5 Big Rocks for 2022
Where is Rise going the next year or year and half? Let us pull back the curtain and show you the behind-the-scenes vision for the future!
01 SPIRITUAL FORMATION
Everyone is being shaped and formed by something or someone. In fact, from Netflix to social media, to politics, the culture itself is exceptionally adroit at forming you. The option is not whether you want to be formed or not, spiritually. You are being spiritually formed by something. The only question is: Who or what is forming you? We want you to be formed by Jesus.
What do we mean by Spiritual Formation? We mean seeing every person who walks through the doors be encountered and be shaped by Jesus. The biblical terms are discipleship and sanctification. They mean: being formed into the wholeness of and likeness to Jesus.
Colossians 1:28–29:
Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
Paul toiled among the church. This is the term κοπιάω meaning to grow weary from extreme efforts or to exhaust yourself. What did he labor toward? To see every person become mature, whole or complete in Christ!
We don't just want to be the restaurant in town that everyone is excitedly inviting their friends to. No, we want to be a school, a training ground, a dojo. Not just a place where people go from being visitors to regulars, but from fragmented to whole, from immature to mature, from unskilled to proficient, from un-tapped to unlocked in Jesus!
That's why we will be shaping teaching, offering a number of helpful tools, and even building teams to see our church mature in Christ. This includes our Grand Opening Day and the Covered In Dust series coming in just a few weeks.
That's why we will be shaping teaching, offering a number of helpful tools, and even building teams to see our church mature in Christ. This includes our Grand Opening Day and the Covered In Dust series coming in just a few weeks.
02 EMPOWERING NEW LEADERS
There's no such thing as a non-contributing, passive participant in the Kingdom of God. Instead, the Scriptures envision the Church as Christ's own body, on mission, and shaking things up in their city to see the Gospel move advance and the kIngdom unfold among us.
That's why the Holy Spirit gifts and empowers the Church.
1 Corinthians 12:4–7
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
What gifts and passions has God wired you with? God has set you apart for specific good works that He prepared for you to do in advance. That's why, during our Wired series, we released a booklet to serve as a helpful tool and resource for you to find your calling and wiring before God.
There's this false notion that pastors and leaders are called to do the ministry while everyone else sits and receives the ministering. When in fact, just the opposite is presented in the Bible.
Ephesians 4:11–13
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ...
Did you notice that he says the goal of seeing everyone mature in Christ is only possible when leaders equip the saints for ministry? The mission is too big for any one person. All the saints are to be engaged in ministry for the Kingdom to move forward and the Church to be fully formed.
The mission is too big for any one person. All the saints are to be engaged in ministry for the Kingdom to move forward and the Church to be fully formed.
How are you gifted and wired? Feel excited to explore? Use rise.cc/wired to learn more and talk to our Next Steps Team on Sunday about receiving a Wired Booklet.
Interested in learning about a team? Look on rise.cc/events and register for our next Team Night.
03 CONNECT STRATEGY
We live in one of the most absent societies in history. But God's design from the birth of the Church was that people would be present with one another. In the early days of the Church people from alone to known. Relationships are one of the beautiful out-workings of the Gospel. As Jesus draws near to more and more people, the people of Jesus draw nearer and nearer to one another.
One of the challenges we face is that Rise City Church has about doubled in this last year. And the more people that are showing up and inviting, the more challenging it will be for new folks to find community. So we're aggressively opening up spaces.
Tommy Elrod has started to build our connect strategy around three kinds of groups. Meetups, Groups, and Studies.
Meet-ups exist for the sole purpose of bringing individuals together to form genuine friendships through common interests.
Groups are small groups that gather throughout our city to grow deeper in connection with each other and in following Jesus.
Studies are designed to take you deeper into the Scriptures and renew your mind through the examination of biblical concepts.
Do you see how anyone from the skeptic, to person just looking for new friendships, to the serious follower of Jesus can find a group that fits their season of life? That's a big goal for our church this year.
Are you interested in joining or leading a connect group? Use the links below to find your place or step into your calling.
04 OUTREACH & OUTSIDE IMPACT
We exist not only to see our church flourish but to see our city and the kingdom flourish. We need to make an impact outside our walls. What if totally non-christian people in our city, saw the tangible good we were doing and said, "We love that Rise City Church is here in Gresham!"
When the early church was birthed, Acts 2:47 tells us they had favor with all the people. Necessary to the mission of the Gospel is that we win favor with people who've never heard or believed Gospel.
Furthermore, what if we saw new churches and mission organizations--outside of Rise--thrive because of the generosity of the people of Rise?
Furthermore, what if we saw new churches and mission organizations--outside of Rise--thrive because of the generosity of the people of Rise?
That's what we're seeking through Kingdom Builders. Kingdom Builders is our strategy for completely outside giving. Through it, we give to local partnerships, world missions, and church multiplication.
The impact ranges from My Father's House which serves homeless families in Gresham, to The Timothy Initiative that's aggressively planting Churches in India. This year the budget for Kingdom Builders has grown to about $100,000. We want to continue strategizing and stewarding new and existing external Kingdom partnerships.
If you want to give to our kingdom builders campaign and get in the game of making a difference use rise.cc/kingdom-builders
05 CHURCH MULTIPLICATION
Okay, this is huge... While this is in a very embryonic phase, we are just beginning to feel the stirrings of a church multiplication within this body. There's no plan or location yet, but in our DNA as a church is the potential to plant new campuses and churches.
When Jesus sent His disciples to make disciples of all nations that was a big assignment. They were supposed to flip every city in the world upside-down! But how? Well, what they did--and what Heaven's strategy was--was planting churches.
What if all over the Northwest you saw a blanket of Gospel-preaching, Jesus-exalting, lost-reaching, people-loving churches? Yeah, we have chills too.
Jesus' glory is too great for one service, or one campus, or one church, or one location--no we want to see more hearts hearing the Gospel, more lives changed, more gatherings singing, more marriages being restored, and more baptisms than ever before. The culture is getting darker but the truth burns brighter still. So, our aspiration is to begin praying and preparing for church multiplication in the coming months and years.
Will you join us in praying for the future of future church multiplication? We have seen God work miracles in the past through prayer. Let's agree in asking Him to do it again.