The Unfettered Bloke

Originally Written April 2008

Life is full of routine and monotony, the “daily grind”. We all experience it–it just comes in all different shapes and sizes. I think the same statement could be made about our churches and our ministries as well. If you look at the church as a whole, the same “tactics” (for lack of a better word) that were created in the early 20th century (i.e. revival, door to door visitation, passing out tracts) are, by and large, the same tactics most churches still use today. I’m not going to say that these methods no longer work, because God can use anything to accomplish his purpose. But I do think it’s time to re-think how effective these methods really are and what we can be doing to reach out to people in a way that’s relative to the modern day culture we’re a part of.

Over the last year or so, God’s been planting ideas in my mind along these lines. We have been working on re-designing our church website to make it a more effective means to reaching out to the community and to the world at large. We’ve never really been able to figure this out, but our church website is visited by thousands of people from all over the world every month. We’ve received emails from the UK, France, Germany, India and even remote places I’ve never heard of that are hundreds of miles out in the ocean–places like Mauritius, Seychelles and Vanuatu. We recently started adding pegs to a Google Map, just to get a visual for where all of these places are located. Check it out here, it’s pretty amazing. A lot of these people have accepted Christ as a result of reading our “Finding Peace” page or from listening to our Podcasts. Just recently we delved a little deeper to see how many people were downloading our Podcasts, and discovered that it was over 19,000 people just last month! We were absolutely blown away by that as you can imagine… especially since our church consists of around 150.

So it was about this time last year when I created that map and it was at that same time God started working in my heart and planting seeds in my mind. I was taking a shower one morning, and just started thinking about all the people from around the world that were contacting us… this was all really great, but could we be doing any more to help them? Was there any way we could reach more people who were searching… maybe that wouldn’t necessarily go to a “church” website? And how could we really reach someone half a world a way to establish a connection, help them grow in the Lord, answer their questions, or point them to a good church? Getting our people actively involved with the website ministry would be a start, but for whatever reason, I just felt like we needed to be patient and wait on God’s timing.

A few months ago I was meeting with my pastor and in the course of conversation he told me how he felt God was leading our church to go on a mission’s trip. He didn’t know where or even when, but he knew God just wanted us to pick a date and that he would fill in the details. So a few Sunday’s ago, we announced this to the church, and also unveiled the new website we’d been working on for the last year or so. Right after the service, I was talking with my friend Ben and God just sort of led the conversation back to that idea we had been talking about over the last year… what we could do with our site visitors.

While we were talking, we both just started to sense God’s calling again… that the timing was right, that the door was now open, especially with our church focusing on missions. Since then God’s been pulling back the clouds and giving us a vision for what he really has in store for us. It’s enormous, complex… but simple all at the same time. It’s something so obvious that we know it could only be of God. So if you’re still with me and if I haven’t lost you, here’s the start of the ministry idea God’s given us…

[Edited 12/18/09] It starts with you, your blog/website, your Twitter/Facebook page, your churches website, etc. Our original thought was to purchase domains like whatsthepointoflife.com and several others that would provide answers and help to those looking for it, but we never had time or resources to develop them. To this point they’ve just be redirecting to our “Finding Peace” page on lifepointsc.org. Should you or your ministry be interested in taking them on and developing them for this ministry, please contact me. [/End Edit] The last time we pulled the traffic on some of these sites, we were getting hundreds of unique visitors a month. That’s pretty cool in and of itself, but still not convinced? That’s ok, check this out… on Wednesday of last week we received an email from a girl in Minnesota. She Googled “What’s the point of life”, found our site and sent us the following email:

I need help.
Iv been strugling with so much for way to long.
How do I know hes real?
My boyfriend is very advanced in his faith..
He says when he prays..he can feel that god is there..feel his presence…how come I can’t?
I try SO hard.
I really honestly..would love to know the point to life…and heaven..not that it doesnt sound great.. or life isn’t all that bad..
This is how I see things…
Ok.. im here.. im having a good time.. so what? what does that matter?
what does that mean?
If there is an afterlife…then what? I mean.. is there really a point to it all?
I feel so numb..
I wish I could convince myself that there is a point…and god has a plan that I as a human being..can not understand.
But I can’t, this question takes up all my energy, time, and happiness.
It isn’t healthy…
PLEASE please if anyone can help me..

