We are in our second year as a church and slowly articulating the vision and purpose of our church with a bit more clarity.  When we started the church it was a goal to not to push a vision and purpose onto a church, but instead allow it to come out of the church.  Over the last year this is what we have been able to articulate:

Vision: To see every man, woman, and child experience the life transforming power of Jesus Christ in Greater Austin.

This is a huge vision and we want to see it happen in our life time.  To help this vision become a reality we have partnered with 19 other churches in greater Austin as well as planting new churches.  For 2011 we are planning on starting 3 churches.

Mission: To see every block in every neighborhood in North Central Austin have someone praying and caring for the spiritual needs of that block.

Again, a huge challenge, however, instead of asking the Christ-follower to pray for all of Asia or even greater Austin our hope is that they would pray for the 20 houses on their block.  In addition, we hope to partner with other churches in our immediate context who are like minded.

Purpose: To become a family family of Christ-followers who are committed to connecting the people of North Central Austin with the life transforming power of Jesus Christ.

We are family working together toward our vision and this means full participation from everyone.  It isn’t 100 people watching professionals do the ministry and applauding their effort, but all of us stepping out in faith to experience God doing the miraculous in us.  We have defined a Christ-follower as:

• Connecting with Jesus
• Connecting with North Village Church
• Connecting with the community
• Connecting others with Jesus

We had a great year.  Got to go to Disney World, celebrate our first year of North Village Church, 10 year anniversary in Miami, Kennedy started kindergarten, Tucker turning into a little boy, and even though there were some painful moments over the last year God’s grace continues to pour out on to our lives.

God has been so gracious to our country that we don’t really know what it is like to be hungry.  If we wait for our meal for more than 15 minutes we start looking around to complain about the waiter taking so long.  However, there are some parts of our world where people go hungry every day.

I remember growing up as a kid and having nights where we were really hungry.  We would eat cheese and mayo sandwiches, we wouId add pickle juice to our water for flavor, and I remember going over to my friends house and seeing so many boxes of cereal and thinking, “When you get rich you get to buy a lot of boxes of cereal.”

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On Saturday we did a food drive for a local neighborhood.  It was awesome!  It was our 2nd year to host the food drive.  Last year we saw almost 700lbs come in and this year we saw just over 1100lbs of food come in to donate to the Capital Area Food Bank.  That is total food weight minus packaging materials.  Isn’t that awesome?

On Sunday we looked at a passage in 1 Peter 4 as it called us to share in the sufferings of Christ.  It isn’t that participating in the sufferings of Christ makes up what is lacking in Christ’s death on the cross because Jesus fully takes the penalty of our sin at the cross.  It is that through faith in Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection we get to participate in the reconciliation of humanity, and last weekend we got to experience a part of that reconciliation.

The food drive primarily focuses on one neighborhood.  Can you imagine the impact as we begin to open the food drive up to neighborhoods all over North Central Austin!

When we started North Village Church we didn’t want to create a church that was simply satisfied with getting a bunch of people together on Sunday morning.  We wanted it to be an agent that sent people out to participate in what God is doing in our city.

For us this happens through missional gatherings.  We have 4 of them right now.  3 in neighborhoods and 1 in an apartment complex.  They are all at different stages from 2 months to 2 years.  They all have somewhat of a different format, but they are all similar in that they exist to invite their friends, neighbors, and co-workers into their lives to explore spiritual truths and deepen relationships.

On November 20th we will host a food drive for Allandale neighborhood. From 12pm-3pm we will meet at Lucy Read for people to drop off food for the Capital Food Bank of Austin.

Last year we raised over 600lbs of food and this year we are hoping to raise 800lbs. of food. It is an easy way to serve the community and the city. Help us get the word out!

Our church hosts soccer camps once a month for the community. It is pretty cool. We set up goals, cones, throw out some soccer balls and have different people coach the kids through drills. We meet for 2 hours in a local park and average about 10-15 children show up and learn how to play soccer.

While the children learn soccer we will take the opportunity to get to know the families and learn how our church can better serve the community.

On October 16th we are going to host some soccer drills at Summitt Elementary for their fall festival!

On September 12, 2010 we celebrated our first year together as a church! It was awesome.

Sometimes I use a program called Mindjet to craft a message. It is pretty crafty. The idea is that we don’t always think in a linear mode, therefore, the program allows you to chart your ideas in a circular rotation with thoughts and ideas fitting in as you brainstorm / pray through a message.

I was on a plane this week working on the beginning stages of the message I taught this last Sunday and the person next to me thought it was really interesting to see how a message comes together. I had never really thought about it before, but I thought I would post it for others to see. In the end I don’t end up teaching on everything I put in the diagram, but if you want to listen to the finished message you can click here.

Redemption means to pay the price, to take responsibility, and throughout Scripture we see stories of people whose lives were a picture of redemption that ultimately points to the redemption we have through faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Sometimes we can look through Scripture and see people doing things and wonder, “How did they end up in the Bible?” These guys are messed up. Multiple wives, multiple failures and we forget Scripture is a story of redemption of God taking messed up people and redeeming them for their good and His glory.

This is what He is doing with us today. We think God is looking for good religious people to do some good things. No, He is looking for willing people to step out as a picture of redemption in our family, our church, and our community and through faith in Jesus Christ we can respond.

There are three primary contexts where we can see this picture become a reality and it is our:
* Neighborhood
* Work
* Hobbies

Neighborhood
We can open up our home, invite people over for dinner, get involved in their life, ask about their marriage, their dreams, their goals; and maybe some are going to push back and say that it is just being nosey! I guess if you started off with, “My name is Michael, tell me about the struggles in your marriage so I can tell the rest of the neighborhood.” That would be weird. But these are people you live next to, children go to the same school, see them when you are walking your dog, and you are taking normal social steps to get involved in the life of the people that live around you to be a picture of redemption.
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In Joshua 6 God calls Joshua to go into battle and the strategy is to simply walk around a fortified city for 7 times, blow some trumpets, and shout! I can’t imagine what Joshua must have felt when God unveiled the strategy. Can you imagine? God comes to you with a plan for a battle against the enemy and you are thinking, “God is on my side! This will be easy.” We can call fire down from the heavens, lightening bolts, floods, and then God tells you the strategy is to walk around the city, blow some trumpets and shout.

Then Joshua gets the pleasure of standing before the army of soldiers and sharing the strategy with them. This had to seem impossible!
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After 9 months we have been able to see Jesus do some great things in and through North Village Church and we are so grateful, but we also feel like we are just scratching the surface. Below is a recap of what we have seen and experienced, as well as what we are asking our church to anticipate over the next 6 months:

Last 9 months:
* 80 people attending at least once a month
* Preached through 2 books of the Bible so far… James and Ephesians
* Preached topics such as marriage, relationships, and the spiritual journey of fasting
* Baptized 3 adults who placed their faith in Jesus for the first time!
* Hosted a Garden Fair for the community
* Hosted a Teachers’ Breakfast for Lucy Read Pre-K
* Hosted a Clothing Drive for the city of Austin
* Hosted a Food Drive for the Allandale community
* Hosted a Dog Fair for the community
* Hosted Soccer Camps in the community

Over the next 6 months we are looking for everyone to consider how they can grow in the following areas:
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This Sunday evening North Village Churchis going to meet with other churches in the community to pray. We are going to spend time in confession and repentance as the local church, and also celebrating what God has done and is doing in Austin and around the world. We will meet at Glad Tidings at 6:00pm if you want to join us.

* No childcare provided.