I recently sat in the staff mtg of the Vineyard church in Redding & was asked a great question: "How do people make there way to your church, what type of signage do you have to direct people to your church?" I mentioned that, "We don't put out any signs," which brought up other questions, namely "how do people here about your church?"

This brings up a core value for our church: We (the community of Antioch Church of Santa Cruz) are the signs that direct people to Jesus & our church. So,thus far, 90% of the people who are now a part of our church are a result of friendships created in & throughout Santa Cruz. This is a very intentional thing. We believe that evangelism is the response of each believer to the Great Commandment & the abdication of this task to the church machine (the impersonal comglomerate of services, logos, events, etc.) is effective in creating a crowd, but less-effective in helping the community take responsibility for their faith (discipleship). Getting a post-card in the mail is a good, but Jesus' means of evangelism was, & still is, believers engaging him daily & then taking their personal relationship & the power therein to the communities they live in & inviting them into a relationship with God. Post-cards & events get a message out, but at the expense of helping each person within the church "love their neighbor" as a normative result of their relationship to a loving God.

Jesus was asked: "What is the greatest commandment?" He responded: "Love God, Love People." I believe that a natural response to loving God is an eventual reorientation of one's entire life to the person & purposes of Jesus. Because we love him, we will slowly but surely love what he loves & he without a shadow of a doubt he loves people. Therefore, the more we love him, the more we will love people & will want to include them into a relationship with the one whom we have found life within: The triune God. I know this isn't a simple A to B transition, since all sorts of things come up in between, however to love God & not love people only shows our lack of knowing the one who loves us so dearly. So, by our not relying upon the "church machine" to do the work that should be the natural response of the Great Commandment within each believer brings about The Great Question: "To what degree do you know the love of God & in what ways can we deepen that love together?" Too, this helps me, albeit a frustrating & revealing adventure at times, to gauge how well people are being transformed by the gospel & not just taking part in a "cool" service each week. I have heard of numerous churches that first off aren't communities but crowds, & two exist namely for themselves & take no joy in the responsibility of being "the light & salt of the earth," which leads to the leadership of the church vamping up the "signage, events, etc." in order to reach the lost. These are not bad things, however, the church (a people, not a place or event) is God's means of revealing himself. Therefore, our lack of "signage" hopefully results in empowering people to reveal the true depth of God's love in their life.

I do know that loving God is easier than loving people. However, finding out the difficulty of loving people should only lead to a deeper dependency upon God, relying upon him even more, & allowing him to heal the brokeness in our lives in order to live out the Great Commission (make disciples). So when I present the question to the leadership of our church: "who are you spending time with this week & why are you investing into that person?" is in a roundabout way asking about their relationship with God & their willingness to grow into the likeness of Christ (not a simple thing by any means, but it's the best!).

Now needless to say "branding" & other culturally contextual things of this sort are important to us & the culture we live in. I do like our logo. However, in order to reach the 95% of Santa Cruz county who don't know Jesus our lives need to shine with God's love. Santa Cruz has many "cool" (& wonderful churches). That said, the percentage of people who don't know Jesus is the result of many things, yet one thing is certain, however you slice it the believers in Santa Cruz aren't living a life fueled with the love with God. If they were, the percentages would be different; 95% is a clear reflection upon the depth of the churches within our county; including ours. Too, what is the key component to sending church plants out all over the world? Not signage, but people whose lives are daily fueled by God's love for them, which then results in...

Antioch Church of Santa Cruz: A community devoted to the person (Great Commandment) & purposes (Great Commission) of Jesus.

Blogging about it & living it are two very different things, but aiming high is always fun!