We're in the season at Bethlehem right now that in spite of what the weather has been for the last day or so feels to some of us a lot like spring. The reason it feels to me and others like spring is because

we really believe that God has touched and guided the elders and the master planning team to find,

discover, and then to express in this little booklet a mission and a vision for our church that puts us on the front end or the brink of something very bright, beautiful, powerful, and lasting.

And that's what spring is to me.

I really believe that this is faithful to who God is and what his priorities are.

And I believe it's authentic.

And by authentic, that's one of my favorite words.

What I mean by it is that it is suited, it fits, it expresses truly who we are at this point in history, located in this particular metropolitan area, University, Philip Celia Park,

business, downtown, professional district, a little light industry there. Here it fits us, Crossroads, 35W, 94.

It fits the racial mix. fits the cultural reality of decay and God neglect that abounds around

us it fits this particular staff and elders. It fits, I believe, where God has been bringing this church for 125 years of glory and pain. If you take everything that is feeding

into this moment, it asks what should it look like? What should allegiance to this black muck look like here

and now? This feels real authentic. My prayer is that as we unpack more and more of it, you'll sense that that's the case.

Faithful to God and who he is, revealed in his word, and authentic to who we are, when we are,

where we are, and how we ought to be in this particular place surrounded by these realities

at this time. I've said before and I'll say it again.

We don't mean by putting it on paper and preaching on it and putting it out there that every church ought to say it this way, these ways, or that

they're somehow deficient if they don't use our language or divvy it up the way we do, I believe with all my heart that

every single individual human being is absolutely unique. I think that's true physiologically, I think it's true personality, I think

it's through as far as the mix of spiritual giftings go. It's just phenomenal, phenomenal how much variety God believes

in. When you get a thousand of them together in one church and mix all of that uniqueness there emerges a kind of dynamic,

a kind of ethos, a kind of personality corporately, a spree decor that can be copied anywhere

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