I read this today and it warmed my heart. As they say in the British House of Commons: “Hear Hear” (which means Yea!).
Craig Groeschel, in his book “It”, (love it so far!) emphasizes that the special IT factor for a great Church is not the Building, the Campus, the lights, PA ,web-site, audio, style, demographic, strategy, cool chairs on stage, props etc. Now he does have most of those. But that’s not it. What got the Church to that point?
It was IT. There was something else. So the book focuses on some of the factors that are there when a Church has IT (I’ll let you guess what he means by that) if you don’t get IT (“How can a man be born when he is old?”) then don’t worry. Or maybe you should; in case you don’t have IT!
These will of course include vision, the presence of the Lord, the word, prayer, etc. He then quotes the partly controversial but mainly remarkable Mark Driscoll. His vision is Jesus! Now of course there’s more to the plan than that. But not a bad place to start as your core. I like that.
That’s every true believer’s heart of course. Like the little boy who when asked in Church
“What is brown and eats nuts”? He replies: “I know it sounds like a squirrel but I’m sure that the answer must be Jesus”.
I know it’s the right answer, but frankly I need to say it about New Hope. I need to put that in print today, because that is my message and our message. I am not ashamed of that. Nor shall we be. It’s the best.
We do cling tight to the Scriptures (at least when we read it we know that that bit is inspired). We focus on the person of Christ and His Cross. You cannot be a Church without that. Of course I’d like $15 million of cool stuff to make a bigger impact. But that’s not and never will be IT. Yes, I do have a dream list too, with big plans. Yes, I can see a preferred future and I do feel an urgency. In fact, like Nehemiah, I can see enough ruins in the world to declare “let’s rise and build”.
But just for today I’m glad to say Jesus is IT, and everything follows that, or it, or really Him. The vision begins with Jesus and even is Jesus. Turn your eyes upon Him, fix your gaze on him and much ado about the paraphernalia becomes strangely dim.