We are coming to the end of our eight weeks of advertisements to the community that lead up to Branches Church officially launching on February 14th, 2010. We have tried to create interest and communicate in simple 'teasers' what Branches Church is all about. We started the week of Christmas and chose to run a different 'teaser' each week. Each ad began with, "Branches Church: Real People, Real Lives, Real Jesus" followed by:
Week #1 - "Still Jesus After all These Years"
Week #2 - "Keeping Church Uncomplicated"
Week #3 - "Thinking Outside the Box - Church"
Week #4 - "People Don't DO Church - People ARE Church"
Week #5 - "Because We Shouldn't Do Life Alone"
Week #6 - "A Safe Place to Grow"
Week #7 - "Just Come as You Are"
Week #8 - "Feel the Love"
God has a plan for the me He wants me to be, and the you He wants you to be. He is not a mass producer, but a hand-crafter. His plan for you will not look exactly like His plan for anyone else, which means it will take freedom and a little exploration for us to learn how God wants to grow each of us.
When Theodore Roosevelt Jr. landed on the Normandy beaches on June 6th, 1944 with the men he was commanding, they realized they had come ashore on the wrong beach. They were not where they had planned on being. They were not where other people thought they should be. The terrain didn't match the maps they had studied. They did not however, head back to the relative safety of the ship. They did not try to get into the 'right spot'. Roosevelt is credited with saying, "Boys, let's start the war from right here!" And they did.
From where we can see it as humans, we do not know exactly where God is working in someone as they start to form the intention of following God's leading in their life. They may not be where they thought they would be at, or where we think they should be at in this point of their life. They may not recognize God at work around them because it doesn't look like what they've been told it would look like. Or maybe they haven't left the comfort of the familiar surroundings they are in even if they are destructive or dangerous.
If the Church will stop trying to get the world to want what we've got (denominational affiliations, church membership, fellowship among ourselves, and member services) and start offering what they need, which is what people have always needed: God in their lives, we'll see transformation in those whose lives we touch. We'll see fruit OF the Spirit in lives being transformed BY the Spirit. Branches Church has been compelled by the Spirit to embark on a journey that will create a church community where people do not have to become 'like us' in order to find God.
We all learn differently, struggle with different sins, and relate to God in different ways. What we at Branches Church value as the measure of your devotion to God is not your religious life, or lack thereof, but simply your life; the trajectory of your heart toward God. We are going to start by saying, "Just come as you are, we'll start the journey from here!"
I'm glad God is so patient and loving with us, calling us along, to walk in the steps that will mold us to become more of what we were meant to be. I'm glad it is a journey and that none of us have to be perfect, just willing to hear and recognize the love of God and follow that love. It's so much more simple than we think.
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