Metro Church Mission/Vision 2019

I wanted to begin by saying what a great honor it is to be called to be the next Lead Pastor of Metro Church. Since God called me to be a pastor when I was eight years old, this is all I have been training for my whole life, and to be given by the Lord to Metro is truly a gift to me. You are a wonderful church. You are committed to the Lord and his gospel. When people ask me, “What kind of church is Metro like?” I always tell them, “They love the Word.” What a gift it is to be a pastor of a church that loves the Word of God and desires to hear it faithfully preached and live it out in every area of your life. On behalf of all the Elders, thank you so much for being the church you are. You have no idea what a joy it is to pastor here in this place and to worship Jesus with you.

I don’t want to take up too much time tonight, but in the time I have with you, I want to spend some time celebrating what God has been doing in our church and, at the same time, look ahead to what we believe Jesus has for our church in the future.

One of the several ways that Pastor Andy was a blessing to this church is that he did everything he could to make sure that Jesus was always the central figure in our church. He always guarded against letting his personality or charisma become the central figure at Metro desiring that Jesus would always be the corner stone upon which our church is built. This is Jesus’ church. My call is to simply be a faithful steward to lead and shepherd you toward God’s will for your life in this church.

The mission and vision of a church should not change with a new pastor. Jesus is the one who gives every local church its mission and ministry to glorify his name on the earth. If the mission and vision of a congregation changed with every new pastor, it would be hard to see how the church was truly the Lord’s and not the property of a charismatic leader.

The mission of Metro Church has not changed. Instead, as we have prayed and sought the Lord, we believe Jesus is beginning to expand the purpose of this church to have a larger impact for his kingdom. Let me show you exactly what I mean.

Metro Church is Founded on the Word

From its beginning, Metro has always sought to be a church that was faithfully committed to the Word of God because it reveals to us who God is, who we are, and how he desires us to worship him.

From its beginning, Metro has always sought to be a church that was faithfully committed to the Word of God because it reveals to us who God is, who we are, and how he desires us to worship him.

My commitment to you is to continue to faithfully preach to you the Word of God.

Throughout the Bible, the Word is equated with the gospel. We will never shift from this foundation because according to 12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

This does not mean we worship the Bible at Metro. We love the Bible because it reveals the God of our salvation.

18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

Pauls says that it is when we behold God’s glory in Jesus’ salvation by the power of the Spirit that you and are are transformed into his image day by day. We love the Word because in it, we see the glory of the God the Word proclaims.

18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

But in our love for the Word, we can never separate the ministry of the Word from the ministry of the Spirit as so many churches often do.

16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

If you look at these verses I believe that they are a parallel passage where Paul is communicating a similar idea. This holds immense implications for us.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Colossians says Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly and Ephesians says that we are to be filled with the Spirit. Notice that both of these have the same result.

We sing and teach one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs encouraging each other to worship God

And we give thanks and praise to God In Jesus’ name.

The Word properly understood can only be understood and embraced by the Spirit and the Spirit properly understood always works through his Word.

What this means is that to be filled with the Spirit is to allow him to let the Word of God dwell in us richly. Think about it, the Spirit is the one who carried along all those that wrote the Bible. His ministry is intimately tied to the Word of Christ transforming sinners into worshipers in Spirit and in truth.

So, practically for us this means that in our love for the truth of God’s Word as our foundation, we must not grieve the Spirit but instead walk in his power as he brings the Word of God to bear on our lives to enable us to live lives changed by Jesus.

If we are to be a people of the book, we must also be a people empowered by the Spirit if the Word of God is going to go out from this place and make and impact for God’s kingdom.

This belief leads us to our Mission

Last January, we announced that the Lord was changing Metro’s mission from “Love Jesus. Love others. No bull” to “Equipping people to live lives changed by Jesus.”

This is why we exist. We exist because we believe the gospel makes a tangible, radical, practical difference in the life of every person who follows Jesus.

All of our work as a church, every area of ministry, is driven by our desire to see the gospel transform us from lost sinners to God’s sons and daughters in such a way that the world sees our life as a congregation and says, “Only God could do that.”

For the past year, this mission has been digging roots and solidifying itself in our congregation. In my conversations with many of you, we don’t get very far without starting to talk about how Jesus is redeeming us and changing us to make us true worshipers of God in every area of our lives.

Praise God for his work in our congregation over the past year. God has done amazing things this past year to heal marriages, redeem suffering, and free many people from besetting sin, and by his grace we will continue to see his work of redemption for all the years Metro is allowed to minister.

With the idea that Jesus actually changes lives digging deeper and deeper into our DNA, the Elders believe that we are ready to begin taking our next steps for Metro to participate in the advancement of God’s Kingdom on a greater scale.

This is where we are able to begin working towards the Vision Jesus has for this church.

