Hi, my name is Steve Engram. I’m the executive director of Venture Church Network Southwest. And I’m excited today to talk about our value that we hold together of being gospel driven. We all know the gospel. It’s the good news of Jesus Christ. It’s why He came to save, to deliver to men from the sin, to provide the hope and the promise of eternal life. It’s also that wonderful truth of God’s grace, His forgiveness, and the idea of a second chance. Now, one of the things as a church that we want to be about is how we communicate. How do we get that gospel out into our communities, both by the way we share the message and how we love the community around us?

Around our region, I had the privilege of traveling a few months ago and I was just kind of blown away seeing how churches were being gospel driven. We want to Alamogordo, New Mexico – small community, a lot of poverty there. The church there started a food bank to be able to provide food for families in the community. But more than that, to build relationships with them, to look for those opportunities to share the wonderful good news of the gospel.

I visited our church up in Page, Arizona which is the far northern part of Arizona. It’s a community that, coming out of covid, was having some real problems in their school district. So, they saw the need of providing a Christian school. Though as a church, they typically had older people in the church, really not that many children. But that was their way to take the good news of the gospel to their community. Now they have a Christian school with almost all of the families involved not having been a part of the church prior to this. And they’re being able to be upfront with the gospel.

We visited our church in St. George, Utah. There, they’re getting ready to reach out and plant another church in the other side of town. So, they’re doing two Sunday services – one pastor teaching the other, the other pastor teaching, and their building, their congregation, their worship team, their children’s ministry… all with the idea that one of those congregations will move to the other side of town.

I just got word this week of one of our long-time churches over in the east valley. They just changed their name to One Life. And they’re getting ready to plant a satellite church out in the growing area of town.

Gospel driven – what it causes us to do is to think through how we do ministry and how can we bring the gospel better to our community today. It’s one of the values we have, being Venture Church Network. And I trust you and your church are being gospel driven in thinking through how we take the gospel and how do we live it and share it with the people in our community.

-Steve Engram,
Executive Director, Venture Church Network Southwest