A couple of weeks ago, I reached a milestone by writing my 500th sermon! And that’s just the ones I have on my computer. That’s a lot, but I’ve been writing them for 35 years now (my first was when I was a Freshman in High school – it wasn’t very good, in case you were wondering).

There have been some “out of the ballpark” sermons and some duds. There have been my personal favorites and some where even I felt were too boring – not the words of God, just how I interpret them and choose to communicate them. There have been some creative ones, short ones, too verbose ones, and some that really stand out. But the sermons that always impress me the most are the ones that are found “within” the sermon I’ve preached. And they are normally words I’ve never even said at all! Let me explain.

A few years ago, a visitor to our church made his way up to see me after I closed the sermon. He was crying and stumbling over his words. “So powerful,” he said, managing to eke out only those words. After he composed himself, he went on to explain how I was “reading his mail” and that today’s message was spoken only for him. He then brought out his favorite insight. I didn’t recognize it at all. I even went back and listened to the video, and was right. I literally never said what he heard me say. Is this just a lesson in people being overstimulated by so much information input that when we sit down and try to actively listen, we hear what we want? In some cases, I’m sure of that. In most cases, however, I think the Spirit does something even greater.

I may spend hours thinking about Ananias, Saul, sight, assumptions, and going beyond the walls, while someone sitting in the room is suddenly confronted with something completely different. But that’s not necessarily a failure of communication. As a pastor, I have to pour over what I’m going to say, making sure it’s not only in line with Scripture, but that it doesn’t come across as too stuffy or insensitive, and that it is culturally relevant. I know I’m spiritually responsible for what I say. But I’m not responsible for every way God uses it.
Even this past sermon, “Seeing Again for the First Time,” garnered thoughts that I never said, and challenged some people to think differently about their time. And it got me thinking: Maybe this sermon about seeing people differently also reminded me that I don’t always know what someone else is seeing.

The verse that really works here is 1 Corinthians 3:6–7 — one plants, another waters, but God gives the growth.

I plant. I water. God gives the growth.

When I was younger, and something like this happened, I just asked, “Did they not understand my point?” Without the experience of pastoring people, I just figured they didn’t hear me correctly or understand it. As if I “owned” what I shared. But now the better question is: “Did I faithfully give God something He could use?”

I don’t use this as an excuse for being unclear or sloppy. I still have a responsibility to communicate well. But I also don’t have to control the outcome. Just like I’ve learned that I don’t get to choose who I pastor, I also don’t get to decide what God is doing in someone else’s heart.

God is a Living God, and His Word is the Living Word of God. It’s important that I write it out just like that. Saying it that way just proves that sermons don’t end when the preacher says “Amen.” The closing benediction doesn’t close the Bible or the moment on the Word. The sermon continues in someone’s drive home or in a conversation later that afternoon. The hope is that it will be remembered three weeks later or in a conviction that isn’t specifically articulated or even in a decision I never knew they made. Sermons seem to have a life after the sermon.

Normally at the end of my time on the stage, my mind is buzzing while my body is exhausted and spent. This last time, I was only thinking I was preaching about Ananias learning to see Saul differently. But afterward I realized I was also being reminded that I don't always know what another person is seeing when they hear God's Word. I might write it, which normally makes it my favorite that week, and I might know it really well, but God knows the person.

Jesus starts his model prayer with not with “My Father,” which he could have done, since God is his Father. But, no, instead allows us to be included in his family by teaching us to start our prayers with, “Our Father.”

And then later in his prototype, he tells us to say, “Give US this day…forgive US our trespasses…lead US not into temptation, but deliver US from evil.”

Us. We. Are.

We were never meant to pray alone.

This isn't just a New Testament idea. It's been woven into the story of God's people from the beginning. Again and again, we see people gathering together to pray—to celebrate, to seek direction, to face danger, to ask for help, and sometimes simply because they knew they needed God.

In 2 Chronicles 20, an entire nation found itself facing an enemy it couldn't defeat. Jehoshaphat didn't pretend they had the answer. He called the people together to seek the Lord. And Scripture makes a point of telling us who was there:
“All Judah stood before the LORD, with their little ones, their wives, and their children.”
Families. Children. Friends. Neighbors. An entire community standing together before God.
And their prayer was remarkably honest: “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”

Maybe that's one of the reasons we need to pray together. Sometimes I know what to do. Sometimes you know what to do. But sometimes we don't know what to do.
And when we don't, we don't have to figure it out alone.
We can stand together.
We can pray together.
We can remind one another where to look.
Our eyes are on you.

