A Vision-Centered Prayer for a2 Church

Father, I prayer that you would help a2 Church to…

GLORIFY and WORSHIP You lights out - above and over everything (Matthew 22:36-37; Colossians 3:17, 23; Malachi 1:6-14).

CREATE an atmosphere where broken people find healing, weary people find rest, discouraged people find hope, the outcast and loner finds acceptance and every one experiences transformation (Psalm 34:18; Isaiah 61:1-4; Matthew 11:28; Psalm 68:6; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Luke 5:30-32; 15; Matthew 18:14; 28:19-20).

SHARE the life-changing message of the gospel of Jesus with the thousands of un-churched and spiritually disconnected people in the greater Birmingham area (2 Thessalonians 3:1; Romans 1:16). Help us to love unconditionally and share humbly and boldly the story that you are writing in our lives. 

GROW people spiritually through passionate and God-centered worship, persistent prayer, life-related Bible teaching, and life-giving relationships; creating a contagious environment where people grow and become more and more like Jesus (Ephesians 4:22-32; Hebrews 12:1; Philippians 1:6; Romans 12:1-2; Luke 9:23; 2 Peter 3:18; Colossians 4:12).

EQUIP and empower people to make a difference by serving others with the unique gifts, talents and abilities you've given them (Mark 10:45; 1 Corinthians 12, 14; Romans 12; Ephesians 4; 1 Peter 4:10).

LOVE, laugh, learn and do life together in unity. (Acts 2:42-47; 1 John 4:7-13)

INSPIRE worship and communicate truth through the creative and compelling use of the arts (Book of Psalms; Psalm19:1; Exodus 31:2; 35:30-35).

PARTNER with parents in leading every child and student into a growing, personal and dynamic relationship with Jesus by creating relevant environments and experiences that meet children and students right where they are… (Deuteronomy 6)

BUILD a “cutting edge” ministry to young adults that will help them “connect” or “reconnect” to Jesus and His church.

BE a thoroughly missional church committed to acting as missionaries in our city and world, supporting career missionaries, sending out hundreds of participants on short-term missions trips/projects and launching at least one new church plant every year… (Matthew 28:19-20)

Father, we trust You to do in and through a2 Church what only You can do! May a2 Church be a growing and thriving "Acts 2, biblically functioning community" (Acts 2:42-47). 

Oh, God, bless a2 Church! Increase our influence! Do something so BIG among us that it completely blows us away! Do something so big that You and You alone get the credit! Do something so big that we stand back in awe and say, "Only God! Only God! Only God!" (1 Chronicles 4:10)

Amen!

Why I love a2 Church…

It’s messy, but beautiful.

From the top down and the bottom up, a2 Church is filled with messy, broken beautiful people!

The people who attend a2 are sinners. Not just the neat little respectable sins we talk about in polite conversation. I mean old-school, hard-knocks, in-all-caps SINNERS. We’re talking addicts, drunks, gossipers, adulterers, people who struggle with sexual purity, people who have a sexually promiscuous past, people who battle with porn, people who lie, cheat, cuss, sometimes act selfish, sometimes are jealous, and sometimes are even divisive! (And that’s just the leadership team… I’m just kidding… Sort of…)

a2 Church is a messy church! It’s filled with messy, broken people, and we wouldn’t have it any other way!

The church Jesus came to launch was never designed to encourage, comfort, entertain, inspire and challenge exclusively “churched,” basically moral, incredibly “neat”,  “we-have-it-all-together” people!

It was never meant to be a monument, social club or museum for the display of perfect people! It was meant to be REAL! it was meant to be a hell-shattering, earth-moving, life-changing, culture-shaping movement that would reach people who are broken, messed-up, jacked-up and share a common problem: distance from God and confusion about God.

The church was meant to be a hospital where hurting, broken, and messed up people could move towards wholeness! (See Luke 15; Matthew 9:10-13)

I love the way John Weirick of NewSpring Church says it:

“Church isn’t a place for perfection, but a place for progress.

“The Church can’t be concerned with maintaining an image of perfection if we want to obey Jesus. Jesus has never been afraid to embrace the controversy of associating with the wrong crowd. (See Luke 5:29-32; 15:1-3)

“The Church was created for imperfect people. It exists to help imperfect people meet Jesus and follow Him step by step. Our imperfections are not projects to fix, but opportunities to see a miracle. Each of us has a story about how Jesus met us in our mess and has been changing us from the inside out.”[1]

Wow! Wow! Wow! I love that!

This doesn’t mean we have to remain stuck in this orbit of regret, failure, sin, habits, hurts, hang-ups and brokenness for the rest of our lives! God loves us just the way we are, but He refuses to leave us there! His agenda is to make us more and more like Jesus! (Romans 12:2; 2 Corinthians 5:17; 11:1; Ephesians 4:22-24; Philippians 3:13-14)

So, if you’re looking for a perfect or “safe” church, sorry. a2 Church is not it! But if you’re looking for a church where REAL PEOPLE who struggle with REAL PROBLEMS are learning to TRUST JESUS to change us from the inside out, WELCOME HOME!

