Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Join the Story - Live Oak Value #9

Today is the end of my blog series on Live Oak's values. We've gone through 8 of them prior to this. They are:
1. Jesus Changes Everything
2. Everybody has a 'calling'
3. Authentic living in the 'burbs
4. It's about who, not what
5. Everyday Justice
6. Church happens in your neighborhood
7. All truth is God's truth
8. The story matters

and today is #9 - 'join the story'.

All of the values are important (that's why we have nine of them), but today's might be the one that is the most action oriented. "Join the story" means that we want everyone who comes to Live Oak to feel welcomed and loved. That means all of our members and long time visitors need to be welcoming and loving towards everyone who walks through our doors. We want everyone at Live Oak to be actively reaching out to people who don't have a church home or who don't know Jesus. That means all of our members and long term visitors need to be working on building relationships with people who are 'dechurched' (used to go but don't anymore) or those who run the spectrum from not knowing Jesus at all to the person thinking there might be "something to that story...". We want everyone and anyone to feel that Live Oak is a safe place to come to experience the love of God in Jesus Christ.

I feel pretty confident in saying that Christians have a reputation for being closed off and hypocritical. (Did I hear some shocked gasps of surprise at that statement?)
Most people who are not Christian feel that we are happiest when we can deal with other Christians, particularly those of our same denominational leanings.

This isn't necessarily an incorrect thought. If you are a Christian reading this, take a minute to think about who your friends are, what you do for entertainment, where you send your kids to pre-school, school, or for after school activities. We can't completely isolate ourselves from non-believers unless we go live in a commune, but often, we come fairly close to doing just that in the decisions we make on a daily basis.

Jesus lived in the world but was not of it and he prays that his disciples would be in the world but not of it in the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John. This doesn't mean that we withdraw from hanging out or being around people who do not follow Jesus. This means that we hang on to our values that are based on the Bible and Jesus' teaching while we are out in the world around the millions of people who do not know him. We don't use our values to hit people over the head with an imaginary 'sin' stick because we know we are just as sinful as anyone else. The difference is that as Christians, we know that we are forgiven and that with God's help we can do better in the future.

At Live Oak, we want to cultivate an environment where anyone can come be a part of our community, no matter where they are on their spiritual journey. We want to be a place where it doesn't matter who you are, where you have been, or how far you are from who you want to be. We are all at different points on our own journies and we want to help everyone move a little farther along theirs.

Come and join the story with us.


"I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance" - Luke 5:32