Preaching and the Externally-Focused Church: An Interview with Rick Rusaw

In 1991, Rick Rusaw became Senior Minister of LifeBridge Christian Church in Longmont, Colorado ? a church that was about to celebrate its 100th anniversary. Since then the worship attendance has grown from 700 to more than 3,000 weekly, and the commitment to church ministry teams and community involvement has seen the ranks of volunteers grow from 150 to more than 1600. Rick is the co-author of The Externally Focused Church and 60 Simple Things Every Pastor Should Know, and his newest book is Living a Life on Loan. He was recently interviewed by Preaching editor Michael Duduit.

Preaching: You have written a new book called Living A Life On Loan. Tell me about the background of this book and what you were really trying to accomplish.

Rusaw: It came out of the book we did on externally focused churches, how a church really reaches out to its community, speaks into the fabric of the community, how is it we can serve. That book was based on the premise: good deeds create good will and you get the chance to share good news. Life On Loan is the personal version of that. So this is written with the sense of every one must have a journey. God’s writing His story, and He intends to write His story through you, so what’s your story?

Preaching: In the book you have an acronym for LIFE. Tell me about this idea of LIFE.

Rusaw: Sure. We would say that life is first your Love, the things you care about, things you’re passionate about, things that you have a natural bent toward, or giftedness toward.

I is the Intersections. In Ephesians 2:8-9, it says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it’s a gift of God.” And verse 10 says, “We were created in God’s workmanship to do good works which He created in advance for us to do.” It’s the idea that our works don’t get us in a relationship with God; it’s His grace. Yet once we have discovered that grace, how are we living gracefully ? how is that showing up?

I believe God’s provided some good things. I think He is writing His story and there are some good things He planned for you to do. I wonder how many times I’ve been blazing through intersections without paying much attention to the good things. So intersections is really about: here are all these opportunities. There are people, there are places, there are opportunities that come your way. And if you’re paying attention, maybe God has something He already had planned for you to do at that intersection.

And then F is Fortunes ? just simply our resources, our time, our money, so it’s intriguing to me that I think sometimes the first thing I do, often, is give money because that’s a little easier than getting my hands dirty but, what do I do with my resources, with my time, with my ability, with my opportunities? And how is that having the E, the Eternity impact? How’s that making a difference in something that’s going to be forever?