Friday, September 12, 2008

louie's new church

Most people know by now that Louie Giglio is starting a church in Atlanta. I just want to say that I think that's really cool.
Our lead pastor told us that he was starting one back in like May/June. I was about to blog about it then, but Louie hadn't even made it public yet & I have GREAT respect for that man, so I figured he should at least have the privilege of making the announcement.

Well, word leaked out anyway - but he did officially announce it to the world wide web via his blog right at the end of July. Tomlin, Redman, & the Nockels are going with him to start it. That's gonna be some phat Sunday morning worship times.

I really think that God will use this church to house possibly one of the greatest movements for His fame in history. That's pretty amazing! God has definitely used Louie's ministry to influence me more than any other person! But enough from me - Go read it straight from Louie's keyboard = HERE. just go to the July 30th post.

I'm SO SO stoked to be a small part of what God is doing @ Ridge Church... but if Louie had announced this about 15 months ago when I was searching for something great to be a part of... before I knew about Ridge... well, let's just say we might be moving to Atlanta.
Pray for these guys. I really do think God is going to do something HUGE through this!

7 comments:

Ryan G. Smith said...

Cool...but I have to play devil's advocate on this just to keep everyone honest and to make things interesting =)...another church in Atlanta? Aren't there enough churches in the ATL? What's different about this church? Would a church like this that is based on the Passion World Tour, just draw from all the big "cool" churches in Atlanta who go to Passion when it comes to town? Like I said, throwing out the honest question...no jabs intended dude.

Anonymous said...

Good question Ryan I agree. If one is not careful this can become a sheep stealing movement...And this from one who loves to read and listen to Louie.

EZ

patrick mitchell said...

i hear you guys & understand your concern. BUT this church will DEF. be different than anything else in ATL & even in America. I've heard Louie's been influenced greatly by Hillsong in Australia. That global movement has grown out of that local church.
I think Louie senses a GLOBAL MOVEMENT to spread Jesus' fame that is igniting in this generation (i sense it too) & I think this church will be a great catalyst for this global movement. that's pretty pimp.

oh, & Louie's no idiot... i'm pretty sure he's already thought of the whole "drawing from other churches"/"sheep stealing" thing. that's not what he's about. yeah, peeps will come from other churches bkuz there's not another church like this one (even in it's mission probably)... but - and this is prolly a conversation for another day - is that always a bad thing. Wouldn't you guys agree that some local churches may need to cease to exist & those awesome peeps plug into local expressions that are making things happen...

anyway, thanks for your thoughts - but I'm pretty confident God is behind this & it's gonna be freakin' pimp.

hassanpour said...

what is sheep stealing? and why do we care?

1) if our ministry is creating quality and fulfilling opportunities for its people, what threat would a new church be? perhaps people are looking for fulfillment in their "church" experience. maybe the problem isnt with the new "cool" church, or with the "fickle" church members... maybe our churches arent engaging their culture in a way that creates fulfilling opportunities for its members to serve (other than sunday school teacher, usher, etc.)

2) lets just say that it is a matter of fickle people running to and fro looking for the latest and greatest thing in church entertainment. do we want those people in our churches anyway? let them go somewhere else! your church might be better off without people who come for entertainment.

there are probably other reasons why we shouldnt care if people go to other churches. but my point is that whether out of good motives (god calls them) or out of bad motives (entertainment calls them) we wouldnt want to prevent either of those people from leaving.

im prob just an idiot

patrick mitchell said...

I'm with you all the way kris...
& you're def. not an idiot. that was right on.

Ryan G. Smith said...

I hear you Patrick...I'll be interested to hear how this plays out for ole' Louis. I have no doubt that he and his board have thought this through from every different angle possible. I'm just cynically skeptical of these kinds of things, because they tend to miss the historical connection to Christianity throughout all the ages, but then again I'm boring and not "cool." =) And Kris...you are toally an idiot!!! =)

patrick mitchell said...

dude, i'm totally with you on churches & christians in general having no idea of our connections to The historical Church... no clue about our context and how it fits with the traditions and context of the past hundreds of years of Christianity.
BUT, Louie is def. not one of those guys. I've personally heard him lead some pretty raw ancient practice (we're talking 1st century) type worship experience.

also, you might be labeling the passion movement with the "cool, trendy Christianity" & that would be a mistake. it's far from it. I would say before 05 Passion was pretty much unheard of except for maybe a handful of thousands of us college kids who were all jacked up about it. Then all of the sudden Tomlin & crowder & those guys hit it big. & 20K showed up to passion 06 & it got tons of national spotlights, etc... & now it's viewed as the "cool" new thing. but that's not how it should be labeled. it's just a pretty amazing movement of God... that happens to be pretty "cool" also.

*we need to plan to talk about this & A LOT more stuff from theology, Barth, and history to Guinness, music, & women. let me know when you roll in.

oh, and for the record, you ARE cool, just in your own way & DEFINITELY NOT boring. far from it bro.