Once upon a time there was a guy who enjoyed the endless great times he had at his church. It was so great being with those that were into his church like he was into his church. It was so powerful, and the spirit fell every time they met. The outpouring was intense and they were all full and overflowing, and as it overflowed out of each of them it would splash out on to all the others. They were living the blessed times of spiritual saturation. Then one day this great guy decided to leave his church and go to a place where no one was really into church or the spirit moving. It was tough on him but he was committed to taking the great times he had experienced, and the truth about God, and the truth about people to this new place where he would make the commitment of his life. Well you guessed it. The guys name is Jesus. The church location was Heaven. And the place he went to was Earth.
Wow, what a mission he not only started but gave his life for. So here’s my question, why do we exist as the church? I mean whether you’ve just had your 50th anniversary as a church, or you’re a brand new church plant the answer should be the same. And it’s the example given to us by Jesus. We should exist for those who are not yet a part of us. That’s what Jesus started. He left his church, heaven, came to earth, walked right by the religious temple and strait to Mathew’s house to hang out, have dinner, and be an influence in a setting where he was an outsider.
There’s a thought God put in my heart about 5 years ago and I’ve been trying to figure out how to live it out in my everyday life, and coach those on my team to do the same ever since. It goes like this, “If you win them to yourself, you can win them to your God”. If ya think about it, this is the example Jesus left us. To the un-churched world he won people to Jesus “the man” by feeding the hungry, healing their sick, meeting them where they thought their need was. And because he loved people with no agenda other than he just loved them, they were won over to Jesus “the God” where he met their spiritual needs he knew they had, repentance, forgiveness, salvation.
Don’t get me wrong I strongly believe in caring, nurturing, and blessing the church body. But we must have our priorities in place, because having them upside down leave’s us taking good care of ourselves and having no impact on the Godless world Jesus gave his life for. The need for caring, nurturing, and blessing the church should be the by-product of being successful at the reason we exist. That reason is to make disciples of those who don’t have a relationship with Christ. We must have the same mindset of Paul in 1Cor. 9:19 understanding that we’re not called to just help people receive Jesus but to lead them in becoming disciples of Jesus, and that takes a whole lot of sacrifice, service, and time. We must as individuals be involved in our communities on an everyday, one to one, relational level if we are to ever have a voice and make an impact on the un-churched world we live in.
So take the “I’m engaging my culture and community test”.
Take out your cell phone, count how many names in your directory are people who don’t know Christ and have no church background, that live in your area.
If you came up with less than 3, hey no condemnation, but I sugest makeing a few changes in who and what you are in the world around you.
Helpful notes for the journey – pick one day a week and….SHUT DOWN THE OFFICE!!. Tell the entire staff to go hangout somewhere doing whatever they’re into doing. Make a friend in that setting. Don’t talk about church, God or religion. This will fit great with the un-churched, Godless people you meet. Talk about whatever they’re into. Computers, cars, TV shows, kids, sports, ect… just love them with no agenda, and as you win them to yourself, by giving yourself to them, in time (God only knows so don’t set a time table) you’ll win them to your God.
Critical notes for the journey – it’s a dirty world out there, so without fail keep your life pure. Keep your life in a daily state of brokenness, repentance, and humility before God. The lives you’ll encounter have a fall out of sin like the leaking nerve gas canisters from season five of “24”. Folks. I’m dead serious!! Listen, I live in Orange County. Ya know, the OC. You’ve seen the shows – “The O.C.”/ “Laguna Beach” / “The Real Housewives of Orange County”. Bleach white teeth, nip-tuck and augmentation for every body part imaginable. Yeh, those shows are pretty much how it really is. So how did a Kingsburg country boy and his high school sweet heart wind up here? Well at 44 with 4 kids, and two grandkids I have to say God only knows. But we’ve adapted well. As an avid surfer with a burnt leather tan, I’d say I was born to be here.
Well, after 25 years of being a youth pastor, God has sent Karen and I out to plant a church. WOW, we’ve been at it about 7 months and can I just say in the words of George Jetson (35+ to understand) “stop this crazy thing”. But no seriously, God has done some incredible miracles in the short time we’ve been together as http://www.experiencehb.com.
Here are a few
With only a few weeks time to prepare God gave us favor with the principle at Huntington Beach High School who bypassed two months of paper work and just like that, got us into his gym the next week to start our church.
We really needed a trailer because using three pick-ups to haul stuff around was getting old. So was storing the sound system, staging and café stuff in my house. So we started looking for an old trailer to haul it around in. our State Youth Director Sean O’Neal hooked us up with this good Christian brother who was in the trailer business and just like that, we had a brand new 16ft trailer built for about half price.
Two months into it the H.B. men’s basketball league needed the Sunday night time we were using in the gym, so we had to move. And just like that John from the Edison Community Center let us rent out the whole place on Sunday nights to have our Worship Gatherings. He was kind of unsure at first, but now he says we’re one of their best groups because we have a good attitude and we always leave it cleaner than we found it. Plus we both surf so even though he surfs Southside Pier, and I surf Bolsa Chica State Beach, we still have long conversations about swells, boards, water temp, and several other surf related topics.
