I recently ran across a man named Paul Potts. He's famous among YouTube fanatics because he appeared on the television show, Britain's Got Talent. I'll post his video on our blog if you want to take a look at it, just do it after reading this article! Paul Potts grew up as many other British kids in Fishponds, Bristol. His father was a bus driver and his mother was a supermarket cashier. He had two brothers and one sister. He was bullied in school, so music became a sort of safe haven for him. But Paul grew up, got married and got a job as a manager at the Bridgend Carphone Warehouse. Sounds like a typical story, right?

Well, Paul's experience was anything but typical when he entered the fray of competition in Britain's Got Talent as an opera singer! The music that served as a haven in his childhood became his passion and his dream in life. So beginning in 1999, he hit the amateur circuit for opera singers with little to no avail. That is, until he finally auditioned for that television show where he knocked everyone's socks off. He won the whole competition and won the opportunity to perform in front of the Queen of England. Since then, he appeared all over YouTube (to the tune of over 19,800,000 hits), NBC's program Today, and the Oprah Winfrey Show. He even cut his first CD, One Chance, which claimed the number one spot on the UK Album Chart in less than one week. He was a cell phone salesman turned acclaimed opera singer almost overnight!

So what made the difference in Paul's life? It was how he defined himself. His dream was music. His dream was to sing opera. So he had to define himself not as a cell phone salesman who could sing opera but as an opera singer who sold cell phones. Definition played a major role in what Paul did in life and how he did that in life. To define meant to identify what he was and more importantly what he wasn't. To define meant clarifying what he was going to be in life. The key was to define.

We too must define who we are as a church. We too must set the boundaries and parameters of who we are and more importantly who we aren't as a church. So we are going to be intensifying our efforts to define ourselves as we seek to incorporate as an independent church. Grace Chapel has commissioned me in partnership with the steering team to lead and to guide this process. While we will begin with Grace Chapel's own by-laws (after all, we are a church launch of Grace Chapel), we will need to edit and adjust some of it because we're a smaller and newer church. In particular, there are four issues we are looking into: 1) Our Statement of Faith, 2) Membership and Baptism, 3) Governance Structure, and 4) Women in Leadership.

So we are seeking your help, your input, and your prayers in each of those areas! For us to define ourselves accurately and boldly, we need your input and ideas because you are the church. You are GracePoint. So there will be letters to read, working resources to consider, blogs to get the insiders' scoop, forums to attend to provide input, and Life Community gatherings to interact with ideas within the emerging by-laws. Each of these avenues are interaction points where you can provide me and the rest of the steering team with ideas, help, alterations, interactions and support. Please take advantage of as many of those avenues as you are willing and able to, so that we clearly, accurately and boldly define GracePoint.

While defining ourselves may be a bit painful, I anticipate it as a galvanizing process for us as we discover a steely unity with one another and a profound joy over one another. Why? Because together we'll discover exactly who we are and who we aren't.

Looking forward to defining with you,