Spiritual Development

This diagram comes from Gateway Church in Austin, TX. The pastor is also the author of "No Perfect People Allowed."

These are the steps of personal development. Love God first. Love people because you love God. Build character because you love God and you love people. Build Christ's Church because you love God, love people, and have grown in character. Simple. Clean.

Connecting

Great quote that ties to my previous post: "When two people connect...something is poured out of one and into the other that has the power to heal the soul of its deepest wounds and restore it to health...In recent days, I have made a shift. I am now working toward the day when communities of God's people, ordinary Christians whose lives regularly intersect, will accomplish most of the good that we now depend on mental health professionals to provide. And they will do it by connecting with each other in ways that only the gospel makes possible." - Dr. Larry Crabb

What a vision of the church! An admirable goal for Journey...

community concept

Nobody stands alone. What a great concept. I'm reading a book right now that talks about the concept of community, and the author's church has a policy...nobody stands alone. It's a literal policy and a figurative policy. Literally, they make sure that no one is left out of conversation and all people are made to feel connected at church. Figuratively, it's their philosophy to walk along side of people and ensure the concept of community through relationships, small groups, etc.

The book states, "If churches do not help connect people into the community of Christ in meaningful ways, then we have failed in the full ministry of [restoring authentic relationship] that the Lord has entrusted to us."

It's not our job...it's our ministry to make sure that nobody stands alone.

We need to embrace this now in the Core Team phase before we ever launch Journey to the public. We must engage each other now...not later.

Re:Discover

Here we go:

Journey...Re:Discovering Jesus Together

Mark and I will be playing with logo #1 from below and we'll let you know what we come up with.

On Tuesday, at 10:30 am, I have my interview with the committee for licensing. Pray for that. Also, pray for meetings with some of our contacts to happen...building and money.

Sunday, June 25th is the congregational information meeting. Please try to be there to show your support and to share input. Also, we'll meet as a core group that evening at 5:30 pm.

meeting schedule

We'll meet again this Sunday the 18th at 9:00 am. The following week, Sunday the 25th, we begin meeting in the evenings at 5:30. That same day, the 25th, there will be a congregational meeting at 9:00 am for St. Paul's to discuss the financial side of this church plant. Please plan to be there in support of Journey. I'll be updating the calendar page of the website so that you can check there for meetings and information.

Here are three logo concepts in no particular order. Please weigh in:

Tag line...

QUESTION: I was looking at the banner on our webpage and began to wonder...when someone reads "A Christian Community," will they understand that we're a church? I love the concept of community and I really wanted to stay away from the word "church," but will people understand that Journey is a church instead of a planned christian sub-division/housing development?

Please share your thoughts...

website

Here's the link to our new website. Take a look around and let me know what you think. Certainly some of the content will change as we continue to talk about what some of the components of the ministry will look like.

How's everyone coming on their books? Is anyone still in need of one? Just let me know...