When we first started we blessed by borrowing a sound and video system from Living Waters Christian Fellowship. We eventually had to give it back and just like that, Danny Maynard, Pastor of Liberty Temple and his drummer this great guy name Chuck gave us this sound system that belonged to Chuck. We added a few parts and we were back in business.
Some family, friends, and loved ones heard about our need and before you know it, just like that, we had collected $17,000 to go toward a new digital sound system, new projector and screen, and all the extra stuff to go with it. Now we have the smaller system from Chuck and Liberty Temple to use for our student ministry and outside events.
We’re blessed with 25 committed leaders that work harder and are more dedicated than anyone we’ve ever had on a team in our entire ministry. Most of them I might add are 25 years old or less, so that’s amazing. And what a perfect fit to have “The Stillness” band leading our worship. (Excellent job at Pacific Coast Winterfest this year by “The Stillness” I might add. http://www.myspace.com/thestillnessrock .) And just like that, we have the greatest opportunity of a life time ahead of us to advance the Kingdom of God.
Since our opening day we have received offerings for “The Anchor” church in northern California. A new church plant lead by our good friends Jesse and Kelly Rodriguez. Jesse was the quietest kid in one of our first youth groups back in the day, and just like that, he’s starting his own church. This great lesson of giving offerings away we were taught by Dan Moore and the leadership of LWCF.
Here’s some good words from two of our members…
Experience church has been a great blessing to me. The church and the leadership team have taught me a lot about the true meaning of a Christian and how to live my life. I spent many years running away from Christ and religion all together. I ran away from my Lutheran upbringing and I found myself in quite a few disconcerting circumstances. My life was heavily surrounded by drugs and violence. It started out just a few friends in the wrong crowd; my life quickly spiraled out of control. Everyday there was a new story of an acquaintance being sent to prison for various reasons. Soon, it was my close friends that needed to get bailed out, picked up from jail, rides to court, money for lawyers, or money on their books. I came home one night to see that my home had been raided by the swat team. Thirty men in gas masks had turned my house upside down. Come to find out that my phone had been tapped for months prior to that day. I had been putting myself and my family in danger for years. My life started the healing process when a work friend asked me to go to church with her. I went and have been attending Experience Church ever since. I can’t express how grateful I am for the people there and for how much they have enlightened me. They took me under their wing and befriended me. I thank God everyday for the people that he has surrounded me with. Experience Church has really changed my life around and I am growing as a Christian more every day.
I have learned a lot since going to the Experience Church of HB. I think the most important thing is my purpose is not just to fill myself with church and church activities everyday of the week and think that will make me holy. The most important thing is for me to be out and involved with people who are not already believers. We as Christians need to become what the world needs, not what we (Christians) need for us to feel good. So if we want to do what Christ did, then we need to go and build relationships and trust with sinners.
Well between our worship gathering on Sunday nights, our team meetings we have 3 nights a week at our house, our “Emerge” student ministry meeting in our house on Thursdays life is anything but boring. We also go down on Tuesday’s for “Surf City Nights” street fair on main street Huntington Beach where we hang out and ‘The Stillness” plays in the open air from time to time.
Well, let me be transparent as I write these final thoughts from my office – the Starbucks on main st. HB, far table in the back. This church plant stuff is like freshman year of high school. I mean I sometimes feel like I have no idea what I am doing or what I should be doing. I know this though; I will not fall back to just having great times at church with my great team and miss impacting my community for God. WRITE THIS DOWN, because it’s the foundational principle of Christ’s mission on earth. “Success to an emerging missional church in an emerging culture is measured primarily by pews, or chairs, or couches being filled up by un-churched; unsaved; ungodly people who are now living as disciples of Christ”. With that thought in mind, and a daily passionate pursuit for God, and a burning compassion for people, I wake up most mornings long before my alarm goes off to jump into my day. Unsure of myself, but most confident in God that he will lead Me, Karen, and the Experience church down the road he’s prepared for us. We’re all committed to do our part in fulfilling the mission on this earth that Jesus started 2000 years ago. And remember if it doesn’t all look clear to you now, sweet, you’re probably on the right track because, well it’s emerging, and if it looked familiar, you’d probably just be going in circles.
May God lead you on your journey
Grant
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Wow, what a mission he not only started but gave his life for. So here’s my question, why do we exist as the church? I mean whether you’ve just had your 50th anniversary as a church, or you’re a brand new church plant the answer should be the same. And it’s the example given to us by Jesus. We should exist for those who are not yet a part of us. That’s what Jesus started. He left his church, heaven, came to earth, walked right by the religious temple and strait to Mathew’s house to hang out, have dinner, and be an influence in a setting where he was an outsider.
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