Well, at the bottom line is Doug Perry. He’s the one that had the vision from God and the calling to do this. But more than that, this whole thing is a gift from a bunch of Christians that are really, truly sorry for what a mess we’ve made and want to do something to make up for it and to do “church” differently. We believe that the only proper model of “church” is the City Church – one body per city, working together, loving one another, caring for their neighbors, not splitting into teams, not fighting over stupid stuff, all listening to God and obeying. More on that here.
Now, that does NOT mean that we’re mad at anybody or we think we are the only right ones or even that we’re trying to stop people from going to whatever congregation they want. We don’t really care where you are Sunday morning (or Saturday, or Saturday night, or every morning at 8am, or whatever). Either you made it through the Narrow Gate or you didn’t. Either Jesus wrote your name in the Book or He didn’t.
If he did, then you’re a brother or sister and that’s all there is to it. Now we need to learn the play nice together. If you keep turning your back on your flesh and blood, or worse, bashing them over the head with a Tonka truck – you might get a time out. You might just get an eternal time out. That would be bad! We’re ONE because Jesus said we’re one, not because people in a particular building voted us as “members.” That may break some paradigms for some folks – but you can be SURE that you’re going to see some people in heaven that you were just SURE wouldn’t be there. Maybe we could play nice together now – in case we have to be stuck with each other for eternity. (Or in case our eternity DEPENDS on us playing nice together now!)
If you’re part of The Church of Liberty, Missouri, you can be a part in this, too. I think that if set an example – even in little Liberty, Missouri – of the Bride coming together, even just in practical ways like caring for our neighbors, that God would bless it and show up and it would shock the world. People might come running from all over to see if it’s real. Jesus said in His last prayer before the Cross that the greatest evangelism method of all, the thing that would shock the world and PROVE that He was sent by the Father – is if the Christians would be ONE. How horrible is that? That it’s miraculous and other worldly if WE would just get along with each other.
After all, the Bible says that the very first murder in creation was because of denominationalism. Cain and Able both offered a sacrifice to God – and God liked Able’s offering better – so Cain killed him. That factious, self-righteous, jealous “religious spirit” was at the root of the problem from the very beginning. When is it going to stop?
If you want to learn more about Doug Perry, you can go to this page here. You can read his “Apology to the World” here. We don’t think it’s very important that you know all about Doug. Whatever this is going to turn out to be – it’s God’s thing and we’re all just along for the ride. Lots of people came together to make CitySaver/CitySavior into something useful – and we’re going to keep at it until it’s intuitive and easy and a blessing to as many people as possible.
You can be sure that we’re going to pray about every dollar. You can be sure there will be no big executive salaries or a climbing wall in the atrium of our corporate headquarters. We’re just NOT that kind of Dot Com. There may not even be any employees at all. We’re mostly going to be staffed by ordained ministers and volunteers. And we’re going to pour everything we can back into being a blessing. The church has taken enough. It’s time to give back.