Explosive Growth at Mariner's
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
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Mariner's Church is just down the road from Saddleback and reading in Outreach Magazine I was excited to learn about their growth. There's a great feature on them in this month's issue - here's three of the five big things they're going after this year:
First, as a pastor, I believe in teaching God’s Word. We want our congregation to love God and love the truth. We want them to have a meaningful experience with Jesus that they connect with God. In studying God’s Word, I take a historical grammatical method so that our church can learn and understand what was said in the Bible, take those principles and translate them across cultural boundaries.
Second, we strongly believe that each person can make a difference at our church, so we give our members a great deal of ministerial responsibility. This all starts with members sharing their personal testimonies. We believe we overcome the evil one through the blood of the Lamb and Word of our testimony. So, we as a church place a huge value on story time. Every Tuesday morning, we have people telling stories of how God is changing people in our church. We also value small groups and believe they are a "wondering place" where we can have discussions of God’s Word with one another as a community.
Third, we create a sense of family at our church by treating it like a large community church. Our building is a big box with dramatic staging so that when you walk in, it feels like an auditorium with amphitheater seating. All of the social activities for the church, however, happen around an outdoor seating area that looks a lot like a patio. By creating a church that’s a family, we can help our members through the pain and sadness in their lives. A family home is a place where people love you for who you are, but also love you enough to help you get better. So our church family challenges one another to be all that we can be; it’s a safe enough place to make life’s most dangerous choices. A church functioning as a healthy family creates a fun, family atmosphere that challenges growth--that’s the kind of family we are trying to create at Mariners.
JG
posted by Unknown @ 3:02 PM |
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