Next Ten: Mission

Welcome/Series Intro: The Next Ten

Hello everybody! Welcome to Prairie Lakes. So glad you’re here.

Fall is in full swing—officially, post-Labor Day. So much to look forward to in this upcoming season.

And that’s what we’re going to be doing this week and the next at Prairie Lakes:

Looking forward.

And it’s been awhile since we’ve done something like this. In fact, the last time we did what we’re going to do this weekend was all the way back in 2008.

We’re gonna do something this weekend that we haven’t done in 17 years—back when I looked like this:

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SHOW JESSE AND ERIN - 2008 PIC

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Look at those two young-ins. That’s Jesse and Erin, circa 2008. Two years married. No kids. Not yet 30. I still had my original aortic valve. And if I had taken my backwards Yankees hat off, you’d see that I still had a decent hairline.

But there were signs of its demise, even back then.

Now:

Back in 2008 at Prairie Lakes, Pastor John got up here (and he was the age that I am at now, ironically) at what was then our only campus, Cedar Falls, and delivered a message in 2008 that he called “Vision 2018.”

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VISION 2018 GRAPHIC

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That graphic is 17 years old.

Now, it was a pretty bold vision. In ten years, we were going to become a church of 10,000. Ten thousand in 10 years.

Now:

Seventeen years later (and that’s 10+7 for those of you who aren’t good at math)…

We’re still a little shy of 10,000. By about 6500 or so, give or take.

But none of us would look back on the last 17 years at Prairie Lakes and go:

“Wow. What an abject failure.”

Instead, we’d say:

“Wow. Look at what God did.”

One campus to 7.

1,000 people to 3500 across Iowa.

And that’s what good vision does, my friends:

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Vision doesn’t predict the future with certainty.

Vision points to a clear direction with faith.

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Prayer

And so here we are in 2025, about to do something that we haven’t done in seventeen years:

Talk about our direction—our vision—for the next ten.

But before we do any of that, we’re gonna stop and pray together.

Because here’s the deal:

None of this is going to matter because of me, or how I say whatever I’m gonna say.

Contrary to the marketplace myth, visions don’t get realized because of charismatic leaders.

In the church, visions get realized only when they are inspired by God, aligned with God, and empowered by God.

I look back on the last 17 years and go, “Wow… we tried to screw that up so many times. But God. But God.

God was gracious. And faithful. And did things that only he could do.”

So, let’s pause across all of our campuses together and pray to our God.

(Pause for prayer.)

Exegesis: Luke 15

First place we’re gonna go when we talk about the next 10 here at Prairie Lakes is to Scripture. Great place to start. Only place, really.

Turn with me to Luke 15.

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Luke 15

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(Explain where to find Luke.)

As you find that, Luke bundles (3) parables into this chapter—each with the same theme:

The lost sheep.

The lost coin.

And the lost son.

Lost sheep. Lost coin. Lost son.

These are “parables”—a word in Greek that literally means “parallel.” As Jesus tells each of these stories, he’s making a parallel between some of the characters in the story and God.

In each of these stories, Jesus is saying to us:

“This is what God is like.”

Now:

He didn’t say it to us first. We’re only reading about it 2,000 years after the fact.

Who he said it to first were these guys in Luke 15, verse 1:

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Luke 15:1–2 “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

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You can’t welcome sinners into the gathering, Jesus. Think about the message that communicates to them. If you welcome them before they clean themselves up… before they admit that they’re not going in the right direction… it’s like saying that you’re ok with them. With whatever they do.

Is that the message you’re trying to send—that whatever they’re doing doesn’t really matter? They’ve got a seat at your table—no matter what?

Luke says they were “muttering” this. Judgmental attitudes and perspectives like that are always muttered.

