Unleashed Answers

A few weeks ago I did a post on 3 Challenging Questions that were raised during the last session of the Unleash Conference at Newspring Church in South Carolina. In that post, I said that I would get back to you on the answers to said questions. Well, after much prayer and reflective, heartfelt dialogue with the Leadership Team at MCC ...here's what we came up with for our church.

Question #1: What is it that God wants to do in my church?
Answer #1: M-O-V-E! He wants to move in the hearts & lives of every person who comes into MCC, and He wants us to go out into our community and tell others about Him. He also revealed that He wants us to move forward, as a church, in a BIG way! [I'll have more on that topic as it develops.]Basically, He doesn't want us to sit back on our family values and wait for things to happen ...He wants us to get out there and make it happen according to His plan!

Question #2: What barriers stand in the way?
Answer #2: Could list the obvious barriers such as time, money, space, facilities, commitment, volunteers. However, we came to the conclusion that the biggest barrier is us! [and we didn't even mention the "obvious barriers" listed above, they never even came up in our conversations!] You see, God has such an awesome plan for us & sometimes we limit in our minds what He (and we through Him) can do! I've heard it so many times...don't put God in a box. I'd like to think I don't, but His creativity goes way beyond what I can imagine...which I guess means that I do enclose him in that tiny little cardboard structure. [Or I try to anyway...not that He would stay there, or even fit, or go in willingly..well, you get the idea!] Just when we thought we had everything all figured out & that we had done all we could do in our given situation...BAM [sorry, Emeril I had to use your catch phrase here for effect!]He shows us something awesome that we had never thought of doing before and shows us a new direction to follow towards accomplishing the mission that He called us to. Wow, God IS great -and- VERY creative!

Question #3: What is it that we as a church want to celebrate?
Answer #3: The most obvious thing is when a soul gets saved, which is a BIG deal and comes with a huge celebration in Heaven. BUT, [yes, I know I'm not really supposed to begin a sentence with but!] we should also celebrate growth and life change taking place around us. At MCC we don't have an altar call every Sunday, and we offer people the chance to pray for salvation in their cars, at home, at work, etc. So, it's hard to tell sometimes how many people are giving their lives to God. BUT, [here I go again with the but!] we can see evidence of spirtitual growth in those around us and we can certainly see those life changes in process. [Way to go God!] We also decided that as a Leadership Team that we need to celebrate our ministry teams a little more often and the milestones [I like to say "mile markers"] that come our way as we head down the road of ministry.

Just to let you know, as soon as we opened up our minds and let God answer these 3 Challenging Questions for us - things began to happen around our church and in our ministries. All I can say is, God is up to something BIG at MCC...and I can't wait to see what He is gonna do next! He continues to blow my mind daily, and I've come to the conclusion that I'm just along for the ride!

I'll post the updates on our BIG news and happenings as they develop, with photos to follow. For now I'm gonna go celebrate God [probably gonna celebrate in style with a Blizzard from DQ, I'm sure it's somewhere in the Bible that celebration is achieved through ice cream!]and tell Him how thankful I am for all He does and will do.

It's a joy to serve such an AWESOME God and an AWESOME church. :)