Going Viral!

With the Inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of The United States On Tuesday we witnessed the culmination of a 2 year campaign to relentlessly use social networking and to harness the power of the internet in an unprecedented way. President Obama successfully used viral networking to get his message of “change you can believe in” to millions of Americans and then rode the technological wave all the way to the White House. Using websites Such as Facebook, Myspace, and Youtube, and other technological tools such as email, text messaging, and instant messaging, President Obama’s campaign, the most technologically savvy is history, went viral and built an interconnected, grassroots following that was committed to putting him in office.
If a political campaign can ride the wave of “social networking” and “viral marketing” all the way to the White House, then the people of God must learn how to harness that power in order to advance the Kingdom of Heaven. When the church was still in its infancy, Paul used everything that the culture had to offer to spread the gospel message to an unbelieving world. In Athens Paul used cultural symbols and quoted popular philosophers in an attempt to share the good news. When God sent him to the gentile world Paul used all the cutting-edge technology at his disposal (boats) to sail to distant ports and take the gospel with him. If the church is going to be effective in ever-changing technological world we must learn to effectively use the cutting-edge mediums available to us.
As a Christian I believe that God has called me to go and make disciples, just as Jesus first called his followers to go and make disciples, and he has been calling all Christians to go and make disciples ever since. But maybe the go for me and for Jacob’s Well will take us to places that we have never gone before, maybe it will take us to cyberspace, to social networking websites like Facebook and Youtube. Maybe, just maybe the great commission for us for today isn’t simply a cal to go, perhaps it is a call to “Go Viral!”

Hope We Can Believe In

January 20, 2009

What does the inauguration of Barak Obama as our 44th president mean to you? Are you more optimistic about the future? Are you more hopeful? More than at any other time in my life it seems that the younger generations have been invigorated by a wave of optimism. Despite bleak economic forecasts as well as difficulties both at home and abroad, many who once thought that political involvement was only for other people are finally getting involved and are starting to believe that maybe they too can have a seat at the table. No matter what your political leanings, I think that you will agree that this is good for America. It is good for people to have hope, to believe that they can make a difference.

I believe that people long to live lives of significance, people want to believe that what they say, think, and do matters. I believe that if we as the church want to impact the younger generations we need to take this lesson to heart. We need to learn to listen, James 1:19 implores us to be quick to listen and slow to speak. All too often we as Christians think that we have all the answers, so we forget to listen to the questions. We forget that Jesus values people as much as he values truth. When he encountered the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, he listened to what she had to say, he didn’t simply start blurting out truth, he responded to her concerns and then gave her a glimpse of hope. If there is anything that we can learn from the inauguration of President Obama today it is that we need to learn to listen to those whom we hope to reach, to make sure that they feel heard and then we can share real hope that they can believe in.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! 2008 is now behind us and 2009 lies ahead. This is a pivotal year in the life of our new baby church. In a few weeks we will have our first “preview” service. There is so much possibility yet so much fear and anxiety. What will it look like? Will people like it? Will people come? These are all questions that are yet to be answered, but they are not the most important questions. The most important question that we must ask is: “How will we lift up and exalt Jesus?” Whatever happens with Jacob's Well the most important thing is that Jesus is glorified.

Jesus is the whole reason that Jacob’s Well exists, He is the reason that I want to start a new church and I hope that He is the reason that people will come check us out. Our plan is not to become the next mega-church, it is not to become the most trendy place to be on a Sunday morning, it is not to be a place where we come and feel good about ourselves for attending church. No! Jacob’s Well is going to be a place where people live life together, in community, seeking to live like Jesus lived - knowing God, loving people and transforming lives.

As we embark on a new year it is my hope and prayer that we will conciously and intentionally put Jesus first. At Jacob's Well we talk about being a "missional" church, to us that means that we live like missionaries in our culture. We are missionaries in our neigborhoods, we are missionaries in our workplaces, we are missionaries in our schools. Everywhere we go we need to see our primary goal as knowing Jesus and making him known to others.

As we embark on this new year, I want to invite you to join me in resolving to lift up and exalt Jesus in all things - to live missionally in 2009. I want to challenge you to start a top-10 list! Start by picking 10 people you know who don't yet know Jesus and commit to praying for them every day. If you don't know 10 people who don't know Jesus start with 5 or however many you know and then be intentional about building relationships with these unchurched neigbors, co-workers, and classmates. Next I want you to spend time with these people, invest yourself in them, get to know them, love them the way Jesus loves people, take them out for lunch or for a cup of coffee, share your life with them. Finally, I want you to invite them to join you for church, or a bible study, or have a dinner party for them and some of your Christian friends. Do whatever you can to expose them to Christian Community where you and others can be transformational in their lives.

