With all of the busyness in our lives, it can be hard to just take some alone time to reflect on the spiritual meaning of things. It never ceases to amaze me that the God who created me and everything I see came to this planet in human form as Jesus. And, beyond that, Jesus demonstrated His love for us by sacrificing His life so that we too could become the kind of people that God created us to be. The best gift that we could give God is our lives.

Lots of excitement building as we get ready to move closer to starting weekly services. It seems like the dreams for the The Church Upcounty are beginning to happen.

For instance, when it comes to Sundays, we want to create an environment where kids experience a fun, interactive learning environment. We want to create an environment on Sundays at the Regal theater where creativity, the arts and music connect together to help people experience a God who loves them. We want to create an environment on Sundays where people from any background would feel welcome - no matter what and begin to connect with others. We want to create an environment where the Bible is creatively presented, and practically and positively presented so the learning of spiritual things and the spiritual life that God has for all us is a positive experience too. There’s more, but these are just a few things that we are beginning to experience on Sunday mornings. But, church is more than Sunday too. And, we are building a whole spiritual life process for the rest of the week that focuses on small groups and community groups meeting in all kinds of places and at just about any day and time of the week.

Our passion is not to start another church but to create places where people can express themselves creatively, openly explore Christianity and life with God at whatever pace they want to and connect others who want to experience the same kind of thing. As I get to know people in the community here, there seems to be a hunger for something that’s spiritually more real that what they’re experiencing. I love what Jesus said in John 10:10 from the Message … I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.

I love to read that verse to people that I meet wherever, they usually say something like … Jesus said that!? Let me see that … I thought “church” was about God in a box, rules, lists of don’ts, guilt and shame, talking heads and plastic music … It’s actually fun to surprise people with what Jesus really said about life. What’s even better about Christianity is that I’m surprised just about every day with something new and fresh about life with God.

What would happen if we got back to simplicity and what matters most when it comes to following Jesus. What if we cared for the things that Jesus cared about in authentic, genuine ways?