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You thought you were in control. You had everything running just like you wanted it. Sure, you weren’t ahead or anything crazy like that. But you weren’t behind, either. All of your projects—whatever they happened to be—were moving along nicely. You were meeting the millions of deadlines threatening to overtake you. The work was hard, but you were getting things done.

And then it happened.

You took one terrifying, stress producing, step beyond your capacity. Perhaps it was one project too many at work, too many things went wrong at home, or the combination of any number of good or bad things. Regardless of its nature, at some point, you realize a terrifying, anxiety-producing, stress-building, burnout track, truth:

You don’t control your work, it controls you.

Ever been here?

The question isn’t whether or not you’ll find yourself in this situation; it’s when. When it happens, how will you respond? Some people retreat from their responsibilities, in order to recover a sense of peace, joy, control, and meaning. These folks escape to “worlds” where their sense of comfort, control, power, approval, or whatever, is re-established and not threatened. Others, on the other hand, respond to overwhelming pressure by simply trying harder. These overachievers will accomplish their responsibilities, whether it costs them their relationships or their health. Far from easing your difficult situation, these responses make it worse.

While I have committed both of these errors over the years, I’ve found that three things have helped me more than anything else:

Identify the god behind the work – If someone were to ask you why you were so stressed, frustrated, worried, or uneasy, you would list a task or person. But in order to understand why your work controls your stress level, you need to identify the god behind the work. Behind every project, whether you are religious or not, is a god. Sure, you probably don’t call it that. But your god, as Tim Keller has so nicely put, is simply “whatever is most important to you.” It may be human approval, control, comfort, security, or some other good thing. It’s what you need in order to be happy, at peace, and to feel meaningful. These gods lay behind everything you do, motivating you every step of the way, although they are often undetected. If your god is human approval, then the reason (among many others) you work is to get recognized, appreciated, and celebrated. If your god is power, then the reason you work is to gain more power. The work is a means to an end. And these gods control your emotions and stress level. If you have a god of human approval, you are excited when you think that you will complete your project in a way that gets you recognition and celebrated. But when you don’t think you’re work will acquire approval and appreciation, you will be worried and anxious. And so it is with every other type of god. In order to find freedom in your work, you need to identify the god behind your work.

Expose the lie of the god – Once you’ve identified the god behind your work—the god who controls you—you need to expose the lie of the god. In short, the lie that you currently believe is that you have to have people’s approval, be in control, etc. in order to “be somebody”, to be happy, be satisfied, be safe, etc. It seems convincing in your head, especially since the world says that and lives like it is true. But it is false. The fact is, and you know this on your better days, whenever you get your god (human approval, more control, etc.), you never get the lasting joy, satisfaction, and meaning that you thought you would. These gods never deliver. These gods are liars. They promise to give you life, as they lead you down the path of discontent, meaningless, smallness, and death. Take the control of your meaning, joy, and life out of the hands of these impotent, lying gods, so you can find what you’re looking for. In order to do this, you need to expose the lie of your particular god.

Rest in the God who works – The joy, meaning, and peace, that you have been working so hard for is found in one place—one person. In Christ, you can have the satisfaction, meaning, and peace that you always hoped existed, but never found. While your joy, meaning, and peace used to depend on your work and your circumstances, when you rest in Jesus, all of these great things are yours, apart from your work and circumstances. Rather than work hard for lazy, lying gods, Jesus invites you to rest in the God who works for you. You can rest because Jesus completed the most important work—the work that secured your eternal joy, happiness, and meaning—on the cross, without your help. This joy, happiness, and contentment isn’t earned by your hard work, it is received by faith in Christ’s sufficient work. You don’t have to work perfectly (perfect parent, worker, etc.) in order to have the happiness, meaning, joy, peace you always hoped existed. You don’t have to have perfect circumstances (easy work load, easy kids, etc.) in order to have the happiness, meaning, joy, peace you always dreamed was possible. As you rest in the God who works, you receive the power to work through his Spirit and the priorities of work through his Word. Rather than worry about being something you can’t be at work, rest in the God who made, redeemed, and empowered you to work for his glory. Instead of dying under your work, let Jesus’ work-which cost him his life-free you to work with passion and joy.

Music City, Songwriting capitol of the world, Athens of the south. All these labels describe the types of work our city does well—the types of work that cause people to move to Nashville. But when you talk to people about why they want to stay in Nashville, you don’t usually hear them talk about their type of work. Instead, you hear them talk about the type of people in Nashville. They describe the area as friendly, warm, fun, etc. Music may bring them here, but the people make them want to stay.

