Centerpoint - Come as You Are

Last week I had the opportunity to preach while Pastor Betters (the senior one) is out of the pulpit. So I had the chance to expound on the mission for Centerpoint. As you recall from last week:

Centerpoint Church exists for the purpose of recovery, transformation and restoration. It is a safe place where people are freed by the power of the Gospel, changed by the Holy Spirit as He guides in all truth, and sent to revitalize the community by the Kingdom of God.
In short our message to the world is: “Come as you are. Grow in grace and truth. Go as Jesus says.”

We zeroed in on “Come as You Are,” which corresponds to the first part of our actual Mission statement above. My sermon had one-point only, “Centerpoint will become a safe place when we love sinners as Jesus loved them.” The passage I preached from was Matthew 9:9-13, which says:

9As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. 10While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" 12On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Jesus loved sinners. In fact, this was the reason he came: to call sinners to repentance. What's more, Jesus actively sought sinners in order to call them to repentance. Look at Matthew, who authored this letter. He was a tax-collector. And to a first-century Jew under Roman oppression, a tax-collector was not like the IRS today. They were hated and despised because they were considered thieves and traitors. They lined the pockets of the Roman government with money from God’s people. And they collected more than was required to line their own pockets. This practice was known. In Luke 3:13 some tax-collectors were baptized and asked John what they should do now. “Collect no more than you are required to,” was his reply. Matthew was a traitor and a thief. He lived in a huge home which was able to accommodate a large banquet with his friends (v.10). It was this traitor and thief who extorted money from God’s people that Jesus called to repentance. It was this scoundrel who gave all that up (the parallel story in Luke says Matthew “left everything”) to follow Jesus, who would later write one of the four Gospel accounts we have today.

Jesus loves sinners. He didn’t avoid spending time with them. He actively sought them. But he didn’t actively seek them just to “hang out” with them. Jesus had a redemptive purpose for everything he did. He spent time with sinners in order to call them to repentance. And as Jesus loved sinners, so should we.

Who do you spend time with? The easy thing to do is spend time with Christian friends and family. It’s safe there, at least for us. But the harder thing to do is as Jesus did: actively seek out unbelievers in order to call them to repentance.

And what about new people who come to our church? Do they feel safe? Is a non-Christian welcome at our church? Welcome in our already established Christian circles (read as “cliques”)? Once Jesus asked the disciples if they would all desert him as some of the crowds did. Peter replied, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). Think about that. Do we really want sinners to go anywhere else just because it might make us uncomfortable? Jesus is the only One who offers hope and healing for the sinner. Where else should they go? The bottom of a bottle? The end of a needle? Into worldly counsel or immoral relationships? At both Centerpoint and Glasgow, we need to be a place where the sinner can come to find eternal life. We need to welcome the sinner with open arms… in order to call them to repentance. And as sinners once ourselves we need to remember this doesn’t often happen overnight.

Is our church a place where the sinner can truly Come as They Are?

Centerpoint Update - Our Mission Statement

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve updated you all on what’s going on at Centerpoint. It’s been amazing. Since we’ve been back in our own building, we’ve had 17 visitors, and 7 of them were from last week alone! I had the opportunity to go out to lunch afterwards with one group, and two of them decided they wanted to take the membership class the next week. As I said, it’s been incredible. Several visitors are from the Military base so God continues to bring us people from two areas: the base, and those recovering from addictions. It seems God has defined our Mission field for us.

On 9/27 I was able to preach a sermon on the mission of Centerpoint Church specifically. Here is our mission statement:

Centerpoint Church exists for the purpose of recovery, transformation and restoration. It is a safe place where people are freed by the power of the Gospel, changed by the Holy Spirit as He guides in all truth, and sent to revitalize the community by the Kingdom of God.

In short our message to the world is: “Come as you are. Grow in grace and truth. Go as Jesus says.”

Those of you familiar with the Middletown work will recognize that ending slogan. I “borrowed” our slogan directly from Dan’s incredible vision (why reinvent the wheel, right?), however I added what I feel is a crucial component: discipleship. Discipleship is key. In order to go as Jesus says, we must be willing to pick up our cross daily and follow him. I believe this pattern also fits well with the Scriptures. Jesus first calls the disciples, then spends time with them modeling and teaching before sending them out. My plan is to develop a discipleship process based on this simple “Come, grow, go” model.

Needless to say this mission statement has our people excited. It will take some time to change the culture of the church to reflect our mission statement, but it is already taking place. In future articles, I hope to expound on each primary point in the statement and why it fits uniquely in our cultural context. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your feedback. What do you think?

Centerpoint Update - Going Home

It’s been a tremendous blessing to join you all at the “Main Campus” for worship the last few weeks. But it’s even more exciting to be able to start meeting back at our own campus in Dover this week. We’ll miss seeing you in person, but there’s just something about “home,” ya know?

Our Extreme Church Makeover is not quite complete. The code issues I mentioned previously will keep us from completing the building for several months. BUT… we received some good news today that means we can start moving forward again. AND… with the construction that has already been done, the building already looks better. We have a new ceiling with recessed lighting in the sanctuary, the walls are up to define our space in our coffee-house style lobby, and new carpet is throughout. There is much finish work to be done, but we’re way ahead of where we were.

