The last couple values of theirs that I told you I would share are Relevance in presenting the Gospel to the culture in which their community is in, Excellence, Spiritual Growth and Fun & Celebration. They really were convicted that in their culture there needed to be this emphasis on Fun & Celebration; that many think Christians are supposed to be stuffy and defined by what they can’t do, but LifePointe believes that as the people of God, there will be times of seriousness, but that we are called to be joyful in the Lord always and to party because of this great grace we have been shown. I love their outlook.
Here are a couple things that really attracted me to Charlotte, NC and LifePointe CC
> The Community: Both at Lifepointe and in the surrounding churches. Something unique about LifePointe is that their main gatherings take place around tables together — no rows, no pews. Their conviction is that with this emphasis they have on community and relationship, they wanted everything they did to reflect that value and the way this worked out in their community was to seat people at tables together (with communion on each table). So as they go through their main gatherings they go for a very casual, as intimate as possible, feel.
>Unity: One of the surprising things in Charlotte is that there is a lot of inter-church and even inter-denominational community. Many of the leaders from churches around the city come together to meet and support each other. There are several ways this works out, one really cool way is in this college/young adult ministry in which over 34 churches partner together for a worship experience and teaching in Charlotte called Charlotte One.
No doubt some brave and couregeous leaders sacrificed somewhere along the lines to make this unity a reality, and God is using this in incredible strides for the city of Charlotte. There is a common goal to see the Kingdom advanced whether it directly benefits your individual church body or not. Great stuff.
>Risk factor: If you’ve talked to me at all about life direction stuff, this may have come up. I’ve always had this conviction in my life that I never wanted to let myself settle or get too comfortable. Part of it is that I know in my being I am often a Maintainer and its easy for me to rationalize myself out of taking risks. So one of the outworkings of my own faith is that I wanted to find a place that was taking some big risks in their faith community. I wanted to make myself be a part of something bigger than myself –that I knew I could not control on my own, as is my human tendency to desire. I wanted to come along side of a church because of a mission. I also wanted to find a city that I could get passionate about reaching. And I think LifePointe and Charlotte embody this well.
I’ll share in my next post what some of the risky faith steps they’ve been taking which was one of the biggest reasons I chose to come on board and also the biggest cause of struggle in my own spirit. Because I’m sure many of you know that to say you want a risky faith and that you want to be a part of something you can’t control is all easy to say, but when you start seeing the actual, real-life outworkings of that you just stand there looking up and say, “… oh.” ha. But God is good and he is working something incredible, I’ll let you in on more of that next time.
-NM-