There will inevitably be a wide range of reasons why people come to Redemption City. But we understand that one of the key reasons they’ll want to stay (or not) has to do with the type of people we are. We believe that the type of community Jesus is calling us to be is seen in the book of Acts. This Redemptive Community is marked by both Depth and Growth. In Acts 2:41-47, we see the early church doing life with each other at a relational depth that we all long for, yet, frankly, probably think is impossible. They know each other and are known by each other. BUT their relational depth did not stunt numerical growth. Their community didn’t turn into a relational cul-de-sac. Instead, we see a community experiencing explosive growth, as God multiplied their community greatly. Their community was marked by both Depth and Growth.

We are praying that Redemption City Church will be marked by both Depth and Growth as well. And in order to do this, we think that we have to be a people marked by four key things:

Intentional People – Creating a community marked by both Depth and Growth won’t happen on accident. With overcommitted schedules, the Facebook and twitter illusion of friends, and other factors, it can be difficult to create a community like this. We have to be intentional about engaging people at a deeper level relationally WHILE reaching out to the people Jesus has placed all around us. Let’s live life on purpose.

Flexible People – One of the prayers for Redemption City is that our church look like our community. And our community is made up everything from white collar, blue collar, and no collar folks. We have everything from artists to rednecks. We have introverts and extroverts. We have Cardinals fans (sadly) and Cubs fans:). Each group of people have their own unique views on parenting, marriage, lifestyle, etc. When you put all those different types of people in a home group, church, etc., it will be messy. It was messy for the early church and it will be messy for us. But the community that we all long for only exists in that mess. In order to thrive in the mess, we have to be a flexible people.

Prayerful People – We won’t have the Depth or Growth that we want apart from Jesus’ help. This, of course, is why we have to be a prayerful people. In prayer, we are acknowledging that we can’t create this and asking God to do it for his glory. Without the prayer in Acts 1, we probably wouldn’t have the power displayed in Acts 2. Let’s ask Jesus to do the impossible as we pursue the path to which he’s called us.

Gospel People – Redemptive Community has the gospel at the center. It creates a community marked by Depth and Growth. It has Depth because the gospel removes the need to pretend like we have it all together. If we did, then there would be no need for the cross. The good news of the gospel can only be heard in contrast to the bad news of our situation. In groups then, we don’t have to pretend like everything is okay. And when we stop pretending, we become a people of depth. Also, the Gospel cause Growth. In short, it is the best news in the world. If we truly understand the gospel, we will want to share it. We all tell people about our favorite restaurants, movies, etc. It’s silly to think that we wouldn’t share the best news in the world. As a gospel people we will be marked by both Depth and Growth.

At Redemption City, we hope that our community will be marked by both Depth and Growth. It marked the early church and meets many of the needs for which our community longs. We’d love for you to consider helping us build this kind of community as we build his city in our city.

The Vision for Redemption City Church

Since its founding in 1779, Nashville has been a strategic place of opportunity and influence. Although Nashville initially was known for its important river port and railroad center, it has become a major center for several industries. Perhaps the Nashville metro area—an area consisting of over 1.6 million people— is most popularly known as “Music City,” since it is a hub for pop, rock, bluegrass, Americana, jazz, classical, contemporary Christian, blues, and soul music. But it is also known as the “Athens of the South,” since over 24 colleges and universities call it home. Of course, the metro area is also a hub for book publishing houses, and the healthcare, finance, and transportation industries. These realities make the Nashville metro area a place of great influence and diversity, attracting people from all over the globe to its opportunities. Thankfully, the Nashville metro area has a wide range of churches. As such, it is fair to ask if the Nashville metro area is in need of another church. I certainly asked this. In short, the answer is. “Yes.”

There are at least three key reasons why the Nashville metro area needs another church. First, about 70-75% of people do not attend an evangelical church at all.[1] This means 1.2 million people out of the 1.6 million people in the Nashville metro area stay home each Sunday, without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. While we’re grateful that this is a higher percentage than other places in the world, the work is far from finished. Secondly, the percentage of unchurched people in the Nashville metro area is growing. In the targeted area, population growth rate is 3.5%, which is well above the national population growth rate. Unfortunately, it is also well above the rate of growth for the church in the area. This means the percentage of the population attending a local church is shrinking every year. Thirdly, church plants typically reach the unchurched faster, 6-8 times faster than established churches.[2] While established churches must become more evangelistic, they must also plant new churches. This reality led Peter Wagner, a leading thinker of church practices, to say, “The single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven is planting new churches.”[3] These three key reasons lead us to believe that the Nashville metro area needs new churches. We plan to plant Redemption City on the southside of the city in Franklin, TN.