“This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ‘… Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper’” (Jeremiah 29:4-7 NIV84).

When we first moved to the city of Wilson, North Carolina, we thought we would only live here for a couple of years. I was transferred here from Roanoke, Virginia in late 1987 by my employer. They had moved me before, so  I figured it was only a matter of time before they asked me to move again. After all, if you wanted to be on the corporate fast track and make V.P. by age 35, then you had to be mobile.

But that’s not what happened. December of this year we will have lived in Wilson for 25 years.

We didn’t choose to stay. We thought a job brought us here until we tried to leave. In January of 1991 I got off the corporate fast track. I quit my job and started seminary. I had my house for sale for over two years, but we didn’t get a single offer. We were stuck in Wilson it seemed. So I commuted to seminary and eventually planted Wilson Community Church (The first church meetings were in our house that wouldn’t sell).

While other church planters did their demographic studies and moved their families to large unreached cities, we planted in Wilson because of an apparent real estate downturn. In the early days of WCC, I felt very insecure about this, especially since planting a contemporary, community church in Eastern North Carolina in the early ’90s was unheard of. Starting a church in Wilson was very hard work and the results were extremely slow.

It took a while before I recognized God’s call to the city of Wilson. The message that the Lord gave the prophet Jeremiah for the Jews exiled in Babylon, actually helped me work through my own sense of “exile.” God told the Jews that it was He that had “carried them” to the city of Babylon, not King Nebuchadnezzer.  He also told them to stop living in limbo and to start being a blessing to this pagan city of Babylon because they weren’t leaving anytime soon.

Apparently, they had been huddling in a city ghetto to themselves, not investing, not growing, just surviving. But God told them to increase, to build, to plant, to be a blessing to the city to which they had been called. God called them to stop just surviving, He called them to thrive!

Looking back, I now believe it was God who “carried” me to Wilson (not my employer). And I believe it was God who kept me here (not the poor housing market). God wanted us to plant a church in Wilson, a church that would “seek the peace and prosperity” of the city.

WCC is now approaching its 21st anniversary. We meet in a former movie theater across the street from the hospital on the main, 5-lane highway that goes through downtown. We live in a county of 82,000 people where 56% say they don’t attend church. That’s 46,000 unreached people. We are also experiencing a huge population growth in the Eastern part of our state that includes Wilson.

Over the next 10 years it is predicted that Eastern North Carolina will grow at a rate faster than the rest of the state. While Charlotte, Winston Salem, and Greensboro and the Western part of the state will continue to grow, it is the Eastern part of North Carolina that is predicted to grow the fastest. Raleigh-Durham, Greenville, Wilmington and Fayetteville are the new magnets for NC growth trends. These Eastern NC cities will drive the population to the nearby cities like Wilson (Which is half way between Raleigh and Greenville making it a 40 minute commute to either).

As it turns out, it looks like God did His own demographic study on Wilson. That’s why we’re ready to put in another 20 years “seeking the peace and prosperity” of the city to which we’ve been carried.

“Jesus came and told his disciples, ‘I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age'” (Matthew 28:18-20 NLT).

When I was still working in the corporate world we often quoted management guru, Peter Drucker. Drucker had two diagnostic questions that he posed to business leaders to help them clarify and refocus on their core business.

These two questions were: 1) What business are you in? and 2) How’s business?

How a business, or for that matter, a non-profit, a church or even an individual answers these two questions is really critical to their future. A classic example of a business that misunderstood the first question was America’s railroad business.

A hundred years ago the railroad business was perhaps the most powerful and prominent in America. However, they made a mistake in answering Drucker’s first question: “What business are you in?. They thought they were in the train business, but they were actually in the transportation business! They confused the how with the why in their mission. Had they realized they were really in the transportation business, they would likely be leaders in the industry today.

The church is not a business, but it does have a clearly defined purpose. This purpose was given to the disciples by Jesus. In a passage that many refer to as the “Great Commission,” Jesus told the church that they were to “make disciples.” To use Drucker’s terminology one might say, “The church is to be in the disciple-making business.”

But like the railroad business, many churches have lost focus on their core mission. They struggle with institutional drift, focusing more on current members, buildings and budgets, rather than reaching the world for Christ. They’ve let disciple-making either slip to the back seat in emphasis or forgotten it altogether.