In my sermon “Love Is Our Testimony,” someone pointed out to me that I said something in my conclusion that probably needs more explanation. “It’s possible to know what God says and still fail to show people who God is.” In other words, we can know the Bible really well, know the right things to say, know what God expects of us, and even be able to tell other people what God says.  And yet, sometimes we still fail to actually reflect God in the way we live. That’s because there is a difference between knowing about God and showing people what God is like.
 
That thought brought me to a statement I’ve heard a lot, including from the late, great Ms. Dolly Parton. Famously, she said, “We’re all God’s children. We all have a place in this world. We all need to be loved and respected.” I don't mean to disparage Dolly in any way. I will always love you, Dolly (pun intended). But biblically, two of her statements are absolutely right. The third is often a misunderstanding of Scripture. And it’s so common that I think it is worth talking about.
 
It’s true that we all have a place in this world. All life matters and deserves to be loved and respected. Every human being has value and dignity, regardless of what they have accomplished, what they believe, or how they have lived their lives. The Christian understanding of human worth doesn't begin with what we do; rather, it begins with what God did when he created us.
 
From the beginning in Genesis, humanity was created in the imago Dei, the image of God. And every person carries something of our Creator's image. God didn't create some people in his image and then create others as lesser versions. Being created in the image of God is actually part of what it means to be human. It’s His breathing of life into our humanity. There is something deeply personal about that picture. That we aren't simply products that came off an assembly line. We are God's prized creation.
 
Paul expands on this idea in Colossians when he writes, “...for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him” (Colossians 1:16, NRSV). All of us are God's creation. And there’s very little doubt that God loves his creation. John does one better, giving us the most universally recognized verse in the Bible: “For God so loved the world...” (John 3:16). And notice here that he says the world. He didn’t say the church or people who already believe or people he likes because they cleaned up their lives and started doing everything right. He says: The world.
 
God has spent thousands of years loving people who don't love him back. That’s part of what makes God's love so amazing and impossible for us to fully comprehend. So the leap from there to “We're all God's children” makes sense. If God created everyone and loves everyone, then obviously everyone is his child. Except that's not quite what the Scripture says.
 
The Scriptures make a distinction between being God's creation and being God's child. And that distinction actually begins with Jesus. The New Testament is pretty clear that God has one unique Son: Jesus. And the rest of us are able to become God’s children through him. As John says, “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God” (John 1:12, NRSV). The distinction here is that His creation has to actually believe it. This is further realized through the important word: become. If everyone is inevitably a child of God, there’s no need to actually become one.
 
Paul uses a different word for the same idea. In Ephesians, he writes that God “destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:5, NRSV). Adoption only makes sense if there is a difference between being outside the family and then being brought into it. God's love does come first, and doesn’t start when we become his children. He created us, and He loves us. But He also pursues us, and through Christ, He invites us into His family. That is a very different message than saying we’re all already God's children simply because we exist. And Jesus himself made this distinction.
 
There is a strange little episode in the Gospels where Jesus’ family comes to speak to him. He was taking a lot of time to teach a crowd near the sea, so then after what felt like an eternity, one of his family members grabbed a man’s arm and said, “Get word to Jesus and tell him his mother and brothers are standing outside waiting for him.” The man obediently worked his way through the crowd. Once Jesus knew they were there, surely he would turn the crowd away for the moment and listen to them, wouldn’t he?
 
The man must have returned to them and sheepishly hung his head toward the ground.  “He said…he said…” “What? What did he say?” they demanded, seething through clenched teeth. “He asked the crowd, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers? Those who do what I say are my brothers, sisters, and mother.”’ Mary and all the brothers must have been stunned into silence (Matthew 12:48–50).
 
There is no record that Jesus ever actually came out to see them. Instead, he went out and sat by the sea and told a few more parables. Which makes me wonder what happened to Jesus’ family after that. He taught about marriage once but didn’t directly have a lesson about family. By today’s standards, he was not following the “family first” model we so strongly hold to. Ironically, he often taught the opposite. “Let the dead bury the dead…Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.”
 
Jesus wasn't saying that Mary didn't matter or that his biological family was unimportant. He was doing something much bigger. He was redefining family, namely, that the family of God isn't based on biology. It is based on relationship. And relationship with Father God.
 
