"Values"

I must say that I have never seen an area like the south end of Forsyth County, where we are planting The Fountain UMC. I grew up in Gwinnett County and saw tremendous growth there, but I do not think I have seen anything like what is happening in the Johns Creek, Suwanee, and Cumming areas. The Fountain is located in the fastest area of growth in the entire state of Georgia. The area has already grown so fast and is projected to at least grow another 32% in the next five years! You have to see it to believe it! Numbers like that do not mean anything until you realize that each person is a soul that Jesus loves and desires a relationship with. That’s what drives me and The Fountain UMC. There are kids everywhere too. There are more daycares than I have even seen in my life. Those are children and families that Jesus loves. I have found more than anything that we have great people in the south Forsyth County area who simply want to have wonderful families, live with purpose, have deep relationships, a sense of community, and to find a place where this Jesus stuff can have a real impact for them today. 

That is why The Fountain UMC is seeking to be a church that is Christ-centered, relevant, real, transparent, exciting, and inviting in all that we do. Those are some of our values and how we want to be known around the community. When people hear contemporary, new church, or a church that pre-Christians love to attend, they often think that the message must become less than the entire message of Christianity. I have to say that I do not believe in soft Christianity. Instead, I have a passion to lead people into a deep pursuit to know Christ so much that they experience a real impact on their lives. We want to lead people to having a growing relationship with Jesus Christ where they are led to fill the world with the love of Christ that they have experienced.

Our second big value is to be a church that makes church and God relevant to a person’s everyday life. What good is talking about faith if it doesn’t mean anything when you go to work, the grocery store, when raising your family, or when tragedy hits? The reality is that Jesus IS relevant and we are a church that wants to help people experience a loving, holy God, who IS relevant and presented that way in a relevant church. Relevant does not mean that you water down the message, but that you make it come alive so that it means something and helps you to become a better person even Monday through Saturday. In order to be relevant without compromising the message, we also believe that church should be fun, creative, and exciting. 

We want to be a church for people of all ages and stages in the faith. This is not a church for only young people, but one where anyone can learn, grow, and follow God. We want to be a church that pre-Christian people love to attend, but also a church where people who have loved Jesus for years can grow and serve. Our leadership team keeps referring to this as “a church for the whole family”. It’s a reminder that God wants to disciple the whole family no matter our age or even our stage in the faith. We are a church that wants to reach the unchurched, de-churched, lightly churched, those hurt by church, those who love church, but mostly people who simply want to be real about following God, loving people, and becoming the person that God has created them to be. We want to be a church that is real about relationships, real about following Jesus, real about serving, and real about our faith. We want to be real in order to show people that Jesus is real and can have a real impact on your life today. 

Stay tuned for the upcoming blog series about our four main areas of focus for The Fountain. 

"All Things New"

NEW. What comes to your mind when you hear that word? What about when you think about it in terms of a new church? I wrote in the last post that The Fountain is a church that wants to lead people to Jesus, the source of life, hope, purpose, and wholeness. There is nothing more exciting to us than to be a part of God’s work of offering redemption and purpose to the world through love. 

You may be thinking, “that’s great, but there are a lot of churches that do that, right?” Absolutely. I think sometimes when people hear the word “NEW” they think that everything you do will be NEW. That’s why the word NEW is exciting for some because it means a fresh start and opportunities galore. But the word NEW is also one that causes much fear because what if this NEW church changes everything that we know and love about church? 

I can say without a doubt that the message of Jesus Christ that is proclaimed and lived out through The Fountain UMC is the same message of the love of God in Jesus Christ that came to redeem the world and to make us whole. The excitement about this NEW church is that we have discovered that planting NEW churches is the most effective way to reach NEW people with God’s love. We get to think out of the box of how to live the wonderful age old message of Jesus Christ in sometimes NEW ways, to reach NEW people, so that they will experience a NEW life in Jesus Christ. We are inviting people to God, the Fountain of Life. We are inviting people to the Jesus, who can take any life that has lost its way, never seen the way, and maybe thought there was never a way, and suddenly they discover Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life. And hopefully through this NEW church, they will also experience the promise of Jesus for their life when he promised even to them, “I am making all things new.” May God do that in me, you, and through our new church. Lord, let it be! 