And it’s because of that muttering from the people who supposedly spoke for God—

The Pharisees and teachers of the law; the pastors and seminary professors of the day—

That Jesus launches into the story of a lost sheep (where the shepherd leaves the 99 in the fold to go after the one wandering outside of the fold)—

And then the lost coin (where a woman pulls an ancient flashlight out—this thing they called a “candle”—to search through the night to find a silver coin that she lost. She had ten, but lost one. And then when she finds it, she’s so excited that she wakes up all of her friends and neighbors to tell them!).

But then Jesus goes into yet another story about a lost son—more commonly known to us as the “prodigal”—

About a dad who watches his son demand his inheritance from his dad before he is anywhere near death,

Then watches his son blow it all on whatever things young men blow money on,

Then watches his son make his way back home with no other options, caked in the mud and slop from the literal gutter he had been sleeping in and begging from.

And Jesus chooses his words carefully in this part of the story as he describes what was in this father’s heart as he caught his first glimpse of his raggedy, entitled, broken son coming over the hill back home. Verse 20:

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Luke 15:20 “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”

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The shepherd doesn’t remain content to care for the 99. He goes after the lost one.

The woman doesn’t remain content with her 9 silver coins. She searches for the one she lost.

This dad doesn’t hold anger in his heart for all the stupid things his lost son did. He runs after him with compassion.

Here’s what Jesus wants these muttering Pharisees and Bible teachers (and us) to know:

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Before anyone repents,

Before anyone believes,

Before anyone turns back to God,

God loves.

God’s love for us only and always depends on God.

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Listen to me:

Right now if you’re wondering: “What does God think about me?”

And you’re trying to answer that question by looking at your life,

What you’ve done or what you haven’t done,

What you ought to do but maybe aren’t doing,

What you’ve screwed up or even what you’ve gotten right—

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If you’re wondering what God thinks about you and you’re looking at you,

You’re looking in the wrong place.

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I don’t care what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter one bit when it comes to what God thinks about you.

I can tell you for sure what God thinks about you,

Because I just heard it from his own mouth as God in the flesh told that story—and so did you:

He. Loves. You.

That’s what’s in his heart about you.

And this is the gospel—this is the good news about all of that:

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God’s love for you doesn’t depend on you.

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Great Motto, But Not a Great Mission

(I thought we were talking about vision. The next ten years. Where we’re going.)

We are. We are.

It’s not an entirely new direction.

But it is one that requires constant reminding.

Because we forget this.

Especially those of us who have been around awhile; been around since 2008. We forget.

And when we forget, we start muttering.

We start looking at the people who God is bringing,

And we don’t know them,

And they don’t seem to know anything,

And they don’t believe the right things,

And they aren’t living how they oughtta live,

And they’re kinda screwing up the church,

And there’s a bunch of people I know who aren’t here anymore,

And…

Muttter. Mutter. Mutter.

I grew up in church. It was important to my family. And I am so fortunate that God put me in the family he did. Because it was at that church that I came to know Jesus. And I memorized a bunch of Scripture. And I had a lot of friends who were Christians. And the church had a Christian school that I was able to go to, K-12. Lotta good stuff.

But also?

A lot of muttering.

And so by the time I was 18, headed to college, entering my first few weeks away from home and the church I grew up in, here’s what I thought about God:

I thought God was probably mad at and pretty disappointed in me—because I should know better, but still struggled with sin.

I thought God wished I would do better—and so I treated others with that same attitude: you gotta do better.

And really, on the inside, I was just afraid. I was a prodigal on the inside, but an older brother on the outside. Had others convinced I had it all together, while feeling like an absolute imposter.

And that’s who I was when I walked into this church—our church—for the first time.

And even though I had grown up in church, I had never experienced a church like this one.

People were… happy. Which was weird. Because church is supposed to be that place where you get reminded that you’re kinda screwing it up and that you should do better. Nothing to smile about there. But people were happy.

And they saw that I was new. And I was bracing for kinda trying to figure out how to dress right or how to sing right or how to stand up and sit down right, but none of that mattered.

