OUR MISSION:
DIGGING THE WELL. PREACHING THE GOSPEL. EQUIPPING PEOPLE.
DIGGING THE WELL
In 2015, God began speaking to our leadership team about slowing down the pace of our activities and focusing solely on going deeper with Jesus. We gathered around this vision of halting all programs and projects, and instead focusing on digging a deep well and providing an abundant source of water to which all can come and drink. We would commit to digging the well (hence our name change) by structuring everything around a single main desire: encountering Jesus! Above all, we want to know Him and live in a continual experience of friendship and yielded-ness. While these encounters look different from person to person and season to season, the unchanging, relational nature of our God remains constant. He loves us and has these encounters waiting for us – and when we encounter Jesus, we experience deep satisfaction, personal transformation, and discovery of our purpose and our destiny.
We guard this priority by avoiding busyness and excess. Sometimes this can mean saying no to an endless list of otherwise good things, such as programs, events, obligations, appointments, projects, and other distractions. Digging the well means waiting on God’s Spirit and going where He leads, but never moving ahead of him. In our church gatherings, it means devoting time to waiting on Him and hearing what He is saying. In everyday life, it means looking for Jesus in the details of going to work, sitting in traffic, exercising, managing finances, washing dishes, changing diapers, and so much more. This relationship with God does not always come as easily as the many quick-fix options that surround us, such as self-medicating, bingeing entertainment, or seeking the deceptive, momentary gratification of man-powered religious efforts. Our mission is to facilitate an environment and a community where people can embrace a lifestyle of wholeheartedly pursuing and encountering Jesus. We want to posture ourselves to be a well in the middle of Los Osos, and the Central Coast. May we truly be people encountering Jesus. So grab a shovel and let’s start digging!
...Everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
— Philippians 3:8 (NLT)
PREACHING THE GOSPEL
The core messages of Christianity and the Bible are not about behavior-modification and becoming a good person.
It's about what He did.
It's about where He went.
It's about God's love, God's power, God's provision, and God's enablement.
Everything comes back to the cross, the blood, His death, and His resurrection. When all is said and done, God is a Father and His passionate heart beats intensely for relationship with His children. Jesus went to the cross to demonstrate love, to relinquish the power of sin and death, and to release a torrential flow of grace.
At The Well, we put all of our eggs in one basket - the gospel of Jesus Christ. We do not preach, teach or counsel people to do more, try harder, or perform better. We preach the message of "It is finished," "Beloved son/daughter," and "My grace is sufficient." We promote the ability, power, and enablement of God in the life of every believer whom He encounters at the foot of the cross. We also promote the gospel to the solution of all of mankind's problems at a core level. We teach gospel-centered relationships, gospel-centered marriage, gospel-centered parenting, gospel-centered identity, gospel-centered purpose — gospel-centered living. All of our messages start in the Bible and always point to Jesus.
Because the gospel is so limitless, infinite, and expansive, we are having a blast encountering this ocean of mystery every time we gather. The gospel is so much more than an escape-plan to heaven. It's Jesus' plan to bring heaven to us.
...Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.
— Mark 16:15 (NASB)
God made you with unique purpose and destiny. He designed you as His masterpiece with a specific role for you to play in the outcome of things here on earth. As His children, we stand secure in His grace, apart from works. But it's His grace that invites us into this exciting journey of discovery and activation. Jesus invites His children into a dynamic partnership where we realize the deepest passions of our heart when we connect with the dreams of His heart for the planet and the people around us.
At The Well, we have made central to our mission the equipping of God's people for God's work on the earth. Ministry is not a job; it's a lifestyle. We don't believe in pulling people into our church and into our programs. We believe in pulling ministry out of people's hearts by coming alongside them to discover a person's individual giftings, calling, and passion-points. We don't develop programs; we develop people.
...To equip the saints for the work of ministry.
— Ephesians 4:12 (ESV)