4 Ways to Humbly Point Everyone to Absolute Hope
By Chris Denning
If you’ve been around Journey, you’ve probably heard us talk about what we’re about:
We humbly point everyone to absolute Hope.
I love how this mission doesn’t really have an end point, nor does it wholly depend on what we’re able to do, but rather it’s centered around who Christ is and how we should respond to Him with our lives.
However, after hearing this for a while, you might be asking yourself what this practically looks like.
“How can I humbly point everyone to absolute Hope in my everyday life?”
I want to help by offering four simple actions that you can start doing today to help you live out our mission in your everyday life. I believe that these four simple things will help you grow in your faith and become more like Christ as you humbly point everyone to absolute Hope.
1. Find a Way to Partner with Journey
When you partner with someone, you’re side-by-side. You’re in the getting things done hand-in-hand, working towards the same goal.
This is partnering at Journey.
We don’t have membership at Journey, because we don’t want members that belong to a club; we want partners who are committed to humbly pointing everyone to absolute Hope.
Partners are active and they have skin in the game. We work together, we celebrate together, and we humbly point everyone to absolute Hope together.
Partnering with Journey means that you are giving your time & talent by volunteering somewhere you’re excited about on Sundays, and also giving financially to support the mission and ministry of Journey. We don’t give these things because we have to; we offer our time, energy and money because we believe that God will multiply anything we freely give back to Him.
Take a moment to think about what gets you excited on Sunday mornings at Journey.
Is it meeting new people? Then maybe you’d be perfect as a Greeter or Host.
Is it seeing kids having an awesome time at church? Then maybe you’re poised to be a leader on KidStreet.
The bottom line is this: Find where your passion and Journey’s needs intersect, and jump in.
Ultimately, we believe that partnering brings connection, to others that you’re volunteering with and to God as you humbly offer yourself.
2. Make a Choice to Grow at Journey
If you played sports when you were a kid, then you know that everyone starts out pretty bad. Maybe some kids had a knack for it, but even they weren’t ready for the NBA on day one.
In order to get better, in order to change into a better athlete, you had to grow.
The same is true when it comes to growing in our faith and our ability to humbly point everyone to absolute Hope.
Simply put, growing brings change. And we believe that this growth happens best in life-on-life relationships with others.
At Journey, we have two perfect opportunities for you to find some of these relationships: Life Groups & Access Groups. Taking time to get to know others by hanging out, studying the Bible together and praying for one another is exactly how change happens in your life over time. These relationships help you to grow and change, as you each continually point one another to absolute Hope.
The bottom line is this: If you’re in a group, then dig in. If you’re not in a group, then commit to finding one in the next week.
We believe that growing brings change, and this change in your life is exactly how you will humbly point everyone to absolute Hope, sometimes without even noticing.
3. Determine Where You Can Serve with Journey
Have you ever known that guy who just knew what he was on this earth to do?
Typically, this guy (or gal) has found something that gives him purpose in life, something outside of themselves that stirs their passion.
Serving at Journey is designed to help you find that purpose in your life.
Hopefully you’ve heard Matt talk about #hopeLKN, which is all about each one of us finding ways to bring hope to Lake Norman. This could look like ANYTHING, but it requires us to look around us and find ways we can serve those around us.
Maybe you want to be more intentional about humbly pointing your neighbors to absolute hope, or you could find a cause you’re passionate about and take steps to get involved in Lake Norman. The goal is to find ways to point people to hope in LKN in our daily lives.
Or maybe you have a heart for those overseas who maybe don’t know Christ or are hurting. You can go and serve abused and hurting girls with Journey Global Outreach (GO) in Peru or help to provide clean water with a team over in Kenya.
The bottom line is this: Take some time this week to consider where you can serve others with Journey.
We believe that serving brings purpose, and purpose will fuel our passion to humbly point everyone to absolute Hope.
4. Commit to Learning to Lead at Journey
Leadership can be a weird thing. Some people naturally seek out opportunities to lead, while others (read MOST PEOPLE) feel afraid, indifferent, or avoid these opportunities all together.
However, at Journey, we believe that we’re called to lead in the way that we live as well in the big and small opportunities that come our way.
Leading is at the heart of everything what we do at Journey.
Consider this: You can’t humbly point anyone anywhere unless you’re leading them.
Therefore, we believe its important for each believer to learn how to lead. This could be leading a Life Group, learning how to share your faith more naturally, or even leading any kind of team we have at Journey.
We want to equip you as leaders, because we believe that leading brings hope.
This is why we exist: to humbly point everyone to absolute Hope! We lead others because we want to point them to the Hope that we have found.
We don’t believe it’s easy or immediate, but we do believe that every one who is a follower of Christ has the capacity to lead others to the same Hope that they have already found.
The bottom line is this: Determine how and where you could lead at Journey, and talk to someone this week about getting involved.
We believe that leading brings hope, and you are uniquely equipped to humbly point everyone to that absolute Hope.
These four simple actions are based on Journey’s Core Ambitions. We believe with all our hearts that if we are Partnering, Growing, Serving, & Leading, then we will not only become more like Christ, but can’t help but be humbly pointing everyone to absolute Hope.
Our aim is to help you grow in your faith and become more like Christ, and we do that by pursuing these Core Ambitions (Partnering, Growing, Serving, & Leading).
We want nothing more than to help you take these four simple actions this week, so please contact Matt, Don, Zack, or myself and let us know how we can help you Partner, Grow, Serve, & Lead at Journey.
Lets hear from you!
Which of these four seems the easiest for you to do?
Which of these four seems the scariest for you?