Celebrating Fruition
Hope #2

          This is the second of four posts celebrating answered prayer and the work of God and The Journey.  Last August we prayed that The Journey would be a place where Scripture was held as our highest court of authority.  You can read about our second hope here (Hope #2, A Place Where We All Use The Same Map).

          Simply put, our hope was that the Journey would be a place that people could come to learn about the Bible.  We didn’t want to be a place that relied on gimmicks, tricks or overwhelming creativity to bring people back each week.  We just wanted to cultivate an environment in which anyone regardless of their beliefs, lifestyle or phase of life would feel welcomed and confident that they were going to be taught the word of God when they came through those theater doors.  By God’s grace we feel as though this has come to fruition. Not long ago one man said to me:

“I’m not sure where I stand when it comes to Jesus, but that’s what I like about The Journey, I feel like I can come here to just learn about who he is and what he said and nobody is going to look down on me.”

Another man told me:

“What I like about the Journey is that’s it’s raw, no fluff or time fillers. We get here and quickly get into Scripture, God’s word seems to be the goal and that’s what I need in my life right now.”

          A little over a year ago, having taught through 4 weeks of vision and also through the book of 1 Timothy, we began teaching through the Gospel of John. Being a brand new church we wanted to spend some time marinating in the story of Jesus.  Can I be honest? I was nervous of the commitment to teach out of one book of the Bible for such a long time.  I knew it would take us over a year to teach through this entire book and I was worried that people would lose interest or get bored with it.  I was so tempted to rely on the gimmicks of ministry rather than the word.  I’m a young pastor and have much to learn.

          I cannot begin to tell you how wrong I was to worry about spending so much of our time together in John as we have.  I’ve seen people get excited about the Bible for the first time in their life.  I’ve seen people who previously didn’t believe in God taking notes, marking up their Bibles and asking difficult questions.  I’ve had long time believers tell me about their rejuvenated passion to study Scripture.  I’ve had lengthy on going discussions with so many people who are sifting through the Bible for the first time with a thirst that they can’t quite explain.  It’s as if God’s word truly is enough!  It’s as if God’s word is changing people despite of our lack of churchiness, not to mention our sinfulness!

          I’ve gained a lot of confidence in God’s word over this past year.  I believe it accomplishes what it wants (Isa 55:11).  I’ve learned that it’s better to prayerfully stay faithful to what the Bible teaches and proclaim its’ truths rather than to try to win people to church by any other means.  Join me in prayer that this would be another year in which God’s word would be proclaimed at The Journey.  Let us lift up work of Jesus Christ that He would draw people unto himself, that we would see hearts changed and His kingdom advanced here in the MOV.

Thankful for His Word,

Cody Parman

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Celebrating Fruitin, Hope #1