Partnership over Pioneering

When it comes to outreach, Ignition Church is committed to a strategy of partnership – not pioneering.  Instead of creating our own ministries to meet the needs in our community and the world, we are identifying organizations that already do an excellent job of meeting those needs, and partnering with them.

Ignition Church already has several outreach partners that we have come alongside of by resourcing them with our time, money, and people.  Recently, we had the great honor of serving one of our local partners, Knox Area Rescue Ministries (KARM), and shot some footage of our time there.  Check it out!

 

Video Update

 

We’d love for you to partner with us in prayer.  Become a part of what God is doing through Ignition Church by signing up for our email list here.

And don’t worry – we won’t clog up your inbox.  Promise.

 

Relying on Revelation

God has given Ignition a head start.

Don’t get me wrong. This doesn’t mean I was able to take a short cut. I certainly paid my dues; God put me through my own personal desert for 5 years before He revealed His vision for my life and for Ignition.

I just mean the place we are starting from now is a very blessed place.

We have a vision from God.

We have an all-star team.

We have powerful prayer partners.

We have learned from the best, and we’re standing on their shoulders.

Praise God for all of it!

Yet, I can’t depend on any of it. Sounds crazy doesn’t it? After all, these are all gifts from God to accomplish His purposes for Ignition.

Let me explain what I mean. As I was reading the other day I came across something that challenged me. It talked about leveraging your experience, but not depending on it. Meaning, leverage all that you have been given, but remain dependent upon God.

All of us face the temptation to trust in the gifts rather than the Giver. And as the gifts get bigger, so does the temptation.

When God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac in Genesis 22, God was testing Abraham to see if he was trusting in evidence of the promise or the Executor of the promise. Without Isaac the promise could not come to pass, but God needed Abraham’s full trust first.

God is calling us to start a new work – not the same work we’ve seen done in a new place. God wants to do greater things than we’ve seen and unique things specific to Knoxville. But that won’t be possible if we rely on what we’ve already experienced. We must leverage what we’ve learned, but always remain dependent upon God for fresh revelation.

If we depend on our own experience alone, we sell ourselves short. If we rely on the resource, we completely miss the Source.

Prayer Weekend Update

Here is a video update that we sent out to our partners last week. If you would like to join our prayer partner list, click “Email Subscription” to the right.

We will have another update coming soon! Thank you for your prayers and support. We’re glad to have to along with us and hope you are anticipating great things from God as we are.

The Latest

The core team of Ignition recently had the privilege to sit down with Larry Brey, the Connections Pastor at Elevation Church, and learn about creating a culture of honor.

For those of you who don’t know him, Larry is one of the most recognizable faces at Elevation Church; he oversees all of Elevation’s guest services as the Connections Pastor, and also serves as the Associate Campus Pastor for the Matthews campus.  Additionally, Larry is an unofficial champion of honor in the culture at Elevation Church.

Honor is a core value of Elevation Church’s culture, and helps set them apart as one of the best ministries in the country.  Honor has always flowed freely from the heart of Lead Pastor Steven Furtick, and since the beginning Larry has led the way in practically applying it to the culture of Elevation.  He still does today.

There is no one in the American church more equipped to speak on honor in culture than Larry Brey, and as a team we got to hear from Larry and ask any questions we had for over 3 hours.  I posted on Twitter afterwards, asking the team to tweet me some of their notes.

Within a few hours I had 59 responses.

No surprise for me; this team is hungry.  They want to be the best.

Here are some of the highlights:

@amandahdavis
“Perception dictates reception.”
“When preference drives your decisions, it is going against spiritual authority.”

@bradburling
“Honor owns a decision, even if it isn’t yours. Eliminate the words ‘not my idea’ from your vocabulary.”

@JoshNarron
“The culture will only rise as high as the bar is set.”
“The thing God gave His life for is what we should live our lives for.”

@amydnarron
“Loyalty is always up, it is never out.”
“The people who are the quickest to criticize are usually the least invested.”

@fostergeomatics
“Vision flows from its source. [Honor the source of vision.] Pastor Hunter is the source of vision for Ignition.”

