Alot has happened since my last blog.  The biggest thing and the one thing that has been on my heart and mind 24/7 for the last 3 months is The Remedy.  About half a year ago we started asking this question - what would it look like if we combined our college and young adult ministries and went after a generation that the church is ignoring with no holds barred?  What would it look like if we did something that would not succeed without the God's movement?  Through much prayer, fasting, and research - we went out on a limb and The Remedy was born.  

The vision for The Remedy is to make a creative environment where unchurched people love to come and love God.  We hope that everyone at The Remedy will love God, love each other, and rock this world with the love of Christ.  Making a creative environment that would attract unchurched young adults is not a trade that is common in the church in America today.  We did not have a lot of precedence, so we went to those churches that are doing it best:  Granger Community Church, Newspring, Northpoint, etc.  We understand that our culture is driven by music and other forms of media, so we knew that to effectively communicate with our culture we have to connect on some level through music.  In foreign fields missionaries go to the culture and do two things before preaching the Gospel:  1) They learn the language, 2) They learn the culture.  Then they began to see how the Gospel can be best communicate.  Unfortunately instead of approaching our own culture as missionaries, the church dominated culture at one point in the history of America and planted its feet in the 1950's while the world around grew and changed and modernized.   Our situation now is one where many church people love our Christian sub-culture, rather than loving the God of all cultures - Jesus.  We have become inward foucsed and we don't mind if the rest of the world goes to hell as long as we have worship that is pleasing to us and preaching that helps us grow.    How far from the heart of the one who ate with sinners we have come!

So - The Remedy is an attempt to reconnect the gospel with culture by going to culture and leveraging it for the sake of the Kingdom.   

How will we know if The Remedy is a success?  i don't believe numbers will be the judge - because there is always the chance that we get alot of people - alot of church people.  Our success will be measured by how faithful we are to the vision God has given us - to connect the Gospel with a culture that is unchurched and dechurched.  If we have no fruit - then we are not connecting it, we are not bringing people who are far from God and making a space where they can meet God in their context.  And if that is the case then we will change the things that hold us back from bridging the gap.  

We have started with a vision, then some conversations, then the support of our church, then the support of our larger church network, then trust in God's dream, then preparation, then action.  Now we are meeting in the Capitol Theater on Sunday nights from 8-9 and rocking it out.  We are coming up on our third Sunday of The Remedy.  We have had a great start, I am continually amazed by how God is moving.  He is on the move!  Pray, then pray pray pray.  

Posted In: culture church

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