A Message from The Past for Today
Travel back with me three years. America was still in denial to the impending economic meltdown. Variable rate mortgages still had low rates. George Bush was the president. And I stepped into The Ridge (then Vista Ridge Baptist) for the first time.
Now actually I had visited right after the Christmas holiday 2006 but it was about the beginning of 2007 that Alex and I decided to start going to church again. I had been out of the church for a long time and I had a pre-established idea of what church was and what it meant to go to church. All that was shattered when I came to The Ridge. Something was different. The message was different, the people were different, and it smelled different too. How was it different?
For the first time I realized it was not about going to church; it was about being the church. We are a people, "a chosen race, a royal priesthood" (1 Peter 2.9). It is about people changed by the grace of God through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and who desire to make His name known for His glory and for the joy of believers worldwide. I had never heard a message like that preached in any church I had ever been to. Mostly I heard messages about the attributes of God and sermon after sermon of 3 point applications (none of that is bad, by the way) but I had never heard a message regarding what the church is and what we are called to do.
The reason I post this blog for anyone and everyone who might read it is this: do you remember that moment? Do you remember the "A Ha!" moment when you got it? We can't lose this message, we are the church and we are called out to do the will of God in the world through missions and the proclamation of His truth to all! I invite you to download this sermon from 2007 from Jerry entitled "Creating a Missional Culture" and re-stir your affections for the purpose of the Church and the called out ones of Christ. May this increase your joy and make your heart overflow with a desire to serve and make His name known.
