"To Love God Completely And Our Neighbor Sacrificially As We Disciple Intentionally"

Church family: Does the above statement look familiar to you? Do you know what it is and where you've seen it before?

If you've been around GCT for any amount of time, you may have seen this statement posted up in our building, and I encourage you to look for it this Sunday! This statement constitutes the Vision and Mission God has given for us here at GCT.

I come from a business background, and in business its very important to set goals and have a vision and mission for your business if you want to move foward, grow, make a profit, be successful, etc. Having this idea in mind, a number of years ago I asked Steve what his 5-year and 10-year vision/mission for Grace Community Church of Topsail was. His response: "I want to love God well. And I want to love others well. And along with that means being faithful to the people that God has given to us to serve. I want to serve them well." I was taken back a bit. My initial thought was "but, but, but don't you want to be a certain size by a certain amount of time, with all of the planning it takes to get there and all of the metrics in place to measure that progress?!"

I'm almost ashamed to admit that thought which popped into my head. That thought revealed what was in my heart, and the lens through which I had approached and viewed ministry. By the grace of God, and through Steve's intentional discipleship, God has conformed me more and more to what He has to say in His Word about His church. Not Steve's church. Not my church. Not your church. GOD'S CHURCH.

This Sunday we are going to discover together what God has to say about how we are to carry out His mission as His church here on earth. And I'll give you a hint: it has more to do with simply being faithful to what God has already entrusted to us than it does with vision-casting and planning for the future.

Mark 12:28-31 - And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”