I’ve been neglecting writing this blog post for a while because I feel like it is going to be a sixty page document, both because of the gravity of the subject and because I can’t write anything without being somewhat unnecessarily wordy. So I am just going to take it one chunk at a time.
Here is a disclaimer… These posts are not here to limit us and put us in a box. These thoughts on our future, these are not the final doctrinal statements of our church. These are glimpses into what we are doing and why we are doing it.
I am going to start a bit by looking at our Purpose.
From John Chapter 17
1 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:"Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
If you have time, go check out this scripture in context. In these chapters of John, Jesus is pouring out His passion for His disciples and the people that they will minister to. I consider much of what He says to be prophecy for these friends and followers, and much of what He is saying is giving them a focus and a feel, a purpose and reason for what they are to do after He is gone; and a bit of prophecy about how He will continue to be present with them through the Holy Spirit.
In Jesus’ prayer here and through the entire chapter 17 His words clearly are passionate about people “knowing” God. It’s clear that this knowing is not just a knowledge but a relationship. It’s also clear that this relationship is God’s purpose for us. This is truly the start toward the fulfillment of what God wants us to be, of the purpose for which we are created.
As a church, we can not be God. We can not be the relationship. So what can we do? What are we called to be?
Later in John 17, Jesus is praying for His disciples, He prays: 17Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
I believe that Jesus wants His disciples to be carriers of the truth. There are many interpretations for what this means. Does it mean that we will find everything that is untrue and refute it? Does it mean that we will shout our truth louder than the lies are being broadcast? Does it mean that we will make truth look more appealing than the lies by packaging it and marketing it better? Does it mean that our church will be a shelter away from the rest of the world where no lies can break in?
I’m not sure that any of those answers encapsule what I believe what we should be and what God is calling us to be. I believe that God is calling us to live by His truth, the truth found in scripture, in the middle of this world which is full of many lies. One of my favorite songs about this is by Ken Medema who calls it: “a call to live like fools, by another set of rules.” Certainly we will look as fools to some, but we will be living by the way that God says is true. Like Jesus says earlier in chapter 17: 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.
This is not to say that our goal is to be hated, and I don’t believe that Jesus is saying that everyone in the world will hate His followers. What I believe that He is saying is that with the way the world is set up, if we live by “the word” we will not have the rewards of “the world.” The world is not limited to just people, but also to the systems of the world. Living by the “way of the world” will get us the rewards of “the world” and living by the “way of the word” will forsake those rewards. There will be another reward for those who live by this way. We don’t know all of what it will be, we won’t experience all of it in this life. However, I do believe that we will experience the reward of purpose, passion, meaning and mission. Which are all HUGE missing pieces in the lives of those who live by the “way of the world.” They are the missing pieces that cause so many to feel that they never have enough pleasure, possessions or popularity to be satisfied.
It will be our purpose and passion as a church to bring people from our community into this relationship with our creator, with our savior. It will be our hunger and mission to share this truth with people.
Simply put the truth that we will be desperate for people to hear is a truth that most are unaware of: God created You. God knows You better than you know yourself. God loves you anyway. God loves you so much and desires a relationship with you so desperately that He became one of us and allowed Himself to be murdered in the most gruesome way by us. He did this not only to show His power over death, but to communicate love to us, through the ultimate sacrifice. If we believe that God is an all powerful God, we believe that He could have created a universe where we don’t have free choice, or a universe where He could have forgiven us and called us to be in a relationship by a snap of His fingers. But the truth is that God loves us so much that He gave us free will to choose Him or to choose not to. He desperately wants us to choose a relationship with Him and He shows this to us through the way that communicated the highest level of love and sacrifice from Him.
That’s the Truth that we will be passionate about communicating. Our Passion to communicate this needs to be the hallmark of our church. It is my desire that the Ethos of Hillside Church forms from our desire to welcome as many as we can into this relationship.
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