It's About Fruit -- Not Achievement.

"It's About Fruit; Not Achievement"

This statement is the heading of chapter 10 in a book by Wes Roberts entitled Reclaiming God's Original Intent for the Church. Wes is a mentor and friend who challenged me (Bill) to return to Evansville and plant a church. I tried to avoid this call for several years but it would not go away. When a seed is planted in the heart of an individual and nurtured by God, it eventually breaks soil. When a church is planted by God it will yield fruit.

What is this vision? Here is a piece of it....

Many reasons to plant a church come to mind supported by statistics, cultural studies, and personal challenges from friends. But in the end, some things have to die in order to really live.

In John 12:24 Jesus says___ "Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over."

I think some of my thoughts about church have died over the years and out of those deaths a vision has emerged. I think what died is my hope that I would see fruit in the local church. I gave up for a while and did not even attend church I have been terribly disappointed as I see churches become irrelevant having no life changing impact on their communities. Yet I know that Jesus' church cannot and will not die. That truth had to become real again and hope in seeing real life change come from within the life of the local church had to be revorn in my heart.

Just as followers of Jesus will reproduce other followers of Jesus, healthy churches will plant other healthy churches. A healthy church will reproduce. If we do not reproduce, we will become extinct. From the very beginning and for several reasons, it has been and will remain my desire for us to reproduce churches in communities nearby rather than to grow large. By virtue of their size, large churches draw people out of their personal communities and make it easy to hide. Changed lives occur in the context of a life seen clearly by God and others where the truth of scripture can become personal and relevant. We want the church to be a personal, life changing community again.

We want to plant seeds as missionaries to our neighbors in communities nearby. The mission field in America is near to us, not far.

This vision of being missionaries not to a foreign culture but to our diverse culture, requires a greater discipline, a greater call to an open, visible, personal walk with Jesus. We will be counter cultural. This call is not to just a very few in our congregation but to each member. Our lives will speak more loudly than our words and therefore, none can hide. Hiding in a big church is much easier so we will divide and plant in another community nearby before we grow large.
All of us are missionaries to our own personal communities; to our neighbors. To walk in the light is to be seen, not hidden. It is a frightening thought but if our faith in Jesus Christ has not changed us to be counter cultural, we will be irrelevant as missionaries. We want our very lives to be a witness to those nearby.

II Corinthians 6:13 paraphrased by Eugene Peterson in the Message says, "Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!"

We repeat often at journey..."It's not what you do, it's who you be". If you "be" a healthy (church) plant, fruit will come forth and seeds will develop for planting. You will not have to try harder to achieve but only to be a follower of Jesus and fruit will come forth.


We invite you, our community, to join us and help us remember our vision for being personal missionaries to our neighbors nearby each day as we Journey together.