EE Leaders | Leadership Lessons Season 2 Episode 12 - Loving Your City

Casey Cleveland, Lead Pastor at Avenue Church, Delray Beach, FL, talks about what it means to love your city, and how they do that at Avenue Church. (But first, he shares the story of how he and Pastor Daniel met and the impact that had on him and his church. God is at work!) One of the tools Avenue Church has used in loving their city has to do with math, where “a hundred is greater than a million.” Jesus operated His ministry this way, pouring Himself into the 12 disciples. Delray Beach, like every city, has its own unique diversity, and Avenue Church has been trying to love people where they are and to create a family within that group. Using Paul Tripp’s 4-Circle paradigm of Love, Know, Speak, Do, Casey explains the approach they have used in connecting with their community. ‘Keep giving them Jesus.” This is 18 minutes of godly wisdom and it’s pure gold.

QUOTES: 

“This has been our guiding principle…as Jesus was sent, so He now sends us.” -Casey Cleveland

“How did Jesus love the world? The first thing He did was enter the world…We try to leave our own world and enter the world of the city.” -Casey Cleveland

“Our first move here in the city has to be an outward move.” -Casey Cleveland

“We want to lovingly apply the gospel to their area of need as we speak the truth to them.” -Casey Cleveland

“We commit to the process of change which is often slow and super messy.” -Casey Cleveland

One Piece of Advice | Connecting People to God

Vince Putnam, Senior Pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Delray Beach, FL, shares his one piece of advice: Teach and unpack every part of the service every week planning on a person who is in a church for the first time. Vince came to this understanding through a unique approach to inviting people to attend their service. What they said radically changed the way Vince teaches.

“Out of 50 or so, I got one person to say they would come back. The why nots were basically they couldn’t connect with what was happening. It wasn’t meaningful to them.” -Vince Putnam

“It was a real dagger to the heart, that what we were doing on Sunday morning was not connecting God to a person who had never been in the church before.” -Vince Putnam

“We started thinking through every part of the service…and teaching into those things and unpacking them so that people could experience those things in a meaningful way.” -Vince Putnam

LINKS:

Contact Daniel: daniel@eeleaders.com

Leadership Lessons/One Piece of Advice/Blog/Recommended Books: eeleaders.com