Thank you,
Jane

HOW DID YOU LEARN ABOUT US?:
I googled “whats the point of life?”

WHERE ARE YOU LOCATED?:
Brainerd, MN, US

Needless to say this email threw an oil tanker on the fire God already lit in our hearts. Everywhere we turn, He provides us with more confirmation that this is from Him and something He wants us to do. Obviously, we’re in the very beginning stages of thinking through the websites. We want them to be extremely visual, yet simple representations of the gospel, using lots of images and videos to help us address key issues like “Is there really a God”, “Is there life after death”, but ultimately pointing them to the Point of Life, Jesus.

So where do we go from here? Well, this is the cool part and the biggest, scariest part for me. [Step 1] We feel God wants us to start making “ContactPoints” globally. In other words, establishing relationships with missionaries, tent-makers, other churches… and yes, even other churches here in the US!

Wait, pause for a second… can we do that? Are we allowed to partner with other churches of like faith to help accomplish the same goals? It’s never really been done on this scale before (that we know of)… but that’s a topic for another discussion. ; )

So, once someone makes contact through our church website or through whatsthepointoflife.com through these websites or various other ways, we’ll work to establish a relationship with them and help answer any questions they have and help council them in the certain issues they’re facing. Ultimately though, the goal is to point them to one of our ContactPoints (or vice versa) who will meet them one on one and help accomplish all of the above, only face-to-face and potentially even have an open door to reach out to their family and friends.

Establishing these ContactPoints is going to be the tough part, but think about it for a second… all of us know a missionary family in another part of the world, or someone in a church in another part of the country. At this point, I feel like this ministry will grow simply by word of mouth or through our little “spheres of influence”.

[Step 2] From there, I feel like God really wants us to establish a working relationship with our ContactPoints, in particular, the missionaries and tent-makers serving in another country to help “bridge the gap” that their mission boards and supporters often leave. We want to keep in constant contact with them, and be there to provide consistent encouragement and prayer. We also want to help by providing them with the resources they need to make their ministry more effective.

[Step 3] And then last, but certainly not least… once we have these “models” in place, we want to offer them to other churches and ministries of like faith so they can begin to reach beyond the walls of their own church and ministry. We don’t want any of this to be exclusive to LifePoint. If any of this is ever going to be effective, it’s going to require people from all walks of life from all over the place to come alongside and help us. We will need designers, developers, missionaries, churches, and just average people who have a heart for God and a passion to help people, who are lost and hurting.

So you may be reading this, thinking it sounds great and all, but don’t think you can never make a difference like this for God? Think again. Ever feel like you’re just floating along in life with no real direction or purpose? Do you know the Lord, but still have an aching in your heart that a great job, a nice house or love hasn’t truly satisfied? Even those of us that know God can easily forget the point of life. We go looking for the same things the world does to satisfy us, but why, when we know the only source of true happiness and satisfaction is found in completely surrendering to God and his will for our lives?

So my purpose for writing all of this is two fold. First, I want to ask each of you for your prayers as we embark on this journey God has called us to. Pray that God will continue to show us his will and that he would make it obvious to us.

Secondly, I’m writing this to encourage each of you. You may be sitting at work reading this note wondering in the back of your mind what you’re really doing there. You may be sitting on the couch at home, amongst the screaming kids, wondering if you’ll ever make a difference. I just want to encourage each of you to be faithful. God has us where we are for a specific reason. Pray that he will show you how to minister where you already are, first, then oftentimes He’ll pull back the clouds and show you something even greater. One of my best friends gave me some great advice the other day… he said the formula for finding God’s will for your life is simple: patience + faithfulness. So be faithful where God has you right now and be patient and wait on God. It’s as simple and uncomplicated as that.

Thanks for taking the time to read all of this today. I know it was a long explanation, but I really felt like God wanted me to share all of this with you, for whatever reason. If you have any other questions about this, don’t hesitate to email me. Thanks in advance for your support and prayers!

~ Nathan

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