Building People

It’s been an amazing journey to start a new congregation from a concept to now a group of people who are getting to know each other and value working together.  I can’t say enough about how GRACE has been a miracle in the making.  From the hearts of the musicians who are coming each week and bringing their friends to the super helpful feedback that I’m getting from businesspeople who are also bringing people, I’m watching God build HIS house.

I was privileged to be at a luncheon with Dr. Jack Hayford last Saturday.  One  of the comments that he made rang through my soul;  “Don’t build big churches, build big people”.  I loved it!  At GRACE, we want to help people be all that they can be in Christ!  For those who are skeptics, we want to help them understand why Jesus life is so profound it demands to be examined.  This also means for Christians that as we explore more of who Jesus was and IS TODAY, we can grow in amazing dimensions that we didn’t think imaginable.

I’m praying that we won’t be after big churches, but big people.  That’s how Jesus build 2000 years ago and I think that it has stood the test of time.   God help us to be the people that you want us to be.

Pastor Dave

A search for true spirituality

I’m struck by the recent flood of interest in spirituality. We see expressions of spirituality in television shows, movies and even the news. It seems that every other day I read another editorial or article that is railing against religion or the Church. I can relate. By the time I was 11, I decided that there was no God and that good and evil were a myth. That view of the world steered my life for the next decade. Then when I was confronted by the reality of God (that’s another story to be told) I switched from a materialist view of the earth to a Biblical one; a world that doesn’t ignore the elements of the earth , but adds the existence of God and Satan, angels and demons, right and wrong.

If that world wasn’t new enough, I also had to deal with the world of the Church. People who came together to share their lives and journey with Christ. It was an unusual world; a world of meetings, sermons, music, and more meetings. It was what I equated with following Jesus, and as someone who had recently encountered God and wanted to learn more about this God, I followed step.

Now I’ve been a follower of Christ for 27 years and a pastor of over 25 years. I’ve taken this Biblical world view to the hilt trying to find the edges. I’m finding that the horizons of the Kingdom of God keep expanding beyond what I can imagine. I’m more convinced about the reality of God of the Bible now than I was when I first turned to Christ.

The Church world has been a different story. I believe in the Church (I’m a pastor!).  I realize that the Church is God’s idea, not man’s. But my personal experiences have shown me that while Christ is infallible, the church is not.  I’ve ministered to too many people who have had bad experiences in the Church. One guy who is a major figure in the Evangelical Church even told me, “I had to leave my church to keep my faith”.

This is the kind of stuff that makes me stop and ask, “Well, what is the Church supposed to be?” I think that there needs to be a shift when it comes to the expressions of the Church in America.  We all need to take a hard look at the Church and ask the hard questions because I do believe that Christ has a bride that He is coming back for.  I’m don’t even pretend to have a handle on this issue. I just hope that this blog helps.