It’s hard to comprehend all God has done since that small group of us began to meet and pray about a new church in Northeast Minneapolis just over 16 years ago!

In those early days we always always said what I hope is still true – that we would do SO much good that the neighborhood would want us to be here for the long haul.

Fast forward to the end of 2022 – the courage of now Historic Elim Church choosing to join Mill City Church meant that we could be rooted  on the corner of 13th and Madison – this allowed us to be Here for Good in a way that we never could have before!

We are HERE FOR GOOD – Here for the good of the city, The Church, and for generations to come!

Here For Good is the name of a 2-year initiative to increase our impact as we love our community in the name of Jesus.

Loving our community in the name of Jesus has been our mission from the beginning – and we are in an important chapter in the story right now to come together and respond to all God has done.

How did we come to this moment?

In the 16 years since Mill City began, a lot of things have changed. But something that has been the same from the beginning, and that is that we have always asked two questions as a church:

What is God doing, and how are we going to join in?

These questions have guided us from the beginning all the way until now. And will continue to guide us as we go into the future.

For the last year or more we have been intentionally asking these questions and hundreds of people in our community have been listening to God on behalf of our church. And the Here For Good Initiative is the result of that discernment. This initiative will have a financial generosity component to it, it will also mean generosity of time and many people using your gifts.

But at the core – Here For Good is about trying to follow the Spirit of Jesus’ leadership in our lives and in our church.

The reality is – if God is inviting us in to all that we have discerned – it will stretch us, and it will not be easy. But when I look back at the story of God’s goodness to our church – I know God will continue to do more than we could imagine – we’ve already seen it! We are committed to only step towards initiatives that we discerned that God has led us towards as we have been listening to God together. And as usual around here, we are going to be open handed with the outcome.

I am just so humbled and thrilled to be following the Spirit with the Mill City community – you are the most passionate, deeply thoughtful, and Jesus-centered community any pastor could ever hope for!

As we are sharing about the Here For Good Initiative over the next few Sundays we are going to look at the many different places in the Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – where Jesus declares what he came here for.

Jesus often says I have come… and then finishes it up with a very clear statement defining the purpose of why he came.

Seems like what Jesus said he is here for… should give us a picture of what we are here for – as individuals, communities and as a church! Jesus is the leader of The Church and of Mill City Church!

We started with my favorite statement as to why Jesus came in John 10:10:

“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

When we look at how this word is used and what it would have meant to the listeners in Jesus’ context, here is my best definition: Life to the full – Full of God’s presence, full of the Spirit’s leadership and full of meaning and purpose in our lives now and forever.

And the statement is embedded in the very description of how we experience this full life. Jesus says he is the Good Shepherd and those he leads know his voice and follow him. This is exactly what we have done as a church and we will continue to do.

The way to have the good, full, meaningful, and purposeful life that Jesus said he came for is to listen and respond to his voice.

But beyond listening to God as individuals or in smaller groups – we listen to God as a church.

We have some specific ways we do this – but if you are around for a while you will notice we are constantly asking for people to participate with their thoughts and perspectives. The most intentional corporate listening we do is with our Covenant Membership throughout the year in various ways including at our four quarterly membership meetings.

This is the group that did the deep discernment for two churches to come together as one. Many of you weren’t a part of our community when Mill City adopted Elim over two years ago so let me till you this: It was after months of discernment over 90% of the members of both Elim and Mill City voted yes to come together.

When do a group of church folks vote the same on anything? Much less two churches at that time!?!

Listening to God together allowed us to have this unity!

SO many people were listening – there were dreams and visions, from both groups. Folks who had noticed patterns that seemed to be from God, or had scriptures that came up in their mind. In so many ways God spoke to so many people and together we chose to respond – and God has done so much more than we could have imagined in just 2 years!

And we knew God was doing something so big among us, that it was going to be for specific things God had in mind for our church to do together. So not long after we got through the most acute transition as a church…what did we do?

We started listening to God again!

Because that is always going to be what we do. That is what we have always done. Jesus is the good shepherd and his sheep hear his voice – so we move towards the sound of our shepherd’s voice!

We listen and respond, listen and respond. We don’t always get it right or perfectly of course – but we follow the image Jesus shows here, he is a shepherd leading us so we can live into the full life Jesus came here to offer us.

Together hundreds of you have listened to God on behalf of our church. As we listened for over a year we could see what themes emerged when we noticed what it felt like God has been saying to our church community. As we are stepping into this Here For Good initiative everything stems from the themes we heard as a community.

These themes are super directional when it comes to the opportunities that come our way. Mill City actually receives a lot of invites for opportunities and partnerships, and for most of them it’s pretty clear, that even if they are good things – they are not really what God’s been calling us to pursue because we haven’t heard God speaking those things to our community.

So we actually say no, nicely, to a lot of the people and groups that reach out.

But when there’s an emerging opportunity that seems like it’s really in line with one of the themes that we’ve heard from our community, that’s when we really pay attention, and we realize those might be the initiatives that we’re supposed to move towards as we step into God’s future for our church.

The themes that we heard over this last season from all of you were pretty clear. Here’s what they were:

• Evangelism. Our church is growing, but primarily by folks who are already Jesus followers. How might we reach those who don’t know Jesus?

• Investment in kids, youth and young adults. How might we love the young people in our church, but also in our surrounding community

• Depth, a focus on growing deeper as the most important aspect of growth, staying centered on Jesus and living the way of Jesus. Continuing to be an equipping church that sends us out into our communities.

• Greater impact, specifically in northeast – people sense that there is a greater impact we can make due to the greater size of our church.There’s a passion to continue to make a deeper impact in our local community in northeast Minneapolis, among our neighbors.

• Influence in the church. There’s a desire to see our church share what we have learned with the wider church. Continued connection and support offered to other churches to be an encouragement, not competition.

• And then finally church multiplication. Perhaps Mill City can contribute to the growth of the church by multiplying more churches, not merely growing as one church.

So with those six clear themes, it became more and more obvious which opportunities we should step towards as a community. And so that’s what the initiatives within Here for Good are all about.

When you read through the Here For Good website I think you will see how everything Here For Good is about is flowing from these 6 themes that came from all of you!

Together we listened – we noticed opportunities that lined up with the themes we heard, and now it’s time to respond!

And just because we are launching this initiative today, doesn’t mean we are done listening! We are never done! As we move forward, let’s commit to listen and respond and ask our two critical questions – what is God doing and how can we join in?

That way, we can be ready to respond as the Holy Spirit leads us into the future!

We hope you will respond to the goodness of God and join us in the Here For Good Initiative!