Last night a great group of people gathered to hear about the launch of a2 Church. Janet and I were so humbled by this turn out! Wow! Our house was literally jammed! So wild! So cool!
There was a lot of energy and excitement in the room, and we really believe that this meeting was the start of something really neat.
Over the next few days, I thought I would share a recap of the information we shared at our first Launch Team Meeting.
So here’s a go… If you have additional questions, shoot me an email at cgoins@a2church.org or post a comment…
Matthew 28:18-19 (NIrV), Then Jesus came to them. He said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 So you must go and make disciples of all nations…”
Jesus didn’t say, “You guys stay home and form a little holy huddle where you can take care of yourselves and send other people out; where you can pay money to have someone else go.” Jesus said, “You must go…”
From the outset, a2 Church will be a church that GOES… Sometimes we’ll fly. Sometimes we’ll try. Sometimes we’ll make mistakes. Sometimes we will fail spectacularly. But one thing is for sure: we will always GO!
Matthew 9:35-37 describes a story where Jesus GOES out and walks around the towns and villages in Galilee. Verse 35 gives us a beautiful description of Jesus’ heart…
Matthew 9:35 (NIV), When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
I love that! Jesus didn’t get mad at the crowds… He didn’t judge them because their lives were so jacked up. Jesus had “COMPASSION on them.”
Here’s an important question: If Jesus walked the streets of our city, how do you think He would feel? What would He see? What would He say?
Do you think Jesus would say:
“You know, people in the greater Birmingham Metropolitan Area, you guys eat really, really well. You have great BBQ. You are incredibly religious! Over all, you have great jobs. You have a pretty stable economy. You really value family. You have incredible marriages and healthy homes. You are really moral and pristinely pure. In fact, you’re so well off, you don’t need me… So I think I’ll go to some other part of the world where people have hearts that are empty, lives that are broken and they’re desperate for God… You guys don’t really need me. You pretty much have life figured out.”
Do you think Jesus would say that? I don’t think so! I think if Jesus walked the streets of this city His HEART would BREAK.
One of the big problems in the American church is that we fail to see our communities as a mission field. But there are people in your community who feel “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd,” and when God sees these people His heart breaks. He has compassion.
Matthew 9:37 (NIrV), Then Jesus said to his disciples, “The harvest is huge."
Some translations read: “The harvest is plentiful…” or “The harvest is great…” In other words, the need is enormous!
With a need so enormous you almost expect Jesus to say something like, “Hey guys… The situation is hopeless… The job’s too big… After all, what can one carpenter with twelve followers possibly do…”
But that’s not what He says… Jesus says….
Matthew 9:37 (NIrV), “The harvest is huge. But there are only a few workers. 38 So ask (PRAY) the Lord of the harvest to send workers out into his harvest field.”
This is where it starts… It starts with sincere and earnest prayer that God will raise up workers… And one of my major prayers these days is that God will RAISE UP WORKERS who can turn the vision of a2 into a reality
Have you ever seen the movie Field of Dreams? It’s a modern classic. There’s a line in the movie when Kevin Costner’s character is given an assignment to build a baseball field… A mystic voice speaks to Costner and says, “If you build it, they will come…”
Sometimes that idea gets perpetuated in the church… There’s this idea, “If we just do something, unchurched people will come… In fact, they’ll BREAK DOWN THE DOORS to get in…”
But that’s not the way it works. It usually starts with ONE PERSON who loves and knows Jesus who makes a decision to reach out and love and care for somebody who doesn’t know Jesus and help them take the FIRST STEP…
That’s the way it will most likely work with a2…
Here’s the question: Will you take responsibility to reach out to a friend, family member, neighbor, co-worker, acquaintance, the person who works in the check out line at Wal Mart, the gal who works the desk at the gym and share the love of God?
I really believe God is wanting us to view our world the same way Jesus viewed His world: “When he saw the people, He had COMPASSION…”
Well, that's the first installment in our overview of a2's first Launch Team Meeting... Tomorrow we'll continue this series of posts...
How about you? How's your heart these days? When you look at the jacked up people in your world, does your heart break? Are you filled with compassion?
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