Bonus Trail | Exploring Fresh Starts, Great Friends, Real Purpose
Pilgrimage Components
· A compelling “why” - purpose
· A clear “who” - vision
· A workable “how” - mission
· A distinguishable “what” [vibe] - culture
A purpose moves you off center. A vision orients you in the right direction. A mission orders your steps. A culture sets the tone and compels others to join you on the pilgrimage.
Gateway’s Compelling Why
There are more people who need life than there are life giving churches. More room needs to be made for a world of who-so-evers.
Scriptural Pillar: John 3:16 “For God so loved the world He gave His one and only Son that whosoever believes in Him will not die but will have everlasting life.”
Gateway’s Vision: Our Clear Who
We aspire to be the most spiritually influential people and place on the planet.
Spiritual influence is the act of moving someone one step closer to a life transforming relationship with Jesus as a result of my interaction and/or relationship.
“Evangelism is a math problem. There just aren’t enough spiritually influential people and places engaged with spiritual lost people.” - Charlie Weir
Scriptural Pillar: Matthew 9:36-38 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
3 DNA markers of spiritual influential people and places:
1. Fresh Starts.
2. Great Friends.
3. Real Purpose.
You can’t manufacture influence; it is someone you become with intention over time.
Getting Fresh Scriptural Pillar: Ephesians 2: 1-6 (The Message) It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
Staying Fresh Scriptural Pillar: John 15
“A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.” - General George S Patton
Just like churches can get settled/stale, so can individual Christians.
Gateway’s Workable How
Fresh Starts. Great Friends. Real Purpose.
"Who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you are saying" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” - Peter Drucker
Our Distinguishable What [Vibe]: Grace
The heart of Gateway’s culture is grace.
The engine of Gateway’s culture is hospitality.
The target of Gateway’s culture is known & loved.
The Heart of Culture = Grace
The Grace of God in not dependent on who you are or where you have been, it is dependent on who He is!
The Engine of Culture = Grace Based Hospitality
The engine for grace-based hospitality is what I have been given by God. I have been given love and grace unconditional. I can freely give you what I have been freely given.
The Target of Culture = “Known & Loved.”
Culture should be the simplest, least expensive element to scale. You just have to be willing to give that which you have received.
Scriptural Pillar: 1 John 14:10-11, 19 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 19 We love because he first loved us.