Events Podcast - Closing Explanation and Exhortation

For those who prefer text over audio, this is the outline for the attached recording:

As most of you have heard, our weekly events podcast has been discontinued. The purpose of today’s message is to share with you the reasons WHY and to encourage you to seize the opportunities that still lie before you in our community, before those too pass us by.

Before we get into that, I would like to remind you, that we will continue to maintain the Nashville Christian Event Calendar on our site at NashvilleChristian.com. This calendar features events that are open to the entire Christian community, including event details, contact information for the host, and a map to the facility. We hope that you will find this resource useful, as you continue your journey.

Now back to the podcast, we invested three months into producing this podcast, which required roughly 25% of the TIME we have allocated to serve our community through this website each week. In addition to that, we invested a fair amount of finance and a good deal of time trying to get the word out to our community. We mailed out over 200 letters to local churches, soliciting their participation, by asking them both to submit their special events, as well as to help spread the word about this podcast to their fellowships. Of those 200 churches, only a couple have responded or shown any interest at all.

We offered the code and programming required to share our podcast on other local ministry websites, in hopes of increasing unity throughout our city, however, we’re only aware of one ministry that partnered with us and actually took advantage of that opportunity.

John 15:1-2 (NASB)

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.”

This is the test that all or ministries and our lives are held up to. Whenever a branch fails to bear fruit it is cut off so that we can concentrate our energy in an area where hopefully there is life. Ultimately, every area of NashvilleChristian.com will be held up to this test. Right now there are many areas which we believe have tremendous potential but aren’t bearing much fruit. We are currently in a season of sowing, but the day will come in the near future when we will no longer sow our time into efforts that the community is not responding to.

One of the biggest misconceptions about our website, is many view it as a local Christian CONTENT PROVIDER; a good place to GET information, without feeling a need to engage, participate, or give back to the community. This website is not a spectator sport! It is an OPPORTUNITY to PARTICIPATE in COMMUNITY, in ways which we never have before. It is a platform to use the gifts that God has given you, regardless of your skill level or maturity, to Speak LIFE to your local brothers and sisters in Christ! It is an opportunity to share your personal testimony, to share what God is doing in your life, to share your journey into increased intimacy with Him, and to encourage and build up our community in love. View this website as a COMMUNICATION NETWORK, and communicate! Don’t view it as a content provider and simply sit on the receiving end. Community only works when YOU get INVOLVED!

Many opportunities to move toward unity have come and gone in our city over the past couple of decades. The reality is the old adage is true, “opportunities pass”. Our commitment at NashvilleChristian.com is not to labor long and hard to keep this website running regardless of what fruit it produces. Our commitment is to serve God the best we know how with our LIVES. If in the end, this website fails to produce good fruit, without a second thought we will allow God to prune it off, shut it down, and walk on to whatever He has next for us in life.

Please don’t let this opportunity pass by without doing your part to PARTICIPATE in whatever God wants to do in our city through this website.

May the hand of God mold us into a reflection of His love for us!

NashvilleChristian.com
One Body, One City, One Click!

Finally, we would like to publicly THANK JERRY BRYANT for being a selfless servant to us, functioning both as the voice and recording engineer of our weekly events podcast, as well as standing with us in our mission to help UNIFY the city Church of Nashville. Pastor Jerry has been one of our website’s largest proponents, who is continuing to help open doors with leaders throughout our city, to help sell a vision that many have grown weary of. I pray many blessings upon your household my friend, and THANK YOU for your help!