Can You Fill the Canvas?
Nothing can be more daunting to the artist than a blank canvas. Nothing holds
more potential for the writer than the empty page. There is no greater
opportunity than the chance to create something new.
As a pastor planting a church in North Port, I am looking for people who have a
vision. I am searching for people who if given a blank canvas could reproduce
what God has shown them in the spirit.
Church is not supposed to be a religious experience limited to the traditions of
our past. It is to be a living growing organism that adapts and changes to meet
the culture and community in which it is found. Church is not simply to be a
degrading photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of what great-grandma’s church
once used to be. There comes a time in every generation where we must break with
the ineffective traditions our father’s, and worship God afresh and new.
Moses was challenged with a new idea. From his history, men only worshipped God
upon a mountain. His first revelation came from that method. However, God had a
different plan. Moses was to build God a tabernacle, and most importantly, not a
tabernacle of his own idea or his own experience, but one of God’s creation and
design.
Exodus 26:30 clearly states that Moses was to build the Tabernacle of God based
on what God had shown him. Not based upon what others had done, but upon what he
himself had seen. Not a tabernacle his parents had designed. Not a tabernacle
designed upon the traditions of his people, but upon the vision God had given
him while he had spent time face-to-face with God.
I know that God has spoken to people of this generation. People who God has
given visions to for children’s ministries, youth ministries, prayer ministries,
altar ministries, Biblical Foundations classes and new believers course. I know
God has spoken to evangelists about new ways of reaching the lost, and
ministering to the hurting. But these new visions do not fit in the old
wineskins of their current church. Some are too radical and too completely
different from how it has been done in the past, that leadership cannot accept
its shape or scope.
That is why I am offering a blank canvas, a part of The Place. Just as Moses was
given the vision for the entire Tabernacle, so I have a vision for The Place.
However, I know that there are individuals who have the detailed intricate
designs for the individual ministries that will be a part of the ministry of The
Place. The purpose of the place is to empower people to step into their destiny.
To become the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, husbands,
wives, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, doctors, lawyers, bus drivers, or
whatever it is that God has called them to be. A people who can be used by God
while waiting tables, or preaching from the pulpit. A people who can walk in the
power of God, and can change the world around them.
If you are one of these visionaries who has been waiting for a blank canvas, a
chance to create the vision God has placed in your heart, then I’d like a chance
to talk with you. Perhaps your vision fits perfectly in the empty space we have
unfilled. Come and meet the other visionaries who are building their individual
ministries and changing lives through the unified framework of The Place.
Pastor Kenneth Swett
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