Blogging at Vertical Church?

Why is Vertical Church starting a blog?
Yep, that was the question that I asked myself also when the idea first surfaced some years ago. I thought to myself, who has time to read?  Who wants to know what we have to say at Vertical Church?  Could this be a helpful platform to help people become followers of Christ?  Is this the best use of our time, energy, and resources as a Church? We are a small rural Church; a blog seems a little out of context for us, right?

These are just a few of the questions I had rolling around my head as I thought, discussed, and bounced some of the thoughts off of our leaders.  Yet, I have continued to be brought back to one primary reason that I have committed to writing a blog, Discipleship! At the end of the day, creating resources, content, and even next steps that will help people know Jesus deeply and follow Jesus fully is simply enough of a reason to embark on such an endeavor.  I have said for years the future of the Church will not be about a destination, it will be about an intersection.  How do we help facilitate the mission of God intersecting in the other 167 hours of the week outside of Sunday Morning?  A disciple is not someone who simply goes to church on Sunday but lives passionately after Jesus every day.   The Church will have to proactively continue to pursue ways to help disciples live out the mission daily.  This is no new idea or a new strategy for the Church.  In truth, the intersection has been the pattern of the Church since the beginning.

But I do have 4 Specific Reasons we can rally around our Blog.

We overestimate weekend worship gatherings.  For far too long, we have often believed that all we need to do is go to Church on Sunday and simply hear a sermon.  Let me be clear when I say that Sunday Worship gatherings and sound Biblical Preaching are critically crucial to the life of the Church and the walk of a believer, but it is insufficient alone.  I often think about Romans 12:2  2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what the will of God is, what is good and acceptable and perfect.  It would be unwise for us to think that this type of transformation would happen simply because we attend Church on Sunday.  In truth, the average church attendee attends church 1-2 times a month. (Lifeway Research)  Let me be clear here; this means that out of 365 days out of the year, a person would be engaging with God 26 times a year.  This is why we invite people to engage in Missional Community Groups, Discipleship Groups, Serving, Growth Tracks, and other Spiritual Disciplines because Sunday worship attendance alone is insufficient.  Life transformation is a combination of all of these things.  A Blog would be able to be a supplemental resource, not to replace but to come alongside many of the other things we encourage to help one become a Disciple Making Disciple at Vertical Church. 

We do not always have time to get into the specifics, right?  A blog at Vertical Church will allow us to get into more details and specifics around various subject matters.  A blog will give us a place to look into details as it relates to current cultural conversations where necessary, sermon application, and ultimately help give people clear next steps in their walk with Christ.   As a Pastor, I have often gotten questions about particular things on a wide array of subject matters.  A blog would give us a platform to record some of the things that we believe and how we approach specific subjects, whether theologically or practically, we can get into the specifics.

A Church Blog will create another platform to equip you with truth and tools you can share with others.  One of the really great things about digital content is that it can easily be shared and viewed by many people at one time.  Can you imagine the people we can reach with the gospel's truth, love, and grace?  Inviting people to come to Church may be a bit of a reach for some people. Inviting someone to go online and watch a video of some random person talking might be out of the question.  What if you could share an article with a friend and follow up later to talk about what they thought about it later.  Some may not attend church, watch a sermon, visit a group, or serve on a team, but a blog could be a great tool to start some gospel conversations.

Our blog can become a way to serve our Church and our community.  Let me just say that I do not intend to be the only contributor to this Blog.  We have competent people in our Church who can serve our Church in this way.  This blog will not only serve those that are Partners at Vertical but could become a resource for many others in our area that are looking for truth but not in the form of a Sermon.  This will be a collective effort of our Church and our gifts at Vertical.   This will be one more way we can live out the value we want more for you than from you.  We will put time energy and effort into writing this content because we want to serve people so they can see God.

I am eager to look at what we can do for the Kingdom of God through a platform such as this.  I hope you are willing to walk through this journey with us at Vertical Church.