Welcome to the Victory Blog

As we conclude our 20th anniversary celebration, we thought it fitting to welcome our good friend, Dr. Samuel R. Chand, President Emeritus of Beulah Heights Bible College and member of our Executive Board, to come and speak to us out of his passion to help others succeed. His message was, as always, exuberant, hilarious, poignant and exactly what we needed to hear as we move forward into the new things God is doing in and through Victory. I’ll go ahead and write a brief synopsis here, but it’s going to be a teaser only. I really want you to listen to or watch this message…again and again, if necessary, until it sinks into your spirit. So here’s the teaser…

God is calling us to some amazing things. 2010 is OUR year.  In fact, despite what the media prognosticators are saying, 2010 is going to be our best year! This is true for Victory as a church and for us as individuals. But in order for this to happen, we need to Grow It! We are going to experience these things only to the extent that we have the capacity for it. The fulfillment of whatever God has called us to comes down to the issue of capacity.

We need to make up our minds to grow our…

1. Pain capacity, – There is no growth without pain.
2. Relational capacity – There are two kinds of people in this world – people who make deposits and people who make withdrawals. We have to be able to relate to both.
3. Exposure capacity – The more we’re exposed, the more we’re willing to do things.
4. Identity capacity – Our identities are shifting all the time – we’re not the same people we were ten years ago…at least we shouldn’t be.
5. Crisis capacity – Don’t waste your crisis, learn from it.
6. Character capacity – Character is what you do and who you are when no one is watching.
7. Risk capacity – When you’re 100% sure, you’re too late. “Jump out and play in the traffic.”

Now, go listen to the whole message. It will change your life!

We’ve been looking back at the Foundational Stones, or principles, that Victory has been founded on, those things that make the church what it is, and how we can learn from those principles as individual believers.

Years ago, I heard a minister talking about three words that are essential to living like Christ: Simplicity, Sincerity and Sacrifice. These principles really impacted me, and I told Colleen that I wanted our lives and our church to be based on those principles. Since then, we have intentionally made them a part of everything we do as this church has grown.

In Acts 2:41-47, we see a description of the early church that is the prototype of what the church is supposed to look like even still today. There are five basic aspects – doctrine, fellowship, experiencing God, social justice and soul winning. Unfortunately, most churches in America today only focus on one or two of these aspects. Naturally, I wondered what would happen if all five were in place in one church. And, as I thought about this, the Lord showed me three principles that must be in place in order for all five aspects to work together:

1. Simplicity – To reduce to basic essentials. The state of being simple. Uncompounded. Jesus and the disciples lived a different kind of life than everyone else in the world. Our lives are often so cluttered. If we’re not careful, we can get so overwhelmed that it draws our heart away from God. Our lives can get so complicated that we can no longer hear the voice of the Lord. We need to simplify our lives. Jesus was a simple man. He didn’t live a complicated life. He lived a regular life, regular clothes, regular family, regular job…but he kept himself uncluttered. We need to be like him, both in our lifestyle (relationships, possessions and spirituality), and in our theology (major on majors, minor on minors). Neither of these should be complicated.
2. Sincerity – The state of being free from hypocrisy. Sincere people are:
   • Credible – You can trust them.
   • Responsible – You can count on them.
   • Vulnerable – You can know them.
   • Humble – You can teach them.
   • Correctable – You can change them.
   • Incorruptible – You can test them.
3. Sacrifice – To surrender loss of, or give up for and ideal or belief. We cannot live the Christian life without sacrifice. We will not make a difference without it. Just as those in the early church “sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need,” so must we be willing to sacrifice our own comfort to help meet the needs of others. Consider Jesus’ words in Matthew 16:24-25, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” (NKJ)

If we want to look and live like Christ and have a tremendous impact on our world, then these counter-cultural principles must be foundational stones upon which we build our lives.

To download, watch or listen to this message in its entirety, click here.