In order to overcome this tendency to lose focus or to focus on the wrong things, we’ve launched the “Time to Thrive” emphasis at WCC. We want to do more than survive. At this house and at your house, we want to thrive! We want WCC to be a family of committed Christ followers who are really thriving in the purpose that Christ has given us.

This past week we’ve been showing a 22-minute video in our communty groups that I recorded to describe the four strategic initiatives on which we want to focus to make sure that we are fulfilling Christ’s purpose. These four strategic initiatives are:

We want to be known as a …

• Disciple-making church.
• City church.
• Financially healthy church.
• Giving church

If you didn’t get a chance to watch the video, you can watch it on our church website under the “Time to Thrive” tab. There is also a list of frequently asked questions and other videos and information pieces about our “Time to Thrive” emphasis on the website.

Will you join us in our renewed focus on God’s purpose for WCC?

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV).

“For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead” (James 2:26 ESV).

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 NKJV).

We tend to misunderstand the stuff of faith. What is faith? Of what substance is it made? What does it do? From where does it come?

Modern thinking often puts faith and reason in opposite corners, implying that they are mutually exclusive. According to this view, faith is something believed in absence of, or in spite of, reason. This is not true faith, at least not biblical faith. In the Bible, faith and reason are friends.

The Christian does not commit intellectual suicide by believing. In reality, Christian faith is both a reasonable and a spiritual response to the message of the gospel. The gospel presents certain historical facts about the risen Christ and His claims. The Christian decides (a very reasonable word) to believe that those facts are not only true, but that they require a response. Faith responds.

When the apostle Paul explained salvation to the Ephesian Christians, he described faith as a kind of conduit or vehicle by which salvation is received. Paul says that salvation is “by grace” and “through faith.” It’s as if he is describing an expensive gift (grace) which has been wrapped up with your name on it. Yet, it isn’t yours until you reach out your hand (faith) and open it. Paul says that God not only gives us the gift of salvation, He also gives us the hand of faith that receives it. Faith comes from God.

Faith is more like the hand that reaches than the mind that reasons. We make faith too much the ethereal inner thought life of the noun and not enough the concrete action of the verb. Faith acts.

Faith is not reason’s antonym, especially since not all reason is equal. There is God’s reason, His wisdom, His revealed Word, His explanation for our existence and being. Then, there is man’s reason.

What faith does, is that it decides whose reason to live by.

“You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples (Psalm 77:14 NIV84).

“Philip answered him, ‘Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!’ Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, ‘Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?'” (John 6:7-9 NIV84).

Does God still perform miracles?  We all believe He did as recorded in the Bible.  Most of us believe He still can, but the question is, do we believe that He still does?  More specifically, do we believe that He will perform a miracle on our behalf?

Have you ever attempted something so beyond yourself that if God didn’t act, you’d totally fail? If you haven’t, then that might be why you have yet to see a miracle. The place where miracles happen is the place where your human wisdom and effort ends and where God begins! Miracles happen where God’s people risk it all to obey His call.

Pastor Rick Warren says, “What we often wait for God to do for us, God is waiting to do through us.”

When Jesus fed five thousand men (not counting women and children) with only five loaves and two fishes, the miracle was so well known that all four gospels record it. He could have rained bread from heaven like manna, but instead He chose to use a little boy’s lunch basket.

Of course, the boy had to offer his basket before Jesus could act. Perhaps there were others in the crowd with even better food supplies, but they didn’t come forward. The boy did. He trusted Jesus with all that he had.

John noted that both the bread and the fish were small in size. He even mentioned that it was barley bread, otherwise known as poor man’s bread because it was half as valuable as wheat.

Jesus took this small, poor lunch and He fed a multitude. He performed a miracle, but He chose to do it with the boy’s lunch and the disciples obedience to answer His call to give it out. Jesus did the miracle through them.

Where do you need a miracle today? Do you need one in your finances or in a relationship? Perhaps you need a miraculous healing of your body or in your marriage? Wherever you need a miracle, the key is to stop asking for a miracle and get yourself in a place where God can perform a miracle through you.

