Happy Birthday, Church!
Happy Birthday, Church!
This Sunday, The Commons celebrates one year since our official, "Grand Launch" last October. Praise God for his enduring goodness, guidance, and provision for his people, as he has led us day-by-day according to his will! It's been an adventure, a journey the likes us which none of us could have anticipated; more winding, more challenging than we would have perhaps guessed, but altogether richer for it.
Our mission is to embrace and embody the transforming love of God through the making, maturing and multiplying of wholehearted followers of Jesus. This is the calling that drives everything we do.
Our vision is to see a world renewed, neighborhoods transformed, and people brought to life by the Good News of Jesus Christ. This is the community that we feel called by God to become, day-by-day, as we declare the gracious, healing reign of King Jesus right here in the midst of the world we live in, even now.
This is no small thing, to be the Church. It is no small calling, and demands no small sacrifice from those of us who would undertake the journey. But it is likewise no small blessing to live as the people of the King, brought to life and changed in the gracious forgiveness of his embrace, led by his own footsteps into the life that we've been created to live since before the very foundations of the world. If that sounds grandiose, it's because it is! There is no grander story or greater joy than this: that in spite of ourselves we have remained eternally loved, in order that we may eternally live, sustained daily in the longsuffering hands of our Creator, Savior, Lord, Jesus.
We are convinced that this is story that more people need to hear. It is a story that we ourselves long to be possessed by all the more with each passing day. As one, small, local expression of this eternal, global Kingdom of Jesus, we're just getting started. But we intend that this be the story that is written in and through our life together, from this day until the day when Jesus himself comes again in glory to make all things new. In the meantime, I am simply grateful that each of you have become, in one form or fashion, a part of that story, with us. Here's to today and, Lord willing, to tomorrow; to another page written in and through our hearts and upon the canvas of our city, for the glory of God and the advancement of his loving, redeeming, transforming purposes in the world.
Cheers,
Pastor Chris