LifePoint

Many, many years ago God began stirring something inside me that I couldn’t have explained to anyone at the time if I’d wanted to. I started getting this irrepressible sense that the Church was “broken.” Even as a very young man I would read the Scriptures and then look at the modern day church, and it was obvious that we, (the Church) had gotten distracted and derailed somewhere along the way. Oh, it wasn’t that we weren’t “doing” church… there was plenty of that going on. It just seemed to me that we weren’t “being” the Church, at least not the way I think Jesus had in mind. But try explaining that to just about any church leader and they’ll look at you like you’re from the planet Zarkon. Believe me, I’ve tried.

As I began to peel away the cultural layers that had been added to the Church over the centuries, it all started to become clear. We had fallen more in love with our church traditions than with the original mission of the Church, and over time, tradition had replaced Truth. In fact, our traditions had become our truth! We would more readily fight to defend our church traditions than we ever would to defend the core Truths of the Bible. That’s precisely why the vast majority of church splits happen over trivial things like the color of the carpet in the new auditorium, or replacing the “denominationally approved” hymnals with words projected on screens, or changing the Order of Service. Them’s fightin’ words! We had fallen so in love with “our version” of church, that we truly believed it had to be maintained at all costs.

And there has been a cost. A tragic cost.

I meet people all the time — and I mean all the time — who have been beaten up and tossed aside by the very entity that is supposed to bring Life to them. Just because their hair was too long, or because they had a divorce in their past… or any one of a hundred other things… the Church made it clear to them, perhaps without even saying a word, that they didn’t fit their mold, and that they were not welcome. Consequently, the world is filled with precious, gifted, beautiful people made in the image of God who are wounded souls just sitting on the sidelines. It’s not that they don’t love Jesus. Many of them do. They just don’t like the church very much. And who could blame them?

When my eyes were truly opened to see all this years ago, it ripped my heart out. It seemed that everywhere I went — from grocery stores to gas stations, from ball games to PTA meetings — God put one person after another in my path who told me the same story. They were everywhere! And the sad reality is, they had always been there, all around me, but I had never noticed them before. I’m not kidding when I say that total strangers would strike up conversations with me, and within a few minutes, the conversation would turn to spiritual things, and I found myself standing face to face with yet another wounded person.

So I began to say, “God, what’s going on? Why are You showing me all this, and what part do You want me to play in helping these people?” The answer came through the guys in my Thursday night Bible study, and it was not the answer I was looking for. God had already been opening their eyes to the very same things, and He began speaking to all of our hearts saying, “I want you to start a church — in a city that is literally filled with churches — except I want this church to be a place of healing and restoration for all My wounded children out there. These people are valuable and precious in My sight, and I still have a purpose for them.”

By that time, I had been wrestling with this call from God for about a year, but the moment we all surrendered to it, the pieces immediately began to fall into place. God was on the move! Before we knew it, LifePoint Church was born, and we had been thrown headlong into a work that none of us ever dreamed we would be doing. It was daunting. It was exhilarating. It was the moment of a lifetime… knowing that we had all just been given a chance to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. Frankly, we were scared to death, so we started praying crazy big prayers, asking God to do ridiculously impossible things. We didn’t know any better. And God has been answering those prayers in ways that have left us standing in wide-eyed gratitude ever since!

One of the greatest answers to prayer we have seen thus far is that God has brought us tons of people who have been wounded by the church and were on the sidelines. It has been inexpressible joy to watch those people slowly heal, find fresh passion for the Lord, and rediscover their place in God’s mission. In addition, God has allowed our online teaching to reach into almost 70 countries, with our Podcasts being download more than 19,000 times each month. We couldn’t have accomplished that on our best day. It’s all God!

LifePoint is the greatest church I’ve ever been a part of. It’s not perfect; not by a long shot. We’ve made enough mistakes to write a church guide on what “not” to do! But our folks have had the guts to lay aside their church tradition for the sake of God’s greater mission, and let me tell you, that does take guts. Many of them have been ostracized by friends and family who don’t understand. I’m so proud of the LifePoint family for their commitment to stop “doing” church, and instead, start “being” the church! It’s amazing to be on this journey with every one of them!