"So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift."
- Matthew 5:23-24

Ahoy Church,

Join us this Sunday as usual, at Little Mountain Home Church at 9 am or at Moffat Beach from 3 pm. NEXT weekend (June 19-21) is church camp, so there'll be no beach church.

If you're new to our email list, below is a continuation of what I've been writing on Vision and Mission in previous weeks. I've written some general reflections for both our church and many of the churches we love.

We’ve Got Some Issues

With such a personal vision and spirit-empowered mission to share, you'd imagine success is guaranteed. However, in recent years, Christians have become concerned that Nietzsche's declaration, "God is dead", was correct and that the church is "dying". While the current data seems to indicate interest in God is growing, Christians have hit some significant personal and churchwide roadblocks.

Firstly, not all Christians feel Fully Alive. While the secular criticism of Christians as hypocrites often misses the personal transformation many experience, you don’t have to search too many rows in a congregation to find a follower of Jesus who feels Half-Dead, not Fully Alive.

Secondly, a growing number of pastors are struggling to lead the churches we all love on the mission God has given. They have not lost their faith or love for the people they feel called to serve. However, the personal cost to themselves or their families becomes a burden. When their best efforts don’t see the outcomes God called them to and the Christian books, sermons, conferences, and workshops promise, many struggle through periods of discouragement or simply give up on their calling.

When people are losing sight of God's vision for their life, and our leaders feel they can't lead us anymore, it's tempting to find someone to blame. However, Christians probably aren’t too different from previous generations, and our leaders seem as willing to take the gospel to the world as anyone. Since Jesus said his mission was to seek and save sick and lost (sinful) people, it's unlikely that we're just not good enough followers and leaders.

So what’s going on?

I think the reason we miss out, and churches miss the mark, is that we've lost our way. God's not dead, the church isn't dying, we're just distracted.

Since 2020, I have heard an increasing number of people and pastors leaving churches. As I did, you may have heard people whisper something like, “I haven’t lost my faith, I just can’t do church anymore. I get Jesus, just not church”. As a pastor myself, it was confronting to hear people who stopped attending in-person church say something like, “I feel as close to Jesus as I ever did. I don’t even feel like I’m missing out.”

Some of the pastors who left their roles even expressed that part of leaving was because they felt their church roles were making it difficult to fulfil the mission they had hoped to give their life to - making disciples. These pastors initially joined, or started, churches to fulfil Christ's mission of making disciples. In time, they realised that it wasn't the mission they wanted to give up on. They hadn't left the faith. Jesus hadn't left them. Rather, they felt that the churches they were trying to lead had a different mission than the one God had called them to.

If you've ever tried to lead a family, group, team or church, you'll know that one of the greatest challenges is staying on target, keeping the main thing the main thing. Modern churches are very sensitive to becoming dry or dead. In an effort to stay vibrant, we keep vibes high by regularly updating our statements and slogans, increasingly calling us to do more, and promising more for all involved. God's personal vision for our lives fades into the background amidst our annual vision series and sermons. We become too busy for the Great Commission as we slowly replace it with a bunch of Good Suggestions. Instead of continually re-aligning ourselves with God's purposes, we've recreated our own. This is usually slow, subtle and entirely unintentional, but the results are devastating. We find ourselves with disillusioned followers and discouraged leaders.

As we've already observed, when the first disciples became the church, they were fully aligned with God's vision and mission. They were known as "people of the Way" - taking their lead from Jesus in a unique personal and communal life. It was in this full alignment that we see them at their freest and best. God worked most powerfully in their midst when they were most aligned with his invitation for life and mission.

This is likely the source of our roadblocks to success.

It's not the sin in our people.
Christians are sinners by confession.

It's not the lack of strong leaders.
Our leaders have always had weaknesses.

Rather, we need to recover our identity as "People of the way". We need to aim for personal and communal lives that are explicitly aligned with how Jesus has called us to live and lead. To do this, we must learn from our forefathers and realign ourselves and our churches with God's vision and his Great Commission.

No matter how grand or good our church's vision statements are, we need to recover a personal vision for each of us to become Fully Alive in Jesus. We need to pray for this vision to be realised in each of our lives. We need to remind each other that this is what God has made available for each of us.

No matter where we gather as a church, in a warehouse, cathedral or under a tree, we need to ensure our mission reflects Christ’s Great Commission! We need to hear sermons and songs about this. We need to ensure our leaders are encouraged to protect and champion this mission above all others.

Because God’s vision for your life is worth pursuing and his mission is worth completing, we need to be willing to let go of any other statement, slogan, ministry, program or project that distracts us from this. We must be able to give ourselves fully to what God has put before us.

