new churches

If you’ve been around LifePoint for any amount of time, you’ve probably heard us refer to other new church efforts that are underway here in San Diego. As a relatively new church ourself, we believe in helping out other new churches as we can.

CityWalk Church began downtown in the spring of 2007. CityWalk’s lead pastor, Steve Denney, has spoken several times here at LifePoint. Back around Christmas time, we had Matthew Blake from CityWalk lead our worship. Steve and his group are tackling a tough job -- starting a new church in urban environment that is both diverse and expensive.

Wave Christian Church started in Chula Vista back in September. Jim Osbourne, who had been our bass player on Sunday mornings, felt the call to start a new church in his hometown. Wave is up and running and reaching people in the Southbay for Jesus.

These are just two examples that LifePoint is personally connected to through our relationships.
These are by no means the only two new church efforts underway. We praise God for all efforts -- by new churches and older existing churches -- to reach our community with the message of Jesus.

This is where church and business are different. Unlike in business where one company views other companies in the same industry as competitors, there is no competition between churches. Well, let me rephrase that -- there should be no competition between churches.

Unfortunately, even church people sometimes view other churches as competition.

Even if every sanctuary in San Diego was filled to capacity this morning, there would not be enough seats available to accomodate San Diego’s population. In other words, we don’t have enough churches to accomodate even half of our population.

We are only in competition if we are competing for people who are already in the habit of going to church. If we are true to our mission of reaching people outside of Jesus and the church, then our “market” is nearly untapped.

That’s why I choose to celebrate any effort to reach new people for Jesus. I can rejoice in knowing that church is a team effort -- and the team is larger than just one church.