Love God Love People Prove It: How to Stop Dabbling in Jesus and Start Following

By Patrick Cannon

Do you want to experience God realities in your life? Pastor, author, and entrepreneur Pat Cannon unpacks an often overlooked truth regarding our relationship with God. Words are cheap. Unless you back them up with action, they don't mean much. Love God Love People Prove It will teach you how to shift from dabbling in Jesus to following Him. Is it easy? No. Is it worth it? Absolutely!

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664284166

Patrick Cannon

Pat Cannon lives with his wife, Kelly, and their youngest of 4 children in one of the most impoverished areas of Ohio and Southeast Michigan. He pastors That Neighborhood Church in Toledo, Ohio. He is also part of a church planting network in the Great Lakes Region for the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Reverend Cannon also loves woodworking and 3D printing. He has authored two other books, Clutter and Rooster in the Hood.

Book preview

CONTENTS

Dedication

Preface

Acknowledgement

An Atheist Perspective

Love God Love People Prove It

Jesus Dabblers

Let’s Make A Deal

When I’m Ready

Waffling

Prove It By Living Sent

Prove It By Discipling Someone

Someone Who Is Invited By God

Into A Loving Relationship With Jesus

In Order To Become Like Jesus

While Living Sent For Jesus

Prove It By What Consumes You

Prove It By Resurrendering

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my wife, Kelly, who helps me stay focused and has taught me repeatedly what it means to live a sent life. Secondly, to my team, they have taken our core values seriously over the past 13 years by loving people, taking risks and obeying God’s whispers no matter what.

Finally, this book is dedicated to all who have partnered with us through the years. You have become part of the redemptive story God is writing in North Toledo. You are my heroes!

PREFACE

I lie in bed, waiting for our first real snowstorm; Ohioans bring up the blizzard of 78 I guess it was pretty bad. Drifts up to the roofs of homes, and everything shut down for almost a week. I grew up in North Dakota, where we had a blizzard of 78 nearly every winter. We had a long driveway that took my three brothers and me hours to shovel. We would repeatedly brainstorm on how to make the job easier. Right or wrong, we were consumed with figuring out how to free ourselves from snow removal. I remember when we had the great idea of tying our ping-pong table to the front of my brother’s car and using it as a snowplow. Did we ask permission? Of course not; we were on a mission! Why clog the pipes with the bureaucracy of parental consent? We gathered as much rope as possible and tied it around my brother’s car. We were laser-focused! Once satisfied with our expert engineering, we all got into the car, bragging about how smart we were. My brother started the engine and plowed into the snow. In less than five minutes, the table smashed into splinters. Go figure. We got out of the car and stared at the splintered mess that used to be our ping pong table. Let’s just say when our parents found out, our snow removal duty increased.

My brothers and I were on a mission for a short time. We worked together, tried to figure out potential problems, and were unified in our resolve. Even though there was no possible positive outcome, we still experienced the exhilaration of living life at that moment with purpose. No one was going to interfere with our quest to master snow removal! Now in my sixties, snow removal doesn’t have the draw it once did. I’ll take a snow blower over a shovel any day!

Living on Mission

Having a mission or calling to complete creates a sense of purpose. You choose to do or not do certain things to help you fulfill that mission. You spend money, time, and energy fulfilling the mission. You continue plowing ahead when facing obstacles because you know what could happen if even part of your mission is realized.

I think about some of the experiences that have taken place since my wife, Kelly, and I decided to follow God’s call to North Toledo. The call or mission we have decided to immerse ourselves in is far from easy, consistently overwhelming, and incredibly messy.

We used to only have a Saturday night service at 7 pm. We didn’t do Sunday morning because no one from our neighborhood would get up. Many are partying until 4 am, or getting high, or both. That means that I had the opportunity to speak at other churches on Sundays about our ministry. Over the past 13-plus years, I have spoken at churches in many different denominations. Although I’m there to communicate what’s happening at That Neighborhood Church, I take the opportunity to challenge them to want more of God. Nine times out of ten, after the service, someone comes up and says something like, Wow, that’s amazing what you guys are doing in North Toledo. I don’t think I could do something like that. I’ve even had missionaries on the field for 20 and 30 years tell me they don’t think they could do what we do.

Planting a church in one of the most impoverished neighborhoods of Ohio and Southeast Michigan was the farthest thing on my radar. In my second book, Rooster in the Hood, I unpack the whole story. I thought I would retire doing the same ministry I had done for over 25 years. However, God had other plans.