Then we get to John 3, which is where this becomes especially interesting. We tend to remember John 3:16 as a verse that stands by itself, but it is actually part of a larger conversation Jesus is having with a Pharisee named Nicodemus. Nicodemus comes to see Jesus at night, and Jesus tells him that he must be “born again.” That must have sounded strange to Nicodemus. He was already a religious man. He already knew the Scriptures inside and out, as a leader in the Jewish community. Yet Jesus tells him that something new has to happen in him. Jesus tells him that being born isn’t enough. He needs new life. He needs to be born again.
 
In other words, being born physically into this world doesn't automatically make us children of God. Though Scripture does use the language of being God’s children in more than one way, the New Testament reserves “children of God” in a more specific sense for those brought into relationship with God through Christ. This is what Jesus is talking about when he tells Nicodemus that he must be born again.
 
It sounds wonderful, and in one sense I understand why we want to use it. We want to tell people that they matter, that they are important and that God loves them. We want to reject the idea that some people are somehow more valuable than others. And though we should do all of these things, we can’t change what Scripture says in order to do them. So again, every single one of us is created in the image of God and has an inherent dignity. We are created and loved by God, and have a place in this world. We deserve to be treated with love and respect. But according to Scripture, not everyone is a child of God.
 
That might be difficult to hear, but the gospel is actually better than that. The gospel is that God invites us into his family. We don't have to pretend that we're already there or earn our way in to make ourselves worthy of adoption. God has already made the way through Jesus.
 
So this brings me back to where I started. It is possible to know what God says and still fail to show people who God is. In fact, I think that's one of the great dangers for those of us who spend a lot of time around church. We can become very familiar with what God says while becoming less and less familiar with what God is like. We might defend truth while being unkind. We can quote Scripture while treating people without dignity. We can use phrases like “God is love” while making people feel as though they are way beyond his reach. We can be right about God and still give people the wrong picture of God.
 
That is why the distinction between God's creation and God's children matters. We don't have to believe that everyone is already a child of God in order to love everyone. In fact, the biblical picture gives us an even greater reason to love them. And that’s because we are God's creation, bear His image and He loves each of us so much, He was willing to send His own child to us. And if we have been adopted into God's family through Christ, then we have been given the privilege, and the responsibility, of showing people what our Father is like. That's what I was really getting at in my sermon. Our testimony isn't simply what we say about God. It is also what our lives tell people about God. If we call ourselves children of God, then somewhere in the way we love, forgive, listen, serve, disagree, welcome, and treat people, they need to catch a glimpse of the Father who adopted us. We won't always do it perfectly. I certainly don't. But that's the calling: To know what God says, and then, by the way we live, help people see who God is.

A few years ago, I was officiating the funeral of a friend’s sister who had suddenly passed away. I’d never met her, but the family had always been special to me, and I was more than willing to help walk them through the grief they were now experiencing.

They held the interment at a small cemetery just seven short miles from our church, and after it ended, I spent a little time walking around. A jagged rock, sticking out of the ground, caught my eye. I bent down to look at the bronze placard in front of the rock, which simply said: “Minoru Yamasaki, December 1, 1912 – February 6, 1986.” And below that: “Teruko Yamasaki, April 21, 1919- November 10, 1997.” I couldn’t believe my eyes. One of the greatest architects of all time was buried right here in Lakeville Cemetery.

One of my little hobbies is studying architecture. I really like the Industrial Age-Victorian type buildings, but even more, I gravitate to the mid-century modern. So growing up near Detroit, I found a cornucopia of all kinds of architecture. And Yamasaki was my favorite. When so many other architects of his era were following the path of Frank Lloyd Wright, Yamasaki was an independent modernist who forged his own distinct path. From the McGregor Memorial Conference Center at Wayne State (where I once sang with my high school choir) to the beautiful Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Hills, which he designed to resemble a tent, inspired by the temporary tabernacles used by the ancient Israelites during the Exodus from Egypt. He designed schools, houses and skyscrapers, not only in Michigan but all across the U.S. And if you go to downtown Detroit, you will see one of his most well-known buildings, One Woodward, which was the prototype for his most famous buildings: The World Trade Center.

I remember the day well. It was a beautiful, warm, and sunny Tuesday morning, and it was my fifth day of being a middle school teacher in Albany, NY. I was in between my first and second period; my wife Andrea, who was also teaching at the same school (across the hall, in fact) caught me in the hallway and told me that a small plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. “It’s a strange accident,” she said. “It’s such a clear day.” I remember exactly what I was feeling, and that was not much. A small plane sounded only like an accident.

