When Jesus came into human history he was on a mission to seek and save what was lost. He did it by serving rather than being served, and he did it connected to God the Father.

In Jesus' life and ministry he lived out what he would call us to do. To stay connected to him, to love and build up the church, and to continue his redemptive work in the lives of others.

"With Jesus, in community, on mission" is how we sum this up at Southland, and we want to be doing all three well.

With Jesus makes sense to most of us - you're a Christian.

In community makes sense to most of us - you're in a life group.

On mission... does not compute as easily. This is partly because traditionally mission has been misrepresented as an event rather than a lifestyle. There's also the misunderstanding that mission is something that only takes place overseas and is reserved for trained professionals.

Missional is the word we use to describe the lifestyle of mission that Jesus has called us all to. What this means in the simplest of terms is purposefully doing what Jesus told us to do - to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to connect them to Him along the way.

Around here we've been sharing a lot of stories about the recent rising of self-directed missional groups in our church, and how Jesus is working through them. These missional groups are life groups who are intentionally looking for where Jesus is needed in the neighborhoods and lives around them, and then go to love and serve rather than be served. We've heard many more of you are interested in learning how to identify the mission God has for you. So, at 6:30pm on June 2 in the Chapel of Building A we're going to have a missional group discussion forum. Come on out if you're interested in hearing stories, learning how you can get your life group on mission, asking questions, getting ideas for serving the city, sharing insights from your mission or simply joining the conversation.

We're also doing this discussion forum at our Danville Campus. Same day, same time, different campus.

See you there.