The Church is the hope of the world. Jesus meant for the Church to be a gathering of people not a place, a movement not a meeting, something that not even death could stop. The story of the church is an amazing chronicle of what God is doing in the world. Knowing the story of the church's past helps us as Jesus followers to not neglect the story we are presently a part of, and it inspires us to write a story with a future that will be worth retelling. One thing has made all the difference in the advancement of the church—something that has brought our church to where it is today and will take us where we need to go in the future. This one thing is the thing the church has when it is at its best, and it is the one thing we can't afford to lose.

As we follow Jesus our faith grows. As our faith grows our lives change. But have you ever wondered, “What is the point of being a Jesus follower?” Matthew records Jesus saying, “Come follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). You see, those who follow Jesus are to lead others to follow Jesus. This is the purpose God has for each of our lives. His plan is simple — to reach people through people, through you and me. How can we begin to do this? We can start by building relationships with people, showing love and modeling faith, praying for opportunities to invest in people and invite them, being bold, and trusting God with the results. Loving God and loving people involves leading people to faith in God. When you live your life on mission, everything you do begins to have significance. Who is in your life that you can lead to become a follower of Jesus?

To follow Jesus is to follow his example. Jesus modeled for all of us what it means to love one’s neighbor, forgive one’s enemy, and to care for the outcast and hurting, etc. However, one thing Jesus modeled for us that we don’t think about often is prayer. Prayer seems like an easy thing for those who haven’t really tried it, but for those who have tried prayer, it can become a source of frustration and discouragement rather than peace and encouragement. Following Jesus and growing our faith very much has to do with praying. Luckily for us, Jesus taught us all we need to know about why we should pray and how we should pray.

Following Jesus isn't always convenient. It doesn't always feel like we are doing something significant, productive, or helpful, yet even in those times Jesus calls us to follow Him. Great moments and turning points in our relationship with Jesus are often the consequence of taking small, inconvenient, and seemingly insignificant steps.

Faith is believing that God is who He says He is, will do what He says He will do, and living your life accordingly. That means despite what many of us were told, faith just isn't about the life to come. It is about the life that now is. According to the New Testament, faith is the starting point of both eternal life and a better life. This better life is experienced as our faith grows, as we manage the balance between what we believe and how we behave.

We are who we are because someone did more than show up and speak the truth. They proved that they cared.

It starts early in life and often sticks with us for the rest of our life. It is a belief in a version of God that sees him as the cosmic accountant, always keeping track of how we are doing—how much we are doing wrong, how much we are getting right. Somewhere along the way, people began to think that what we do is more important to God than who we are. Scorekeeper God frustrates and fatigues. It leaves us believing we may not be cut out for faith. However, Jesus introduced us to a God who doesn't keep score, a God of unconditional love and grace.

Sometimes we opt for a version of God that is more respectable than radical. It is easier to hold to a tamed and predictable version of God than a wild and mysterious one. So we dumb down God. We put him in a box. We make him boring. We see him smaller than He is. It is easy for us to drift toward believing in a God who leaves us unaffected emotionally, unimpressed intellectually, and unchanged spiritually. However, when we read the pages of scripture we are presented with a version of God that is anything but domesticated.

Why is it easy to believe that God would withhold something good from us? We may not ask the question much, but we often live as though that is what we believe. Although God sometimes gets a bad rap, He is a God that isn't opposed to pleasure, entertainment, and fun. God never attempts to keep us from something good. He is actually trying to take us in the direction of something far better that he has for us.

Life is full of unanswered questions and unwanted circumstances. We don't like it, but it is. It also seems like everywhere we look, the world is full of what we would call unfair pain. None of us want pain. We don't like pain. Pain can call into question everything we believe about God. No wonder we love the idea of God who protects us from pain. We love the idea that if we do good, God will do good to us. What if that isn't true at all? What if beyond life not being fair, God was also not fair? What would that mean? Perhaps there something better than God being fair?