From 1.0 to 3.0

Launching the All In series after the summer study of Philippians, Pastor Max Lyons recalls 2010, when a no-name photo-sharing app called Instagram launched as version 1.0 with three features; it is now on version 441 with three billion monthly users. Elan Church had its own 1.0 in a theater with blue walls, praying the speakers and live stream would hold. Moving into the current building two years ago marked Elan 2.0, and since then the church has doubled, launched a second service, and baptized 53 people in a single year. While on vacation, Pastor Max and Pastor Juliet sensed God saying He is doing a new thing: the church is moving into Elan 3.0, and the year ahead will be the year of the shepherd and the leader. Every believer has a measure of leadership.

Comfort is the enemy of growth

Everyone loves the idea of a new thing, but few want to change anything to get there. The first time you do anything you are not good at it, and growth only comes through discomfort. "God loves you as you are, but he loves you too much to leave you as you are." Pastor Max points to a map of the promised land and notes that even in David's day Israel occupied only a fraction of what God had promised, not because God could not deliver but because they were not ready. The limiting factor on what God can do in your life is not God but you, and before He does anything new through you, He does something new in you.

Start with God

Isaiah 43 opens with God identifying Himself as the one who made a way through the sea. Joining God's new thing starts with God, not with us, and there is a massive difference between knowing God and knowing about God. Pastor Max admits he knows about the artist Forrest Frank from his music and videos but would never be invited to his house, and says many Christians relate to Jesus the same way. In Acts 19 the sons of Sceva tried to cast out demons in the name of "Jesus whom Paul preaches" and were beaten and sent running naked and bleeding. There is no power in a secondhand relationship with God; you cannot borrow one from your parents, spouse, or pastor.

Let go of the old

Isaiah continues, "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past." God is leading each of us out of something and into something: out of destructive mindsets into the mind of Christ, out of hurt and unforgiveness into freedom. Pastor Max describes trying to hand his kids cheeseburgers while their hands were full of barbecue chips; they could not hold both. Many of us are so busy holding on to our own plans that we miss God's, which are always better. In the earliest days of planting Elan, barely affording groceries, friends called with lucrative jobs elsewhere, and he and Juliet had to deliberately lay those down. You cannot drive forward staring in the rearview mirror.

Grab hold of the new: Pentecost in Naperville

Isaiah 43:19 declares, "See, I am doing a new thing!" God never changes, yet He is always doing something new. Borrowing the idea of the three-word elevator pitch that sold the film Alien as "Jaws in space," Pastor Max condenses what he believes God wants to do through Elan into three words: Pentecost in Naperville, and in Aurora, Plainfield, Wheaton, Downers Grove, Bolingbrook, and the surrounding region. Reading Acts 2, he describes a Spirit-filled church with thousands coming to faith. Elan does not aim to be an attractional church that draws crowds by being entertaining, but a Holy Spirit-led church that creates an environment where the manifest presence of God shows up. That is why Sunday Gatherings are shifting to a shorter opening and more time for ministry at the end, and why the church is praying and fasting for God to have His way.

The challenge: lay it down

Pastor Max closes by giving the room thirty seconds to ask the Holy Spirit what they have been carrying that does not belong in their future, whether unforgiveness, a destructive mindset, or a distraction, to write it down, and to bring it to the front and lay it at Jesus' feet. You cannot step into the new thing God is doing while still holding on to the old.