I’ll start with this question: Are you willing to sacrifice to be on a winning team?
In simplicity, our playbook at Origin Church will be very simple church. We have a desire to reach those that have often been forgotten. This will be a church for the skeptic, the one who doesn’t want to go to church, the one who hates church, the spiritual misfits, irreligious, those burned by church as they knew it, and a place for life change. Because of the development of this type of environment, people will begin to feel themselves coming alive!
This will be a church that has as it’s focus, the unchurched, irreligious, never been to church people, those who are far away from God, those who have no previous history with Jesus or the church who are tired of church as they’ve always known it or heard about it, especially in the south and the Bible belt.
We will remove barriers and subscribe to the fact that no perfect people will be allowed. The 25-44 year old demographic of people is 66% of the Catoosa County population. It will be a church for people-people not church-people. Amazingly, 87.5% of the entire county attend no one’s church. By 2015, it is estimated that 1/3 Georgians will be 20 years old or under. Half of this will be minorities. It is estimated in America, now, that only 2.2% of our churches are growing by conversion growth.
Origin Church in Ringgold, GA will be a place for people who are ready to give God another “look” if they could find a church that “allowed” them to look without pre-judging or posting a list of rules of entry. Northwest Georgia doesn’t necessarily need a new church, but we feel it needs a different kind of church. There are plenty of churches doing a good job of ministering to the reached. We need all kinds of churches because there are all kinds of people.
Our vision is to create a safe environment for people to feel God’s love and to realize that He desires a relationship with them. Our mission is to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Our strategy to do this will reside in creating irresistable and excellent environments where people are encouraged and equipped to follow Christ and because of these environments will want to bring their friends who will come back again and again. The way to do this is to create intimacy with God, community with others, and influence with outsiders. Each ministry environment will be designed to do no more than one or two things well. In other words, devoting a little of yourself to everything means committing a great deal of yourself to nothing.
This church will be an electrified, energetic, and a unique church engaging in a missional perspective that flows out of a very high view of scripture on the one hand, and a total commitment to engage contemporary culture with the gospel on the other hand, using every effective means of communication. It will have it’s own and unique personality as God develops it.
We believe we can help people find their way back to God. If we can help people look at church differently, then I believe we can help them see God differently. We’re dreaming about one day multiplying churches to impact each community surrounding Northwest Georgia by beginning in the fast growing hub of Ringgold, GA/Chattanooga, TN, then to Cleveland, TN, on to Ellijay, GA, and Dawsonville, GA.
We will have a full-court press on Kingdom mentality. We have no intention to compete with any church, just partnering with them to reach people. Our only competition will be with unchurched peoples’ time. We will be a group of multi-cultural and diverse people motivated by larger than life ideas. We dedicate our lives to fulfilling God’s divine design for us.
Dave Foster says that God is looking for men and women who will be giants in the land of the dying. Imagine the unlikely, against all odds miracles Jesus performed through the first little band of feeble followers. They were the definition of ordinary. They had no money, no connections, and no master plan. Jesus didn’t write a manual or give them detailed instructions. He simply sent them out to tell what they’d seen and to give away what He gave them- new life. Like Jesus, “Welcome to the revolution.” We will live free from the bondage of past shame, past guilt, and free from past prejudices and put-downs. We will have fun everyday realizing that “the joy of the Lord is our strength.”
As a part of Origin Church we hope you will experience for yourself the power of the human heart, set free to dream, to dare, to move, and to risk everything for love. We are going to see God show up at all our stops along the way, as we discover the majesty and mystery which is Jesus. The key to understanding what will always be “in” and still cool is in what He claimed, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Let us be a Christ-centered, people-loving, mission-driven, and world-changing church without walls or wires.
Membership here is not just having your name on a list. It’s far more than that. Being a member indicates your willingness to partner, serve and potentially lead with us as we both seek to accomplish that mission. But to do that, you have to be willing to say that church on Sundays isn’t all about you. And that’s tough. But that’s what it takes to serve and reach “our customers.”
We are on a quest to create a climate in which the radical love of Jesus Christ can call, capture, and alter otherwise independent, self-reliant, self-willed men and women, and convert them into fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. Like the early church, we may meet in a home, office, school, or auditorium. Our gatherings will be populated with hungry, happy people who ache for a conversation and dialogue about the life and claims of our founder-Jesus. As we seek Matthew 6:33, we will be less concerned with programs and more focused on process. We’re not going to be a part of arguing or complaining. We are instigators of change and anxious to join other Jesus followers to create a Nation dedicated to recasting the Gospel as a revolution of non-religious love. We seek to join Jesus wherever He is moving, understanding that some of us plant the seed of the gospel, while others of us water, but it is only Jesus who makes it grow to bear the fruit of conversion.
Worship, Connect, and Serve is our mantra. We will do our best to bring value to your life with the unique gifts God has given us. We will do our best to hear God’s voice and lead you to Him.
Success for us is not a filled auditorium or a large offering …but how many unchurched people in our area we are reaching. The litmus test for Origin Church is… Are we seeing lives changed? That’s it! That’s the “win”. That’s the reason we do what we do.
If you’re looking for something like this, then come on! Email me and let me know. It may mean radical changes for you and your family. You may be local or you may be from out of town. It doesn’t matter. Make the decision! Pack up and move to the area! Don’t live your whole life having never been a radical who was involved in a revolution! Following Christ is almost always nomadic. My family has had an incredible journey following Christ and leading others to Him, all over the Southeast. God has always used each move to enlarge us all!! Right now, start preparing for rain! The will of God is the work of God. If you trace Paul’s journey on the map, he just went to the next best place.
I’ll end with this question: Are you willing to sacrifice to be on a winning team?