Within the hour, most of our school’s classrooms had been cleared out, and the teachers and the students of our little school were sitting in front of televisions watching the North Tower burning and the replays of the second plane flying into the South Tower. Then, at 9:37, the news flashed to pictures of the Pentagon burning, and I still remember the voice of Dan Rather saying, “We are under attack. The United States is under attack.” Shortly after that, we watched live as the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed. Parents started calling the school; they were coming to pick up their children. By the time the North Tower collapsed, the teachers were all gathered in one room, crying around a single television.

On Monday, August 27, 2001, just two weeks and one day before, a friend of mine came to visit me in Albany before school started. He’d never been to NYC before, so we made the 3-hour drive down there to give him a tour. We actually stood in the plaza of the Trade Center and did what millions of other tourists have done: lay down on the ground between the towers to take a picture straight up into the sky. When you looked up, the towers were so tall, they looked like they curved toward each other. My friend had one of the first digital cameras ever, and snapped a picture. The next time I saw that plaza, it was a big hole in the bottom of New York City, with construction vehicles driving around in its center.

When I was in college, I spent three months living in New York City, working in ministry and taking every opportunity I could to explore this immense city. I rode the subway, walked neighborhoods, visited churches, wandered through different places I had only ever seen in movies, and slowly began to feel like the city was becoming familiar to me.

New York has a way of doing that. It is enormous and overwhelming, but after you’ve spent enough time there, certain places start to feel like they’re yours. You know the streets you walk, and where to get the best garlic knots. You know where you like to eat and sit where Jerry Seinfeld might have sat (though the restaurant looks nothing like it on the inside). You recognize the sounds, hearing the echoes of the Harlem Renaissance poets. You have memories attached to places that, to everyone else, are just another corner of the city.

And the World Trade Center was one of those places for me. It wasn’t just a picture on television anymore. I had stood beneath those towers. I had looked straight up at them. I had walked through the plaza. I had taken pictures there. So when I watched them disappear on September 11, I wasn’t watching something that was completely unfamiliar to me. I was watching a place I knew become something I would never be able to visit again.

Years later, I took my young family down to the memorial. We walked around the Twin Reflecting Pools; on bronze panels surrounding the pools, we read the inscribed names of people we never knew, and stared into the sky at One World Trade Center, which stands at a symbolic 1,776 feet. I snapped a picture of my then four-year-old daughter, placing her little hands across some of the victims’ names. She couldn’t understand what those names meant, or why we were even there. She only knew that I had stopped to take a picture.
That’s one of the hardest things about remembering September 11. We can explain what happened by telling the history. We can name the perpetrators and their victims. We can describe the planes, the buildings, the fires, and the collapse. But we still can’t fully explain why.

Why does evil happen? Why do innocent people die? Why do some people get to go home that night while others don’t?

I don’t think remembering September 11 means that we have to understand everything that happened that day. Some things are beyond our understanding. But I do think remembering matters. We remember because every name belonged to someone. Someone’s mother. Someone’s father. Someone’s husband or wife. Someone’s son or daughter. Someone’s friend.

And every one of them had places that felt like home.

Yamasaki built buildings where thousands of people went to work, visited, traveled, ate, met friends, looked out windows, took pictures. He built a place, and then people filled it with their lives. Then, in a single morning, that place disappeared.

But the people did not become less real because the buildings were gone.

We remember who we were with when it happened. We remember where we were standing when we first heard. We remember the places. And sometimes those places no longer exist. But the people do. Their names and their stories do. And as long as we remember them, they are more than names etched into bronze.

This past week I spoke on how the Holy Spirit not only prepares us to go out and speak the life of the gospel message to people, but He also gives us the power to do it. And this is important for Christians to remember because God has placed us in places we could never reach on our own, and has given us His Spirit so we don’t have to represent Jesus in our own strength.

But sometimes being a witness for Jesus isn’t about having the answers to difficult questions. Sometimes it’s about how we respond when there are no easy answers to be found. The Spirit doesn’t just empower us to speak about Jesus when we have answers; He empowers us to represent Jesus when we don’t.

A clear example of this is the recent trial of Lindsay Clancy. The trial ended in a mistrial on September 4 after seven days of deliberation. The jury could not reach a unanimous decision about whether Clancy was criminally responsible. Her defense argued that postpartum psychosis left her without criminal responsibility; prosecutors argued that she understood what she was doing and its wrongfulness. The case is not resolved, and a retrial remains possible.

