CCV Mission

My response to a blog post at Brian Jones.com from someone named John regarding feedback on Christ’s Church of the Valley.

Go to Brian Jones.com to read the original post from John on January, 18, 2008.

http://www.brianjones.com/

Obviously John has hit a nerve or two with his comments to Brian. What is more surprising to me is the judgment and defensiveness displayed in some of the responses to John’s post.

For me this all boils down to the mission of CCV which is to love God, love others and love the world. The basis for the mission is the Great Commission (Matt 28:19–20) “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" and the Greatest Commandment (Mark 12:30-31) which states “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'[a] 31The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.b]. There is no commandment greater than these."

The two areas that are of most concern to me on John’s post are worship and connecting because this is important to loving God and to loving others..

Worship. Worship can and should occur at all times during the service. I think anything that interrupts another person’s ability to worship and develop a stronger relationship with God is a problem. Music that is difficult for people to sing or understand, people eating or drinking, people moving to empty seats during prayer, the band not connecting with the crowd and anything else. We can’t control everything but we need to control what we can.

Just a note on music. The reason that easy to sing and easy to remember songs are important is that the words can be a source of strength and/or inspiration during the week when someone encounters a difficult situation and they are able to remember the words. An example for me was a song that contained an easy to remember chorus containing the words from Proverbs 3:5-6.

Connecting. Jesus calls us to serve by his example of washing the feet of others in John 13:1-17. We are expected to be proactive and to reach out to others not expect others to reach out to us. I would encourage you to meet one or two people or families you don’t know every Sunday and make them feel welcome and at home at CCV. Get to know them better and find out their interests and needs and then you make the effort to connect them to a Ministry area or a Home Team that is the best fit for them. This is not a one size fits all type of thing.

I have been to a number of churches where no one made an effort to introduce themselves to me and as a result I never went back to any of those churches..

John, I wanted to wait outside all three services today with a sign that said ‘Are you John’ but I didn’t want to draw attention to you. If I had the chance to meet you I would have asked you if working with teens is an area that is of interest to you. If so, I would have tried to introduce you to Matt Silver who is the director of Student Ministries and encourage you to visit Impact and Riot on Sunday night.

I would also have asked you about attending a men’s Home Team. If that was of interest I would have tried to introduce you to one of the Men’s Home team leaders or to Frank Chiapperino or Terri Stone who are both in Adult Ministries as well as encouraged you to visit one or more of these Home Teams.

I believe it is all about living like Jesus and showing his love. One way we can get better at doing that is by praying and asking God to get our heart right and asking Him how to deal with these types of issues.