Reach - Raise - Repurpose

On Sunday, August 4th we held our 2nd summer Odyssey small group meeting. We visited Discovery Church in Elgin. It was such a unique experience seeing what used to be a nightclub transformed in to a church! Lots of wood and a homey rustic feel. All around the regular chair seating were coffee tables and chairs as well as a lounge and balcony area upstairs from which you could watch the Sermon. The worship was powerful and the Pastor preached on “The End” the signs of the Last Days. We met up at the Vincenz-Gavin home afterward for delicious homemade enchiladas. Pastor Jario shared about the vision for Reach, Raise & Repurpose, a simple church process and we concluded with an engaging discussion on Sunday Service.

In the Words of Pastor Jario…

We started with an update about all that has been accomplished up until now. We shared about the process of establishing our church legally and that we were one step away from being an incorporated non-profit group. I’m happy to say that as of writing this “Odyssey Unification Church” is officially recognized by the state of Illinois. We also caught everyone up in general about our purpose as a church and what we are hoping to achieve.

Following the update I took the chance to share in more detail about the purpose that drives the Odyssey. I’ve been thinking a lot about what should drive us as a community. Last year I was trying to understand a way, a process that we can bring people through so that they might have a deeper relationship with God. I was studying different discipleship methods and what that would mean in our church. As I studied I kept thinking back to the basic purpose of our lives; to be fruitful, multiply and have dominion. Basically to make it simple we should be growing to perfection through loving God, loving others and serving the world.

When I got it down to that point I started looking at how to use this concept that is prescribed to the individual and see if it could be done as a church body. This is what came out; Reach, Raise and Repurpose. I think that if an individual can have the opportunity to reach towards God and is encouraged to do so they will be striving towards the first blessing. If we can then encourage maturing individuals to practice that love with others through raising, or lifting up others they are learning to multiply love, the second blessing. Then finally, if people can move beyond their family and think about how God has designed them they can be repurposed to serve, thus fulfilling their third blessing to have dominion.

So I shared this as the basis for our church strategy. It would look like this: Reach is our Sunday Service, Raise is our small group activities and Repurpose is serving in ministries both for our church and the greater community. At the Odyssey we want to focus on being simple as much as possible. So Sunday service, small groups and ministry will be our main focus. This may seem strange but I hope that if we can do a few things with excellence we can make a greater impact on our community.

Now some of you might be asking, what about Divine Principle education or youth ministry? Well with things like Divine Principle or even Marriage support we would try to shift our education to small group curriculum instead of weekend seminars. This will encourage people to be involved in small groups and it alleviates pressure from an over scheduled calendar. As far as youth ministry, or single adults ministries… etc., we would encourage those groups to also limit activities and find ways to grow their members through the same process of Reach, Raise and Repurpose.

The thing about discipleship that I have discovered is that it’s important to not just try and adopt another church’s discipleship method but to really begin thinking about it as a unique process. One of the things Odyssey is striving to recognize is that everyone is on a spiritual journey and we are all at different points . So I want our process to recognize that and encourage movement on that journey.

So this is what we’ll be trying out: Reach, Raise and Repurpose. I hope God blesses this step. I am looking forward to our journey and waiting to see what God has in store for us.