to Heaven as is physically possible!! We want to make it extremely hard to go to hell from Nashville and surrounding areas!!

There are all kinds of ways to do this. One way is to stop trying to hook up with the same few people from church to have lunch after services, and look for NEW people…first-time guests…and ask them to lunch! You can always meet unchurched people by just opening your eyes and looking for them. You wonder why I’m at places like Starbucks so much…c’mon…it’s a virtual harvest field there!!! You go to the Y to work out…open your eyes! And by the way, it does no good for us to go to these places and not take some kind of action to speak with someone or to leave an invite card.

At UpRising Church, we’re going to do all we can to turn this area upside down for Jesus. We want you with us!!

~ by Joe Case on July 9, 2007.