Episode 6 of the Infuse Leadership Podcast is now available on iTunes and on our website HERE. The title of this episode is “Wyoming Can Go To Hell” and we are continuing our interview with Steve Doolin. Steve is one of the associate pastors at Element Church who leads our outreach and outreach team at Element. The last podcast really focused on creating an outreach culture in your church. This podcast we are focusing more on the new I Heart Wyoming Initiative that Element is launching in 2017. If you listen through iTunes, please subscribe, rate and review the podcast for us. I shared some highlights of the podcast below.
Apple iTunes link HERE.
Online link HERE.
Here are some highlights from the podcast:
1. Statistics matter — Statistics don’t matter to everything but they should matter to some things in our ministry. Our vision to make a life-giving impact to the state of Wyoming was born out of statistics we read about faith in our state. The two places where we learned the most startling data on our state were from The ARDA (Association of Religious Data Archives) and the Pew Research Center. When we saw the numbers of “unclaimed” people in our state, those who selected “none” as their religion or belonged to a religion that did not teach salvation by grace through faith alone, we knew we had to do something about that. In Wyoming, 340,000 people claim “none” as their religious preference. Over 400,000 people, 80% of our population, are not in a setting where they are hearing the life changing message of Jesus on a regular basis. For us to do nothing with the information we found was essentially saying to Wyoming, “You can go to hell!”
[Tweet “Statistics don’t matter to everything but they should matter to some things in our ministry.”]
2. Partnership matters — This is way bigger than Element Church so our desire is to partner with other existing churches around the state to elevate, expand and reinforce the credibility of GOD’S CHURCH in every county. I Heart Wyoming is the culmination of this desire. In 2017, we have budgeted $100,000 that we are looking to literally give away to existing churches to help them serve their communities in tangible ways, making an impact in the name of Jesus. (You can fill out an I Heart grant request HERE) If you have questions, you can ask them via that web-site as well.
3. Learn what your community needs — One of the greatest ways to make a tangible difference in your community is to actually learn what your community needs. As Steve put it, you need to “get the pulse of your community.” Call the mayor, talk to city hall, non-profit organizations, school teachers, law enforcement, etc. and ask them what the community needs and how YOU can make a difference in meeting that need. We ask them, “How can we help you help the city.” We have an entire list of sphere’s of influence that exist in nearly every community as well as a list of questions we ask when we meet with them. If you’d like that information, please contact us through the I Heart Wyoming page. No one church can do everything but we can all do something, and if we all do something we can end up accomplishing everything.
4. We want them to see Jesus first in us before we share Jesus with them — Steve said, “If you are filling a tangible need people are going to seek out more about where this came from. Ultimately, this brings people to the church to seek out more information.” The ultimate goal in this is that people would come to know Jesus. We just believe the best way to lead them to Jesus is to model Jesus to them first.
[Tweet “We want them to see Jesus first in us before we share Jesus with them”]
5. When you serve the city you are serving people in it — Steve shared that the city is now reaching out to us asking us to help them in certain areas. Don’t ever say that all we did was “just stain fence” or “just cleaned graffiti”. If you are filling a need your community has then you are literally serving the people in the community.
[Tweet “When you serve the city you are serving people in it!”]
6. Non-believers are defending us — Pastor Jared shared a couple stories about non-Christians in the community who defended our church to people who were being critical. People said, “I don’t attend their church or even believe in their God but I believe in what they are doing.” I say all the time to our team and our church that people may not agree with what we believe, but I hope they won’t be able to argue with the benefit we bring to our community.
7. We treat God as if an impact can only be made in the big things. — God honors the discipline down to the smallest detail because we did it for Him. Jared shared some GREAT thoughts on being faithful even in the small things. “If you are obedient and you do the small things, God is going to honor that and blow your mind with how He blesses it.” It doesn’t always take a big event to make a big impact. Impact is not in the size of the event but the significance of it to the community.
[Tweet “God honors the discipline down to the smallest detail because we did it for Him.”]
8. Doors have been opened for us that are directly related to serving our community — Proverbs 18:16 Giving a gift can open doors; it gives access to important people! We have seen that verse fulfilled in our midst. We’ve been given an audience to VERY important people because of the gifts we were willing to give. God will start to create divine appointments and divine connections that we can’t make on our own.