יוֹבֵל – Yobel
To declare, to sound the trumpet (ram’s horn), to proclaim the year of liberty to all inhabitants!
“You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants
Leviticus 25:8-12
Steve & Cammy Dittmar
Senior Leader
Jubilee Church began in 1984 in a Pizza Parlor. We have grown into a multinational – international body of believers carrying His presence and promise. But the simplest way to describe Jubilee is by our goal and vision.
To know God, be known by God and to make Him known
To Know God – Eternal life is in knowing God and Jesus Christ whom He sent. To know God goes beyond information into experience. An encounter with the resurrected Jesus is the beginning of knowing Him. Therefore, we value true authentic encounters with God in our services, in our small groups, and in our individual lives. The Holy Spirit has been given to make Jesus known, in the power of His resurrection, in the fellowship of His sufferings, and being conformed to His death to attain to His resurrection from the dead. These encounters happen in worship, in His word, and in the Holy Spirit’s demonstration. Knowing God is more than just having met Jesus; it’s found in Jesus, by following Jesus.
To Be Known by God – Through the completed work of Jesus Christ, we can now stand in the presence of God fully accepted, loved and known. Jesus, our High Priest, stands in the presence of God for us. We now can enjoy an authentic life of honesty without fear of being sent away. We were saved to be enjoyed by God and known by God while living in our given son-ship, not religious slavery. To do this, we must learn our identity, given to us in Christ, while also knowing ourselves in our brokenness. To be known by God is to be loved in our humanity, honestly living before Him, accepting our justification, glorification, and inseparable union in love in Christ. After all our righteousness is by faith.
To Make God Known – Our world is longing for forgiveness. Longing to know that there is a good and glorious God, who has given everything necessary for their salvation. How will this happen? Through the power of the Holy Spirit resting upon a people, who have themselves been saved healed and delivered. But, not so saved healed and delivered that they make others uncomfortable through their self-righteousness. We live with an expectancy that Jesus will reveal Himself in His body before He appears for His body. We are His witnesses of all that He has done for us by grace through faith. We want the world to know our good and glorious Lord.
Two Pillars of our Faith
To worship God and serve Him only
It’s as simple as that.
Our Identity is found in our worship, our true experiences with God, in our quiet times, our worship services and in our small groups. In short, it is found in everything. God has chosen us before the foundation of the world to conform us into the image of His Son, the resurrected Son, the first born from the dead. To experience Jesus in His resurrection is to encounter life itself. We become who we behold. Our identity is given in Christ and will never change. We are sons forever, only mature. We will grow in our discovery of Him and in our trials with Him.
Our Service is what we do. It’s our job, and it’s always changing. Sometimes we do things we like, other times things we don’t. Sometimes we win; sometimes we lose. It is all for His kingdom and for Jesus and the gospel’s sake. It is God who we serve. Because our identity is secured in authentic worship and truth in Christ – knowing and being known – we can serve wherever our King desires.
Practice Makes Perfect
Becoming who we were made to be is always in the context of knowing God by the Spirit, and living in community as His body. We change more by our challenges than our successes. We learn the fruit of the Holy Spirit in prayer. We practice the fruit with each other. We are loved by God and learn to love one another. Without the body we are disconnected from the joy of offenses, trials, demands, and personal quirks. Without Jesus, and his body, we have nowhere to grow. We have nowhere to see Jesus become greater than our self-preservation. Without death, there can be no resurrection. We have to let go in order to take hold of what we have been taken hold of in Christ. What He has for us is far greater than what we will give for Him.
We are a messy people, living life honestly inside of our Lord’s glorious work and grace. Yes, we have to pick up our crosses, as we give way to each other. The cross for all of us begins with the crossing of our wills. Frustrated, we ask, “Did you see that?” Thinking God must have missed this moment of betrayal, offense, sin, etc. “Yes, I saw that, go ahead and forgive and love” the Lord says. It is not the answer our flesh wanted, and certainly not what our soul wanted either. But, because we know Him and He is knowing us in that moment, we will yield and forgive…eventually. That’s where the messy part comes in, as hundreds of people yield to Jesus in their lives at different times and in different ways.
But we’re not just a body of people but also the temple of God. The Holy Spirit in His big, beautiful, glorious self, often delights in manifesting in our services to glorify Jesus. His Spirit, so full of joy, hope, and power, can make a mess of our well placed religious objects. Again “Did you see that?”, we ask the Lord, thinking that was out of order, at best. “Yeah I saw that, go ahead and let go and receive.” Not the answer we want. But again, we choose the cross and not control, His liberty and not the law.
If the Lord grants you the grace to walk with us you are truly blessed! Walking with Jesus into an authentic relationship of knowing and being known is not easy. Religion is a tell-me-what-to-do based relationship that can lead to great disillusionment, as we find out again and again that nobody does what they are being told. The law makes slaves. Christ makes free men. You will be truly blessed when you discover the One you have always loved, smiling at you as you struggle with some enigma within His body, or in His words being spoken to you. There you discover that you’re not following a movement but a man who has the words of eternal life. That man is Jesus.
-Steve Dittmar
You will be blessed by the “presence- filled” ministries at Jubilee Church!
“Holy Spirit doesn’t do meetings, He does encounters.” – Steve Dittmar