Trust God with your “lunch” and you’ll finally be in a place where you can watch Him miraculously feed both you and a multitude of hungry folk with it!

“Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him” (Psalm 62:5 NIV84).

When I was younger I tended to rest when I was exhausted to the point of illness. I worked until I couldn’t work any longer. Then, I rested because I had to. Many times it seemed that God forced me to rest by allowing my body or circumstances to fail me, so that rest was the only thing left to me.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned a better rhythm. Rest should precede work.

This is the pattern that God intended for us, that our work should come out of having found rest in Him. But if we’re not intentional about following this rhythm, the busyness of life will move us to action before we’ve found our rest in the Lord.

We have to be deliberate about choosing to work out of rest. We have to make it a priority to live this new way.

My friend, Pastor Wayne Cordeiro, says “Schedule in your rest points first before your schedule fills up. God intended activity to come out of rest. Rest needs to come first.”

This week, I’m spending time with my kids and grandkids in a big rental house in the Outer Banks. We scheduled this trip in January. The bigger our family gets the more complicated it is to find time on the calendar to be together. We have to really make it a priority. So, we are learning to schedule our “rest points” way out in advance.

When we work out of rest, we draw on the spiritual reservoir that Christ provides. Following God’s rhythm we find joy and strength in our work, as we work according to His power.

I’m resting this week, so I can hit the ground running next week!

“And you who are left in Judah, who have escaped the ravages of the siege, will put roots down in your own soil and grow up and flourish” (Isaiah 37:31 NLT).

God spoke to the people of Jerusalem through the prophet Isaiah letting them know that it was time to do more than survive. It was a time to thrive. They had endured the siege of their city by the Assyrians. They had heard the threats of King Sennacherib against them and their God. They had humbled themselves and prayed. Even their king, Hezekiah, had torn his clothes and put on burlap. He lay on the floor of the Temple, spreading out the threatening letter from the Assyrian king before God, crying out for rescue.

And God answered. He not only rescued them from the Assyrian army, He promised them a season of blessing and prosperity.

Unfortunately, siege survivors have trouble returning to normal life. They’ve been in maintenance mode so long that they don’t remember how to think ahead. They’re so beat up that they’re afraid to take a risk. Like a turtle in its shell, they’re afraid to ever stick their necks out again.

I think that’s why God gave them this encouraging word to go along with their rescue: “Put roots down, grow, and flourish!” People who have experienced starvation are afraid to even let go of the seed necessary to plant for new growth. Their fear paralyzes them, causing them to cling to the very seed that they need to release in order to live. They suffer from a kind of “survivor’s syndrome.”

According to the dictionary, Survivor’s Syndrome is “a characteristic group of symptoms, including recurrent images of death, depression, persistent anxiety, and emotional numbness, occuring in survivors of disaster.”

Psychologists have used this category to describe the symptoms of those in situations as varied as: holocaust survivors, veterans of war, cancer survivors and even those who have experienced downsizing and layoffs at their workplace. The thing they have in common seems to be that they thought they were going to die, but they didn’t. So, they wonder, “Now what do we do?”

Our church has experienced seasons of siege. There have been times when we lost family members to death, times when we took significant risks and failed, times when members became disgruntled and left, times when a trusted leader betrayed us, times when we just thought we weren’t going to make it.

I still remember a time not too long ago when we had to walk away from a failed building project. I called our remaining leaders together (Many leaders left us during this season).

I told them, “It looks like we’re not going to die. It looks like the bleeding is over. I think our church is going to survive. So, since it appears we’re going to live, let’s start over! We planted this church with fewer than we have here tonight, so let’s begin again!”

Those faithful few that gathered that evening stood and applauded. With smiles on their faces they looked back at me and shouted, “Yes! Let’s begin again.”

That was back in late 2006. Since then, we have sowed new seed and put down roots again. We have experienced amazing growth and God has blessed us with a new home. We are in a season of blessing now, but that old “survivor’s syndrome” still grabs at our throats once in a while. It tries to choke off our faith and cause us to hold back and not want to risk.

Let’s throw off thinking like survivors! We are more than that. We are victors in Christ! I believe God is telling us the same thing He told the Israelites.

