Restore Testimony: Needed For Your Church Leaders

As the Lead Pastor of Local Church, a Sojourn Network church on the westside of Cleveland, Ohio, I wanted to equip our core team with a few resources as we prepared to plant. Restore was at the top of that list.

Since we have been personally poured into by the ministry of Robert and Karen Cheong over the years, we knew this emphasis on care was something that needed to be foundational for our new church.

Restore positions a person to receive from the Lord by abiding in His Word together with others. Each week builds on the last, but the central exercise of each lesson is to simply listen to the voice of the Lord through His Word. As a person practices this and takes time to reflect in the group, the Lord brings a greater awareness of His love, forgiveness, restoration, and hope to the particular brokenness of one’s own story.

We just completed our second cycle of walking with a group through Restore, and every person that participated has profoundly experienced the Lord’s love for them. Some have been freed from shame, guilt, and wounds from their past, while others have been brought to repentance of their sin by turning away from old patterns of handling their struggles.

Each of us has grown in our understanding of the gospel–not just what the good news is, but how we’re being redeemed by His story of love.

Our vision as a church is “to know God and to know Him together.” Restore leads people in exactly that. We are so grateful to have invested time in Restore. I have personally grown in my communion with the Lord and others as a result of Restore, and I am confident that the Lord will use it to change your life and the life of your church.

Matt Guertin, Lead Pastor

Local Church | Cleveland OH