As I continue to read “It” I have decided that I will be blogging regularly about what God is telling me through it. Hope you don’t mind… but I hope more that you get something out of it.

Teamwork, community and focus are the themes that are tugging at my heart right now. Especially focus. Focus on a single goal – for FOSM that goal is to see a city transformed by the power and saving grace of Jesus. That must be our passion. Our life’s mission. The single driving force behind everything we do, think, eat, breathe and believe in. If there is anything that distracts from that it must be left behind. I’ll even take that a step further – if anything we do doesn’t contribute it must be left behind.

Also, a funny thing happened today. I sat down to work on something that I should have finished last week. I had been putting it off because I knew it would take a lot of time and effort that I frankly didn’t have in me. I say it’s a funny thing, because once I sat down and actually put some effort into it, the project wasn’t as bad as I feared. Now it’s off my back and I feel a lot happier. Just goes to show you, those monsters that hide under the bed usually aren’t as scary if you face them head on instead of letting them grow in your imagination as you try to avoid them.

Proverbs 29:18 “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

I am struggling to find the vision God is giving to me. As a leader I must have a compelling vision or we are left drifting as a ministry. As I was praying and meditating this morning, frustrated I ended up with four words.

Jesus First. Last. Always.

It’s a foundation, but I don’t think it’s specific enough to be a vision. I see creativity, but creativity is not a vision… it’s a means to achieve a vision. I see people’s lives changed, but that should be the goal of any church or Christ-follower. I see a compelling, vibrant church alive with members that are excited to be a part of what’s going on, and to which people on the outside are inexorably drawn. But again… that feels too broad. That could describe any number of growing churches.

I don’t have the vision yet… but the foundation is certain. Jesus First. Last. Always.

If someone completely new to “church” as we know it looked in on a typical week at FOSM, would they say, “That church is all about someone named Jesus!”?

We’re finally making some good progress on the new church building. As you can see above, the stage is going up quickly. This part is the most exciting for me since the stage is what I’ll be using most once we move in. In designing the stage, I wanted to have a wide-open area that would be useful for our regular worship services, for dances, plays, or even concerts. I also made sure we had “green-room” areas to each side were the band or pastor can stage prior to the service. We used the existing exterior doors to allow access to back stage from either side without disturbing the congregation.

The rear of the stage will have recessed lighting in the floor that will give a wash of color along the back wall. We’ll be able to change the color at will depending on the theme of the series we’re doing, and we’ll have a drop-down screen against the back wall as well. Given the space limitations we were working with, I think it’s an excellent design that will really work for our style of church.

I’ve been encouraged lately that more people have started showing up to help with the construction. I’ve been discouraged, because almost all of the recent work has been at the hands of James and Rick – with the occasional volunteer helping out here and there (Craig being especially helpful). I really want to see more people from the church over at the new building on a regular basis.

This is OUR church. The problem is, no one seems to care if we get it finished or not… or else they assume that other people are helping so they don’t need to come up. I don’t hear much buzz around church about the new building, and the fact that people are not showing up speaks volumes. Ultimately it’s not all their fault though… we hit a huge quagmire a couple of months ago with the permitting process, and that took a lot of our enthusiasm out of the project. As leaders we were not doing a very good job of leading our people or encouraging them to get involved. That’s what I’ve been focusing on recently, and I’ve already seen the payoff. Making phone calls and using visual aids have really served to get people interested and involved. My prayer is that their interest is contagious and that it spreads to everyone else at church.

The steeple at the church’s new building was about to fall over, potentially damaging the roof in the process… so we decided to help it along a little.