So… not long ago I was reading The Journal and Major Essays of John Woolman, an eighteenth-century Quaker (don’t say anything) who was a major influence in abolishing slavery. He spoke at length of our living this life to God’s glory. A life lived to God’s glory is the most fulfilling, most enjoyable, and most meaningful of lives. So much so that a symptom of life lived outside God’s glory is unhappiness and guilt.

I dropped everything and went to the garage to dink and think. Just as I had knocked over a box of nuts, screws, washers and ceiling fan pull-chains, I started thinking about our church’s vision. We misuse the term if we speak of vision as anything other than being from God—ideas, dreams, aspirations, or ambitions don’t count. As experienced by Abraham, Moses, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, and John on Patmos, vision comes from God, and only from God.

Back in 2016 a Xerxes-type guy (unwittingly, unintentionally, and without noble aims) became the conduit of new vision from God for the future of our church. It’s a convoluted account, but the vision that had an impact on our hearts and minds was to build! We can’t go big, so let’s go beautiful. We can’t relocate so let’s go right where we are. And like Mary who anointed the Lord with costly perfume, there are times when we step out of our severe nickel-pinching and do something costly…to the Glory of God.

And here we are, not only in the heart of the city, but in its aorta! Former Mayor John Sorey once said to me, “Kirt, you’ve got the most influential church in the city!”
“But John,” I countered, “we’re just a little thing.”
“But your people are everywhere!” Such a strong affirmation, from one who had never even visited our church, of the impacting reality of Naples Community Church.

We are here for the city. As Christ came to serve and not to be served, we see the city as our servant-field. So we’ve built two Habitat Houses, spent thousands of dollars and untold hours in Immokalee, served St. Matthew’s House and Grace Place, and quietly made provision for those in need. No trumpet blasts to announce any of it. Just church being church.

And, for the church to function as a redemptive community, it needs a full engagement of the hearts of her people. Where your heart is, Jesus said, there also will your treasure be: the church serving Christ as a servant community. Churches are in decline and closing their doors. So let’s build! Churches are Laodicia-izing and becoming lukewarm. So let’s build!

The culture is secularizing and becoming hostile to faith. So let’s build! Against all odds, God has put us here. Let’s be a redemptive presence until That Day. Let’s build!