Encountering Jesus: Living Springs' Vision for Community Renewal

Encountering Jesus is worth more than a thousand fantastic life changing sermons. I could never preach in such a powerful way that it would overshadow what it would mean to encounter Jesus. Encountering Jesus is the best thing anybody can ever do. [00:17:53] (31 seconds)  #ExperienceBeatsSermons

and I said the one thing that has made me stay as a Christian all of my life is my encounter with Jesus. Twenty five years ago, or however long ago it was, I encountered Jesus. I'm not saying that the words of the the vicar at the time said weren't important, but I encountered Jesus, and I could not deny who he was and what he wanted to do in my life. [00:17:14] (39 seconds)  #MyEncounterSavedMe

The fifth thing that I wanna pull out of these verses is that the woman shared her encounter. She didn't have this encounter with Jesus and just hold it to herself. She went back to her village, to her town, and shared the good news. Shared, come and see this this prophet, this person, the Messiah. We are called to go and make disciples. [00:14:18] (30 seconds)  #ShareTheEncounter

But we must be sharing the stories of what Jesus is doing in our lives and through Living Springs. Not to boast about ourselves, not to boast about how good Living Springs is, but actually to point the glory to God. So we've got to be out there sharing what is happening in our lives. And perhaps this is the most pertinent point, the sixth point to where we are as a church at the moment. [00:15:08] (36 seconds)  #TestimonyGlorifiesGod

Other people believe not only because of the woman's testimony, but because they too encountered Jesus. Do you know there's plenty of books on how to lead somebody to Christ, great work methods of evangelism, and they're all valid. There are ideas. We we've done very we've done loads of different things here at Living Springs to encourage people to come and know Jesus. [00:15:44] (29 seconds)  #EncountersMultiplyFaith

So Jesus went to where the people were, where the people were at. He didn't always expect them to come to him. And of course, we love it when people walk in through the door for the first time and have found us online or received a leaflet through the door or seen the signs outside. That is equally a valid way, but we need to be an outward looking church. So part of our vision is always to be outward looking. [00:08:20] (30 seconds)  #OutwardLookingChurch

So where does this story how how where does this fit into our vision? Well, the first thing I want us to pick out is from verse four six where it says, Jesus waited. He had to go through Samaria. He wasn't static. He wasn't waiting for people to come to him. He went out. And as a church, we can't expect people to always come in to us. [00:06:43] (29 seconds)  #JesusWentToPeople

But Saint Chad's is not the vision. It's not the most important part of any plan. It is a part of it, but Saint Chad's isn't the vision. The vision is to see people come to know Jesus, come to encounter him, and to see our town and our neighborhoods transformed. And Saint Chad's will play a fantastic part in that vision. But if we think that Saint Chad's and having that building and having that that space is the answer, we will fall short. The vision is about people. [00:19:28] (45 seconds)  #PeopleNotBuildings