To this end, I ask for your help. Would you remind me that God's vision for our lives is bigger than any other vision we could have? Would you pray that together we will continue to fix our time and attention on the mission God has called us to?

Much love, see you Sunday!

Dan

One-Offs

Church Camp - June 19-21

Don't forget to register for camp if you haven't already. If you need financial assistance, hit REPLY and let me know.

ABIDE Women's Conference - 21-23 August, QCCC Mapleton

The very first Women's Collective is coming to QCCC, Mapleton from 21–23 August 2026. Join with women from every church, every generation, and every walk of life come together in unity – to worship Jesus wholeheartedly, to grow deeply in faith, and to be inspired to live out His compassion and justice toward those in need across the globe.​Registrations are now open and places are already filling quickly.

To learn more and register, visit: Abide – The Women's Collective Registration Page or email abide.registrations@gmail.com

Emotionally Healthy Relationships (EHR) is half of the bigger Emotionally Healthy Discipleship (EHD) course that helps us learn to love God and others to our full capacity.

In the 8 week EHR course, Pete and Geri Scazzero help to unpack core biblical principles to guide into an experience of lasting below the surface transformation in your capacity to lovingly relate to those around you.

If you have had, or continue to have, barriers in your key relationships in life, join us as we allow God to break through our mindsets and behaviours that are limiting our ability to love others like Jesus has called us to.

This is an actual course, with prayer and devotional readings 5 x days/wk as well as a chapter of a book to read each week. Come prepared to listen, learn and share.

When? Term 3
Where? Renee's house in Kings Beach
How Much? $45 for all the materials. REPLY now if you need financial assistance.
Who? Contact Katie Smith - ‭0412 500 940‬

Coming Up

This Week

  • You're wondering, "How can I encourage someone this week?"
  • Jared is leading the largest band we have ever had on a Sunday!
  • I'm leading us in communion and prayers of encouragement for each other!
  • A few of you will hear from God's Spirit something brief + encouraging to share!

June - 9am [Home] + 3pm [Moffat]

Mondays - Young Adults - Marcello + Mariela 0428 986 423
Fridays - 6am Men's Prayer - Fred 0431 437 080

Jun 14 Sunday Gatherings: Home + Beach
Jun 19-21 Church Camp @ Cobb & Co; Home Church; No Beach Church
Jun 22 EHD: "Emotionally Healthy Spirituality" Ends
Jun 28 Sunday Gatherings: Home, Beach

July - 9am [Home] + 3pm [Moffat]

Mondays - Young Adults - Marcello + Mariela 0428 986 423
Fridays - 6am Men's Prayer - Fred 0431 437 080

Jul 05 Monthly Gathering: Communion, Worship
Jul 12 Sunday Gatherings: Home + Beach
Jul 19 Sunday Gatherings: Home + Beach
Jul 20 EHD: "Emotionally Healthy Relationships" Begins [Ends Sep07]
Jul 26 Sunday Gatherings: Home + Beach

September - 9am [Home] + 3pm [Moffat]

Mondays - Young Adults - Marcello + Mariela 0428 986 423
Fridays - 6am Men's Prayer - Fred 0431 437 080

Sep 07 EHD: "Emotionally Healthy Relationships" Ends

Our Mission

To help people find and follow Jesus.

Our Vision

Fully Alive through faith in Jesus. To see vision come to life, we developed FAM, our Fully Alive Model. Ideally, you can work through FAM with someone else.

Our Rhythms

Get to Know Jesus: how are you getting to know Jesus this week?
Invite people into your life: who can you intentionally open up your life to?
Gather and get involved: who can you connect, listen, share, or pray with this weekend?

Giving Up, In, and Out

Our church follows the same simple pattern of giving that we encourage each other individually: UP, IN, and OUT.

Giving UP

As a church, we give 2.5% to our denomination to support what's happening in churches like ours statewide and show appreciation for all the support they provide. We encourage each follower to consider giving "up" to support their local church - in this case ours :)

Giving IN

We give to personal/family needs within our church from our $5,000 Giving Kitty. Please alert us if you know someone with genuine needs that you're unable to meet out of your own resources.

Giving OUT

This term, we are encouraging our church to give to the family who visit us each year from the country where they share Jesus. We'll give to them as a church, and we encourage you to give to them too.

BSB: 923100
Account #: 37443010
REF: KyleG GIFT

Last month's giving: $10,856
Last month's expenses: $12,540
Balance: $69,015
Giving in : Oct 23-Apr 26: $5,000
Giving out : Oct 23-Apr 26: $20,293

 "Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed." - Proverbs 19:17

If you would like to support what we are doing and our giving to those in need, you can get started giving to Open Road to meet the needs of our church or get in touch with any questions you may have.

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