"The Fountain"

I don’t have children yet, but I imagine one the most exciting and difficult things to do is to figure out a name for your child. A name is very important because it sticks with you no matter where you go. It’s who you are and how people identify you. Someone recently joked that naming a church was probably like naming a child. It is a holy task that must not be taken lightly because the name a church is given will go with it no matter where it goes. The name speaks about who we are and how people will identify us. I’ll be honest, we took a long time to finally set the church name. That was on purpose. We realized that this church does not belong to me or anyone else. This new church is God’s church and we knew that if the church was to touch lives, the vision also must be God’s. So, we took a lot of time to ask questions, pray, get to know our area, read passages in Scripture to articulate the calling God gave us, pray more, test names to see what people thought, and did I mention to pray? 

At Annual Conference and until recently, this church that used to have no name, was given a “code name”. It was known as New Church South Forsyth UMC. Not exactly an easy name to say, huh? Thankfully after much prayer, I am so excited to announce that the new church will officially be called...THE FOUNTAIN - A New United Methodist Church. 

Why The Fountain? During the beginning of July, God woke me up one night with the vision of the living water that Jesus offers. I read John 4 where Jesus offers this living water to a woman who comes to draw water from a well. She soon realizes that Jesus is offering a different kind of water than she can get anywhere else. The living water that Jesus offered could satisfy her from the very depth of her being. Jesus was offering a chance to experience a new kind of life that comes only from God and one that can bring life, purpose, hope, and can make her whole. Isn’t that what we all want really? 

In Psalm 36:9 and other places in the Bible, God is referred to as the “fountain of life”. It became very clear to us that our purpose as a new church was to simply lead people to the “fountain of life” so that all can experience the life, hope, purpose, and wholeness that God offers. 

Another reason The Fountain is a great name is the symbolism we see in everyday life. A drinking fountain is something that we gravitate to when we are thirsty and it quenches our thirst. A fountain in a courtyard is so beautiful that it draws people who are complete strangers to it and collectively brings them together at the edge of the fountain. If you think of a three-tier fountain, the water flows from the top and then overflows from one level to the next. There never seems to be an end to it. That is a lot like the kind of life and love that Jesus offers too. We are inviting people to experience Jesus at The Fountain!

"Stepping Out On Grace"

“Standing on grace” is exactly what it means to start a new church. Grace is a churchy word that is thrown around a lot. Maybe we use it so much that we lose the power of its meaning, but the more I fall in love with Jesus, the more I realize that God’s grace is the most solid foundation one can stand upon. The radical, unmerited, underserved love of God sounds good on paper, but it completely changes your life when you meet it face to face. You wonder why I said yes to God when God called me to plant / start a new United Methodist Church? It’s because I have experienced God’s grace and love for me in such a powerful way and God has enabled me to feel God’s heartbeat for the people in south Forsyth County. 

You may wonder, “Are you crazy?” Maybe. But I believe so strongly that the love of Jesus Christ is not only something that we read about in the Bible, but that Jesus can have an impact that changes lives even today. 

So my wife, Mandy, and I moved back to our old stomping grounds to help people experience the love of Jesus Christ that is real and can change lives, families, schools, communities, nations, and the world...forever. Planting a church is hard work, but exciting. It’s exciting because we are standing on God’s grace. It’s exciting because God has called us to create a church that is relevant, exciting, Christ-centered, and one that helps people to experience the grace of God that your entire life can stand upon. 

I also must say that I am a normal guy, who gave his life to God through a relationship with Jesus Christ in the seventh grade. We have been sent out to start this new church by our team, The North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church, not because we know everything about starting a church, but because we love God and simply want people to grow in their love for God too. I’m standing on grace and inviting others to join me.