Beyond the Horizon - Chapelwood's Vision for the Future: The perception of many at Chapelwood is that we are in a continual season of discernment with little changes in the scope of our work. Nothing could be father from the truth. The season of listening culminated in clarity of our core values, our mission, and our "Why". It also gave us clarity in where God is leading us. There has been a lot of work behind the scenes and now it's time to unveil God's strategic roadmap for Chapelwood through 2024. This Beyond the Horizon roadmap is big and will push us in every area of ministry. Farther than the possible limit of sight; beyond what one is able to foresee, know, or anticipate, we are called to move forward. The world is in a dark place and Chapelwood is the unique church to embody God's grace in the midst of chaos. Join us August 14 as we celebrate God's roadmap for Chapelwood.

Chapelwood Road Trip - Return: Return to the Table: Regarding communion, Wesley wrote that, “This is the food of our souls: This gives strength to perform our duty, and leads us on to perfection” (“The Duty of Constant Communion,” I.3). When we come to the table, we are invited to experience the grace of God and receive spiritual nourishment and healing. At the table we encounter the true Bread of Heaven that brings life to the world. We return to the table so that we may enter the world as servants offering much needed nourishment.

Chapelwood Road Trip - Go: Go Home: Sometimes the Lord sends us away to live as missionaries. More often, God authorizes and equips us to be mission minded on our home turf. How do we live as ‘sent’ people every day?

The Lord teaches us to pray as He taught the disciples.

Chapelwood Road Trip - Go: There are times when we go somewhere we don’t want to go…we make wrong turns, experience unfavorable circumstances, or end up with traveling companions who drive you crazy. God offers grace upon grace, allows us to turn around, saves us from trouble, and changes our hearts towards others. So Go…even when you don’t want to go!

Chapelwood Road Trip - Go: A Postcard from Paul: “A Postcard from Paul”: The outlook going into a road trip is always so bright and exciting, but circumstances happen on a road trip that change the course of the narrative. The story will unfold as to how one runaway, thieving servant on a road trip to Rome finds himself confronted with the message of the Gospel through an imprisoned Paul. This runaway is then commissioned by Paul to “go” with this postcard of hope back home to his former master in Colosse and face what fate awaits him there…

Chapelwood Road Trip - Go: The Tenacious Traveler: Sometimes we feel as if we’re struggling to get where we’re going. It’s as if something or someone is standing in our way (and it’s usually us). Life has a way of throwing us curve balls, but God has a plan for each of us. And at some point, we all have to decide that nothing is going to keep us from living out God’s plan. In Acts 8:26-40 we read the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch. And it is the complete and ready obedience of Philip that brings the gospel to one unlikely person – A gentile eunuch, who the Jewish religious establishment would have excluded from the faith community. Yet God is often up to something we cannot see – his thoughts are not our thoughts; and our ways are not his ways. When Philip the Tenacious Traveler shares the Truth with an entitled outcast, he witnesses the Spirit’s tenacity come alive in the Eunuch as well, who asks with admirable credulity and conviction, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” Nothing – once we follow the Spirit’s call and live into the conviction that nothing is going to stand in our way.

Chapelwood Road Trip - Go: Traveling Songs

Chapelwood Road Trip - Sent: Sent to SUMMIT: Part of being sent is to know where you are coming from. The “sending" is happening not only to those who will go, but also to the body of people who are responding to God’s voice by sending a group.

Chapelwood Road Trip - Sent: The First Church Fight: Despite Jesus’ words to the contrary, the early church “holed up” in Jerusalem. There, they suffered the first “church fight” when the Greek Christians felt their widows were not receiving fair and equal treatment. This results in the appointment of seven deacons, one of whom is Stephen. After the death of Stephen, all but the apostles flee for their lives from Jerusalem. This becomes the means by which Acts 1:8 is forced upon the church as Philip and the others scatter the Word and the church begins to grow. So in a sense, the very first church fight led to the growth of the church. Nothing is beyond God’s power to use to manifest his purposes.