February 2, 2011 Forward Motion Faith

Nexus Defined

Some things are just hard to put into words.  Especially spiritual things.  Take Nexus for instance.  Nexus is the title to a missional effort we are creating to reach the millennial people group.  Sounds so cold to identify these 18 -30 years olds but it is what it is.  They are the millennia’s and they represent the largest people group of our history.

In September of 2010 the Lord gave me a prophetic dream about reaching this age group.  It was a challenge that has been difficult to put into words.  To this day I can barely speak about this challenge without sensing tears.  I am spiritually driven.  I say that to say the following.

In my vision I was involved with a woman in a cafe discussing faith and complications of faith in our lives.  I will save you the time for details.  I have introduced to our pastoral staff, our elders council and a team of young adults the concept I saw in the dream – a coffee cafe where we could create the what I am calling the atmosphere of faith.  Faith conversation.  Simple.  Not complicated.  Easy to arrive at.  Now then – we can make it complicated but we don’t have to.  We keep it simple – very simple.

Now then this is a radical shift from normal everyday traditional evangelism.  Everyday evangelism pushes for a “decision” to accept Christ.  Now don’t misunderstand what I am about to say here.  Dialogue of faith leads to an eventual decision for or against Christ.  But you travel the venue of dialogue first.  Nexus will have a goal of creating dialogue or an atmosphere of faith that produces life change and challenge.  This change could manifest as a born again commitment to Christ, a provocative challenge, spiritual and or emotional encouragement and a host of other non-tangible, non-measurable results.  In other words the results and or the “success” of Nexus may not be measurable as one would another venue of evangelistic effort.   You may dialogue faith with the same person for months before you could ever measure results.  You may or may not lead them to Christ.  Not every faith conversation allows us to bring someone to a decision point of salvation.  Our ultimate, long-term goal is to bring them into the kingdom by accepting Christ as their Savior – but with Nexus our intentional effort is the venue of dialogue.

Nexus will not be a church – although the “ecclesia” will gather there.  It will not be youth center – although young people will crowd its floorspace. It will not be a discipleship center – although passive discipleship will more than likely occur in this atmosphere of faith.  Nexus by clear definition of the word means “connection.”  We will connect people with and through faith conversation.  This faith conversation will lead to a variety of results.  Some we can measure but most we will not be able to.  We can measure how many we lead to Christ and write a number down.  We can measure how many we have successfully brought to a faith decision of some kind or another and we can write it down to show our efforts are bearing fruit.  But we will never measure all our results.  It just isn’t possible.

This is where we engage our raw faith in God.  Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.  Nexus will be more of a faith venue for us than just about anything else in our life.  Why? Because when it comes to measurable results we may not be able to “see” them, i.e.: evidence of things not seen.  At the end of the year we may only be able to measure success by what we know in our hearts we have hoped for but yet not seen.  Hebrews declares that a portion of God’s people never were able to “see the promise” of God – yet they were above all – faithful.  I think you get the point.  Nexus will not be about a business that produces measurable results all the time.  It, in simple terms, will be about creating a venue of faith where life challenges and changes can be made.  We may never see the physical and or tangible results of our labor and then again, we may.

When I began looking at this I realized the challenge and charge of this venue of target evangelism wasn’t going to be easy.  It’s different from the get go.  Most of us push for a “decision” based effort in evangelism.  This venue will create dialogue that can lead to a decision but first and foremost our efforts will be “faith dialogue.”  Pure and simple.

Let me give you three simple examples found in scripture.  Zacchaeus found in Luke 19:1-10; the woman at the well found in John 4 and the rich young ruler who came to Christ found in Luke 18.  There is something significant about these three incidents.  There is a common thread to each one of them.  The “results” vary but there is one significant similarity to all of them.  It took a venue of faith conversation to get any sense or measurable results from the conversation Jesus had with them.  We can deduce that the goal of Christ was to bring these individuals into His Father’s kingdom.  That was His goal.  But the intentional method of doing that was to create dialogue.  Pure and simple. In one case He was “unsuccessful” in getting a young ruler to come into the kingdom of God.  The young millennial walked away from the “decision”.  Was Jesus successful?  It all depends on what you’re trying to measure.  if you’re measuring salvation commitments then He was unsuccessful.  If you’re measuring faith conversation then He was very successful.  He was so successful in creating dialogue that His “failed attempt” at leading this young millennial to a decision is one we still use today.  He gave us a template for target evangelism – create faith dialogue.  Sometimes you can’t just hit someone between the eyes and expect them to lovingly respond to your efforts to get their attention.

Nexus is not church.  Nexus is a coffee cafe where faith is core subject of conversation.  We will “win” some and will “gain” some.  We will attempt to converse with all.  Let me remind you this is a prophetically driven project.  Results may be difficult to measure.  More later.  Be blessed and be careful out there during the ice storm and bad weather we are experiencing here in Lancaster, Ohio.