If you struggle with disappointment, regret, guilt and shame… If you ever feel the gap between who you could be, who you should be and who you really are.. If you are broken, messed-up, jacked-up, and prone to failure… If you are flawed and glaringly imperfect… If you sometimes drift into self-righteousness and pride… Welcome home! a2 Church is the place for you!

a2 Church is a “come as you are,” “no perfect people allowed” kind of community!

So COME!

Come as you are with your doubts and questions!

Come as you are with your fears and insecurities!

Come as you are with your agnosticism or atheism!

Come as you are with your broken heart and messy life!

Come as you are with your relational pain and problems!

Comes as you are with your addictions, habits, hurts, and hang-ups!

Comes as you are with the divorce that has left you gasping for air!

Come as you are with your financial meltdowns or bankruptcy!

Come as you are with your skin color, social status and identity issues!

Come as you are with your sins, past, struggles, mistakes, imperfections and idiosyncrasies!

It doesn’t matter whether you’re loaded or broke! It doesn’t matter if you’re white, black, brown, red or albino! It doesn’t matter whether you’ve got a lot of hair, no hair, purple hair or patches of hair!  It doesn’t matter whether you wear nice clothes or lousy clothes (just as long as you wear clothes)…

Come as you are!!!

Why? Because at a2 Church, we’re just crazy enough to believe that God loves and accepts us just the way we are, but loves us so much that He refuses to leave us the way He found us! This is why I love a2 Church!

---

[1] John Weirick, NewSpring Church Exposed, https://newspring.cc/articles/newspring-church-exposed?utm_content=buffer31147&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

What Did You Just Say?

I am regularly amazed at our... Wait... MY propensity to point out how the strong man has fallen, the successful have blown it, and how I could do it so much better; while ignoring or overlooking the most glaring shortcomings, mistakes, failures and, yes, even SIN in my own life...

"Boy, it's lonely being so stinking perfect..."

All the while, Jesus, the God/Man I / "we" choose to follow was pretty straight forward on all this...

Jesus: "Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging..." —Matthew 7:1 MSG

BOOM! Jesus knows how to throw a punch, doesn't He? I mean...

Come on, Jesus! You're messing with 50% of my conversational life! Can't you ease up a little?

Jesus: "Every one of these CARELESS WORDS is going to come back to haunt you. There will be a time of Reckoning. Words are powerful; take them seriously. Words can be your salvation. Words can also be your damnation." —Matthew 12:36-37 MSG

What did you just say, Jesus?

Words? Reckoning? Judgment? Damnation? Holy cow! You must take my conversational life SERIOUS, Jesus! I think I'll just shut up, because MY BIG MOUTH isn't making things any better. In fact, it's just digging this hole deeper!

Geez? Why are you so hung up on my clever little rants on Facebook, my snappy tweets on Twitter, those really cool memes on Instagram, and my never-ending banter at the office?

Oh, yeah... That's right... I remember what your half-brother wrote...

James (Half-Brother of Jesus): "With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he MADE IN HIS IMAGE. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth! My friends, this can't go on..." —James 3:9-10 MSG

What? You didn't just go there did you, Jesus? So, when I go off on people, I'm not just going off on some person, I'm actually going off on a person MADE IN GOD'S IMAGE! Wow! People who matter to YOU, and I guess...they ought to matter to me.

Whoa! I never thought of it like that, Jesus. So, you really do take my posts, tweets, Instagram pics, water cooler convos seriously, huh? And, the point? So should I...

After all, I've got so much in my own life that is so beneath what YOU deserve that I really don't have much time or energy to post recommendations, criticisms and snappy little put-downs to celebrities, athletes, superstars and whoever...

Crap. And all I wanted to do was have some fun... And, then, you had to go get all "Jesus" on me... But that's what you do... That's who you are...

Thank you, Jesus! Thank you for loving me enough to remind me of whose I am, who I am and who every person out there in the blogosphere is... I / "we" needed that...

POST SCRIPT: For those who miss the point... Close friends should care enough to hold one another lovingly accountable, to call out "sin" and to challenge one another to live to our greatest potential. Accountability and constructive criticism is meant to be exercised in the context of RELATIONSHIPS and LOVE.

So, if you don't genuinely, sacrificially, truly LOVE SOMEONE - you may want to think twice before you speak, criticize or offer a recommendation. In fact, you may want to think about not even speaking, sharing or posting until the LOVE OF GOD has so saturated your heart that when you speak you are speaking GOD'S HEART, not yours... Just a thought...

Now, what did you think about... Just kidding!