1.21 Church

All too often, churches seem to exist for no purpose other than their own existence. They are not moving in any direction, because they do not have a goal that sets their direction. But Jesus has not called the church to sit around and maintain her existence. Instead, we are called to be on mission. And our mission has a goal. That goal helps us to focus our efforts and energies. That goal helps to motivate us for action. That goal helps us to measure our effectiveness. At 1.21 Church, our goal is summed up in a vision statement.

We worship Jesus. At 1.21, we want everything we do to be radically Christ-centered. At the end of the day, we want to help people find their hope, joy, and satisfaction in Jesus.

There's a lot to unpack in this statement.

First, we worship Jesus. This is what we do. This is why we are created. In a sense, this on its own could be our vision statement. However, there are so many ideas of what worship is out there in our culture, that we went ahead and defined it in the next two sentences.

Second, everything we do should be radically Christ-centered. The implications of this are huge.

Who We Are - 1.21 Church from 1.21 Church on Vimeo.

We are Christ-centered.
There are so many things that churches get centered around. They can be centered on programs, or on the pastor, or on certain social, theological, behavioral issues. But at the end of the day, the only thing that truly matters is who Jesus is and what he has done. We want to tell people about that. We want to remind ourselves of that. We want everything to reflect that.

And we are radically Christ-centered.
The word "radical" has connotations of being extreme, or nutty. And we do want to be extremely Christ-centered. But the word's basic meaning has to do with roots. At the very root of what we say and do, we want to be centered on Jesus. In the plant world, the condition of the roots will determine the health of the plant and the condition of the fruits. What comes in through the roots flows to the rest of the plant. So we want our root system to be focused on Jesus and the gospel. We want to draw deeply from his grace, and let that spread throughout ourselves and our church.

And this includes everything we do, from greeting people at our corporate gathering to singing, to preaching, to sweeping up trash in front of our venue; it should all be about Jesus. As Mark Driscoll has said, "It's all about Jesus. It's always about Jesus. And it's only about Jesus."

Third, at the end of the day, our goal is for people to enjoy Jesus. This is the essence of worship. We enjoy God. We derive pleasure from him. When we do this, he is glorified. There is a philosophy of life called hedonism, which basically means, "If it feels good, do it." The goal of life is to get as much pleasure as we possibly can. John Piper has advocated a lifestyle that he calls "Christian Hedonism." What this means is that we seek as much pleasure as we possibly can, and that we recognize that the fullest pleasure is to be found in God. At 1.21, we are unabashed Christian Hedonists. We want to be constantly pursuing pleasure in God.

We find hope in Jesus. He has reconciled us to God, and is in the process of restoring the entire created order to a right relationship with its Creator. In Jesus, we are never alone, and have everything in the world to look forward to. Our world is broken now, but we anticipate a day when all things are made new, and everything works the way it is supposed to.

We find joy in Jesus. When we realize all that he has done for us; when we are gripped by the greatness of his grace; when we begin to see the absolute infinity of his glory, beauty, and holiness, we should be filled and overflowing with joy. Joy is the only proper response to true beauty.

We find satisfaction in Jesus. Our modern world has developed unprecedented amounts of information, power, money, and ways of getting pleasure. Yet we still want more. We still feel empty. Even when we find something we love, there's a nagging sense of emptiness; a longing. None of these things can satisfy, because none of these things are supreme. None of these things are ultimate. Our longings are too great, and these things are too small. Only Jesus is sufficiently big enough to satisfy our desires, because Jesus is supreme over and greater than our desires. It is only in him that we find what we are looking for, whatever we are looking for.

Our basic goal at 1.21 is to promote the worship (enjoyment) of Jesus. This is the lens that helps us determine what we should do. This is the bar that we use to measure success and failure. If something does not promote the worship of Jesus, we should not do it. It is not part of our vision.

Who We Are - 1.21 Church from 1.21 Church on Vimeo.