Finally, we’ve had tons of outreach ideas flying around, from the basic to the extreme. We’re anxious to start putting them into place, but we do have some planning to do first. I do have one cool story to share that required no planning. A church member and I decided to walk through the park last week and ask people about community needs, eventually inviting them to the church. We met Bill, a retired military man who fought in Korea. Bill was a Christian, but “by chance” did not currently attend church. We talked for over a half-hour, prayed for Bill, and yes, we expect to see him At Centerpoint this Sunday! When you are intentional about inviting someone it is really that easy. Try inviting someone you don’t know to church and share your experience here.

Centerpoint Update - One church, many locations

It was so good to be at the main campus worshipping as one church Sunday. We had most of our congregation represented and were warmly welcomed with your applause. Thank you! We’ll be with you for at least one more week while construction continues. That being said, we have run into some major snags with the county due to the age (read as “out-of-code compliance”) of our building. Please pray for us as we try to work through these issues with the county.

And from my previous posts, now you know my plan for establishing the church. Obviously, this is just one aspect. There are spiritual and a programmatic aspects as well. I hesitate to use the word “program” because what we really want to do is simply find ways to serve the community and transform it in the name of Christ. At one meeting last week, after learning one of our members had just lost his job, I actually asked… “If we want to think big, and really transform the culture, then how can we help create jobs here?” We would not only transform the culture, we would be meeting people’s real needs and thus have an “in” to share the gospel with them and invite them to church. If you have ideas you’d like to share, please email them to me or post them here on my blog. We've only just begun!

Centerpoint Update - the Final Step

Wow. I wish you all could see how good the room looks even torn apart. I can actually envision what it’s going to look like now that the wall studs are in place. Can’t wait…

In review, these were the steps of my plan (administratively speaking) for Centerpoint’s re-launch into the Community:

1. Renovation of existing property
2. Indentifying Leadership
3. Implementing Discipleship
4. Implementing Outreach

And now, Step 5: Planting another church out of our people. This may sound like a strange goal considering we have not firmly established ourselves yet. But I believe that this step is crucial if we are to be considered a “healthy” church. If we are doing what God has called us to do according to the Great Commission in Matthew 28, and the establishing our church according to Acts 2:42-47, then we should grow to a point where are reproducing disciples, and hence, able to plant another church. We should grow through multiplication. This would be the greatest sign that God has blessed us as a church. Finally, since we contain the DNA of Glasgow Church, we should emulate that part of the “hub and spokes” vision as well. Please pray for us, and I’ll keep you posted here!

Centerpoint Update

Centerpoint Church (formerly known as GRPC - Southern Kent) continues to move forward. We are weeks away from completing Step 1 of our plan with beautification and renovation. Classes are in place to begin handling the education portion of Steps 2 & 3: leadership development and discipleship. This brings us to Step 4: Outreach, which has always been the end goal of Steps 1-3. Now that we have an established environment to invite people to, and we are being trained and equipped to fulfill the Great Commission, it is time to reach out to our community and let them know about Jesus Christ, the center of our lives.

For Outreach we have several strategies to accomplish this goal. Nothing beats personal invitation and relationships. Beyond that we must also devise opportunities to facilitate new relationships. This will entail the gamut from the very subtle (like a free car wash) to the very direct (visiting neighborhoods and even street evangelism). Programs of the church like children’s and youth ministry will also make us more appealing to the community. Further, we will continue to support our successful women’s and men’s bible studies. Finally, our house churches are ready to re-launch in the fall being outreach and mercy-minded as well. In many ways Southern Kent is a needy community. As the Lord provides we must meet those needs with Word and deed.

Next week, Step 5. It may surprise you…

Southern Kent Update: Discipleship and a New Name

GRPC – Southern Kent has a new name: CenterPoint Church. Soon I’ll be working a website, a new logo, branding and the like. We’re still a satellite ministry of Glasgow, of course, as will be reflected in all our material, and the fact that our website will be almost an exact duplicate of Glasgow Church. But the new name begins to give us a new identity in the Southern Kent community. Jesus is the true CenterPoint and our church will be the “center” of the community as we reflect Him.
Step one of my plan for Southern K-- I mean, CenterPoint Church! -- is underway: construction begins August 17. Step two is the development of leadership and step three is closely related: Discipleship. Several members of the staff worked hard on developing our Discipleship Journey a little while ago. I plan on implementing this same thing at CenterPoint. Each member will be encouraged to take a series of classes based on Pastor Betters’ vision for what a disciple looks like according to the Scriptures: a Witness, Servant, Steward and Equipper. These classes are correspondingly called Share, Serve, Live and Lead. Each class has both a teaching component and a practical component. So we will be encouraged not to be just hearers of the Word, but doers of the word as well! As Jesus discipled, so also will I lead by example, demonstrating first what I am asking the people of CenterPoint Church to do with what they hear. This leads us to step four, which I will share next week.