Update 2/24/2010

Here’s another update we receive last night from Missions Pastor Dennis Russell in Haiti:

Hey all,

Yesterday was the first day with the team. Spent the morning showing the team the earthquake damage with a tour of Port au Prince. During the afternoon, we visited the latest shelter project we have in partnership with ICA and the Canadian Navy. Three structures are going up (two shelters, one storage) and a wooden fence has been erected around the perimeter of the property. When completed, this will be seven structures total (4 shelters, 2 storage, and one latrine). We also worked at our first orphanage putting in mattresses and pillows and finishing with pillow cases and sheets. Looks great, I think … but they don’t all match (sorry, Pastor Colleen, there are serious shopping limitations in Haiti for those without your shopping skills

Today, I took the doctors to meet with Hospitals for Humanity in St. Mark. They hit the ground running seeing gunshot and chainsaw accident victims, etc. Carrie organized medical supplies and I took the video camera and got footage. I think Craig will be proud of me!
The other part of our team is spending the day in Leogane doing recon and assessments for future teams.

Thanks for praying for the people from Haiti.

Blessings,

Dennis.

Twenty years ago, as we were starting this church, we were faced with a challenge: Where do we locate it? Out in the suburbs? In the city? Then, as it is for the most part now, the Body of Christ (and the nation as a whole) was divided between those who focus on moral issues/righteousness and social issues/justice. Churches located in urban areas have typically been great champions of justice issues, but many have ignored moral issues. Conversely, churches in the suburbs have typically placed a heavy emphasis on issues of righteousness, but ignored pressing social issues. And rather than working together, these two factions, if you will, have often worked to invalidate and tear each other down.

This is NOT what God intended for his Church!  It is supposed to be a positive influence in BOTH of these areas. And so, we decided to locate Victory somewhere in between the urban and suburban areas of Metro Atlanta. This was a risky move; many said this location would be death to the church. But God wanted us to be a bridge between the two groups of people and the two types of churches and the two focuses. He put a vision and passion in our hearts to work toward reconciliation between the races and cultures…and that can only happen when we are founded on both righteousness AND justice.

Righteousness = living right; conforming to a moral code of conduct prescribed by God’s Word.

Justice = doing right; doing the right thing for other people; correcting the injustices of society; defending the poor and marginalized; caring about and for people who’ve had injustice done in their lives.

We need a church that is based on righteousness AND justice. It’s when these two things are working together that the throne of God is established. Every church should champion BOTH.

In order to illustrate this, let me mention two particularly hot topics on which much of the church in America is divided today:

1. Homosexuality
2. Immigration

What kind of thoughts did those two words stir up in you? Judgment? Compassion? I’ve preached whole sermons on both of these topics previously, so I’m not going to get into them here. Listen to what I said about them in my message this past weekend, or listen those messages in the HOT TOPICS series and you’ll get the point. We need to interact with these issues (and many others like them) from the standpoints of both righteousness and justice.

We as a church have been strategically placed right on the dividing line between urban and suburban, righteousness and justice, placing us in a unique position to address some of the key issues in our city and people’s lives.  But, in order to make it work, each of us must:

• Seek to understand rather than be understood.
• Let the Word be our standard for living and loving.
• Treat others the way we would want to be treated.

Update 2/23/2010

Our second team is on the ground in Haiti now, working diligently to get the food, clothing, and medical supplies that you graciously provided into the hands of the people who need it the most. Thank you for your generosity. As the rainy season in Haiti approaches, there is a new need that we must address – the need for tents. With most Haitians living in makeshift tent cities under tents made from bed sheets, there is no shelter for them in the massive rains that are about to come. We’ve partnered with Atlanta’s Courageous Church and their aHomeInHaiti.org campaign to become a distribution and drop off point for tents. Through their efforts, we’re able to purchase tents directly through Coleman® well below cost. So, we’re asking that you prayerfully consider making an extra donation to iCare to help purchase much needed shelter for the men, women and children of Haiti.