But before anything is determined or said about anything else, it’s important to grieve a tragedy before you analyze it. Cora, Dawson, and Callan should be alive. Their lives mattered and were sacred. This is a heartbreaking situation that must be grieved first, as Paul told us in Romans: “Weep with those who weep” (12:15). Loss of life should never become a symbol in any debate about mental illness, motherhood, criminal justice, or even worse, a theological study. So as a person who understands the sacredness of life, I grieve the loss of their short lives.

This case did center itself on the mental health of Clancy, and as a people of faith, we must address that health with wisdom. On on hand, some might say, “Mental illness explains everything, so accountability doesn’t matter.” And on the other hand: “Mental health is irrelevant because people are responsible for their actions.” The reality is, mental illness can be profoundly real and profoundly serious. It deserves compassion and a better understanding. Yet, compassion does not require us to pretend that horrific actions aren’t horrific and evil. While the trial raised postpartum psychosis and conflicting interpretations of her mental-health care and mental state, we cannot diagnose Clancy ourselves. Whatever is concluded about this case, Clancy is a human being in need of the grace of God, just as we all are.

Too often grace and justice are misunderstood in difficult situations or tragedies like this. Some might view God’s grace as God not caring about what happened or, even worse, that His punishment should look exactly like what I think is appropriate. Instead, it’s important to know that justice always says evil matters, while at the same time grace says that broken people are never beyond God’s reach. And the gospel refuses to make us choose between the two. This is nowhere more evident than at the cross: God never minimizes sin, but neither does He abandon sinners. At the cross, God demonstrates that sin is serious enough to require judgment and sinners are loved enough to receive grace. This distinction is important as it reminds us that we can trust God’s justice without becoming indifferent to justice here and now.

As we found out, the jury couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict, forcing the judge to declare a mistrial. If you look anywhere, there are opinions about what the jury should have done, or whether Clancy was legally insane; what she was thinking. I even saw a podcast that stated: “If your pastor didn’t comment on the trial on Sunday, find a new church!” But the reality is, we don’t need to know everything there is to know about this case to know something about ourselves. Tragedies like this remind us that we are called to grieve and seek godly wisdom. In all situations, we must pursue justice while extending grace. Ultimately, judgment is God’s. But the question for us to ask is: What does it look like to represent Jesus when we’re talking about something this painful?

Maybe it looks like grieving before debating. Or maybe it means taking mental illness seriously without minimizing the devastation it can cause. Maybe we should pursue justice without believing that justice requires us to become cruel. Or extending grace without pretending that evil doesn't matter.

It requires being a witness for Jesus, and I’m willing to say, “I don't have an easy answer. But I know how Jesus calls me to respond.”

We live in a world that often wants quick conclusions with certainty. But followers of Jesus are called to something even deeper. We are called to grieve with those who grieve, to seek wisdom, to pursue justice, to extend grace, and ultimately to trust God with the things we cannot fully understand.

The Holy Spirit doesn't empower us because we have all the answers. He empowers us to represent Jesus faithfully even when we don't.

And that’s one of the most important ways we can be His witnesses in a broken world.

A Bigger Vision Part II: Looking Ahead

Last week, in part one of this topic, I expounded on having A Bigger Vision. I looked back at the past year and what we, as a church, learned about ourselves. We celebrated the areas where God has given us a strong foundation while also recognizing where we need to become more intentional, such as forming people, connecting people, developing leaders, and measuring our impact.

But looking back is only valuable if it inspires us to look forward. We looked at: What do we do with what we’ve learned, and where is God leading us next? But the bigger vision requires us to answer a fundamental question: Why are we doing this?

In his book, Start with the Why, Simon Sinek believes that long-term success and loyalty stem from having a clear purpose, not just products or tactics. You begin with the “Why” (purpose), then explain the “How” (process), and conclude with the “What” (product). Sinek explains that inspiring leaders communicate from the inside out. We might have really good reasons to do something, either as individuals or collectively as a church. Why are we doing what we are doing? For the church, our “why” isn’t something we try to invent. It’s something we believe we receive from God.

This past summer, I taught a sermon that more or less explained the answer in broad terms. The title was as simple as: Why We Go, and centered on the scripture found in Matthew 28:18-20: Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age. (NLT)

Why do we go? Well, first off, because we were told to by the founder of our faith, Jesus. But even more than that, it’s important to refocus our thinking around the idea that the church doesn’t actually have a mission. God has a mission that has a church. In other words, we don’t have any mission apart from the plan and purpose that God already has. It’s the church’s job to seek the mind of God for that plan.

