How to Help Guests Feel Welcome in God’s House, Pt.8a

8. COMPLETE, don’t Compete with other Churches

When a small group of 16 people first launched The Dialogue Church on Easter, April 8th, 2007 we had no idea how challenging the road would be, BUT MAN HAS IT BEEN WORTH IT!  We are seeing Jesus save people, literally save people from total destruction; we are seeing Jesus change lives, restore marriages, rescue teenagers from drug abuse and suicide, and young men surrender to purity!

It was tempting in the early days of our church plant to “pit ourselves against other churches” in an attempt to make US look better – can you see how jacked up that is.  Our Church is really GOD’S CHURCH and so is every other church that determines to lift up the name of Jesus according to the Scriptures and invade the culture with the Incarnational ministry of Jesus Christ!

So, we decided to become PRO-CHURCH, no matter how different the church or how big the church or how small the church – we are going to cheer on, celebrate, love on, share with, and promote the churches that are PROMOTING JESUS ABOVE ALL ELSE!  You won’t catch me trashing another church that is actively transforming lives in the way of Jesus – and you won’t see me allowing anyone else around me doing it either! It is God’s Church not mine (now this doesn’t mean we don’t call sin – sin; and we don’t call deception what it is – deception.  We need to uncover lies and injustice, but we don’t need to dog God’s church simply because we are jealous, envious, or different.

Most of the unchurched people in our community already have an uneasy feeling about the “division” in the church today.  As many see it, this is the problem with world religions – religions divide, divisions cause conflict, and conflict starts war – and war creates chaotic power struggles where nobody really wins, but a lot of people die.  NOW, I am not saying I think that way, but if in our churches we spend more time “TRASHING OTHER CHURCHES” in stead of TEACHING PEOPLE ABOUT JESUS AND SIMPLY BEING THE CHURCH – then we won’t see a lot of changed lives and we will only confirm the suspicions of the unchurched – that we can’t get along! But we know better, Jesus said, By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have LOVE ONE FOR ANOTHER! Let’s be ONE!

We are a BIG PART of an amazing movement of churches here in New England called NEW ENGLAND UNITED, pioneered by Pastor Anthony Milas of www.GraniteUnited.com.  We are the 4th church plant out of GraniteUnited.com and our desire is to continue “churching” New England through this network of amazing churches.  We share teaching resources, financial resources, fund new church planters, mentor young pastors, love on one another, take a pastors retreat every year together as a family of pastors and their families, we host a men’s conference every year (www.warriorconference.com), and a women’s conference every year, we have monthly leadership gatherings, and now we are starting a new branch of ministry training for all of our volunteers to be equipped for “kingdom impact”; another new venture is doing servant evangelism together – check out www.unitedlove2010.com!