Hello Church Family,

I hope you’re having a good week so far. I’m writing this update from the Carlsbad Seapointe Resort. I’m participating in the fourth and final meeting of the Group 11 Next Generation Leadership Roundtable with Leadership Network. This experience has been incredible. Over these past two years I’ve learned a ton. I’ve made new friendships and developed relationships with other mentor pastors all around the country.

I appreciate Broadview being the kind of church that gives generously to the personal development of it’s leaders. I certainly still have a long way to go in terms of knowing what it means to be a pastor. Youth has it’s perks but wisdom gained from life experiences isn’t one of them! Even so, because of groups like this, I’ve been able to to gain much of that wisdom from mentor pastors who’ve “been there and done that.”

It really has been a transformational season for my own thinking about leadership. The fruit from this investment will hopefully manifest itself for several years down the road. I guess, since this is the last meeting, they wanted to treat us to something nice. The accommodations are unbelievable.

Here’s a view of the beach from my balcony.

For this meeting, I and the other “next-gen” pastors are meeting at North Coast Church in Vista, CA. Larry Osborne serves as the lead pastor of North Coast Church and has been at all four of the meetings for this particular Next Gen Group.

For those of you who use our church’s subscription to Right Now Media, you might know him from series such as Thriving in Babylon or Accidental Pharisees. I was first introduced to Larry through his books Sticky Church and Sticky Teams. I read the first book my first year as co-pastor in 2012. I read the second book my first year as lead pastor in 2013. They were very formative for my own thinking about leadership and pastoring. Since then, I’ve read everything that Larry has written.

Little did I ever think that a few years later I’d be learning from him and other mentor pastors like him in a face to face setting. That’s what these past two years have been. It’s really been a good gift of God’s grace in my life and I’m thankful to you as a church for helping to make it happen.

Last week I took some time off for vacation. It was a good time to disengage and recharge the batteries for this upcoming fall season at Broadview. Randy and Pastor David both did a great job covering the pulpit the two weeks I was out. This Sunday, we’ll be kicking off a new series that puts forward a fail-proof plan for how to grow spiritually.

The name of the series is “Pathways.”

As you might’ve gleaned from the title, the purpose of this series is to explore the biblical pathway for how Christians grow. People have different opinions as to what causes growth in the Christian life. Some people really emphasize theological learning. Others promote the idea of Christ-centered community. Still more would push the concept of growth through “doing.” Who’s right?

If you think of growth in the Christian life like you would growth in any other endeavor, all three them are right. Knowledge that translates to personal growth is most easily gained in community and applied through personal practice. Because of this, we’ve defined a very simple discipleship pathway at our church.

Three words. Three practices. Three things that you can do every single day if you want to grow in your Christian life. The Christian life is a life of worship, in community and on mission. The pathway to take if you want to grow is to worship, connect and bless.

Worship God. Connect to the Church. Bless Others. Everything we do at Broadview is done to facilitate these three things. Every program that we plan, every sermon that I preach, every event that we host, every staff position that we fund, every encouragement that we give, every offering that we receive, every announcement that we give is so that the people whom God has brought to Broadview might more fully worship God, connect to the Church and bless others.

This series will explore that discipleship pathway. It’s important for a few reasons. First, it provides a spiritual development plan for your life. Nobody drifts anywhere good in life. You arrive at places that you want to be on purpose. This is true spiritually as well. Belonging to a church and “wanting” to grow isn’t sufficient. You need a plan. The Pathway series will help you in that.

The second reason this series is important is because it provides a spiritual development plan for our church. Our church exists to make disciples. But how do people become fully devoted followers of Jesus in the context of Broadview Baptist Church? This series will answer that question.

All too often, the discipleship pathway in a local church gets clouded by programming, events and overall “busyness.” Like a pathway overgrown with vegetation in a state park, so also is an unclear discipleship pathway in the local church. This series will hopefully show how our church programs and events serve the discipleship pathway instead of unintentionally replacing it.

For those two reasons, I really hope you’ll join us. I’d also encourage you to invite a friend. This is the VERY pathway that many of my non-Christian friends walked until they eventually gave their life to Christ. We’ve worked hard to make this a series that will engage Christian and non-Christian alike.

I hope you’ll join us starting this Sunday to find out more!

Blessings,

Pastor Wes