Lead Pastor Jim Crews and Innovate 4 Jesus Host Justin Blaney talk about how Valley Bible Fellowship is loving the hell out of the people of Las Vegas.

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Transcript

Justin: Hey everyone, Justin Blaney with Innovate for Jesus. Today I am with Jim Crews from Valley Bible Fellowship in Las Vegas Nevada.
Jim: Hey Justin.
Justin: Hey Jim, so awesome to have you on the show with us.
Jim: Nice to be here.
Justin: With a slogan like “Love the Hell out of people”, aren’t you worried about offending Christians with that?
Ji m: I hope to. Jesus did a good job at that, didn’t he? He offended a lot of church people of his time. It’s a great motto, I believe of what we’re called to do. I’m more concerned, Justin, about the hell people are living in right now. And obviously we believe in the hell to come, speaking about eternity. We do believe in that. I don’t want to downplay that but there’s hell in this life to be dealt with, and I believe that the biggest way we can deal with that is by getting people right where they’re at and loving on them. Loving our neighbor. Mark chapter 12. That’s what we’re called to do.
Justin: I go to Mark Driscoll. He’s known for pushing the limits a little bit. How far is too far though?
Jim: Some people might say we’ve gone a little bit too far because we do something once a year that happens in Vegas. We have a big porn expo and for the last 3 years, Justin, we actually have a booth within the exhibits at the porn convention. We’re there with CD’s for marriage builders. We serve free popcorn. We call it porn corn. And we’re there we have a prayer board. We’re not hiding what we are about. We call it the Naked Truth and people are coming by. You would trip out on the people that are stopping and writing legitimate prayer needs down. We have several women from our church that go there and talk to these women, and sometimes guys. One particular story happened last year. We had a woman, that she was doing dance expos at the booth right next door. She would do her little dance routine and come over and talk to one of our women and say, “I’m going to hell, huh?”. And this gal that was working our booth said, “You know what, Sweetie, God loves you and this isn’t his best for you. He’s got something better for you.” And then she would cry and talk to our woman, go back and do her next dance expo and she’d come back and she did this the whole time, bro. At the end of the weekend, she prayed with our volunteer and it was amazing. They exchanged numbers and this one particular lady called this dancer and just checked up on her. We found out she left Vegas. She left and the whole stripping industry. She became a dental hygienist back east. She got married, has a family now and she’s totally set free of this crazy industry. The sex industry with these women, they trap them. They trap them with the amount of wealth, they get thrown all this money. It becomes a huge trap. They get used to this huge lavish lifestyle, which for most of them leads into drugs and drug addiction. But to be able to be right in the middle of this porn expo and bring them the light of the gospel, some people would probably say “that’s just way too far”. We get some flak from it. We get other pastors saying we shouldn’t be there. We should pray, but we shouldn’t be inside. There’re people from other churches picketing outside the porn expo while we’re in there giving these ladies and giving these people the gospel.

Justin: There’s a unique, Innovate 4 Jesus idea from Valley Bible Fellowship. Get a booth at the Porn Show.

Jim: Yes, one of the ways, or put a vinyl around your van, say “You’re Loving the Hell Out of People.” I think anything that you can do to let the people know, that man, it is okay to be non-traditional. Matter of fact, I would say that this world is looking for people that don’t look like the typical church person. I pride myself in not looking like the stereotypical pastor. People say,” You know, you don’t look the typical pastor”. I take that as a compliment. I don’t know what a pastor is supposed to look like. I take that as a compliment that maybe they’re looking at me and can approach me a little bit more openly than, say somebody that had a suit on or maybe a collar. What you are seeing me dressed, this is how I preach. We just have a slogan that says, “Come as you are.” Some people are going to have a problem with that. We are majorly ministering to people that are not used to church. We’ve got strippers coming in here. They don’t own a whole lot of clothing, other than what they wear for their job and it’s not a lot of clothing, bro. So we’ve trained our people, they’re going to be coming in here and they are going to be showing their body maybe a little bit. We will be gracious with them, love on them, give them some time for God to do some things, maybe take them shopping. Introduce them in that kind of a way. I think it is sad that we live in a culture where Christianity is more known for what we are against than what we are for. Picketing or coming against people’s agendas, or signing petitions. We’re dealing with a generation that is so over that and they are so turned off by that.

Justin: But you can go into a situation like that without watering down the Gospel?

Jim: Absolutely. I mean I was just telling somebody yesterday, “How radical was it that Jesus, when he was walking in Jericho, looked up at this tax collector, which was like the taboo. You don’t get next to a tax collector. You don’t have anything to do with them and here’s Jesus, initiating conversation with this short little tax collector in a tree, trying to get a glimpse of who Jesus was. Jesus stops and has a conversation, but doesn’t just stop there. He invites himself over to this guy’s house. Can you imagine what the followers around Jesus, the church people were thinking? Jesus must not know who this guy was. He knew exactly who he was. Zacheus at that moment knew that salvation had come to his home. And, I’m thinking, would Zacheus have ever come into a place of surrender to God if Jesus had not initiated that conversation and invited himself over to this heathen’s home which was taboo for everybody to do, but Jesus did it and salvation came to his home. You don’t water down anything. You present yourself for who you are. You don’t have to wear your little Christian t-shirt and hold your Bible in your hand. You are there and people know what you represent. They know what you are about. They see the Bibles on display, they see the CD’s. You are out there. You are praying for people. You are right in the middle of it. You are not watering down anything.

Justin: Ten seconds. Somebody comes to you and says they want to innovate, what do you give them?

Jim: Be a church outside the box. Don’t be afraid to try new things and new concepts. You get those new things and new concepts by spending a lot of time in prayer. Don’t try to copy somebody else. Don’t be a copycat. Be you. That’s what I’ve discovered. Find out the DNA that God has for your particular church. Don’t be afraid to throw your hat over the fence, to take a risk, to take a gamble. Miracles happen in the Bible because people were willing to take risks. That’s what we have to be willing to do as leaders, as pastors of churches.
Justin: Thank you, that was more than ten seconds, but we’ll let you slide.

Jim: Thank you so much Justin, thank you, man.

Justin: Stay tuned for more Innovate 4 Jesus videos coming soon.

About Jim Crews

Jim is the Lead Pastor at Valley Bible Fellowship Las Vegas and is responsible for the overall vision of the church. He is also the main teaching pastor on Sundays and Thursday Nights. Jim is married to his wife, Tara. They have three children: Kylee, McKenzee, and Josiah. Click here to contact Jim on Facebook or here to receive Jim’s weekly e-letter.

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