CULLMAN – Joey Coots, pastor for 12 years at Journey Church, has great advice for living a real life of purpose. To start, he said it is easy for people to get connected at Journey Church. There is always a place to get plugged in, whether it be working in the nursery, helping on the youth team, volunteering in the parking lot, or assisting with children’s ministry. Pastor Joey thinks it is important that folks find something to do within a church besides just attending and being a spectator. “We want you to be a participant,” he said.
He emphasized that it is vital that Christians attend church regularly. “There is an importance on being faithful in church attendance,” he said. He even wrote a book on it called, “The Church”, where he writes about how to join a church, how to stay in church, and how to leave a church. He said, “Sometimes a church may not have what you are looking for, but that may mean that you are there to help grow that area.”
To be a regular church attendee means that you want to learn. If you want to learn more about something, you have to go where it is being taught; therefore, if you want to learn more about your walk with Christ and how to be better at it, you must go to church and learn with other believers. Pastor Joey said that as a part of the basic roots of a Christian, you should enjoy and desire to be among God’s people. To emphasize this point, he spoke on the motto of Journey Church: Real. Life. Purpose.
To explain the ‘Real’ part, he said, “When you come here, we want you to be real. We don’t want superficial Sunday Christians. If you’ve got problems, bring them to church with you, let’s pray, let’s let you leave without them. And you’re going to get real from us. I don’t try to put on a facade on Sunday that I’m not on Monday. God can only deal with real. We’re real people living a real life.”
He then went on to explain what ‘Life’ means within their church motto, “We believe our church should be with the Word, and everything we do should be relevant to where we’re living at today, that the issues we’re facing, social issues, anything like that should be relevant, yet without straying from the Word of God and without compromising the word of God.” He said that all of the messages are designed with the Old Testament, the New Testament and the current year of which we are living in mind, in order to be able to apply the message your life.
To describe the ‘Purpose’ portion, he said, “Ministry is everybody doing their part, and so we really stress for people to minister wherever they’re at. We find that when people find their purpose in Christ, that’s when they start having the ‘Real Life’ they were designed to have.” It is definitely a process and life is a journey. “The greatest journey you’re ever going to be on is being a Christian. God loves us too much to leave us where we’re at. There’s always more with Him.”
If you want to learn more about Journey Church, they are located at 3683 Eva Road, Eva, AL 35621 and can be reached at 256-796-1112. You can also visit their website at www.journeylife.us.
