4 years ago today we had our very first worship service at Out of the Box in Downtown Hillsville. There were 118 people present that night and there has never been a Sunday worship service in 4 years where we have had less than that. Praise the Lord!
A lot has happened in 4 years. A lot of people have found a relationship with Christ who have never before had faith. A lot of people who gave up on church years ago have come and found hope, grace, and people who are just good at being real. I would say one of if not the best strength we have is in being real. Most of us who have been in the church through the past 30 years have been taught in many ways to hide who we really are. We have been taught in a negative way to put on masks and come to church and pretend that we have it all together when no one really does.
There is a great purpose at Out of the Box to encourage people to be honest and deal with the issues in our lives. There is freedom in sharing our fears and failures with others. We learn that we are not alone in our struggles and we learn that Satan has power when he can keep us in hiding and silence.
In my preaching and teaching I am liberal in offering grace because that is the Christian message. We are messed up, we are sinners, not one of us is good. The Bible says even our best works are as filthy rags. That doesn’t mean that God doesn’t desire for us to do good, no no no. It means that without Jesus none of us are going to make it to Heaven. We should do good works, we should love our neighbor as ourselves, we should strive to be the best that we can possibly be with the help of Holy Spirit.
I am conservative in my theology. I preach the scriptures as I find them and I don’t try to change them to meet any of our striving to have Jesus like the sin that we like. Yes, I said the sin that we like. The scripture teaches us that we sin when we are drawn away by our own lusts. We sin because we like to sin. We enjoy the wrong things we do, so we continue to do them to our own peril. Now, many times the sin that we like becomes an addiction that we actually no longer like but we don’t have the power on our own to stop the addiction.
Because of that, we have decided to launch Recovery At Hillsville in 2015. Recovery is a Christ Centered ministry to people who are hurting. Hurting from abuse of drugs, alcohol, porn, prescription meds, grief, depression, and the list goes on and on. If you’re hurting, you should be able to find help at Recovery At Hillsville. I hope you will follow us on Facebook and at www.recoveryathillsville.com and learn more about the ministry that will officially launch February 11th at 6pm with a Free meal, worship, and groups.
Out of the Box has been made possible by the hard work of a lot of people. We don’t have any volunteers, we have servants. Jesus calls us to serve each other and that is what is happening. But ultimately, Out of the Box has been blessed and made possible by our Creator. I thank God every day that He has blessed us with this place to worship, fellowship, and find life, abundant life.
Out of the Box is not for everyone, by that I mean we have a style of worship and a style of reaching out to hurting people that doesn’t work for everyone. We have one way of doing ministry and lots of other churches have other ways of reaching out to our world. None of these are the right or wrong way.
Our way is working and we like it and I think lots of people who have never been in church or have gotten away from church because what they have experienced just wasn’t relevant or didn’t feel real enough will also like it.
On this note, we are looking forward to new ministries, new people, and new blessings in 2015. I hope that you will join us, just come and see what is happening and if it’s not for you, we will personally help you find a local church that you can call home. We are not in competition with other churches, we are in this thing together with Jesus.
Check us out. You can listen to our services, music and message at www.ootbwc.com
You can follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ootbwc
Follow us on twitter at @ootbwc
Recovery At Hillsville www.recoveryathillsville.com
Facebook www.facebook.com/recoveryathillsville
twitter @RecoveryHi
“I am engaged in a great work, so I can’t come down.” Nehemiah 6:3