Let’s do more than survive. It’s time to do more than survive at this house and at your house. It’s time to thrive!

“Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known” (Jeremiah 33:3 ESV).

“They all joined together constantly in prayer…” (Acts 1:14 NIV84).

Last year I finally bought a phone plan that included unlimited texting. I know, I hear you. I’m a little behind the curve. But I figured why do I need to type when I can talk? I mean, isn’t that why the phone replaced the telegraph? No more tapping messages, just talk to each other.

However, people kept sending me text messages. On my old phone plan I had to pay for each one. It ticked me off!

“Stop texting me!” I would shout at my cell phone, whenever someone sent me a text. “That just cost me 50 cents!”

And then, after looking at the text, I sometimes couldn’t even read the thing! Especially when one of my kids or a member of the younger crowd would text me. They used some kind of code.

If I succeeded in decoding the text, I’d be stumped as to how to respond. Should I just call? Or what if I tried to text them back? At the time, I had an older cell phone, so I had to use the numeric pad to find letters of the alphabet. What would’ve taken me seconds to say took minutes to punch. Frustrating.

Finally, I realized I was fighting a losing battle. Texting seems here to stay. I even upgraded to a phone with a mini-typewriter. I can text with the best of them now. I suppose I see the advantage, especially when you’re wanting to communicate with someone who is a little long-winded (Of course, I’m not talking about you. I love talking to you), or you just want to let someone know you’re running late or something.

I am concerned that people are taking this texting thing too far though. Have you seen people standing together texting each other? I don’t get it. Why let technology come between us? I understand using it as a servant of communication, but when it creates distance rather than intimacy, I say, “Stop it!” Just talk to each other.

I’m observing this social distancing in our spiritual communication too. Believers get together to pray and then spend the whole time giving their prayer requests while leaving little time to actually pray. And these requests are often not even from their deepest area of need. Many tend to ask for prayers for distant acquaintances. “Please pray for my mother’s brother-in-law’s next door neighbor. I don’t know him, but I heard that his dog is sick.”

Prayer is a little scary to people in a hurry. We’re afraid to slow down and really hear from God. It’s especially terrifying to people who are afraid of true intimacy and authenticity. When we get face to face and knee to knee to pray together, something other-worldly happens. Prayer is the highest form of communication. It creates intimacy with God and with one another.

So, let’s stop texting God our short, shallow prayers. He invites us to “call” out to Him in prayer, to pour out our souls to Him. Let’s determine to be a people devoted to praying long and deep prayers, prayers that expose our hearts to God and to one another. And let’s devote ourselves to “constantly” praying together, really experiencing what it means to be the very body of Christ with Him as Head.

“May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:14 NIV84).

The first century Christians used the Greek word koinonia to describe their new community. This word is most often translated “fellowship” in the New Testament. It may also be translated “communion,” “partnership,” or “participation” depending on context. 

The word comes from the root word koine, which means “common.” Depending on usage, this word may mean to be “common” in the sense of being “ordinary,” or it may be used to describe something “held in common” or “shared.”

When the word is used to describe the original language of the New Testament, Koine Greek, it means ordinary Greek, common Greek. It was not the formal, classical Greek of Plato. It was the marketplace, everyday-Greek of the common people. I think God wanted the New Testament written in a language that common people could understand.

But when the first century Christians used koinonia to describe their newly formed community that began when the Holy Spirit filled them at Pentecost they certainly did not mean that this was a “common” or “ordinary” community. No, they used the word koinonia to describe the new life in Christ that they shared in-common and the new dwelling of the Holy Spirit that knit them together as one body.

Today, there are many common communities, ordinary fellowships of teams and tribes. They have a human sense of oneness built around a similar affinity. But this is not the koinonia of the New Testament. The fellowship of Christians in the New Testament was more than a likeness of belief and affinity, it was rebirth into the one family of God. It was the living Holy Spirit present in each and every one of them, binding them together as one.

You can’t have true fellowship, true koinonia, without the Holy Spirit. Without Him, it’s just a common get-together.

Invite Him to your next community group gathering. Look for Him in your next worship service. Listen for His presence in all of your gatherings. Then, you’ll finally experience the most uncommon of communities.