Vision isn’t simply about coming up with a catchy phrase or creating a list of things we would like to accomplish. Vision is about looking at where we are, paying attention to where God is already at work, and asking what faithfulness looks like in the season ahead.
Over the past year, as we have prayed, talked, studied, listened, and looked honestly at who we are as a church, three simple ideas have continued to rise to the surface:

Make God Bigger.
Make Church Smaller.
Make a Greater Impact.
 
MAKE GOD BIGGER
The first is perhaps the most important because everything else flows from it. We want to MAKE GOD BIGGER.

Of course, we don't actually make God bigger. God is already bigger than anything we could imagine. What we mean is that we want God to occupy a larger place in our lives. We want to make Him “bigger” in our worship, our prayer, our everyday decisions, and the way we see the world around us.

We want people to know God, not simply know about God. And that means becoming more intentional about spiritual formation. It means learning how to pray, how to read Scripture, how to listen to God, how to recognize His presence, and how to become more like Jesus.

This is why we’ve begun creating opportunities for spiritual formation and discipleship. Practicing the Way, Experiencing God, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, and One at a Time are not simply classes to put on a calendar. They are opportunities to help us become people who follow Jesus more deeply.

We want worship to continue to be one of our greatest strengths. We want to create more opportunities for prayer. We want to make room for God to speak, move, challenge, comfort, and transform us.

Because the goal isn’t simply to have a church that gathers on Sunday.

The goal is to become a people whose lives are increasingly shaped by God.
 
MAKE CHURCH SMALLER
The second idea might equally sound strange at first: Make Church Smaller.

We aren’t talking about shrinking LakePoint. We aren’t trying to have fewer people. In fact, we believe God has more people for us to reach. We’re talking about something different. A large church can make it easy to be present without being known. We can sit in the same room every week, worship together, listen to the same message, and still go home without ever really knowing the people sitting around us.

Rows gather us. Circles connect us. That’s why we want to become more intentional about belonging, especially through Life Groups, Bible studies, discipleship opportunities, intergenerational relationships, serving teams, and other smaller gatherings. These give us opportunities to move beyond simply attending church to actually being the church together.

We want LakePoint to be a place where people are known by name, where friendships are formed, where people can ask difficult questions, where faith can be shared honestly, and where no one has to walk alone.

A smaller church doesn't necessarily mean a smaller congregation. It means a larger church made up of smaller communities where people actually belong.
 
MAKE A GREATER IMPACT
And finally, we want to make a greater impact.
Jesus didn’t call the church to simply gather together. He called us to go. We've already seen evidence of this in the life of LakePoint. We serve our community. We share our faith. We send people on mission. We care for our neighbors. We open our food pantry. We participate in Oxford Gives Back. We send people to Belize. We baptize people who have placed their faith in Jesus. These things matter, but we believe there is more.

Making a greater impact means becoming more intentional about the people God has placed around us. It means asking not only, Who comes to LakePoint? but also, Who has God sent us to? It means becoming better equipped to share our faith. It also means developing leaders who can serve both inside and outside the walls of the church, and use our resources wisely and generously.

And it means remembering that our church exists for something bigger than ourselves. In other words, we don’t want to simply have a healthy church. We want to have a healthy church that makes a difference. Ultimately, this is what we mean when we say that our vision is, “to have an intergenerational church that together worships Jesus and works in unity to impact the community around us.”
 
FINAL THOUGHT
So as we begin this new ministry season, we aren’t starting over. We are building on what God has already been doing among us. We want to Make God Bigger, Make Church Smaller, and Make a Greater Impact. This is more than a slogan or strategy. It is our invitation to become the church God has called us to be. We’re grateful for where we’ve been. We’re excited about where we’re going. And we’re trusting God to lead us there.

A Bigger Vision Part I:
A Year in Review


It’s somewhat normal in churches today to have what’s often referred to as a “ministry season.” It’s simply a way of bringing one year in the life of the church to an end and beginning another. Everyone marks time differently. The Jewish calendar begins with Rosh Hashanah in the fall. The Christian liturgical year begins with Advent. Most of us, however, follow the civil calendar, which begins on January 1. For LakePoint, our new ministry season begins each year on September 1. It’s more than just the beginning of another ministry year; it also coincides with the beginning of our fiscal year. Our budgets reset, ministries begin again, and we turn our attention toward the year ahead.

