3 Reasons We’re Excited About Symphony in the Park
By Matt Dawson
This week, we have the amazing opportunity to serve the Town of Cornelius by partnering with them for the Symphony in the Park on June 27th at Bailey Road Park. Don’t forget to CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP & help us bring Hope to LKN!
There are 3 reasons why we serve our community and especially the Town of Cornelius:
1. This is OUR Home
We live here. This is our community. As a church, we exist to humbly point everyone to absolute Hope so that we can see every one of our friends’ stories changed by that hope. Many in our church live in Cornelius. We go to school here, shop here, eat here, engage in sports here, and our church serves ALL of LKN which includes Cornelius.
Cornelius is our home, our family. Everyone in a family SERVES the home, serves the family in some way (at least in a healthy family). So when we have the opportunity to SERVE our home, our family – we do it! We do it with a smile on our face and gratitude in our hearts because we are blessed to live and be a part of this great community.
2. This is not OUR Event
One of the BEST reasons we serve at this event is because it’s NOT our event. I think many folks in the community are busy enough without churches trying to throw ONE MORE EVENT at them to try and come to. Plus, when churches throw an event – many in the community simply won’t attend, because they don’t trust the church’s agenda. I love that this amazing event is NOT our event. We’ve been INVITED to participate. This is an HONOR for us.
It allows us to sacrificially VOLUNTEER (it will take over 100 volunteers to pull this off), we INVEST financially (we will spend over $2,000 to support this event), and PUT OTHERS FIRST as we not only claim to point others to Hope, but we actually walk the talk! Serving brings Purpose to our hearts and lives. When we serve at our events, it’s to benefit US. When we serve this Saturday… We do it to benefit others!
3. This is God’s Plan for Spreading Hope
God has always used His people to bless communities and to spread His Hope to others. There is no plan B. We are His messengers of Hope. This doesn’t motivate us to get on a soap box in the middle of an event and “PREACH” at people – we just want to be ourselves and promote #HOPELKN (bringing hope to LKN). This doesn’t give us permission to plaster church information on people’s cars about our next sermon series – we only plan to pass out information on the programs we offer for the community (KidZone, HopeFIT, #hopeLKN, etc).
Our band isn’t planning to sneak in a “worship” song into the opening set – we plan to rock out to some great top 40 classics and it’s going to be FUN! We spread Hope by engaging our community as fellow citizens who, because of Christ IN us, we want to serve and love them in a way that has no hidden agendas or strings attached.
The only thing branded “Journey Church” will be the Koozies we pass out and the designated area called “Kidzone”. WHY? – because people don’t care what we have to say until they feel that we actually care about them first. Serving our community is our way of opening a door that gives folks a choice to investigate the Absolute Hope that Changes Lives!
Jesus leveraged every opportunity He had to serve people and help meet their needs AS THE WAY to bring Hope to their lives. We want everyone that attends The Symphony at the Park to be impacted by the HOPE of Jesus that we talk about at Journey Church all week long.
This is one of our opportunities to do that. We have been given that opportunity to share Hope with them by serving them and loving their kids at this amazing event for our community.
I hope you are planning to join us this weekend. If not – there is still time! CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP & help us bring Hope to LKN!