This morning was our 100th service at OneLife Church, and we announced major changes as we move forward.

First, we are changing what we care about most. Our top priority has always been to make disciples who reproduce disciples and to be a church that reproduces churches. But to be honest, we haven’t always functioned that way. “Putting out the fire closest to the tent” has often distracted us.

No more!

One move we are making to help with this is a change in facilities. Starting October 2 OneLife will begin meeting at Jubilee Banquet Facility. This is a HUGE change for us, but an exciting one as this new facility will allow us opportunities to reach more people in quite a few ways.

• Incredible children’s ministry space. We will be able to minister to families in a much better way.
• Great location still in our target area of Powell. Only 1 mile off I-75 Callahan Exit and less than 1/2 mile from Clinton Hwy.
• 300-seat auditorium will create energetic atmosphere and opportunity to pack out two services.
• Internet access will allow us to stream our services live online each week for people who want to check out church but won’t yet visit.
• Church offices have moved to the Jubilee property giving us a permanent presence on site.
• New office includes a large meeting room able to accomodate as many as 70 people that will be used throughout the week for student ministry, partnership classes, band rehearsal, small group meetings, and more.

This move is also a step toward one day acquiring our own facility that will provide us a home base to plant churches and campuses all over East Tennessee by freeing up human and financial resources. It’s a big dream and a big vision but as we sang this morning, “If our God is for us then who could ever stop us? And if our God is with us, then what can stand against?!”

This is our chance to re-launch our church and reach tons of new people for Jesus. If a launch team of 12 people in my living room turned into 400 people at OneLife this morning, what can 400 people turn into as we make this move? The sky is the limit and we’ve only just begun!!!

On September 13, 2009 OneLife Church was born. It was a huge day. But this Sunday – August 21 – will be our biggest day ever.

100 services later we are celebrating all that God has done in the early days of our church with one combined, HUGE service at 10 a.m. But that’s not all. We’ll be making an announcement that changes OneLife more than anything in our history.

If you call OneLife Church your home, think one day you might, or just want to hear what’s next for our church, do NOT miss this big day!

It’s also the perfect day to invite someone to come with you. Use the facebook event to RSVP and send an invitation, or use the website and video below to spread the word.

See you Sunday!

The past two posts have dealt with changing what we care about so that discipleship is our only goal. But as we say in the South, what in the Sam Hill is that?!

Some would tell you that discipleship means simply getting people “saved”. In this model, discipleship equals evangelism. Others say discipleship is an intense, one-on-one or small group Bible study environment where a teacher leads the time with the students. In this model, discipleship equals education.

There’s a HUGE problem with both: Jesus’ model of discipleship was neither!

The clearest example is Luke 9-10 when Jesus sent out “The Twelve” who would go on to become known as The Disciples. In this part of the story, The Twelve got sent out and a chapter later they had not just added to their group but they had multiplied! The Twelve were now The Seventy-Two! These 72 would then turn into the 120 in Acts 2 who would then turn into the 3,000!

From that simple look we see that when Jesus said, “Go! Make disciples!” he clearly intended one thing: a true disciple not only follows Jesus, but also reproduces!

That’s why a church should not gauge itself on simply how great their service is, how many people attend their church, or (hang on to your hat!) even great things like how many poor people are helped or simply how many are converted. All of these should be happening, but Jesus said what we should care most about is seeing disciples reproduce. And then that’s what the first church did!

So at OneLife, our measure of success will be seeing disciples reproduce disciples. That means seeing lost people find Jesus and then in turn lead more lost people in their lives to Jesus so that they, too, can reproduce. And then on and on it will go.

That means your life will make a difference as you impact the eternity of others. It means our church will grow because of what OneLifers do Monday through Saturday, not just what a staff and volunteers do on a Sunday. It means the needs of our community will be met when groups of disciples see and meet that need rather than waiting for a pastor to point it out and organize an event.

But to get there, this must be what we care most about. So OneLife, hang on! We are changing what we care about, and that changes everything!

Are you ready?!

I’ll never forget one of our early staff meetings at OneLife. Sitting around my kitchen table, I shared with our ragamuffin group of part-time staff guys that I sensed a problem for our two-month old church. We were doing a great job having an event once a week, but we weren’t being a church. They all had been sensing the same thing so we made a dramatic change that day without even realizing what we did.

