The Plan: Love God, Love People, No Strings Attatched

What does it look like to plant a church? There is no doubt that we still have a lot to learn and a lot of planning to do. However, we have been discussing the fact that all of our planning must be be based on two things, loving God and loving people. The reality is that the goals of a new church are not any different than the goals of an established church. The goal must never be to have a large membership or a large amount of resources. The goal must be to love God with all of our hearts and let our love for Him motivate us to love others, to His glory.

Loving those who are a part of our church looks primarily like helping them grow in their knowledge and application of the Scriptures. Secondarily it looks like serving them genuinely and creatively. When we first move to Texas we will have a small church, five members to be exact, but we must work to do these things for one another. While there is room for improvement, the way in which we should love those in our church has been exemplified well in our time at Sonrise.

In regard to our community there is no doubt that our ultimate desire is to share the gospel with them and see them grow in grace, but the first thing that we must do is love them genuinely and creatively. To love genuinely means that we do not love with selfish motives, for that would not be love at all. We must guard against showing acts of love for the purpose of adding people to our membership or to gain support for the church. To love genuinely is to show the same love for people that Christ shows for us; a love that is selfless and seeks what is best for the recipient. It is a love that is always consistent, regardless of the situation. To love creatively means that we actively and passionately search for opportunities to serve others. We do not want to put limitations on the ways in which we can show love to those around us. We trust that when we love our community genuinely and creatively we will have opportunities to share with them the One who loves them perfectly, Jesus Christ.

While there are still many details to discuss and much planning to be done all of those details and plans flow from this foundation; loving God and loving people for His glory.

May our lives and efforts be pleasing in His sight.

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