There is something meaningful about having a set time to pause, look back, and begin again.
In one of his more famous poems, T.S. Eliot wrote, “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” I’m not nearly as eloquent, so I’ll simply say this: Both endings and beginnings are important. Endings allow us to look back. They help us to remember what happened, to celebrate what went well, and to recognize what we’ve learned. Beginnings allow us to look ahead. They consider where we’re going and what we might do differently. In that sense, an ending is never simply an ending. It can become the starting point for whatever comes next.

That’s why a new ministry season matters. Before we just rush into another year, it’s worth taking a moment to look back. What has God been doing among us? Where have we grown? Where are we healthy? And where might God be inviting us to grow?

Last year, the leadership asked the congregation to take a survey that helped to give us some direction as to where we felt God was calling us as a church to move toward. Some questions asked about church leadership, spiritual formation, and evangelism. There were also suggestions of places we could improve, as well as our strengths.

The survey was conducted through Gloo, a platform that helps churches understand the health and development of their congregations. We weren’t necessarily looking for a grade, and we definitely weren't looking for a way to prove that we were doing everything right. “What we were really looking for was a snapshot that would help us see more clearly where we were healthy, where we had room to grow, and where we needed to become more intentional.”

What we discovered was encouraging. LakePoint has a healthy foundation. We scored highest in areas such as Worship Experience and Trusted Leaders. We also scored highly in Faith Sharing and Serving Others. These are not small things. They tell us that some important things are happening within the life of our church. People trust their leaders and value worship. People are willing to share their faith and are willing to serve.

But the survey also showed us that though we have a healthy foundation, that doesn’t mean the house is finished.

We scored lower in Spiritual Formation and Connected Community. In the area of sending and outward impact, Leadership Development emerged as an area where we need to grow. And in the area of leading the organization, Data-Informed Decision-Making
and Resource Stability were identified as places where we could become stronger.
In other words, the survey didn't tell us that LakePoint was unhealthy. It told us that we have a healthy foundation, but we need to become more intentional about forming people, connecting people, developing leaders, and measuring what we're doing.

Churches can be very busy without necessarily being very intentional. Sometimes we can just offer programs, hold services, fill calendars, and recruit volunteers. We might accomplish a great deal, but can still miss some of the deeper work Jesus has called us to do. The question isn't simply, How much are we doing? The better question is, What kind of fruit is all of this producing in us?

The better questions: Are people becoming more like Jesus? Are people finding meaningful community? Are people discovering their gifts and learning to lead? How much sharing the good news and serving our neighbors is taking place? Are we paying attention to what is actually happening among us?

These types of questions have shaped much of our thinking over this past year. And they have led us to a simple conclusion: we don't need to abandon what is working. We just need to build on it.

We want to continue investing in worship and prayer, and we want to strengthen the things that are already healthy. But at the same time, we want to become more intentional about discipleship, spiritual formation, community, evangelism, leadership, and stewardship.
That has meant some very practical changes. We’ve hired a Worship Pastor and committed ourselves to creating more opportunities for worship and prayer. We've developed new discipleship and spiritual formation classes. We've begun thinking differently about the structure of our church. We've created a leadership manual and are preparing leadership training for the coming ministry year. We've also begun publishing attendance and financial information because we believe healthy churches should pay attention to what is happening and be willing to talk honestly about it.

And this isn’t the vision. They are really just steps toward the vision. And that's really what a new ministry season is about. We look back—not simply to celebrate what happened, and not simply to identify what went wrong—but so that we can look forward with greater clarity. The end is where we start from.

So as we begin another ministry season at LakePoint, we are carrying both gratitude and expectation with us. We are grateful for the foundation God has given us. And we are expecting God to continue building something through us that is bigger than any one program, sermon, ministry, or season.

The question isn't simply: Where have we been?
The question is: Where is God leading us next?

And that is where our vision begins. Not with a new program or strategy, but with a willingness to follow where God is leading us next.

THE FAMILY GOD CREATES
5/8/28

The other day on the trail, I passed a pond in a nearby ravine. Suddenly, ducklings appeared out of nowhere, scattering and then racing across the water toward their mother. She quacked loudly at my presence as they cut quick, panicked V-shapes to reach her. It was a simple moment, but a picture of protection, instinct, and, at the same time, belonging.

This coming Sunday is Mother’s Day, and this picture stuck in my mind as a perfect picture of not only motherhood but also of God Himself. It’s a day to honor the different women who have shaped our lives. For some, that’s a biological mother; for others, it’s a spiritual mother, a mentor, or someone who helped guide us in faith. We may be able to celebrate with them, or we may be honoring their memory. Some of us are celebrating our own children, while others are celebrating children we’ve helped raise and pour into. However it looks, it’s a day to celebrate.