@adotfoster
“The opposite of honored is common. We cannot let our pastor become common.”
“Honor says, ‘I am called to you’ [no matter my preferences].”

@priscilllamarie
“Honor is an attitude of the heart but expresses itself in what I do.”
“A culture of honor does not let an offense exist against your pastor.”

@michdavis
“Sacrifice isn’t about the amount, it’s about the portion.”
“Either you own the house or you don’t. Don’t be a renter.”

@amandalconrad
“Don’t let opportunities become entitlements.”
“Honor is a lifestyle, not a practice. You are an ambassador – you always have to be on.”

@wyattcgibson
“Niceness is not honor. Honor sees a need and fills it. Honor moves before being asked.”

@vkateh
“Churches grow under the blessing of God. Make your house ‘bless-able’ by honoring and blessing others.”

Obviously, this time with Larry was great for our whole team.  We all learned a lot.

What’s even more exciting is that this was just the beginning of our very first core team initiative: Ignition Church Summer School.  Check out the syllabus here, and I’ll make sure to keep you up to date on our progress.  The whole team is excited for this opportunity; it’s not every day that we have the privilege to position ourselves before God like this.  He is preparing us for what He’s prepared for us.

Ignition Church is highly favored by God.  We have a great team, and we have leaders like Larry Brey who are not only willing to pour into our team, but who want to pour into our team.  It’s learning like this that will take us further, faster in reaching the city of Knoxville with the Gospel.

Don’t miss your opportunity to get in on the ground floor; partner with us in both prayer and giving.  Ignition Church is a worthwhile investment.

Two Ways the Gospel Gets Lost

As I have mentioned several times before, we are facing the loss of the Gospel on this generation in the Western church. If we are not good students of history, we can think we’re alone. That we’re the first generation to face this tragedy.

But that’s not true. Every generation will face it in some capacity.

Which is why we will never get past the Gospel.

Every generation of the prophets in the Old Testament faced this reality and fought it. God’s covenant with his people was continuously being forgotten, neglected, and misinterpreted. (The Gospel is the fulfillment of the Covenant God began with Adam continued through Noah, Abraham, and David.) Jesus talked about this reality in Mark 12 in what is known as The Parable of the Tenants.

Peter and Paul faced it with the Jerusalem church as we read in Acts 15. Some of the early church leaders were attempting to add the law to Gospel and Peter had to call them back to grace through faith. Peter had already faced this temptation in his own heart and was corrected by the work of the Holy Spirit in Acts 10.

Martin Luther and John Calvin both became famous as a result of leading a revolution for the recovery of the Gospel against the corruption in the Catholic Church.

Yet, then the movement of churches Luther founded upon a right understanding of the Gospel in Germany slowly slipped away from that Gospel. And a great tragedy befell the Bride of Christ in the 1930′s when the German church acquiesced under the pressure of Adolf Hitler. The hell Hitler was escorting into the world went unchecked by those that are called to bring heaven to earth.

How did this happen? How does this happen?

Two ways. Two slippery slopes.

These two slopes that the German church slipped down have been causing people to slip and miss the Gospel throughout the life of God’s people. And they continue today.

One slope is shallow grace. This plays out through a shallow preaching of the Gospel as a “get out of hell free card.” The one way ticket to the “pie in the sky.” This is an incomplete Gospel. It preaches a costless rescue mission by a God who is not holy. Or in other words, a God who is not disgusted by sin and just accepts us as we are. And it creates a “disciple-less” culture that goes on sinning and lets grace increase all the more, like Paul identified in Romans 6.

The other slope is legalism. Salvation by works. Earned grace. The belief, either subconscious or publicly espoused, that God loves us because we pull ourselves up and put ourselves together. Or will love us when we pull ourselves up and put ourselves together. The misconception that He loves us better when we behave better.

If we’re honest, both these slopes exist in us. We have a tendency to slip down one or the other. Any day of our lives. We have an enemy that pulls us down both.

Therefore, if we’re not careful our churches will slip down these slopes.

And an accurate understanding of the Gospel is not enough to save us from these slopes. The only protection against the loss of the Gospel is the consistent clear proclamation of the Gospel.

