On Sunday we celebrated the 10th Anniversary of The Journey – what an exciting day!

In the midst of the excitement, I couldn’t help but think about our humble beginnings…

In fact, I keep thinking about one particular day, about 6 months after we launched. I was walking home from our Sunday service at The Journey.

Our attendance had gone from 110 when we launched to 35 people on this day.We were on track to be closed down within a couple of months and I didn’t know what else to do but pray.

So I prayed – and not the positive, upbeat, hopeful prayers we teach people… no, I told God all about what I had done for Him and how I didn’t understand why this church wasn’t growing and how I didn’t know what to do next.

As you might imagine, God brought me back to reality and helped me recall all that HE had done for me

But it was during this time – what I sometimes call a “crucible experience” – that God began to reveal to me the need to develop healthy systems in our church if we ever hoped to be a healthy church.

He helped me see that the church is a body. And just like our physical bodies function through systems (respiratory, muscular, nervous, etc.), so does the church.

In fact, during this time I discovered that there were eight essential systems within every healthy church:

• Evangelism
• Assimilation
• Worship Planning
• Stewardship
• Small Groups
• Ministry
• Leadership
• Strategy

By going to work on identifying and improving each of these systems within my church, God showed me how to cooperate with Him to see the overall health of my church improve as well!

In the 10 years since, The Journey has grown to over 1,000 people in attendance each weekend and we’ve seen:

• Over 1,300 people baptized
• More than 2,000 confirmed salvation decisions
• 2,000,000+ Servant Evangelism touches (sharing God’s love in practical ways)
• Over 1,500 people have gone through Membership Class
• And thousands impacted directly through Sunday services
• Go God!

Thank you for letting me play a role in helping you lead your church to maximum effectiveness for the sake of God’s Kingdom!

Your partner in ministry,

Nelson

P.S. I want to help you develop healthy systems in your church too…

Since these systems are essential to reaching your church’s full redemptive potential, I’m offering a “Back to Basics” Sale this week only - choose any of my 8 Systems Seminar resources for HALF OFF (plus some additional specials for you):

Click Here to See the HALF OFF “Back to the Basics” Sale