Greetings Holy, Healthy and Happy People of God,

As I write this blog entry to our faithful and devoted community of radical followers of Jesus Christ, I am reflecting on an encounter with God through the person of Tara. This past Tuesday, I was coming into church and ran into Tara, an employee with Youth Connections, a division of Monroe Harding, one of our missional partners. Tara and I were discussing life and she mentioned about her weekend and then asked me about mine. And my response, “You know I work on Sunday.” From there we started talking about church and she mentioned her absence from church the last 3-4 months because of the church’s lack of fresh and missional thinking.

Then I mentioned our new experiment called The Encounter@MetroCenter, an intentional faith community that is multi-racial, multiethnic, multi-generational and multi-class for the purposes of building brides of hope through the love of Jesus Christ. Tara said that’s it! That’s what I’m looking for, a new place of God’s activity.

We are in the season where the church must be led by the Holy Spirit to be an adaptive, creative and innovative missional agent of God through Jesus Christ. The Prophet heard God say, “Don’t remember the prior things; don’t ponder ancient history. Look! I’m doing a new thing; now it sprouts up; don’t you recognize it? I’m making a way in the desert, paths in the wilderness.” Isaiah 43:18-19 Common English Bible (CEB)

Tara was not walking away from the tradition; she was seeking to walk into God’s preferred future. Tradition should never hold us captive, but rather propel us into God’s future where abundance and generosity are waiting.

Hear the W.O.W., the Words of Wisdom: “God’s new thing involves all of us!”

As always, remember, God’s will for us is good, we must do the rest!

Pastor Stephen