A heart changed by the Gospel never grows tired of hearing the Gospel and is continually shaped by the Gospel. The Gospel of salvation by faith through costly grace that changes us.

The Affirmation of Vision

There is a difference between confirming and affirming.

To confirm is to establish the validity.
To affirm is to encourage or support the already valid.

God confirmed the vision He revealed to me for Ignition in 11 unique ways within several weeks of initiating it. I wrote them all down in a journal. The vision is signed sealed and delivered! Yet God continues to affirm the vision to this day.

Recently I’ve come across several things that have been affirming to me in regards to the work that God wants to do through Ignition in the city of Knoxville and the work that He wants to do in His church international.

These are encouraging and inspiring and so I want to share them with you.
Not as confirmation, but as affirmation.

First is the beginnings of a prayer movement that is seeking God for revival in Knoxville. Read this article and this post

I believe Ignition and the work God will do through us is going to be part of the answer to that prayer. God has planned to change that city!

Second is a movement of churches, specifically in the urban Southeast, returning to the Gospel. Check out this promo video for an upcoming conference

We are not alone in our passion for this. God is building a heart for His Gospel into this generation of church leaders. “There is only one thing that can restore the revolutionary power of God to the Church: the Gospel. The Church is in a moment of crisis. The Gospel is our only hope!”

For those of you partnering with us…Be affirmed. God is going to do what He said will do!

Weekend Update

It’s hard to sum up all God did during our trip to Knoxville. The exciting thing is that He did a lot in our hearts, and that is what we celebrate. He is continuing to pour out His Spirit on this team. And He would not do that if He did not intend on using us greatly in that city.

Friday night, I preached the hardest message I’ve had to preach. It was not what I intended when I began preparation early in the week, but God “cornered me” with it and I couldn’t go any other direction. Basically, I called our team to the highest level of commitment and unity possible. One that involves sacrifice of all personal dreams, desires, and preferences.  I’ll write about the concept I preached on some other time.

Saturday morning we gathered to pray on top of the 11th Street parking deck. I set the focus from 2 Kings 2:19-22. Knoxville is a city well situated, but the water is bad. We asked God to allow us to taste the bad water – that He would reveal to us what would happen if we did not do what God has called us to do. It was difficult. There was a moment in which I could not stand up under the burden I felt. It was powerful for the whole team and so gracious of our God to speak.

That afternoon we partnered with Redeeming Hope and had the honor of serving the underprivileged in the Ft. Sanders area. Here a couple bullet points from that time:

• Distributed clothes, shoes, toys, and home goods to almost 50 low-income/homeless people
• Organized and sorted other donated items in an overstuffed storage room
• Encouraged the staff of Redeeming Hope with generosity and service
• Wrote our first check as a church to Redeeming Hope for $250!

Part of the vision God placed in my heart from the beginning for Ignition, is to restore life and hope in the church in that city. For far too long the majority of churches in Knoxville have existed for themselves and let the government and most recently Oprah and ABC come in to meet the needs of its people. No longer. The economy may be in recession, but the church must rise up and bring hope to hopeless situations. And we do that with dollars, NOT just service. This is why we unashamedly ask you to give. We want to extend the privilege and opportunity to you to be a part of this. It was a surreal moment for me to present that check to Eddie, the leader of Redeeming Hope, and watch the awe and gratitude wash over his face. He’s never experienced that and he certainly didn’t expect it from another church that is not even in the city yet! And if you give to Ignition, you were a part of that. I told Eddie there was a lot more where that came from. He hasn’t seen anything yet!

We wrapped up Saturday at the Regal Pinnacle theater to pray over that building/location where we believe God has called us. I taught from Mark 7:31-35 and explained that God is placing Ignition in Knoxville to do something unique and to meet specific needs. The theater was absolutely packed with people, as usual. And we are asking and believing God to open the doors to it and to the 400+ seat screen there. We stood in the parking lot, stretched our hands out toward the building, and prayed. We looked foolish, but so did the Israelites did when they walked around the walls of Jericho blowing trumpets. (Jericho wasn’t laughing when the walls fell down.) We proceeded into the theater to watch a movie, but real purpose was to continue praying and scatter mustard seed in the building!

