Day #9 - "The Church Is Mission" (Birmingham, Al)

Sunday April 11th

Today I went to First Baptist Church of Trussville. It was a great morning. They are starting a new series on stress and doing some cool things like using the image of an iPhone and saying “Stress – there’s an app for that”. Check out their web site at http://www.fbctrussville.org/

Their Senior Pastor’s name is Buddy. So I told their Mission’s Pastor that that was my wife’s name – well it’s really Donna (as most of you would know that) but we’ve been calling each other Buddy ever since we’ve been married. Their Mission’s Pastor knows some of the folks I know in Canada. It really is a small world.

Well this church has grown lots and is in an expansion phase right now. See pic. I mean it’s really exciting to see how the Church is here in Southern USA. I mean I can’t help but see so many churches having such presence in their community, not just by the sheer size of their church facility, but also by their involvement.

Obviously, from a Canadian perspective, I can’t wait to have our own facility and being able to have presence that way in our community. But folks always are blown-away (impressed) when they hear we want to build a “Mission Centre” first versus a “church building”. One guy told me today that in fact the church should be the “mission centre” – that the very nature of the church is “mission”. But in fact, many churches grow large, then build their buildings, and then decide, ok, let’s be “on-mission” or even hire a “mission’s pastor”. So I guess I was encouraged and affirmed to know that what we are doing at Sequoia is not the typical thing most churches would do but in fact should be. Actually, many para-church organizations or Christian agencies are recognizing that indeed the many “mission activities” that many agencies do, should in effect come out of the local church and be driven from their initiatives. Well guess what people at Sequoia Church – we are the front-runners on this!

So keep praying and crying out to the Lord! We are for sure onto something. I got an email from someone today I had not heard in a while. This person was confirming the fact that indeed something “radical” needs to happen in Canada in order for us as a Convention to reach our 2020 goal. Yes that’s true, but that should not be a Convention initiative. The best place for mission is the church. And we are trying to do it.

This guy at lunch was laughing at the fact of when he hears churches say – “we are mission-minded”. Really what an oxymoron! We shouldn’t even have to say it – the church is and should be all about mission!

Please keep praying for me. The moral is good. Still spending lots of time alone with the Lord in my downtime. It’s a good place to be. This week will be extremely busy!

Pray for that divine appointment!