Living Stones
Growing People, Multiplying Leaders

E3 Increasing Excellence

Our Tribe - Week 7

4 years ago

The Acts 2 Church was part of a powerfully unified community connected by shared values and purpose. The culture was so countercultural that people were drawn into their community. You see, if the culture isn’t right, nothing else really matters, and that’s because culture always wins! If you have a great culture, your church will thrive. A great culture enables you to do great things! In our current series, Our Tribe, we will clarify what Living Stones is all about! We will talk about the 7 things we value here, and how these values shape what we do! Our culture must be incarnated! Today we talk about our 6th value: Excellence! Excellence is the continual pursuit to grow and to maximize the resources that God has given us to steward. Excellence refers not to the AMOUNT of talent, authority, or resource you have been given, but to the level of FAITHFULNESS in which you demonstrate. The parable of the talents in Matthew 25 is the basis for excellence – culminating in this: “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness” - Matthew 25:23 When we operate in excellence, it is not in a carnal or worldly sense of performance, but rather it originates from our passion and desire to serve our Father and King well! “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” Colossians 3:23

Launching in 1981 as just 30 people in a living room in Northwest Indiana, Living Stones has grown into a vibrant multi-generational church family. Stones are a product of God the Creator — formed in nature and no two are alike. As we come to faith in Jesus Christ, scripture tells us that we are like living stones in the hand of God and He is using us to build up a spiritual house. Our foundation was built on the work of nurturing and restoring healthy, biblical marriages. In continuing that mission, everything we do here at Living Stones is centered around loving, healing, and equipping individuals and families to grow into a greater likeness of Christ Jesus! By the Holy Spirit, we exist today to Renew Hearts, Restore Homes, Reform Culture and Reach the Nations with the gospel of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:4-5 ”As you come to him who is the Living Stone — he was rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious — you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house.” We are a family — misfits, hypocrites, creatives, addicts, reformers, over-churched, unchurched, wanderers — each of us a stone, uniquely crafted by the hand of God, made alive through Jesus, and now living by the power of the Holy Spirit. Together, we are Living Stones.