Last
week I was notified that the church I pastor,Lake Ridge Church in Willoughby, OH., had been selected
to receive a ChurchHealth Award from Purpose Driven Ministries.
Purpose Driven is a ministry founded by Pastor Rick Warren and Saddleback Church in
Lake Forest, CA. Lake Ridge was a
pilot church for the 40 Days of Purpose in 2002, which is based on Rick’s book,
The Purpose Driven Life.  Since that time we have been working to
implement the five biblical purposes (Fellowship, Worship, Ministry, Discipleship,
and Evangelism) into everything that we do at Lake Ridge. We work being purpose
driven into the way we teach, into our student ministry, children’s ministry,
budget, our life groups, and the we reach out to our community.

This award has been made
possible because of the leaders and people of our church. Our leaders have
worked hard at implementing the purpose driven model into our church because it
is biblical. The Purpose Driven is a biblically-based church health model. The foundation
for the Purpose Driven model is the Bible — with an intentional emphasis on
the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37–40) and the Great
Commission (Matthew 28:19-20).

Jesus gave the Great Commandment when he was asked to identify the most
important of God’s commands. To paraphrase his response, he said, “Here is the
entire Old Testament in a nutshell. I’m going to give you a simple summary of
God’s commands: ‘All the Law and all the Prophets can be condensed into two
tasks: Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Later, as Jesus said goodbye to his disciples, he gave them a Great Commission
that included three more tasks: go make disciples, baptize them, and teach them
to obey everything Jesus taught.

These two
passages, the Great Commandment and the Great Commission, combine to create the
essential elements of a healthy, growing, biblically-based church: worship,
fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and missions.

We are
deferring accepting this award until 2006, as we have a wedding in our church
family that coincides with the Purpose Driven Conference.  We will be
planning a big celebration next year and hope to take dozens from our church to
the Purpose Driven Conference when we receive the award. Even though we will
not be accepting the award this year, it is a huge accomplishment for Lake Ridge Church. Keep up the great work!

Pastor Jeff