I Am New Passion

This past Sunday Billy and Seree Wilson went to Charlotte, North Carolina with Nicki and me to check out Elevation Church, where Steven Furtick pastors. Nicki and I have been visiting churches all throughout the Summer to get a feel for church outside of our normal environment. Elevation quickly became my favorite church that we’ve visited throughout our travels.

We were not on the Providence High School campus long before I reached for my Palm Treo, pulled up a clean Word document and typed out the words, HUGE VISION. A person who is not familiar with the church may look at Elevation and think, “Wow, what a cool church!”, but as a “church insider” and someone who has studied churches and visited some of the top churches in the country, I could immediately see their vision flowing throughout the entire church. You may have heard about Elevation’s “No Show Sunday” two weeks ago, an idea that I, like many church leaders have probably thought would be a good idea to do ‘one sunday,’ but Elevation risked it and pulled it off to show that the church is not all about one man, Steven Furtick, but “church” wouldn’t happen in the same context weekly without their many volunteers and leaders.

Its as if all of their volunteers and leaders were saying “I am Elevation!” Their actions and words embodied that HUGE vision that I felt and identified when I walked through the doors. There was a volunteer greeter named John, he was solely set aside for first time guests, and as we arrived he engaged us in conversation. Once he discovered we were church planters, he quickly gave us the tour. Several times in his conversation he explained that they did what they did “so that people far from God will be filled with life in Christ.” Billy connected with Chris Ramsey before our visit and as we had the opportunity to sit with Chris during the 10 a.m. Butler High School service, it was if we were listening to a record. Chris explained many of the processes of what they do with their outreach teams at Elevation and it was as if someone was pushing a button and making him say that they do what they do “so that people far from God will be filled with life in Christ.” It was as if they were programmed to say it, but it wasn’t robotic at all, it was passionate, it was true for them! Over and over again, it was if they were saying “I am Elevation!” “I am our Vision!” “I embody the Essence of What We Believe Here!”

“The Elevation Church volunteers have truly learned the essence of the principle ‘its not about me.‘ They willingly lay themselves down as a doormat for the community to express a love that can only come from a passion for others above themselves. Where many of us may complain about the most petty issues, Elevation has people who willingly volunteer 12 hours on Sundays, arriving in the middle of the night (4a.m.) & working until 4 p.m. They do so because they bleed their purpose, “So that people far from God will be filled with life in Christ.” That does not come from a small vision. It comes from a passionate leader guiding his people to embrace that which God has called them to.

I’m not lifting Elevation on a pedestal. My visit there simply reminded me that it starts with the vision God has given me. No Vision from God is small. We either treat that vision as HUGE because God has given it to us, or we forget where it came from, accept it as our own, and its power in diminished. God has given me a vision for a lost generation, but he has not called me to fulfill that vision alone. He has given me an awesome team. A team that 10 months ago I could not even picture. People that I didn’t know until recently, but each and every team member has said by joining our team, “I believe in that vision and I believe God can use me to accomplish that vision!” I cannot build New Passion on my own, God is leading me to lead a group of people to fulfill the vision of leading people to a passionate relationship with Jesus.  The vision God gave me has to overflow out of me and into our team, from our team it has to overflow into our church and into our community. We are interdependent on each other.

My desire is to see a group of people who are so  in tune with what God has called them to be for His kingdom that they cannot help but to interweave his vision into their entire lives. Where out of the overflow of their heart they begin to live with the foundation that they do what they do in order to lead people to a passionate relationship with Christ. If our team does not live like that outside of New Passion, it will never be that way within New Passion. I want a team that can truly say, “I am New Passion!” “I am our Vision!” “I Embody What We Believe at New Passion!”

Nick
“I am New Passion!”