I want Pathways to be a church that empowers people to live out their gifts & abilities for Kingdom purposes.

I want Pathways to be a church that does not operate out of guilt but out of passion.

I want Pathways to be known as a church that has a serving presence in our community.

I want Pathways to be filled with people who are disconnected from their Creator as well as connected people who have a passion for connecting people with their Creator.

I want Pathways Church to be growing in numbers out of a vibrance for what God is doing in individual lives and our corporate community.

I want the people of Pathways to be growing their pursuit of Jesus and be able to communicate to anyone who asks how they are growing.

I want the people of Pathways to see themselves as missionaries to their neighborhood, workplace, and our greater community.

I want God to get all of the credit for anything good that happens within our body.

I want people to experience grace and freedom from religion for the first time in their lives and not be able to contain the joy and peace that comes with it.

I want a map of the small groups that exist within our community to spread over Everett, Snohomish, Mill Creek, Bothell, and Lynnwood like a spiderweb.

I want everyone to experience their first taste of missions in a foreign country as they get to see just how big our God really is.

I want Pathways to be a community of faith, known by love and expressing a voice of hope in the world.

What would you add to this list?

Each week, we are being challenged to Conspire against the consumerism of Christmas that our culture has created. This past week, we collected reading glasses for Moses Thomas to take back to Zimbabwe. This week our challenge takes a different form – education. Bringing Moses in to talk about Christmas in Zimbabwe should bring perspective for all of us. Opening our eyes to the plight of others is crucial if we are going to pursue God’s heart and not our culture’s.

This week, our challenge is simple. I want to encourage you to visit the website for Voice of the Martyrs. It is an organization that is dedicated to assisting those who are being persecuted for their faith around the world. Voice of the Martyrs was founded in 1967 by Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, who was imprisoned 14 years in Communist Romania for his faith in Christ. His wife, Sabina, was imprisoned for three years. I first heard him speak at a chapel service at Hope International University, while I was in school. It was the first step for me to having my eyes opened to what is happening in other parts of the world.

Search through the website. Click on the “Newsroom” and “Restricted Nations” tabs at the top of the page. Begin (or continue) your education.

This weekend, we enter into conflict. What does it mean for us to lead and have integrity in the midst of conflict?

There are ways, however, that leaders need to be extreme. Over the next four weeks, we are going to cover “Extreme’s in Leadership.” This week, we’ll be taking a look at the extreme we have been called to in the area of integrity. We are not asked to balance integrity, we are called to an extreme.

Why is that? The reasons are plethora. Perhaps, with our eyes set on heaven, people have believed that the ends truly justifies the means. Power plays. Manipulation. Cult Followings.

The bottom line is this, religion or any teaching or leadership that is not grounded in the way of Jesus will ultimately be tainted and ruined by our own selfish ways. This is why our leadership, according to Scripture, calls for “Influence balanced by Wisdom”. I hope to see you this weekend as we dive in to this issue.

Our leadership comes directly out of our understanding of God’s character. You may or may not believe that, but I hold to that as a core belief in my life – as I understand God’s character to be, so will I lead. I do that imperfectly, not only in practice, but also in my understanding of God’s character. Often times, our view of God is incredibly imbalanced. Becoming too focused on “Grace” creates a loose, or at worst, a non-existant pursuit of holiness. Becoming too focused on his judgment creates a fear-based religion. As we talked about on Sunday, you cannot have a God of love without having a God of anger. It is impossible to love something without having anger. Why? Let me make this easy – imagine someone punching your child. I hope that stirred anger, it does for me. Why? Because I love my kids. If I did not love them, I would not care about how people treated them.

God balances love and anger perfectly. I do not. Somehow, we have to hold these seemingly opposing characteristics of God in balance. As we do, we learn to lead in the same manner.

Leading out of God’s character will dramatically effect your performance at your job. It will change how you relate to your spouse and children. It will influence your time spent with friends and neighbors. It will guide us as leaders within the Pathways community.

Join us over the next six weeks as we discuss “Leadership in the Balance”.

….. you finish the sentence.  God Is   ___________ .

“And” can dance forever.
“Or” gives choice.
“Nor” gives none.
“But” puts the brakes on the sentence that was about to make your day.
“If” places conditions on love whispered.
“Yet.” That three letter word that endures all and yearns for hope.

This week, in Habakkuk 3, our “Bargaining Prophet” comes to the end of his questions. When we get to the end, we are supposed to find the answers. You can’t watch a movie or read a book without getting to the answers eventually. But Habakkuk does not find answers; instead he finds “Yet.”