Will Vaus

In chapter four of "The Purpose Driven Church", Rick Warren says, "Your church's foundation will determine both its size and strength. You can never build larger than your foundation can handle." I remember when my wife, Becky, and I had a house built many years ago. We used to go and visit the construction site every day. For a long time, it seemed like very little was happening. However, in fact, the most important thing was happening. The foundation was being laid. That part of the building process took longer than anything else. Once the foundation was laid, it seemed like the construction process went forward very quickly. There were far more obvious and exciting changes happening every day. But the foundation laying process was seemingly tedious and boring. Perhaps the same is true in the life of the church. The process of laying a proper foundation for the life of the church can be a long and tedious process. But I agree with Rick Warren, it is the ...

I am leading a C. S. Lewis Tour this summer to Northern Ireland and England with tour guide, Russ Head. We still have room for others to join us. Here is a link to more information about the trip: C. S. Lewis Tour 2016 . 

Once again, we are approaching the yearly remembrance of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. If people know anything about MLK, they know about his "I Have a Dream" speech given from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963, to a crowd of over 250,000 civil rights supporters. That speech was, in many ways, the focal point of a rallying process for the civil rights movement. People young and old today know bits and pieces of that speech whether they were alive in 1963 or not. If nothing else, that one speech demonstrates the amazing power of good rhetoric, passionately spoken, by a person sold out to a good cause. One thing I like about "The Purpose Driven Church" by Rick Warren is shared in chapter one, "The Saddleback Story". In that chapter, Warren tells us that in his first sermon in his newly planted church in Orange County California in March of 1980, he shared his dreams for the future of the church. It required b...

We have begun reading and discussing "The Purpose Driven Church" by Rick Warren at Stowe Community Church. We are using this book as a catalyst to re-define our purpose as a church, to formulate a new vision, strategy, and goals. The Lord used this book in a previous church I served to jump-start us along the same journey and we were blessed to see that congregation grow from 40 to 200 in attendance on Sunday mornings. So far, the reading and discussion of this book in the context of Stowe has been very stimulating. My hope is to blog about my reading as we make our way through the book, for my benefit, for the benefit of the people of Stowe, and for anyone else who may happen to read this blog. I find that Rick Warren's work is a valuable contribution to what C. S. Lewis called "mere Christianity". For starters, let me simply say I love the image that Warren uses at the beginning of the book. The title of the introductory chapter is: "Surfing Spirit...