Saturday, January 7, 2012

Not an Event, But a Life

So I've been reading this book called "Cracking You Church's Culture Code" and it has really been changing the way I perceive culture in organizations. One of the quotes from this book is "Culture eats Vision for breakfast" which basically means, you can have the best vision for your organization, but unless your organization has established a culture to attain that vision, it will never come to fruition.

Pura Vida's vision is to change lives by providing Christ-centerd, life-changing mission adventures. And the culture we try to set when teams are here is by one of Pura Vida's most important saying's; Not an Event, But a Life. We use this for our mission teams that come down on a week long mission trip and serve through VBS and construction. This statement holds significance because so many times people will come, get fired up for the Lord, then return home and think that it no longer applies; we feel different.

A few scriptures that affirm our way of thinking (our culture if you will) comes straight from Paul. In Philippians 3:16 Paul tells us to "live up to what we have already attained"! Paul is speaking of righteousness and the gift of reconciliation. In 2 Corinthians 5, (paraphrased) Paul tells us that we are the ambassadors of Christ and to no longer consider anyone in a worldly pint of view, and because of Christ, we have been reconciled (or restored) to God through Christ, we are therefore ministers of the gift of reconciliation.

So Not an Event, But a Life: live as one who is reconciled, not just on Sunday, or on a missions trip, but all your days. For you are an ambassador of the one who reconciled you to our Father and therefore you are now a minister of that same good news to everyone you meet.

¡Pura Vida!

Jamie Clemens

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