God encourages us to walk by faith and to dream big! The Emmanuel Pittsburgh mission and mandate is to connect people to Christ and the dream is how we envision getting this Kingdom work done!
It is a dream of a place where those who are in pain, emotionally spent, frustrated and confused can enter in and find peace, love, acceptance, forgiveness, guidance, encouragement and hope.
It is a dream of a place set aside where the Good News of Jesus Christ might be shared with thousands locally and thousands more beyond the geographic boundaries of the church zip code through all of the physical and electronic evangelism instruments that God has allowed this generation of Believers to have access to and stewardship over.
It is a dream of welcoming thousands of God’s people into the fellowship of Believers that make up the Emmanuel Baptist Church family—where we might be able to love, laugh, learn, and grow together in order to carry out Christ’s missionary and evangelism mandates as individuals and as a church family.
It is a dream of developing people to full spiritual maturity, empowerment and confidence through sound and diverse Bible-based instruction thereby enabling them to live as confident and credible witnesses to others about the awesomeness of God and great gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.
It is a dream of preparing and equipping every Believer for transformational ministry and optimal Kingdom impact by helping them to discover and then grow the gifts, talents and abilities that God has given them.
It is a dream of sending out of hundreds of committed missionaries, evangelists, church workers and associate ministers throughout the region and globally in order to be instruments for extending God’s Kingdom on earth wherever He desires it to grow.
It is a dream of inspiring and motivating individuals to seek daily opportunities to help and positively impact the lives of others through personal evangelism and missionary work.
It is a dream of sending out hundreds of members throughout the world—on every continent—to help people in need—to facilitate the healing of those who are sick and the restoration of those who are broken—and to share God’s love and gift of salvation with those who do not yet know about it.
It is a dream of planting new churches wherever God directs that they be planted in order to extend the family of Believers that is Emmanuel Pittsburgh.
It is a dream of a multi-use facility to serve as a base of ministry operations with ample physical resources, land and facilities to support a multitude of ministry activities including—and worship center, conference space, community activities center, child care facility, health clinic, book and media store, social gathering café, counseling center, vocational training, tutoring and academic assistance—all created by God to meet physical needs while ministering to the ‘whole’ person spiritually, emotionally, physically, socially and economically.
I communicate this dream—with confident assurance and patient expectation that it ALL will become a reality because they are inspired God and fueled by the faith that God has given us as children.
Penned in Faithful Expectation!
