HANDS OF HOPE

Traction

Pastor Mark Batterson of National Community Church recently declared, “time may be measured in minutes, but life is measured in moments!” As a church, we are in a moment of momentum! We have seen our church grow and increase in a number of different ways. We have added an extra kids class, our youth group has doubled in size and our Sunday morning attendance has gone up 60% in less than 2 years. Furthermore, we have seen the largest attendance at our last EQUIP semester, we have the most people in small groups than any other time in our history and the church is healthy and strong.

Momentum is encouraging and is something that we thank God for, however, how do we sustain it? We believe that we need momentum traction. “Traction” is defined as the adhesive grip which empowers the act of pulling. A great example of this would be the grip of your tires on the road. Traction, therefore, enables a force or power to move something forward.

In order to understand this concept more completely, let’s contrast the concept of traction with inertia. Inertia is the tendency to do nothing or remain unchanged. In other words, inertia resists movement. It’s “spinning your wheels”! When you “spin your wheels” you expound energy but go nowhere. Traction is the key component in generating and sustaining momentum. God wants us as a church to find traction so that we maintain our momentum. To get supernatural momentum for our future, we must build supernatural traction in our now!

At times it is easy to get your eyes on something that you believe will give you traction rather than the true source of traction. For me personally, I feel like the vision and hope for a building has caused me to lose traction for the future. At times I feel like I landed in this place that says, “once we have a building then everything will work out!” A building will not give us traction! Only Jesus can give us traction! Look at Paul’s response to the Galatians:

Galatians 5:7-8 (NLT) – “You were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth? It certainly isn’t God, for he is the one who called you to freedom.”

Jesus is our example. Jesus is the one who overcame every obstacle. Now He is calling us to do the same. He is calling us to keep our focus on Him. The writer of Hebrews describes it perfectly:

Hebrews 12:1-2 (NLT) – “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting Him, He endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now He is seated in the place of honour beside God’s throne.”

Jesus understood that without friction, there is no traction! Traction makes use of friction to gain an advantage for momentum. Resistance actually gives us something to push against. It is vital to our success. To be an overcomer, you need something to overcome. God wants us to see our friction as a place of opportunity to get traction! For too many of us friction actually leads us to inertia but God is calling us as a church to allow the friction of the moment to gain traction and propel us into a new season of momentum and growth. Traction and momentum bears good, healthy and sustainable fruit.

As Frank Damazio said at a recent leadership conference, “we are preparing the church not for what it is today, but for what it is tomorrow!” As a result, the Pastoral Team is excited to let everyone know that we are going to 2 Sunday morning services starting January 8th, 2017. It is a “new service for a new year!” We believe that this will create the traction necessary to sustain what God is doing! We are still trusting God for a permanent building, however, we are not waiting in a place of inertia! We are moving forward and believing for “momentum traction” in our NOW!