Also, over the weekend, we received this update from Missions Pastor Dennis Russell concerning the orphanage we’ve been helping:

A good day. Just delivered mattresses and bedding for 96 beds at the orphanage. Will set everything up on Monday after the team arrives. The kids will finally be off the ground and in a bed. God is good!

Update 2/18/2010

Missions Pastor Dennis Russell is now back in Haiti preparing for the arrival of our second team. We received the following update from him last night:

Hey all,
First day back and mostly got reconnected with Haitian contacts. Got enough wood, and much more, to begin another shelter project for a different orphanage. Will visit new site tomorrow. Also preparing for the team’s arrival on Sunday. Still waiting to hear what humanitarian and building supplies we can expect to pick up from the marines tomorrow. At the first free moment, we will work on securing mattresses and bedding for the 96 beds of our first 2 shelters. Please pray for continued success in our endeavors.

For the people of Haiti,
Dennis

It was such a pleasure and a privilege to have John Maxwell, one of our dearest friends and long-term mentors, speak this past weekend as we continue our 20th Anniversary celebrations. The word he brought was, not surprisingly, excellent. I’m not going to repeat it all here, beyond the few key points which follow, so I strongly encourage you to watch it, listen to it and/or download it from our website. If you were there this weekend, you know this message is worth hearing again, and if you weren’t there… well… what are you waiting for?! You don’t want to miss this!

For now, here’s a small sample of his challenging, yet uplifting message:

• What we do on the outside is a result of who we are on the inside. Everything happens from the inside out
• When you’re better on the inside than you are on the outside, and when you’re bigger on the inside than you are on the outside, over time, your influence will be greater on the outside.
• Conversely, if we’re bigger and better on the outside than we are on the inside, our influence will become less on the outside.
• The first person you lead is not someone else, it’s yourself. If you wouldn’t follow yourself, why should anyone else?
• There are four basic levels of getting better on the inside than on the outside:
  1. The Give Me Stage
  2. The Use Me Stage
  3. The Search Me
  4. The Make Me Stage

If you want yourself as an individual, and Victory as a church body, to have increasing influence in our world, you need to get the truth of this message embedded in your spirit. Listen to it and meditate on it. And as John said in his message, if we’ll continue in this path, over the next 5-10 years, it’s going to be unbelievable what God is going to do through Victory. We haven’t seen anything yet!

We just received this exciting update from Jace Rabe, about the well we drilled in Benin, West Africa. (See the original post about this project here.)

Pastors,

What a great day!!!  Yesterday our PFP (Projects For Progress) team in Benin had the “Official Ceremony” forthe VWC well, where the village elders came and gave their thanks/blessing and the plaque was placed on the well, etc.  It is so awesome to see how lives are being drastically changed from this well.

The well was built and officially launched and only used by the village since the first half of Sept, 2009, but we are already hearing reports of better health in the village, and all the women are telling our team on the ground that the “water tastes so good.”  They are coming from all over to use this fresh, clean water.  What a great testimony to God!

The village of Sanson is predominately Muslim, voodoo, and Catholic (mixed with indigenous local religion/beliefs a lot like Santeria).  All in all, just like the rest of Benin, Sanson is a very dark place.   [The plaque,] says in French, “He who believes in Jesus, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.- John 7:38.”  Here we are, smack dab in the middle of Satan’s territory, and because of VWC, we were able to build a well that provides water to about 10,000 folks.  And on top of that, the well proclaims Christ!  That in itself is a miracle, that we got no push back from the elders on this.

It’s because Jesus was about relationship, and that is what we are trying to do.  Just following what Christsaid to do. The people know our hearts and know we love them with a weird, crazy love and that we are not there to just “preach a foreign god” different from their own and move on, but we are there to help
them and love them and desire relationship with them.  When you break down a wall like that, you better watch out, because God is going to do some awesome things.

