to see where you are. Whether you’re planning to travel around the world or just from one

room to another, if you don’t know where you are now, it’s awfully hard to know how to get to

where you’re going. Lost, you’ll wander in circles while visions of home fill your mind. Maybe

When creating a vision statement for an organization or even for our own lives, we need to ask,

“What do we want the world to look like as a result of our presence?” Dream big, because we

have a big God who loves to do big things. Don’t make the mistake of stopping there, though–

there is a difference between vision and daydreams. As we ask God for a vision, we mustn’t

focus so hard on the final destination that we are oblivious to our current surroundings. That’s

a roadmap for disaster. If the first step in acquiring vision is to open your eyes and look around,

then a better question to start with is, “What’s wrong with this picture?”

needs, both physical and spiritual. We also saw dozens of local churches with thousands of

members, but somehow these churches were failing to meet the needs of our community.

“What’s wrong with this picture?” we asked. “What do we need to do differently from the

existing churches?”

our being, and love our neighbors as much as we loved ourselves, and more. We needed this

love to be active, not just something we talked about week after week. And so we wrote our

vision statement: Love in action. This is what we want to see in our church and in our

community. Love in action, the kind of active, selfless love that is contagious, the kind of love

that can be found only in a relationship with Jesus Christ and his children.

things as they currently exist, something that creates dozens of ineffective churches and

thousands of unmet community needs. Perhaps you’ve heard of it: the 80/20 Rule. This “rule”

describes a phenomenon prevalent in the American Church: 80% of the ministry of the church

is carried out by 20% of the people. That means that, in a church congregation of 400 people,

320 of them were doing nothing but sitting in the pews on Sunday. No wonder the churches

were unable to meet the needs of the community.

warmers. We want to be a gathering of ministers. What is a minister? Anyone who is serving

God by serving his people in one capacity or another. And by “his people,” we don’t mean only

Christians. We mean all people who are created in God’s image– which is everyone. “For God so

loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son…”

into action: we are not LifePointe Church or LifePointe Ministry– -we are LifePointe Ministries.

And what’s with that extra “e” in LifePointe? We like to say that it stands for “everyone.”

Everyone who is a genuine member of LifePointe Ministries has a ministry. We don’t have a

formal membership process, or even formal membership. If you are a minister who attends

LifePointe gatherings, then your ministry is one of LifePointe’s ministries and you are a

member. If you’re not a minister, we want to come alongside you and help you become one.

What is your passion? What problems do you see when you open your eyes and look around?

Have you been asking God to send someone to solve the problem? Maybe he has– maybe that

“someone” is you.

Ministry is service done in love, which means that anyone can do ministry, even small children!

Here are just a few of the ministries carried out by the people of LifePointe over the past five

years:

 Serving Thanksgiving dinner to the community

 Bringing Christmas gifts to veterans and their families

 Picking up trash on the beach

 Helping people pack and move their furniture

 Making coffee for the people who come to Sunday morning worship gatherings

 Singing or playing a musical instrument in worship

 Meeting financial needs

 Praying for those in need

 Painting the bathroom

 Cleaning the bathroom

 Watching our babies and toddlers during the Sunday morning worship gatherings

 Washing cars in the community

 GED tutoring

 Changing flat tires

 Visiting those in the hospital

 Finding homes for the homeless

 Assisting families with utility bills

 Mowing the lawn for a neighbor

 Beautifying a county park

And so much more.