Let’s not pretend that embracing God’s invitation to follow His call is easy. How people hear from God and their journey to follow His whispers are different and unique. But there is one thing that anyone who decides to follow God has in common. This one thing drives a person into the unknown and enables them to live a life filled with purpose and hope, even when it’s overwhelming. It’s not reserved for only those we consider religious professionals. I still wonder what a religious professional means! It took place inside my soul before Kelly and I decided to plant That Neighborhood Church (TNC). It’s more than following a call or mission. It’s the one thing that causes us to want to be on a mission or follow God’s call. It should define who we are once we place our faith in Jesus as our Savior and last until we take our final breath. It’s not limited to our occupation, family dynamics, education, financial status, past, present, or future. It’s a mindset that shapes how we choose to live our lives. I believe we have drifted away from this mindset in our Christian culture.

The Drift

Mission Drift unfolds slowly. Like a current, it carries organizations away from their core purpose and identity.

From the book Mission Drift by Peter Greer and Christ Horst

As our country has been reeling and recovering from the COVID pandemic, churches have been experiencing a mission drift. Aside from mask mandates, many churchgoers didn’t see the need to attend church because of online services. Just watching services online will never create the kind of community needed in the life of a Christ-follower. Even after the pandemic has stopped, church attendance is anemic. Not only has an institutional mission drift occurred, but there has been an individual mission drift in the lives of those who claim to follow Jesus. The drift takes many forms.

The past political season has inflamed Christian Nationalism into an unhealthy irrational movement drenched in emotional outbursts. Deconstruction conversations fill the social media channels as if it’s a new concept. It’s funny how we use new words to describe something people have been doing for years. In 1978 I first heard the gospel while watching the film More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell. I grew up going to church every Sunday and went to a private Catholic school for a couple of years while living in Lancaster, New York. I had lots of religious training until I heard the fundamental, raw true gospel. I knew I was an experienced sinner and that Jesus died on the cross for me. But what shocked me was that if I were the only one on the planet, Jesus would have died for me! My eternity wasn’t based on what I did but on what Jesus did. God wanted to have a relationship with me. I felt like I was taught the complete opposite in my religious upbringing.

So I did some deconstructing of my own. That means that I started to ask some questions about my faith. I asked questions like, why didn’t anyone tell me these things? Did I waste my time doing all those religious things growing up? My deconstruction led me to Jesus, not away from Him. It was more like reconstructing. I deconstructed again in 2005 after leaving a very successful ministry which led me to answering some very penetrating questions about why I did ministry. Was it about God or me? I deconstructed again in 2020 after the pandemic hit, and we had another family crisis. Each time it drove me to my knees, having some very raw conversations with God. I think deconstruction is a normal part of our adult maturing process.

I feel like, over the past 30-plus years, Christ’s followers seem to want less and less of Jesus and more and more of the world. They want less of living a Kingdom life and more of building their own kingdoms. What’s the cause of the drift? Why have so many Christ followers chosen to live mediocre lives? What has shifted? Have we lost touch with the basics of what Jesus calls us to as Christ followers?

Love God Love People Prove It: is meant to reawaken something that I think has gone dormant in many Christ followers. My goal is not to give you a five-step plan that guarantees an awakening in your soul and propels you towards God. In this book, you will find various observations I have made throughout my 35-plus years in ministry. I hope that God will use these observations for you to deconstruct and reconstruct your relationship with God. It will cause you to ask some very penetrating questions that will deepen and expand your relationship with God. As things continue to shift in our nation, we must hold fast to the primary call that Jesus gave to all His followers.

Love God, love people, and prove it.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This book would not have become a reality without the help of my wife Kelly, my son Peter and Shelly Moser. I’m an artsy guy who uses too many words to express my thoughts. This book is as much theirs as it is mine!

AN ATHEIST

PERSPECTIVE

I cannot think of a better way to start this book off than to dive into how those who aren’t Christ followers view those who are. I have a good friend whom I have known for over 20 years. He is a self-proclaimed atheist. That has never bothered me because the truth is that all of us have trouble believing in God before we admit our need for God. He was involved in our ministry for almost five years. He was one of the most consistent volunteers we had! Go figure. Unfortunately for us, he decided to move out west a few years ago. I will always consider him one of my good friends. Before he left, I asked him to answer a series of questions about his view of those of us who call ourselves Christ-followers (Christians). His answers are very eye-opening. He was gracious to allow me to include his answers in this book.

Question Number One

Based on what you know, how would you define a Christian?

"Christians, by definition, follow the teaching of Jesus Christ. The Bible is their guide to life philosophy, and their actions throughout their life are based on the goals and ethics laid out in