We changed what we cared about.

The natural makeup of our team lends itself to us having great services. Our talented bunch of creative types and volunteers has led us to a place where our Sunday production of homemade stage sets and duck-tape-held-together-equipment-from-eBay would rival that of any church in our area with big budgets and professional staff. I don’t say that boastfully, it’s just our natural strength. In fact, I heard last week that a Knoxville blogger deemed us “Best Worship Production” of the 50 churches he visited. Big whoop. That in and of itself won’t lead to a life-transforming movement of doing what Jesus said we should do: making disciples. It can help, and I believe to reach certain demographics of our culture it is necessary, but it won’t do it on its own.

So there had to be more. We set out on a quest to discover what that would be. For over a year we talked about it, changed things, planned differently, met with other pastors, and did whatever we could to find out how we could “make disciples.” But not just claim to make disciples. I mean really make disciples.

I’ve seen and read of churches who say they value doing what Jesus said we should all do in his last words on earth, but at the end of the day they aren’t making disciples at all. Because disciples reproduce other disciples. They don’t just attend Bible studies or one-on-one sessions for years on end while talking about how “making disciples” is why they don’t work to make their church relevant to anyone this side of 1993 (aka, why we are lazy). This approach leads to little – if any – true impact. Because if disciples aren’t reproducing, guess what?! They aren’t disciples.

In the middle of that tension of not wanting to be solely about a Sunday morning show but also not wanting to be a church that just claimed to be about making disciples came a recurring reality: it was time to once again change what we care about.

So over the past six months we’ve been making a shift in some subtle ways and in some major ways to do just that. Over the next few days I’ll share more about what this looks like for us. But for now I leave you with this:

What do you care most about at OneLife or your local church? Whatever it is, chances are you need to change it.

Easter Sunday is our Super Bowl, and we’ve been treating it like that, too! It’s a HUGE deal to us. So here’s our game plan to make Easter 2011 the best we’ve ever had! (yeah, yeah…we’ve only had one other Easter service, but you get my point! )

First, it’s a big deal because without Easter, we wouldn’t have Christianity. So we have a celebration scheduled for this Sunday that will blow your mind! More importantly, it will serve up an incredible opportunity for you to give thanks to Jesus for what he did for you. Videos, songs, a new series, and an announcement about this summer (which is just a month away!) are just highlights of what we’ve got. Our teams have worked hard to make this our best offering of worship to Jesus yet. I can’t wait!

Second, we’ve pulled out all the stops to fill the place up. Why do we want it full? Because Jesus said HE wants it full! (check out this parable to read more) But this year, our approach to filling up His house was not to host a big community event. Instead, we want to equip OneLifers to be the chief inviters. So this past Sunday we equipped everyone with some Peeps to invite their “peeps” (thanks to Elevation Church for the idea and video), we have a Facebook Event that has invited nearly 2,000 people and counting, our OneLife Communities hand-wrote personal invitations to every family that has ever visited our church, and we have challenged EVERY OneLifer to invite someone to come with them.

I can’t wait to see it pay off! On top of that, we are going to our community this weekend to make connections and invite them face-to-face. On Friday and Saturday, we’ll be providing free photos with the Easter Bunny from 11-2 at the Clinton Highway Chick-fil-a (save your email about the Easter Bunny being pagan because it won’t get read First of all, if you truly believe that, you better not take your kids to Disney World to see Mickey or to a UT football game to see Smokey. Second, God redeems ALL things and through this event with the Easter Bunny, we will see people come to church who wouldn’t do so otherwise!) This event is COMPLETELY volunteer-driven so sign up here! There are only a handful of openings left so you better act fast!

All of this to say, OneLifers we’ve given you every opportunity to make a huge difference for eternity this weekend. Now the ball is in your court! Don’t let us down. More than that, don’t let Jesus down! He wants to use YOU to make a difference. The people you invite might say no or not show up, but don’t let that stop you. Invite them, pray for them, and watch God work! You’ll be amazed. I promise.

Let’s do this! It’s game-time!