If you were at the church I pastor, Living Word Church, this past Sunday you might have heard something of three numbers. These numbers are very important to me and I pray they gain the same significance to those in the ministry I serve. Apart these three single digits are really not all that impressive nor important. But when you look at them together and see the impact that these three numbers can have, it’s truly nothing short of miraculous.
So what do these numbers mean? It’s a vision. These three numbers represent a vision for the future. Over the next several weeks and months more time will be spent looking closer at the how to’s of this new movement I’m calling F1V3. But for today, let’s look at the name.
F1V3 is a combination of the three numbers 1, 3 and 5. If you look closely, the one and three are nestled inside the spelling of the number five. There’s a reason for this. F1V3 is a vision for starting 3 new worshiping communities in the next 5 years using 1 message. But why? Why do we need more places for people to worship when the ones we have aren’t full already?
The answer here is pretty simple. Not everyone will fit in the local church in the way it currently operates. I have friends who believe in Jesus. They read the bible. We even talk about what it means, but they just don’t get the institutional side of church. Understanding that the bible tells us we’re supposed to be meeting together, how do we connect these people to other believers in a way that resonates with them? The answer is not to keep doing it the same way hoping they come around to our way of thinking! The answer for us is F1V3.
The answer for connecting those disconnected from the body of believers is one message proclaimed wherever we go. We will keep the message simple. It’s the message of the cross and the empty tomb. We won’t change the message. The methods will likely look different given the different situations in which we find ourselves.
We’ll keep the message one while starting three 
new connecting points. Think of Jesus like a road or a path. Jesus is the only way to heaven. It even says that in the bible in the gospel of John, but the established church that meets in local buildings on Sunday mornings is not the only way to connect to Jesus. If Jesus is the way, or the road, then the institutional church is one on-ramp by which we access the Way of Jesus. Like every other road system, there must be additional ramps by which we can access the way of Jesus.
What will these connecting points look like? Well, to be totally honest, we don’t know yet. This will be completely dependent on the individual scenarios. Perhaps it will be a running or workout group that gathers for a common interest and shared community. Maybe one will start as a neighborhood gathering occurring a couple of times per month through the summer. The sky is the limit on this one.
But what sets these apart from any other social gathering? How are they connecting points to the Way of Jesus? Again that’s a pretty simple one as well. Each of these connecting points will gather around four basic components: community building, worship (don’t over think this one), bible equipping, service. Over the next few Wednesdays we’ll dive a little deeper into each one of these pieces.
So what’s the vision? 3 new worshiping communities gathered around the 1 message of Jesus established and thriving over the next 5 years. The goal of this vision is to see more baptized believers of Jesus.
Matt Thanks for the comment. As for a better understanding of the four basic components these will be described better in the next several posts. So I’ll get to answering those. We all have presuppositions when entering a conversation or reading a paper, post or book. It appears that you are making a few assumptions about me and my motives.
What I’m not saying: I’m not saying that I’m getting away from the teachings of Scripture and administration of the sacraments. I’m not saying that we won’t be properly distinguishing between law and gospel. I’m not just throwing around platitudes to get people to think like me.
This is quite frankly an approach we are taking to reach people for Christ. It has nothing to do with becoming a mega-church. To assume that I’m trying to grow a mega-church is nothing short of imposing your ideology on someone else. In no way did I refer to mega-church or allude to anything of the sort. The goal in this is quite simply to do what Jesus commands us to do in scripture. The goal is to bring the scriptures to life in the lives of the people where we live, work, and play. It’s more than reading them but living them out. It’s more than preaching them, it’s sharing them friends and enemies alike. Will there be differences of opinion? Sure thing. My heart is that of a church planter. I want nothing more than to see more baptized followers of Jesus. If it happens through a mega-church more power to you. If it happens in an extremely liturgical setting, great. If it happens in a bar or coffee shop, I’m all for it.
The point is we do preach Christ crucified. We do spend considerable time in the words of Scripture. I have preached on the message of the Lord’s Supper. This I have taught. Teaching a message without living the message is not helpful. Jesus tells his disciples in John 13 to love one another and by this the world will know we are his disciples. He doesn’t say preach, teach, lead, discipline, correct, etc. He says to love as he loved us. Moving into the world to establish 3 new connecting points to the message of Christ is about loving one another. It’s about giving up what we’ve made ours and releasing it to the people who are near to God’s own heart.
Lastly, you are the one who brought money into this. In no way shape or form is this on my radar at all. Starting a new church, reaching new people, connecting people with the message of the good news of God in Christ is NOT about funding a mission. I will leave this comment up for 24 hours then it will be deleted. It appears you have an axe to grind with the church, me as a pastor or the idea of church planting. This kind of negative verbiage is not welcome on this site. But I did want to give you the respect of a reply.
Go…teach…distinguish the law and gospel…live it out in your life. I highly encourage that and will pray for you to share this with the people where you live, work, and play. I’ll do the same. Together, we fulfill the command to make disciples.