Watching the vision unfold...

What will Centerpoint look like in 5 years? Where are we headed in 10-20 years? What are the kinds of things we believe God is leading us to as we look ahead? These questions have been churning inside of us since before we even had a name. Here is where we are as we process through those questions. We're doing our best to dream big...really BIG. So, here goes:

Centerpoint envisions being a church family who...

• Translates the gospel into every language in our community. There are many languages present in the community we call home. And we're not just talking about english and spanish. There are several cultural languages. Music. Art. Social languages. Many various ways our community speaks. Our mission is to translate the message of God's love into each of those ways.
• Serves as a training ground for men and women who desire to serve God by serving His church. We dream that there will come a day when servants of the church will spend time with our church family for the purpose of learning and being sent out to serve elsewhere.
• Acts as a catalyst for mobilizing churches in middle Tennessee. There are many churches in middle Tennessee, and many resources that go virtually wasted. It's time we gain a view of the world beyond ourselves, and find ways to give ourselves away to the world. we hope to be a catalyst for drawing the community of churches together around a purpose greater than ourselves.
• Inspires a generation of children to dream like never before, and to realize those dreams.

We feel confident that these are things we cannot do by ourselves. Only with God leading the way can pull off what we're dreaming about. And that's just the way it should be.

The best is still to come!

Life is messy...life is beautiful

We're hammering out our core values at this stage of the game. What matters? That's the big question. And we had some lively discussion on this topic during our last time together. And a lot of good, strong opinions.

The problem is that there are lots of good answers to that question..."What matters?" Love matters. Integrity matters. Community matters. What I'm seeing, though, is that you can boil down all these things that matter to these:

• God matters-We are made to know Him, and we are missing unless we do.
• People matter-Life is beautiful, and we are complete when we celebrate that beauty.
• Giving ourselves away matters-We don't truly know God if we are not sharing the life-altering essence of who He is. We can't say we love people if we're not giving
  of ourselves into the lives of others.

We must first affirm it...difficult enough.
Then we must determine to live it out...messy, very messy.

But, as we spend our time on the things that do matter, we find ourselves drawn more deeply into this mission we've been given for this time and in this place.

Now, it's time to talk about some strategy.

Choose joy!

It's coming together...

We've gotten the core group together a couple of times now, and one thing is for sure...this is a special group of people. We still don't know what this is going to look like, but we're committed to giving Centerpoint Church into the hands of God from the beginning.

An important discovery we have made is that we believe we'll succeed early if we focus on a few foundational things, and do those well. Our focus in the beginning will stress to important truths:

• Real life is life that is done with Christ.
• Life with Christ cannot be done alone.

Those truths express the heart of what we desire to communicate as a church family. People need God...and people need community. The Centerpoint family will endeavor to "flesh" these truths out as we practice life in 3 levels of relationships...life on life relationships, small community relationships, and the relationship of the big group (or the worship gathering).

There is much to be hammered out, but it should be fun!

We've transitioned well so far, though we are very tired. We are thankful to God for what He is doing in our family and in our community. Keep watch for more updates!

Live as though your life counts. Because it does...

The journey has begun...

In less than 2 weeks my family and I will no longer be residents of the state of Florida. We're making our way to Tennessee, the state we have called home most of our lives. We are moving to Smyrna to be part of a new church called Centerpoint. Joining us are 5 other families who already call the area home. They're ready. We're ready. But, in the meantime, we're looking at approximately 2 trillion details that have to be worked out. It will be a crazy time of transition, but it should also be a lot of fun!

This Sunday will be our next to last one with the Westpoint Fellowship Church family. It almost seems unreal that I just wrote that sentence. There was a time we thought we might never leave Orlando. A time when not being part of the WFC family was the furthest thing from our minds. And there are plenty of good reasons for us to stay. If you have no familiarity with the Westpoint family, I ask that you indulge me as I muse for a little bit (is "muse" verb?)...

You see, being part of WFC for the last couple of years has changed my family. Changed us in ways we're still working through. There aren't many churches like Westpoint, and that's too bad. We've never been connected to a church where we have experienced God like we have since we've been here. Our philosophy is simple...be the church and do life together. Once we reached a place where we truly understood all that simple philosophy entailed, we saw that we were in for the ride of our lives. We don't look at much the same anymore. We see God in a different light; we see the church differently; we view ministry in a new way. And the single biggest factor in this spiritual evolution has been our time with our church family here.

And so, now we're leaving. Makes sense, huh? I mean, who wouldn't want to run away from serving God in a healthy, loving family like this? :)

Well, the reason we're leaving is we believe God is leading us to share what we have experienced in Orlando with the good people of middle Tennessee. We are really looking forward to seeing what is in store for us when we get there. Again, it should be fun!

You're invited to check in and check on our progress. Hopefully what you read will inspire you to do what we've been inspired to do...Dream.

Dream BIG.