Prayer-focused, Cross-cultural, and Missional

This morning I gathered to pray with several people who have committed to praying for North Way East End every Saturday morning at 7am. The time together is always unique because there are so many details to launching a church campus and new prayer requests arise on a daily basis. One of the things I am committed to as a pastor is that our church will be built on a foundation of prayer. Many churches and church leaders talk about prayer being important, but they fail to emphasize prayer or model it for people and so corporate prayer can become lost in the shuffle.

I've also been intentional about building cross-cultural community in the East End, and Pastor Freedom and I have been out in the community each week building relationships across cultures. I've been encouraging the staff and elders at North Way East End to go out of their way to emphasize authentic relationships across cultures. I wouldn't say that we have "arrived" at being cross-cultural by any stretch of the imagination, but we're making good progress toward that goal. Many church leaders like to talk about being cross cultural, but I want to actually be a cross cultural faith community.

Another emphasis of North Way East End is that we are a missional church community. That means that we serve the poor and marginalized people in our city and across the world. We serve people outside the walls of the church well beyond Sunday mornings. We gather together to worship on Sundays so that we can go out and impact the world in every sector of society and across socioeconomic boundaries. As a pastor, I spent a great deal of my time this week with people living in desperate poverty in the inner city. I also spent a significant amount of time with business leaders who steward a lot of resources throughout the course of the week. Many churches like to talk a lot about serving the poor and being missional, but our leaders in the East End are working toward following God's lead to make this a part of everything that we do at the church and in our city.

Prayer-focused. Cross-cultural. Missional. These are key foundations of the North Way East End church, and we are seeking to live them out in the city so that God will be glorified. We are just starting in the process, and we have a long way to go. We are, however, off to a promising start in these areas!