Vision Sunday Highlights

What a great day of celebration God gave us!
19 friends were welcomed into membership, 9 new believers were baptized, 23 were first time guests to PoC, nearly 200 people received the new Love.Our.City. t-shirts and heard about the exciting ways God is moving through Point of Change and the mission He has for the immediate future!
ALL the glory belongs to Jesus! Praise Him!

Video highlights:

- photo album link -

Let's Get Caught! - A Letter from Pastor Todd

Dear PoC Family,

Every time I think of this past Sunday’s Vision Sunday, I smile.  God is with us in a big way.  It’s always fun when we have to bring in more chairs to accommodate a SRO crowd.  Celebrating new life is just the best.  It was wonderful to see the smiles of recognition as God’s Vision for the next season of our ministry together was shared.  He’s up to something big!!

This week we will start our exciting new sermon series called, “Red-Handed:  Love. Our. City.”  The big idea for the sermon series is, “The daily goal of the missional life is to be caught RED-HANDED, right in the middle of God’s plans.”  The question could be asked, “Is PoC ready to live missionally, to be caught in the middle of God’s plans?”

Well, I believe we are getting more and more ready and that it really is a matter of starting somewhere, doing something, and basically, just diving in.  It’s also largely dependent on intimacy with God.  The more and more intimate our relationship (personally and collectively) grows with Jesus, the more ready we will be.  The closer we get with Him, the more we are filled with Him.  That creates the noticeable change that I believe we are seeing and will continue to see.  Paul spotted this as he wrote to the Romans, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another.  Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God . . . through the power of the Spirit of God.”  (Romans 15: 13-14)

During this sermon series we will meet several Bible heroes who cried out to God for mercy and deliverance for their city.  The common link that connects these city-hearted heroes isn’t their compassion or their city-mindfulness as you would expect.  No, the common link is their very close intimate relationship with God.  They are not having to bend God’s heart to theirs, they are aligning their hearts to God’s already merciful heart.  The more “one” we are with God, the more we will get caught red-handed in the middle of His plans.  We will be wonderfully and blessedly guilty by association.

This Friday my incredible, beautiful, and God-hearted wife, Kim and I will be married 22 years.  Now, for some of you folks, 22 years isn’t that long.  In a lot of ways, we’re still young pups, but during those 22 years, Kim and I have enjoyed being led by Jesus through our very own intimate journey.  We aren’t quite at the point where we finish each other’s sentences, and we will likely never will be, but we are enjoying a Spirit-led one-heartedness that comes when passions align.  The things that are important to Kim have also become things that are important to me.  In the same way, our individual dreams are becoming shared dreams.  Ha, I knew she’d come around!  J

And, this is what I believe we are seeing at PoC.  The more and more intimate we are getting with God, personally and corporately, the more we are being associated with Him . . . and His always good work.  I think we are ready, now more than ever, to get caught!!

Your Pastors Are Praying For You,

Pastor Todd

P.S. – Man, PoC, you invited like crazy last week.  Join us in reaching out again to those same friends and family members.  We want to see them back this week and every week.  Let’s get “caught” together.

Let's Do This! - A Letter from Pastor Todd

Dear PoC Family,

Ok, here we go . . . 

This week my family I went to eat at a local restaurant.  We were busy ordering and slowly realized that the lady taking our order looked familiar.  I asked Kim if she knew who the lady was and Kim said, “I think it might be . . . Excuse me, Miss . . . are you our . . .”  And the lady responded, “Your neighbor?  Yes.”  

After just finishing our 6 week PoC Conversation on being more missional, I thought, “Ok, let’s do this!”

Now, I should tell you that I’ve met this particular neighbor once before.  Actually, I backed into her car with my Jeep.  I’m don’t pretend to be a genius, but I’m pretty sure that this doesn’t make the best first impression.  We exchanged insurance info and all is well now, but we really don’t see each other that often.  So, imagine our surprise when we found out that they own the restaurant where we were eating.

Kim looked at our neighbor, Michelle, and said, “I’m so sorry, but we have been terrible neighbors.  We haven’t welcomed you or invited you over.  We would sure like to do a better job with that.”  Michelle said, “Oh, I know, I feel the same way.  We see you guys coming and going.  We’re always busy.  My husband and I were just talking the other day about getting to know our neighbors.”

Can you flippin’ believe that!?!??!?!!

Our Father is heaven just served up the sweetest missional opportunity!!  It’s almost as if he wants to make this missional stuff easy for us.  It’s as if there’s a boat load of joy in our call to Love.  Our.  City.  Awesome!!

Kim and I have already decided to eat there again . . . perhaps on Father’s day . . . and hopefully we’ll get a chance to talk to Michelle again and set something up.  I just feel like something missional is about to happen as we begin to do life together more and more.

Let me switch gears just a little and remind you that this week is our Point of Change Vision Sunday.  You’ll get a chance to meet the staff, hear the history and vision of the church, as well as celebrate new life with membership and baptism.  It’s gonna be awesome.  We’ll also be passing out our new PoC T-Shirts.  They look awesome!!!  Please join me inviting LIKE CRAZY.  Everyone you know can learn about your church and get a T-shirt.  Please work the phones, text, email, and visit.  We want people to know what God is doing at PoC.

And, try to put yourself in my shoes.  Imagine having the responsibility of delivering the message on Vision Sunday, a message on the PoC Vision.  Imagine families sitting around the lunch table saying, “Did that pastor really just preach a message on loving our neighbors?  Shouldn’t that be rather obvious?”  Think about it, in 20-25 minutes there needs to be a sermon that “fleshes-out” a rather simple concept and congregation charge.  How would you do it?  How would you preach, “Love your neighbor” to a room full of people who are really only excited to get their mitts on some coolio new t-shirts?  Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve decided that I’m going to tell a story.

Join us Sunday as I tell the story of Seth and Stacy, two Christians who made a decision to live their lives on mission using the regular rhythms of life like story . . . listening . . . eating . . . blessing . . . celebrating . . . and recreating to give like heroes to their community.  I’m hoping that this story just might be enough to paint a picture of missional living for all of us.

I can’t wait to see you, your friends, and your family on Sunday.  Until then, Love.  Our.  City.

Pastor Todd