“My view of the church for my whole life was pretty basic. I would go to church on sundays, like most people. I would be at Sunday school most weeks, and some special weeks my family would sit in the main service all together. Church was somewhere that I would find friends, and learn more about Jesus and the Bible. I never really thought much about the mission of the church or how I could be impacted by the way the church tackled leadership, missions, and theology. I took everything at face value, and certainly didn’t think about anything I learned at church any other day of the week. Church was more of a social thing rather than a place that I would deepen my understanding of Christ and how I can live out his mission on earth through the church. The real problem was, I didn’t see anything wrong with my apathy, and was never told differently.
The veil was torn from my eyes when Jason and Kyle came to speak to us at One Life. They told us all about the way that they lead their church. They laid out very simply what they saw as a biblical way of leadership, balanced with missions and solid theology. They had five core values that they centered everything around:
- Target driven – this was their way of saying that they were going to be intentional about catering to the community around them, and meeting the needs that they saw locally.
- Gospel Motivated Spiritual Formation – this was how they were building up disciples in their church, and making sure that they were equipping people to be confident and cemented in their faith and giving them knowledge to witness effectively for Christ.
- Interdependent Leadership – this is the way that they formed their leadership team, and it is very focused on making sure that one person was not holding the reins for too long at one time. This made sure that the church was still focused on God being in control of everything, the face of the church, rather than a single pastor or elder in the church.
- Church Planting and Partnering – This was their promise to the community that they would raise up other churches just starting in the area. They made it very clear that church was not a competition. This was particularly mind blowing for me, as I always thought that churches didn’t really communicate with other churches for the fear of losing congregation size. However, Kyle and Jason told us how they would tell their congregation to go and visit the new churches in the area as to raise them up and bless them in their ministry.
- Global Intentionality – not only were Jason and Kyle intent on building up their own community but they were also focused on building up the global church. They told us about the missionaries they send around the globe to places with far fewer Churches than here in the states.
To wrap it up, Jason and Kyle also told us to just be intentional about sharing the gospel and being in people’s lives, because that is the true mission of the church.”
– Caleb Shuffler
