An Authentic Change Series                   Growth Introduction:If your like me, you zone out well driving. You just forget where your going and end up somewhere completely different then where you wanted to be. Like we talked about last week I am a master at forgetting where I’m going when I’m driivng. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to call Beth to say I’ll be “a few minutes late” because I ended up on the southside instead of the westside. That’s my bad driving habit. It’s funny though because all of those times I’ve driven to the wrong place, I’ve have had to drive past literally a couple dozen signs that, if I paid attention to, would have told me i wasn’t where I needed to be. Dozens of signs saying “WEST EDMONTON MALL IS THAT WAY” or this is MILLWOODS PENTECOSTAL CHURCH not SOUTHSIDE PENTECOSTAL CHURCH. I guess it’s just that when you get familiar with a place or moving a certain direction that you begin to ignore the roadsigns around you. I got to know edmonton so well that I’d think “I don’t need these signs!” These are for tourists or out-of-towners, not me. Today as we continue talking about our God-given vision for the future, Knowing Jesus and Making Him Known, we are going to begin looking at the four core values that the leadership team believes we need to focus on as a church family. If knowing Jesus and Making him known is our destination as a church then these core values are the roadsigns. There markers that help us to evaluate whether we are heading in the right direction. If we carry out these four core values in everything we do in as a church, then we will become an authentic church. One that we are proud to be apart of. The first core value we are going to look at is Growth. This isn’t talking about growth in terms of numerical growth but instead it’s about growing in Knowing Jesus. Growth is about consistently gaining a deeper relationship with Him. The son of God who died in our place. Growth means finding ways to engage with Jesus and become imitators of his life. Section 1:No such thing as NeutralSo why do we need growth? Why is gaining a deeper relationship with him so important in rebuilding a better church? Well, let me explain with a little game.Let’s say that were back in the 15th century, before all the wonders of modern technology the we have today that their are siblings in England heading off to the New world. Both of them are merchants hoping to make it rich in furs, gold and silver. So each one takes off from England in his own ship. One sibling has never bothered to learn how to navigate at sea. They learned a little when they were a kid, or when they first became a merchant, but they haven’t spent much time in it. Their blind to it’s perils. The other sibling is a seasoned sailor, he knows the sea like the back of his hand. He’s put the time in and become a master at sea. Which one is more likely to succeed here? Well obviously the one who’s learned and grown there skills in navigation. In this little room it’s easy to navigate. It’s not hard to make it to the other wall of the sanctuary. But imagine sailing the ocean. It’s vast, greater then anything else on earth. The foolish sibling is might only go off course by a  few degrees, but in there vastness of the ocean those few degree turn into thousands of miles. The foolish sibling is not on course. He’s missed his mark. The point I’m trying to mark is this. As we journey with Jesus through life we are either on course or we are off course, there is no in-between. We are either growing in Jesus or we are becoming less like him. One teacher said it to me like this. We are either growing in Jesus or we decreasing in Jesus. There is no such thing as staying neutral with Jesus. This a stance the Bible takes all over the place.  In Matthew Jesus says: “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” that so