Let me do some clarifying work in regards to mission and vision in the life of the church. Some of you may be familiar with these concepts from your careers but many people are confused about the distinction between Mission and Vision statements. Over the past three years as I’ve been earning my MDiv in Leadership, almost every leadership class I have taken has talked about the concept of Mission/Vision, and, even though I knew these were necessary, it wasn’t until just recently that I saw how these help us accomplish God’s purposes for our congregation.

Our Mission statement is why our church exists. This is the reason God has planted this congregation in this area and expects from its ministry.

Our Vision on the other hand, is how our Mission (why we exist) serves the Great Commission.

You see, every single church should have the same vision. Jesus already gave us the vision in 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

We are called to make disciples of all nation and teach them how to observe what Jesus has commanded. In other words to live a life changed by the gospel.

So our vision is a picture of what our mission will look like as we seek to obey Jesus’ Commission to make disciples of all nations.

So at Metro, our aim for the future is “To see lives changed through building healthy churches.”

To see lives changed = our mission

through building healthy churches = Why do we think that this is the way God has called us to see lives changed?

Walk through this with me. After Jesus gave the Great Commission, he told the disciples to wait for the Spirit to fall upon them before they began this work. Then at Pentecost, the Spirit falls in power and immediately following this we are given the report 42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

The big idea I want you to see here is that when the disciples were given the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations, after they were empowered by the Spirit to preach the Word, they immediately began gathering Christians into local churches. The way that the Great Commission goes forward is through the local church!

This means that if we want to see more and more lives changed, we must follow God’s call to build healthy churches. Now what does this mean?

It is our hope that as we as a congregation are faithful to this call we will be able to be a church that positively influences other local churches as the Lord allows.

TRAINING PASTORS AND MISSIONARIES

What this can look like is for us to have pastoral internships to train the next generation of pastors in what it means to lead and pastor a biblical church.

CHURCH PARTNERSHIPS

We want to partner with church plants both nationally and internationally to support them financially and other resources so that they can reach new believers with the gospel.

CHURCH PLANTING

If the Lord so leads us we will be able to send leaders and pastors from this place to plant local autonomous congregations so that Jesus would be made known to a lost world.

PARTNERING WITH THE STATE CONVENTION

Southern Baptist work together through conventions. It is our hope that we would be able to positively influence the State Convention with biblical reformed theology. Listen, reformed theology is not the gospel. It is simply a classification of theology that attempts to take the Bible at its Word. We can get so inundated in our tribe that we forget how odd we actually are in the greater church world. By God’s grace we will be able to partner with the State convention in an effort to help spur on and support more biblical churches.

This is a big vision. This is something that will take years to come to ultimate fruition, but by God’s grace I believe we can begin making progress towards this goal now. You, as a member of this congregation, are involved in God’s work to save sinners and are directly involved in the Great Commission. But you might say, “Ok, this all sounds exciting, but I’m not called to be a pastor and I can’t plant a church so what does this vision have to do with me?”

The local church is not comprised of the Pastors or the leaders of the church. The church is all the saints together. You are able to participate in God’s plan for Metro by being a faithful part of Metro. How can we grow to influence other churches and pastors with the gospel, if we ourselves are not a model for what a biblical church is? This vision to see lives changed through building healthy churches must start here, in this church. God’s plan for our church to see lives changed cannot happen without you.

You will be the ones to show pastors we train what it means to lead people in the gospel.

You will be the ones to give financially so that we can support church planting efforts around the World.

If the Lord ever allows us to commission a church plant, some of you may go with them as a part of their core team to start a new gospel work and build a foundation of biblical church membership.

If we are given the grace to be a church that sees more reformed, biblical churches take root in the SBC, you will have been directly involved in possibly guiding the future of our denomination that was first born to more effectively preach the gospel of Christ!

But, I do not want to leave us with only big dreams for future. What can we begin doing right now to help us fulfill what God has given us to do?

Discipleship - Following Jesus and helping others do the same.

This is where we all take Jesus command to come and die and say, “Sign me up. I want to live for his name and his kingdom.” Where we as a church stake our whole life on following Jesus and growing to be more like him through our local church.

Kingdom-minded Generosity - Both individually and corporately using all our time, talent and treasure to say it is for the Kingdom.

To stop being concerned with our own little selfish kingdoms were we reign supreme, but instead to make our work the work of Jesus’ kingdom. That is for every individually and family in our church but also us corporately to take opportunities to be generous with other churches and ministries as God allows to further the work of the gospel.

Prayer - Relying on God to build his church.

We can commit to praying and asking God to accomplish his purposes in our church. After all, why would we expect God to do something in and through us, if we aren’t asking him to. The only way that Metro will achieve God’s purposes for our church is through continual reliance upon his work in and through us.

This is how Metro will participate in the Great Commission to see more lives changed by Jesus. And because this is God’s plan for this church we can take great comfort in Jesus last words to his disciples after giving them the Great Commission where he said, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

GO BACK TO GREAT COMMISSION AND NOTE HOW JESUS IS WITH US

Lets pray.