Ten Years In, Just Getting Started
Have you hit the age yet where birthdays come with mixed feelings? When you're a kid it's all cake and gifts. Somewhere along the way it turns into a quiet inventory of what got worse this year. Your eyesight, your ankles, your patience. This year my birthday landed on a day I got to hide in the garage and not answer anyone's questions, and honestly, that was the win.
Our church just turned ten, and I've got the same mixed feelings about that. Looking back, it's been amazing and hard and wonderful and exhausting all at once. We started in a shared building, moved to a high school, grew fast, lost almost two years to the pandemic, floundered without a home, found this space, grew again, hit more growing pains. If this were the last day of this church's life, I'd still call it something that honored Jesus. But I don't want a reunion that celebrates the past. I want to draw a line and look at what's next.
My very first sermon as a pastor here came from Matthew 16, when Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say I am?” Ten years later, I keep coming back to that question. Before we could get clear about who we are as a church, we had to return to who Jesus is.
A Good Church Without a Clear Answer
Eighteen months ago I started asking God what he actually wanted from this church. What I heard back was that our bones were good, we were graceful and generous, but we didn't have real clarity. We've used slogan after slogan over the years: a church for everyone, a place to heal, a place to belong, grace first then change. All good phrases. None of them fully explained who we are or where we're headed.
When you don't have clarity, you drift. You default to whatever's easiest, whatever keeps the most people comfortable. You wouldn't walk into Target with a four-year-old and no plan, and you definitely don't want to leave a church's whole identity to chance. So we started doing the work: research, focus groups, outside voices, digging back into what the New Testament actually says a church is for.
Our New DNA
Out of that work came five values that will shape everything we do here.
Christ at the Center: Jesus shapes how we love, grow, and live together. When we fall short, we return to him.
Grace-Filled Love: A love that's patient and doesn't walk away or hold grudges.
Deep Belonging: More than a smile on Sunday, it's actually being seen and known.
Restorative Justice: Using our voice for people on the margins even when it costs us something.
Transformational Discipleship: Grace welcomes us as we are, and walking with Jesus changes how we live.
Be Seen. Be Known. Belong.
These five values give shape to our mission:
We exist to embody the tangible love of Jesus so that people in our communities can be seen, be known, and fully belong in Christ, walking with him and each other toward renewal and lasting transformation.
This mission can be summarized in three B’s:
Be Seen. Be Known. Belong.
Seen and known by Jesus. Seen and known by each other. Seen and known in our brokenness, and still belonging to a community committed to putting things back together.
The Rock This Is Built On
That question from my first sermon has followed us through every chapter: “Who do you say I am?”
In Matthew 16, Peter answers that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Jesus tells Peter that this understanding came from the Father, then promises to build his church—a church the gates of Hades will not overcome.
Ten years ago, that was the starting point. Today, it’s still the foundation. These five values and this mission give us language for living out the answer: Jesus is at the center, and our life together should reflect his love.
The question still reaches us wherever we're standing, surrounded by everything else competing for our trust. Who do we say he is? And what would it mean to build our life together around that answer?
Our hope for the next ten years rests in the same place it did at the beginning: Jesus, and his faithfulness to keep building his church.
Three Honest Steps for This Week
Ask yourself which of these five values you already live out, and which one you've been avoiding.
Notice someone who might be overlooked. Learn their name, listen to their story, or follow up on a need they've shared.
Carry Be Seen. Be Known. Belong. into your week. Let it shape how you treat the people in front of you.
We're not closing a chapter here. We're just getting started.
