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Thanks heaps for visiting. Those of us who are already navigating this Heartland adventure count it an honour and a privilege to have this opportunity to connect with you.
Our web presence is a work in progress as it should be. We don’t pretend to have all the answers or even many of them. We do however want to serve people from the communities within which we live, work and play in such a way as to be a useful help and a blessing to those people and it is our heart’s desire that we might in some small way be an instrument for the flow of God’s favour towards them.
We also want to connect, support and or empower people.
People who are being stirred to tangibly represent God’s heart in the every day. People who hunger to discover God’s kingdom purposes for the outworking of their lives and the lives of those around them. People who just want to have a go at strategically advancing these things in partnership with others in and through their homes, in their extended families, in their neighbourhoods, their workplaces, learning spaces and community group involvements; whatever and wherever these spheres of opportunity are and whenever they are there.
We hope you enjoy your visit and avail yourself of whatever is helpful to you. Please don’t hesitate to connect with us if you believe that could be helpful to you in that place where you are.
It It probably needs to be said that the people who will get the most out of a connection with Heartland will be those who are on a journey of discovery and or re-discovery about the things that actually matter to God. Without being too precious about it, people connected to Heartland are becoming more convinced that the church needs to be redefined by the pattern of Jesus’ ministry even more than it has been. This is NEVER just a broad criticism of churches; it is simply an insatiable desire to get beyond believing that what we each do in the name of ‘OUR’ church is the most important thing. It just isn’t.
It is a wonderful and gracious truth that God’s desire is for you and I to experience the joy of being involved with Him in this process called life, faith and mission but let’s never forget that the Holy Spirit was working before we showed up on the block and will still be working hard after we knock off so our best option is to get on board with what God is doing. The great revivalist Jonathan Edwards once said;
the responsibility of every generation is to discover where the move of God (actually) IS and BE IN IT!
(Emphasis mine)
Well, this is the rollercoaster ride that we want to represent. Be assured that Heartland only exists to provide an intentional space within which to journey and explore this. It is ONLY a stepping stone and NOT the corner stone. We will gladly fold up the entity as soon as God initiates something that will take us all to the next station. If Heartland ever gets mentioned in future conversations, our prayer is that it will only be known as one example of how a bunch of people could work and represent Jesus in the world together (wherever they were located) in such a way, that the individual names and identities of those involved will be inconsequential.
So, at the beginning of this journey, we are searching the bible and talking with trusted mates in an effort to find the simple things that are still worth dying for. The following is a brief summary of what we have discovered so far and begun to seek help from God for, so that we’ll be resourced properly to fully commit. We offer these thoughts humbly and openly as fuel for a refining process that hopefully challenges and inspires.
- If the primary purpose of our existence is to work with any and all who will show up to action a genuinely credible strategic plan that will see the great commission task completed within a single generation (Matthew 24:14; 28:18-20)
Then, in order to achieve this primary purpose, we will need to daily discover and catch some things that we can clearly see in and through the life and extended ministry of Jesus and make them priorities that we can work on together, so …
- Our primary motive should be the holy love of Jesus, that is his indiscriminate, outrageous and redemptive (rescuing) love for ALL people (John 3:16)
- Our primary community or operation base development process should be to build relationships with each other that are defined and modelled by the complete oneness that is expressed in and through the relationship between God the Father and Jesus the Son. (John 17:21-23)
- Our primary method of operation should be to equip believers who will both do the work of the ministry and equip more believers to do more of the work of the ministry; and as such attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4)
Those who are utilizing the Heartland conduit are starting to understand that if we keep the Primary Purpose as our main business and engage and enact the Primary Motive, the Primary Community Development process and the Primary Method of Operation equally as our daily priorities, then 3 things are likely to happen by the grace of God.
Firstly, we will see more of the power of the Holy Spirit released to empower people’s lives because, even though it is humanly impossible to pursue all four of these things together at the same time, it is a biblical imperative.
Secondly, we will be able to commit to this as a way of life wherever we are located and whatever connection or brand of church we run with and\
Thirdly, we just might see God’s kingdom come and his will being done on earth AS it is in heaven. And to borrow a phrase from an old hymn of the faith, “that will be glory indeed”.
The Heartland Bunch
(March, 2010)
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