It's been a while...and a lot is happening!

So sorry for the silence here...I know, it's deafening and you've been holding your breath til I got back to blog writing.

Well, some big news has been brewing and now it is public knowledge.  Three things!:

1) Just as God often gave people new names to declare a new identify and a new direction in their lives.  We are now entering a new season, and we believe that God is calling us to change our name to reflect that change of identity.  So…..effective immediately the church formerly known as CVC is changing our name and declaring our new identity:  LIFE POINT.  Most likely, we will be referred to as LifePoint…a Bayside Church (see #2 below).  The name comes from Colossians 2:6-7, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. ( Colossians 2:6-7).  The point of life is for us to know Christ, live in Him, and have His life flowing through us to bring others to Him.   LifePoint is ready for the hand of God to move!

2) LifePoint is making formal our affiliaton with Bayside Church (www.baysideonline.com).  We have long appreciate our friends at Bayside and believe that their vision for outreach, spiritual growth, and developing leaders meshes with our DNA exactly.  We are pleased to be part of Bayside and Thriving Churches International (www.thrivingchurches.com)

3) On a more personal nature, I have recently shared with our church family that we feel like we are being called to take another step in ministry.  Here is a portion of  a letter that was shared with our church family after a meeting with our leadership core.  God has been amazingly faithful as the LifePoint team has rallied around and we are seizing God's future for us!

Over the last year, God has been speaking to both Pam and me about a new season of ministry.  To be quite honest, we didn’t even want to have the conversation!  But, it has become very clear that in order to embrace where God is taking us,  we have to be released from the pastoral ministry here at CVC.  This decision has been very painful and our hearts are deeply saddened at the thought of leaving you, our church family.  We have been spending time reading Acts 20 where Paul left his dear friends in Ephesus.  We have wept many tears in a similar way.

For the past year, I have been helping to launch Thriving Churches International (TCI).  LifePoint (formerly CVC!) and Bayside Church have partnered together to launch this ministry to help churches thrive.  Because LifePoint is part of Bayside and TCI, we will NOT be severing our relationship with LifePoint at all…in fact, our hope is to remain in relationship with LifePoint as the founding pastor.  The mission and vision of our church is not changing at all; in fact we believe the next season of ministry will bring more fruit than ever before.

 I will continue to serve as the Senior Pastor until we have established the right leadership successor.  We will be having a Town Hall meeting on September 13^th at 4 p.m. in the auditorium for anyone who would like to come and ask questions or talk with us.  We are very confident in God’s vision for our ministry.  Our Leadership Teams  are strong and united.  We are healthier as a church than we have ever been.  The time is now for us to move forward with boldness and not with fear.  So, we are going to seize the future and move forward with strength.  You will not experience any lack of vision or forward leaning here.  We are leaning into God’s future for us!