I was bracing for trying to break my way into a new community—only to find that they were ready to invite me into the community.

And so I joined a college group.

And I met people who got to know my story and walk me through my baggage.

And in just a few short months, I had a completely renewed heart, a fresh (and more biblical) picture of God, and the peace that comes from knowing that…

God’s love does not depend on me.

Our motto back then was “Pointing People to God.”

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SHOW “POINTING PEOPLE TO GOD” BANNER

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And that’s what they were doing with me, very simply. Just pointing me to him.

Over the years, that motto changed. It became:

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SHOW “LOVE GOD. LOVE PEOPLE. INFLUENCE THE WORLD.” GRAPHIC

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And then in these last several years, it’s become:

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SHOW “NO MATTER” GRAPHIC

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It’s the same message. Just different words.

It’s the lost sheep and lost coin and lost son.

Maybe by now some of you are starting to suspect:

Is Jesse really about to change our motto for the next ten? Are we done with “No Matter?”

(Pause.)

No.

No. We’re not changing that. We’re still going to be a No Matter church. And we’re still gonna say that and put it on our website and print it on our t-shirts.

It’s a great motto.

But for the next ten, here’s what we’ve found:

While it’s a great motto, it’s not a very good mission.

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No Matter is a great motto. But it’s not a very good mission.

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It does a great job of capturing what kind of a church we are. But it falls short of capturing what we’re trying to accomplish.

These three parables that Jesus tells the mutterers help them see God differently; live by a different motto, so to speak. Which is an important first step.

But we don’t need to just see God differently. We don’t just need a new motto.

We also need to follow God differently as a result. We need a clear mission.

Here’s the deal:

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No Matter is a great motto. But it’s not a very good mission.

If No Matter was our mission, then mission accomplished.

But we’re not done.

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We’ve got some following to do. We’ve still got some ground to take.

Good Vision Attracts and Repels

At the beginning of this year, a lot of us were starting to feel like it was time to, once again, get the right people around the table and start prayerfully looking ahead to what God has for us next.

And we walked through a strategic planning process. And that’s something that, for the last ten years or so, I’ve done as a consultant—with other churches, or school districts, or even individuals. I’m a trained facilitator in a few different strategic planning processes.

And so I had the privilege this time around of doing that for our church, with some of our staff and elders.

If you’ve worked in any kind of office or corporate setting, you’ve probably sat in a few of these before—these “strategic planning” sessions where you make a bunch of charts that are gonna be rolled up and put away until the next time you get a new boss and they want to do it all over again.

I hate that. And as a facilitator, I’m way more interested in the implementation part of the process than I am the planning process. That’s where the fun is: trying to actually do the things in your everyday work that you talked such a big game about doing in some conference room or off-site.

In fact, that’s what probably makes me a good (and sometimes kinda frustrating) facilitator—because I’ll know if something isn’t clear enough in the planning for it to be done after we leave the room. And I won’t let people leave the room before it’s clear.

Of course, this is a lot easier to do when you hop on a plane and go back to your own workplace. It’s a little harder to do when you work with the people you’re putting some pressure on.

But we worked really hard this year on some of that—doing our best to prayerfully, honestly, and with faith in our hearts, look ahead to the next 10 and what God wants us to pursue.

And this was one of the first things that we began to sense together—that while we still wanted to be a “No Matter” church, that statement wasn’t enough to fully capture the mission we felt God had given us—the work still left to do.

When I think about our church—whether it’s the last 19 years that I’ve been a called pastor, the last 26 as an attendee and member, our current reality, or even what I want to see God do in the next 10—

There’s two major cries in my heart that I just want to beg God for:

First:

I want to see him lead us to the next community that needs a No Matter church.

And second:

I want to see him make each of our church campuses into more of a community. More of a family. Deeper relationships—

But deeper relationships in the right direction:

A family that’s on a mission, together, for the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son.

