When I Grow Up - Part 1: The Vision

I announced last week that I'm going to be sharing a series of posts here on the blog entitled When I Grow Up. It's all comes from a challenge I was given in a church planters training course to envision what Timber Ridge Church would be five years from now & put practices in place now to lead the church to that place. I shared the basics of the concept in an earlier post that you can read by clicking here. So today, I'm going to kick things off with The Vision.

The vision of Timber Ridge Church is very simple and succinct. Timber Ridge Church exists to move people from where they are to where God wants them to be. The vision is simple...but the vision is BIG.

We want to be a church that meets people exactly where they are in life. That means that we're willing to accept and love people just as they are - baggage, junk, and all. Loving people right where they are in life can be messy and it can get hard...because let's face it: All of us have made a mess of our lives when we've tried to do it on our own. But we're committed to meeting people and loving people right where they are - mess and all - because that's how Jesus approaches us. Jesus loves us - mess and all - and he died on the cross to convey that unconditional love to us.

And once we accept people just as they are, we refuse to leave them that way. Every single one of us - whether we've been trying to follow Jesus for years or whether we've turned our back on Jesus and tried to live life on our own for years - has not arrived. No matter where we are in life, we can all get closer to who God wants us to be. Plain and simple: None of us are there yet. In fact, we have a saying that we've started using at Timber Ridge Church already: No Perfect People Allowed. That's right - there are no perfect people allowed, because quite frankly there are no perfect people. We all have our own issues & struggles and have work to do to get closer to being who God made us to be. And we're committed to help people through that process. We're committed to walk with people as they discover who God made them to be & as they pursue the great purpose & plan God has for their life.

So Timber Ridge Church will be a place full of messy, imperfect people who accept & love others just like them - and who will stop at nothing to help others become everything God designed them to be. When I grow up...I want to love people right where they are - mess & junk and all - and help them see that, through Jesus, God has an incredible plan for their lives!