An Update On Our Journey

It's been 24 hours since we wound down our first preview service for The Journey.

I resonante with the words to "Revelation Song" (which we sang yesterday): "filled with wonder, awestruck wonder ...." God certainly revealed Himself to us in amazing ways yesterday.

While we do not believe that the Celebration Gathering on Sundays is "church," it still represents for many people a portal or an entryway. It remains an important connection point, and we want to do the very best we can to ensure that the gatherings provide a variety of ways for all people to encounter God.

Our team did an outstanding job of creating space for adults and children to connect with God in a variety of ways.

Our worship team led us in to God's presence with meaningful and reverent music.

Our children's ministry team did a fantastic job of creating a welcoming and exciting environmnet for the children.

Our hospitality team went out of their way to welcome our guests and answer any questions.

We listened to God's Word from Psalm 8, pondered the majesty, splendor and creativity of our awesome God and then shared communion together.

We truly believe that God has great things in store for this community that we live and serve in. We desire to do all that we can to connect with those far from God and help them to discover God's unconditional love and grace for them.

We are off to a good start.

I will be leading a new Community Life Group beginning this Thursday night at 6PM at The Connection. We will be studying the book "When Christians Get It Wrong" by Adam Hamilton. Our Community Life Groups (CLG's) will look a little different from traditional small groups or Bible Studies in that we intend for the groups to be places of genuine community first and foremost, and we also intend for the groups to consider how to apply what is being learned in the group by actively engaging the community in some tangible way.

Our coffeehouse, The Journey Java Connection is scheduled to open to the public on October 1st. We are excited about the opportunities that we will have through this missional outpost to connect with those who may never attend one of our Celebration gatherings.

Starting a new church is a great adventure: seemingly impossible at times, overwhelmingly satisfying at other times; mountaintop one moment, valley the next; it demands extraordinary faith, blind trust, and total abandonement to the rule and reign of Christ; and blood, sweat and tears are shed daily, but are worth the sacrifice to see broken lives restored and hearts respond to God's grace.

I am so honored to be able to be a part of what the Lord is doing here, and so blessed to have the gifted, talented, sold-out followers of Jesus that I have on my team.

This Journey has just begun.

Hold on tight. It's going to get fun!