The Church is a movement, not a mall. You don’t go to the shopping mall to join with all the other shoppers there to impact the world for change. No – why do you go to the mall? It’s all about you getting what you want. You go to shop, compare, decide what you want. You look for the best displays, the best values, the best service and that’s the store you will choose to purchase from. When we look at the church that way, we will look for the nicest building, the most interesting pastor, the music style we prefer, the best playground for our kids, whether or not there’s good coffee, etc. That is not what the church is.The Church is a Holy Spirit Enabled Group of People changing the worldWe are unafraid to confront the darkness of the world because we have the power of the Holy Spirit leading us and empowering us. We realize that we belong to each other just as a platoon of soldiers knows they are there for their brothers as they face the enemy. We are confident of the role we play whether it be a general, sergeant or private first class. It takes every one of us to see the mission through

Did you know that you are more connected to your spiritual family than your physical family? It is Jesus that binds us together. Our spiritual DNA which is the DNA of Jesus binds us together as brothers and sisters. There may be a lot of us, but we are just one thing. Jesus binds us together. We are part of a team. We function in collaboration with each other and not as lone rangers. We can no longer live separated, isolated lives because we’re part of this new team.

The revelation of God's will is not the result of our transformation as much as our transformation leads us to walk in His will and seeing that it is always good (it is intrinsically excellent) and pleasing (it has a favorable effect on us and on Him) and perfect (it is Inherently superior and complete).Living with transformed thinking leads us to test, to prove that God’s will always come out for good; our good, our family’s good, just good. The evaluation tool will not be worldly thinking but heavenly thinking.If we are going to live in the center of God’s perfect will, step one is leaving the patterns of the world. Where are you being conformed to the world?

Surrender or sacrifice gets a bad rap sometime. When we hear a pastor encourage us to turn it all over to God, let it all go, completely surrender, commit it all into His care, some are gripped with fear. They think it’s a risk that they’re not sure they want to take. What is God going to make me do or where will He send me if He has complete access to every area of my life? What conversations am I going to have to have with certain people? What fun am I going to lose out on? The loss of control is fearful for people. They think it’s risky.Our Surrender to Him is Not Risky.

Fix your eyes upon Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.(Hebrews 12:1)

The two letter word "IN" is one of the most important words in the New Testament. It is a relationship word.Jesus has gone "ALL IN" for is. He held nothing back. He humbled himself, became a man, wilingly suffered the cross at Calvary, paying the ultimate price for each of us. Jesus most definitely went all in for us. The question is, Are you all in for Him?

When we talk about Worship-Connect-Serve, we are describing a disciple, a follower of Jesus. It’s someone who has an intimate relationship with God. Loving God is worship. That stimulates love for each other in the body of Christ. We connect by loving each other. And thirdly, God’s love reaches out to a world full of hurt and brokenness. People matter to us. So, yes this is our corporate vision for our church, but it is also quite personal to each one of us.

Psalm 42:1–21 As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.The visual picture couldn’t be more striking. The thirsty deer has one thing on his mind – water. The worshipper has one thing on his mind – the living God. Psalm 63 says O God, you are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You. Catch the imagery of these passages. It is a lover who is fully taken, fully smitten, with the object of their affection. It is a longing for more – always. As the heart is satisfied, it hungers for more. Never does it say that it has had enough. To worship God is to love God; to hunger for His presence. Worship is ascribing all worth to Him, to be in constant need for Him. It is abiding in His presence; being close to Him; and staying there.

Do you know what happens when you are receiving the divine fire of God’s love in your spirit? In a moment’s time all kinds of things happen. All the stress you have about temporary unimportant things washes away. Confidence builds, fear leaves, life is put right. Nothing else can do that. The love of God for the world, for the church, for you and me is the heart of the gospel. In this series, we will talk about what we want to be as a church. We use three words – worship, connect, serve – to direct us in our ministries. But at the heart of each of those words is the word love. Worship is loving God, Connect is loving each other and Serve is loving our community.If love is not the reason for any of this, we have become useless to the kingdom.

We have Jesus' power of appreciation within us. But how do we unleash it?