Elements City Church
As we launch into 2023 - we're celebrating 10 years as a church and seeing God work in and through His church! We're going to spend some time drilling down on our renewed vision we feel the Lord is leading us to pursue after as we begin the year together. Join us Sundays in January as we each discover our next steps of owning our vision and living it out! This Is Us.
Today we continue our new series: This Is Us. All about our VISION
Elements City Church is...an inviting community of Jesus followers, commissioned by the gospel to make disciples by cultivating relationships with the love of Christ.
Cultivating is NOT an instantaneous process — it is a long term / lots of intentional actions…
And in a land of instant everything - seemingly content with superficial relational depth — “cultivating” has a counter cultural vibe to it.
We live in a culture of immediacy and surface level - but real love doesn’t take root on the surface - we really can’t love in a hurry — real love must put it’s roots down deeply — intentional cultivation within the relationship must occur. Vulnerability, authenticity, accountability, approachability, and proximity...at the heart of cultivation is: intentionality.
John 15:1-5 NIV
We want to help cultivate your relationship with God. Deepen your experience with the love of Christ for YOU. Deepen your love for Him.
Spiritual growth is about growing our inner DEPTH…getting the roots of our spiritual pursuits to deepen, and dig into some more of the rhythms and practices of Jesus — so HIS character gets more and more formed within us.
Discipleship is about PEOPLE DEVELOPMENT - equipping people as apprentices / students of Jesus.
Cultivating my spiritual root system in following Jesus…
takes INTENTIONALITY - no one drifts toward deepening their discipleship; we have to determine to align ourselves so God can do the transforming work he wants to do within us as we walk in proximity with him.
We want you to cultivate your relationship with God
We want you to cultivate your relationships with others
John 13:34-35
34 “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
WE WANT PEOPLE TO BUMP INTO US / INTERACT WITH US / AND WALK AWAY FEELING LOVED, NOTICED, VALUED, Accepted…
** acceptance doesn’t equal approval
Accepting people - loving people as made in the image of God and deemed worthy of value and love because God says so — DOES NOT MEAN I have to approve of everything they believe, say or do.
God is FOR us — that’s his grace expressed in the gospel of sending Jesus on a search and rescue mission for me — his love for me motivates him to love me before I ever loved him, or even knew about him or even agreed with him….
That’s the gospel — not that we loved God first - but while we were still sinners, God initiated His love toward us.
Romans 5:8
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
It is the love of God that is the most powerful force in the universe!
It is the love of God that changed your life as a follower of Christ
It is the love of Christ that will change the relationships around you
We’ve been sent out into the world to cultivate relationships with the love of Christ as a church AND as each member of this church…
Quote:
More people have been brought into the church by the kindness of real Christian love than by all the theological arguments in the world, and more people have been driven from the church by the hardness and ugliness of so-called Christianity than by all the doubts in the world.
—William Barclay
What does love require of me?
…that might just be the most all encompassing and profound question for us to ask ourselves in any given situation… how can I love like Jesus would in this moment?
Whether you are on-site or online, we're grateful you chose to worship with us tonight!
Don't forget to SIGN UP in the Elements City Church app for our SERVE WEEKEND IN FEBRUARY - Feb. 11th. Do it today - space is becoming limited.