But as a pastor, I know Mother’s Day can also be a difficult day. For some, memories of our mother are not easy. Some may not have had the relationship they’d hoped for, and others have never known their mother at all. Some have experienced the pain of not being able to have children. Others carry the unimaginable weight of losing a child. These are real experiences, and they make this day complex.

And it’s in the middle of that complexity that we’re reminded of something deeper: God is forming a family.

Jesus pointed to those who followed Him and said, “These are my brothers and sisters.” He wasn’t building something defined only by biology, but by belonging. He didn’t come to build something defined only by a kingdom; He came to create a family. And the Apostle Paul tells us that God decided in advance to adopt us into His own family through Jesus Christ.

Even though God reveals Himself to us as Father, Scripture also shows us the depth and tenderness of His love in ways that reflect a mother’s heart. In Isaiah, God says, “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even though she might forget, I will never forget you.” (Isaiah 49:15). Or in a prayer of Moses, God is seen as one who gives birth, and he asks God, “Was it I who conceived all this people? or was it I who gave them birth…?” (Numbers 11:12). And Jesus describes Himself as a mother hen lamenting to gather her children under His wings in the midst of pain and confusion (Matt. 23:37). God’s love is not distant, rather it is nurturing, attentive, and fiercely committed.

So Mother’s Day isn’t just about the families we come from, it’s also about the family God is creating.

Whether women have raised children, felt the ache of wanting to have them, poured into others spiritually, or have gone through the almost impossible task of trying to live after losing them, they are all part of that family. These women reflect the heart of a God who sees, who nurtures, and who never forgets His children.

And because that’s who God is, it shapes what we do.

So my hope on that day is that your children, biological, adoptive, or spiritual, rise up and call you blessed! May we support one another, pray for one another, and worship together as one family.

To all women, mothers in every sense: Happy Mother’s Day!

Pastor Jesse Holt

MIND, DEBT, & FORGIVENESS
5/1/26

Some debts are harder to stop paying than others. In a recent interview, actor Oscar Isaac said, “Find a way to make your mind your friend.” But too often, our minds act less like friends and more like debt collectors, calling at all hours to remind us of what we still owe for our past.
Lately, I’ve been studying what have become known as King David’s Penitential Psalms, partly for a deeper understanding, but mostly for the current sermon series we’re in called “The Rhythm of Prayer.” These Psalms (6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143) illuminate the part of Jesus’ Model Prayer: Forgive us our debts…

Most people don’t know the full weight of your worst sin or mine. Yet, after 3,000 years, everyone still knows David’s. While he thought his failure was buried in the palace floorboards, it was eventually broadcast and retold for generations. David’s greatest sin became public history, and while his failure remained part of the story, his guilt did not. What God forgave, David no longer kept trying to pay for. “Finally, I confessed all my sins to you,” he wrote, “and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, ‘I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.’ And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.” (Psalm 32:5, NLT). This Psalm captures that turning point with startling honesty. Notice the freedom begins not only in confession, but in no longer hiding it. David’s sin wasn’t only mental torture; it was compounded by the exhausting labor of concealment and self-payment.

It’s like a woman who once walked into her bank, ready to make another student loan payment, only to discover her balance was zero. Paid in full. The shock wasn’t just financial; it was psychological. She came prepared to participate in a burden that no longer belonged to her. That image feels deeply theological. So many people approach God the same way: still trying to pay toward a debt Christ has already marked PAID. Provision means the cost has been covered; participation is the courage to walk out of the bank without looking back. Someone else has absorbed the cost.

I have a close friend who often says to me, “Be your own best friend.” I think David discovered a way to do this. And though he might have learned how to make peace with his mind, he didn’t find that peace by looking inward alone. He found it by bringing his guilt before God. Too many times, we look internally for the forgiveness we seek. And while self-compassion matters, peace cannot be found within ourselves alone. We must learn to quiet the noise of our sinfulness in the character of God. Once David brought his debt into the open, God didn’t offer a payment plan. He offered release. The guilt was gone. Not reduced. Not refinanced. Gone.

Maybe that’s how the mind becomes a friend: when it stops arguing with grace and finally agrees with it. We don’t just think more positively. We actually give ourselves the better narrative of the Gospel and align ourselves with what God has declared forgiven. Why? Because some of us are still standing at the counter, ready to pay balances that have already cleared. Healing begins when we accept what mercy says is true: the debt isn’t reduced. It’s gone.

Pastor Jesse Holt