My Story

I grew up in a Christian home going to church every week, sometimes more than once a week, but by the time I became a teenager I had become disillusioned with church. It no longer seemed relevant to my life. I realized that most of the people I knew in church were fake, they pretended that everything in their life was ok when clearly it wasn’t. My perception was that for most people it was more important to look good than to do good, and it wasn’t ok to struggle or have problems, so if you did have problems you had better cover them up as quickly as possible. I learned that Christianity was more about appearances than substance so by the time I was old enough to drive a car I pretty much dropped out of church. I would still go occasionally to appease my parents but in my mind church was irrelevant!

It wasn’t until college that I discovered what Christian Community is supposed to be like. About my 4th year of school I had started attending church again so that I could meet women, but what I found instead was a group of guys that were authentic, genuine and real, they cared about me and were willing to invest their lives in mine. They didn’t care about my past or my struggles they just encouraged me to love and serve Jesus. I have discovered that this is a rare quality, even in Christian circles.
My dream for Jacob’s Well is that we will become a people who really care about one another. That as Christ-followers we will learn to live like Jesus, not just study his teachings. At Jacob’s Well we say that we are about Knowing God, Loving People and Transforming Lives. I believe that this is done when we not only study and teach the Bible, but when we put it into practice. At Jacob’s Well we are all about Jesus, we believe that he is God, that he became a man so that he could seek and save sinful people like you and me, that he died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins and that by trusting in him we can have eternal life. Jesus calls people who believe in him to become his disciples or followers. As followers of Jesus we want to do what he did, to know God, love people and transform lives.

Jesus knew God the father intimately, he spent time studying the Old Testament scriptures, praying and worshiping God. In the same way as his followers we want to get to know God intimately to study and know the bible to pray frequently and to worship intensely. As a church we will do this both individually and corporately as a community. We will preach straight through books of the Bible so that we can better know and understand God’s Word. We will gather together for prayer and for worship where our focus is directed on Jesus and not on ourselves.

Jesus loves people, our name Jacob’s Well comes from a story where Jesus met a Samaritan woman at a place called Jacob’s Well, she was an outcast in her own community, yet Jesus broke all the cultural rules of the day to accept her and to reach out in love and give her hope. At Jacob’s Well people of all cultural, ethnic and spiritual backgrounds are welcome to come experience the love of God without fear of rejection or ridicule. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you have done or where you have been, we believe that God accepts you as you are and loves you more than you can imagine.

Jesus also transforms lives. The Bible tells us that Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost and that he came to serve not to be served. Through his entire ministry Jesus was in the business of helping and serving people and pointing them to the truth that would change their lives. The Samaritan woman at the Well was transformed by her encounter with Jesus, no longer was she the rejected outcast who had to walk to the well alone in shame, now she was a redeemed child of God who was loved and cherished by Jesus. At Jacob’s Well we want to see lives transformed by an encounter with a holy and loving God. We will follow Jesus by intentionally seeking and serving those who do not yet know him. We consider this a great privilege and solemn responsibility that has been entrusted to us. Jesus is still seeking and saving the lost, but now he is using the church as his hands and feet.

Goodbye Gateway

Yesterday I said goodbye to a good friend! Gateway Community Church has been my church home for nearly 2 ½ years. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as her pastor. In my time at Gateway I have forged many wonderful friendships and I have had the privilege of serving alongside a number of godly men and women. I think I will always look back on my days at Gateway with joy and fondness.

While it is sad to say goodbye, I am excited that though Gateway will close as it currently exists, it isn’t the end. Today marks the beginning of a new era in the life of my church as we prepare to relaunch as Jacob’s Well early next year. While it is sad to say goodbye and it is especially hard, knowing that some of the relationships that have been forged will never be the same because some people whom I have grown to love will no longer be a part of my church family. I still must focus on what God wants to do through us at Jacob’s Well. In Philippians 3:13-14 Paul said: “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Through this process God has impressed upon me the fact that it is all about him, It is all about Jesus. We must always stay focused on him no matter what. God has a plan and if we are faithful he will reveal that plan to us piece by piece, we may not see the whole picture but we will always know the next step as long as we always press on toward the goal for the prizr of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus!