Celebrating Fruition
Hope #1

          Back in August of 2012 I had come upon one of the biggest turning points in my entire life, God had called me to plant a church.  For 2 years leading up to that point I had prayed, asked for prayer, sought out the counsel from trusted believers, leaned on the support of my family, submitted to an intense church planting assessment process through Acts 29 and was about to take a plunge into a realm of ministry that would change who I am forever.

          To say that August 2012 was a time of desperation for God’s guidance and protection for me would be a vast understatement.  We’re never at any point less dependant upon God’s guidance and direction in our lives but when we’re sailing into the unknown our desire for it certainly intensifies.  How foolish we are to ever think we have things under control.  In the month of August as we made last minute preparations to launch The Journey, I blogged about 4 different hopes, ways we hoped God would work and use this planting effort.  We took these hopes before God and shared them with our launch team, supporters, and prospective attendees leading up to our September launch.

          This week, leading up to our Vision Sunday & Business Meeting, I wanted to take some time to celebrate how by the grace of God we’ve seen these hopes come to fruition.

#1 - We hope The Journey is a place where nobody walks alone.

[26] If one member suffers, all suffer together;
if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
(1 Corinthians 12:26 ESV)

          Feel free to click on the link above to see the original post for Hope #1 and understand it in greater detail.  This Hope, as with all the other hopes, wasn’t an outside-the-box idea when it comes to what church is and should be.  We all desire a sense of community and camaraderie with people in general.  Nobody can deny that this is simply how we’re wired and how we were created to live.  Christians should be people who seek to live life together for the sake of proclaiming the Gospel and the advancement of His kingdom.

          Christianity shouldn’t feel like living on a deserted island.  However, that doesn’t mean it’s meant to feel like a mass gathering of loving people with sunshine and rainbows all the time either.  It means, as Paul’s verse mentioned above, we’re partnering together in the good times and the bad times.

"Christianity shouldn’t feel like living on a deserted island."

          Man, I’m so thankful that we’ve experienced so many good times in this past year and a half that they’re too many to mention.  For starters we’ve got to celebrate the births of several babies at The Journey and even dedicated 2 of them.  We also witnessed the miraculous survival of premature twins, which doctors were convinced wouldn’t make it.  We’ve witnessed skeptics becoming believers and becoming a part of our church family.  We have other skeptics who don’t yet believe but they feel as though The Journey is a safe place to come and learn about the Bible and feel accepted for where they’re at in their journey.  We’ve seen 5 people baptized because they wanted the whole world to know that they love Jesus.  We have people opening up their homes to host Bible studies, other people volunteering to teach those studies.  Some of those groups grew too large and now we have more groups with more people teaching and opening up their homes (we’ve seen Journey groups explode from one original group to 9 current groups).  The list goes on and on…

          We’ve also seen each other through some hard times.  So many broken people have walked through those theater doors.  Marriages in shambles, people with justified bitterness towards the church, hearts broken from corrupt relationships, the jobless, the lonely, people who have been through the proverbial “ringer” over this past year.  Some wrecked lives have limped into Journey to hear the gospel.  It’s easy to love somebody who’s on the up and up.  By the grace of God we’ve witnessed a church family who has loved people in their mess.  So many of these people have made real friends and connections over that past year that I believe will last a lifetime.  You never forget those who accepted and loved you at your worst, after all that’s what makes Jesus so incredible.

"You never forget those who accepted and loved you at your worst, after all that’s what makes Jesus so incredible."

          By God’s grace I’ve seen our church family help people through some hard times in very practical ways as well.  We’ve learned that if you have an injury of any kind that our church family will be there to jump in and serve.  From motorcycle wrecks to various surgeries and losses I’ve seen our people make meals, take care of kids, help with house chores and much more.

          All in all I’ve seen people build some real family-like relationships here.  There are people who weren’t friends that are now friends because of their time at the Journey, they feel like they have a church to belong to.  There are people who were in a season of life feeling alone, depressed and stressed who now feel like they have some believers to lean on.  There are Jesus-loving individuals who have been investing major amounts of time into the lives of those who currently have little to offer in return and truly need somebody.  I’ve seen people loved here in the midst of their mess and I’ve seen people live sacrificially out of an understanding of what Jesus has done for them.

          Don’t get me wrong, we’re far from perfect.  There have been some people that we’ve failed to reach out too.  We know there have been some who have fallen through the cracks or we were unable to help due to lack of resources, manpower or even desire.  However, I can say without hesitation that we’ve seen this hope come to fruition.  I believe we’ve seen an answer to prayer.  We’ve truly seen some people lock arms and partner together for the sake of the gospel!

          Would you please take some time and praise God in prayer for the astounding ways in which He has shown us mercy and grace in this area of our church?  I’m overwhelmed when I think of the ways in which people haven’t had to walk alone at our church and only One deserves the praise and glory for this reality.

Thank you Jesus!

Cody Parman