One of the more difficult things about being around as long as I’ve been around is that, after 26 years, there’s a really long list of people I know who have left.

And some people left on really good terms and for very understandable reasons. Some of them did.

But a significant amount of them left because those two things weren’t the cry of their hearts.

They didn’t really want to be a part of a church that was chasing after the lost sheep. They wanted a church that was more focused on feeding the 99.

They didn’t really want to be a part of a church that was constantly looking for the next community that needed a No Matter church. They wanted to spend all of their resources on their church and their community.

And perhaps they wanted more of a sense of community and family—but not if it meant that family’s purpose was to invite and welcome outsiders into the family.

I know this might make some of you uncomfortable, and I sincerely want to be very careful here. Because there’s a lot of us, like me, who know people who have left over the years, and I’m certainly not trying to paint them all in some broad brush stroke—

Nor am I trying to communicate that we’ve always done everything perfectly here and we’ve got everything right and if you leave for any reason well… it’s probably because you’ve just failed to see our genius. No.

What I am saying is this:

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Good vision both attracts and repels—

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It does. Good vision both attracts people—but it also repels people. And here’s why:

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Good vision both attracts and repels—

Because when your vision is clear, it helps people see if they want to follow your direction—or not.

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And some people do.

And some people don’t.

But it’s really unkind to make the vision just blurry enough so that everyone feels like they’re on board… when maybe they’re not.

Our New Mission Language

So as we look to the next ten, still wearing our “No Matter” motto like a badge, so to speak, here’s what I’d like for us to begin adopting as our mission:

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Our mission for the Next Ten:

Follow Jesus together for our neighbors.

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I want to spend the rest of our time just unpacking this mission statement. Because, on the surface, it’s not very… sparkly. Buzzworthy. Or even unique.

And that was our first impression of it as well as a staff, by the way. Pointing people to God… Love God, Love People, Influence the World… No Matter… and now…

Follow Jesus Together For Our Neighbors. Doesn’t quite pack the same punch.

But:

Once we started looking under the hood on this one, we started to really like it.

Here’s what we love about it—first:

We love that Jesus has made his way back into our mission statement.

Kinda like “Keep Christ in Christmas,” ya know? “Keep Jesus in your mission statement.”

And it’s not like “No Matter” is a “bad statement” because the word “Jesus” isn’t in it. We believe that “No Matter” is a great picture of Jesus’ heart.

Still:

When we say we’re following Jesus—especially “for our neighbors”—that’s what we want to be reminded of:

Jesus is the good shepherd who goes after the one over the 99.

Jesus wakes all his friends up in the middle of the night when someone who was once lost comes back home, crosses that faith line, and joins the family of God. Searching for lost people is like searching for lost treasure with him.

Jesus isn’t up there keeping a tally of all the stupid things we do. He’s waiting with compassion in his heart, squinting to see the first signs of us coming down the lane back home.

So when we follow Jesus at Prairie Lakes, that’s the Jesus we’re following.

He’s for our neighbors—for all of those people who aren’t yet in the church, who aren’t yet in his familiy, who live next door or the next mile over or the next cubicle over.

He’s for the people in our lives who maybe used to attend or used to follow but have wandered.

He’s for the people in our families who don’t know him.

He’s for the people in our country and across the world who don’t know him.

When Jesus was asked what was most important to God, he said:

To love God by loving your neighbor.

Jesus is for our neighbors. For them.

And so if we’re gonna follow Jesus, we’re gonna be for them as well.

We’re gonna be a church in the next ten | who is more interested in who needs to get here than who’s already here.

We’re gonna be a church in the next ten | who is more interested in the next community who needs a church like ours than we are what’s next for our own community.

But in order for us to do that—

In order for us to become a church like that—

We’re gonna need to do that together…

Which is the last part of our mission statement…

And something we’re gonna unpack more fully next week as we finish painting this picture for our Next Ten.