Wow!  This is just so exciting in what God does.  That scripture really is my prayer for that well.  I pray that every time water is drawn from that well, they will get a taste of the true living water and power and cleansing and healing that comes from Christ, the REAL GOD.  He is going to break through and wash over Benin and West Africa.  I can feel it.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, for making this happen.  I hope we can continue to partner with you guys on projects in Benin and West Africa.  I have attached some other pics as well from the ceremony.  Have a great day!

Regards,

Jace Rabe
Universal Commodities

What a privilege to be a part of life-changing projects like this! Victory, your generosity is what makes this possible. Thank you!

• Watch the Flag Ceremony

It’s really an honor to be celebrating our 20th Anniversary as a church this month. It’s been quite a journey and God has done some amazing things, and continues to do so. We’ve learned a lot over the years. And one of the key things is that God wants his church to be built to last. He wants us to stay relevant, connected and ministering in the community. Yet, most of the top ten churches of the 1980’s no longer exist. Why? More often than not, it’s because they weren’t built on the right foundation – things like the personality of the pastor or popular teaching rather than solid biblical truth. You see, the foundation upon which a church (or anything else for that matter) is built is crucial to its ability to endure the test of time.

Early on in the history of building this church, God began to show us some key foundation stones, or principles, without which the church would crumble. And we worked diligently to put these in place. And, just as these principles must be in place to build a lasting church, the same is also true if we want the kind of life that lasts.

Foundational Stone # 1: Principle of First – Who is going to be first in this church and in our lives. A lot of people want themselves to be first, rather than God. If we cater to people first, it may make them feel good, but it will never change them, never challenge them or make them go deeper with God. Is God first in everything that we do – in our time, relationships, activities, finances, etc.? Biblically, this is one of the key principles from the very beginning of time that God implemented in his children.

The principle of first operates in every facet of our lives. Our hearts fashion after what we worship first.  As soon as I put God first, over and above dating, finding my wife, etc, along came Colleen. We have to put EVERYTHING in line after God first. As long as we put God first, it doesn’t matter what’s wrong with the economy, God will take care of us. If God isn’t first in our lives, we’ve got a weak foundation. It doesn’t take much to rock us. Let’s put God first this year!

Foundational Stone # 2: Principle of Others – From the very beginning of our church, we realized that there’s a purpose that every church has beyond itself, beyond the group of people who make up that church body. “Others” means a whole lot more than just the others in our close circle of family and friends. If we don’t get this vision, we’ll get all religious and inward focused and miss out on the wonderful things God wants to do through you in this world.

Do you love people of other cultures and races as much as you love yourself? This is not an easy thing to do. Most of us aren’t raised to love like that. Most of us don’t “hang” with people who aren’t just like us. But, if we do love others the way God wants us to, it will show in who we hang out with in our private life. Years ago, Colleen and I were told that incorporating mixed cultures in our church would kill our church, but we believed that there is a culture that supersedes human culture – kingdom culture. We have committed to loving other people and God has blessed us.

We’ve got to break this “me” mentality that is so prevalent in our culture and replace it with an “others” mentality – serving one another. What would life be like if we all began living land doing church like it wasn’t all about us, but about others?

I want to build a lasting life and be a part of a lasting church, don’t you? If so, we’ve got to start by putting God first in everything and loving others as much as ourselves. As we go forward in this year, let’s renew our commitment to these things and watch as God does amazing things both in and through us during the next twenty years because of it!

Want to be challenged and encouraged? Listen to, watch or download this message.

• Watch the Haiti Update

Update 2/8/2010

Yesterday (Sun, Feb. 7th) the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on the relief efforts of Pat Bradley of International Crisis Aid and our very own Missions Pastor Dennis Russell in conjunction with the US Marines and the Canadian Navy. Although we’ve written about much of this heroic story here, it bears repeating – all to God’s glory! Read the article online here.