Sunday we had morning breakout sessions. The guys honored the ladies by preparing a classy breakfast for them. Then Kristina taught on what it means practically for wives to respect their husbands and how that affects the success of the church. Meanwhile the guys headed to OneLife, our partner church, to have a breakout session with Pastor Rodney Arnold on navigating the tension of leading in the church and leading in the home. We’re so thankful for OneLife and how they continue to encourage us, resource us, and invest in us. The ladies joined us later and we attended the 11:30 worship experience before hitting the road.

It was a packed weekend which made for a rough Monday and Tuesday, but that was my goal. I hope my team continues to wrestle with what God did in their hearts. And I pray that we all continue to lose sleep until we get there and bring the Gospel to the people who are desperately crying out for it. Because if we don’t do what God has called us to do…

Here’s a thank you video to our partners we sent out in our prayer email.
If you’re not on our email list, you can join here.

In case you’re new…

Welcome to those of you who are logging on to our site for the first time after receiving our first prayer update! We’re honored to have you partnering with us in the Gospel.

(If you want to join the prayer list, shoot an email to ignitionknoxville@gmail.com  with “sign me up” in the subject line.)

I wanted to help you quickly get to know us by linking a couple key posts that will give you a good idea as to what we’re all about:
Another Awakening
Fundamental Gospel
The Offensive Church
Ignition is a Movement Part 1, Part 2
Excellence Updated
Narrow-Minded, Intolerant Church

Also be sure to watch this:

21 Things I Learned (or was reminded of) During 21 Days of Fasting

1. I am prideful. I need Jesus.
2. Jesus gave His life not just to cleanse me, but to claim me.
3. God is about to do something huge in Knoxville. Ignition is a part of it.(2 Kings 2)
4. In the light of a great calling do not first seek to be empowered, but first seek to humble yourself. Pride always seeks to be empowered before humbling itself.
5. We can diminish our doubt by demonstrating faith. (James 1)
6. One of my greatest roles in leading Ignition Church will be the responsibility to get the jars and shut the door. In other words constantly increase our capacity and commit to it. (2 Kings 4)
7. The greatest advancement I can make in my leadership is in learning to “take captive every thought…” (Spirit empowered mind control 2 Cor 10:5)
8. A lot of my time is spent thinking about, planning, preparing, eating, and cleaning up food.  A lot. And I don’t even plan our family dinners.
9. Our sacrifice now will put us in position to receive the victory in the future.
10. I have the most faith-filled church plant team ever!!
11. Our team is so blessed and set up for success by being at Elevation Church, specifically in this season. So much of our trail has already been blazed because of the faith of their founding families.
12. Seeking is not just sitting. Persistence involves more than just praying. (Just because something is a common grace doesn’t mean it’s not a divine opportunity)
13. It’s tough to let God answer a prayer His way. (2 Kings 5)
14. I say this with absolutely humility as it is completely humbling to me… God has anointed me to lead / given me the mantle of pastor of Ignition Church. (I have done nothing to deserve it. He chose me. – John 15:16)
15. Fasting is first about worship. We are privileged to relate to Jesus through sacrifice.
16. The pleasures I enjoy in my life should flow out of valuing family and/or health, NOT from simply valuing pleasure. (The American value of pleasure is not synonymous with God’s design for us. Partaking in pleasure has great personal value. Valuing pleasure has great personal costs. )
17. You cannot extract the element of risk from faith.
18. The job listing for being used greatly by God is not “If He does, then you do” but it has always been and always will be “Go and then He’ll show.”
19. God goes before us to prepare a place for us. We need only “proceed to do as God said.” ( 2 Kings 8 )
20. God is so big that He can change the economy. But He’s also so big He can sell a house and provide a job without changing the economy. (Broader application: God is so big, He can change your circumstances. But God is also so be He can provide for you or change your perspective without changing your circumstances.)
21. One of the greatest displays of God’s power at Ignition will be / has been His giving me the ability to preach. (Isaiah 40:6-31 ; Isaiah 50:4,5,7,9 ; Exodus 4:10-11)
22. One of the main reasons God will be able to use Ignition so greatly is because we have no other agenda besides the Gospel.
    
    21… make that 22