Review/Lessons after the first 2 years of a Missional Community

Jan. is a good time to reflect on the previous year.  In my case, reflect on the last couple years.  Going from being unemployed to having a steady job, as well as going from being very unsatisfied with my church, starting a new community, and being encouraged by the fruits we’ve started to see.

My current community was born out of a frustration/discontent with church as usual.  I complained, dreamed, and prayed for several years but never felt like God wanted me to leave the church I was at.  Right about the time I was getting ready to pack my bags for a new church, the leadership approached me about starting this new community.  My good friend had offered to be the weekly preacher in addition to his other 1-2 jobs at the church.  I offered my services as a support person, using my giftings in organization to lead up volunteers, play music, and just give my insight into the direction of the community.  Basically doing whatever needed to be done.

We started under the main principles that we wanted people to live out the gospel, to take it beyond the Sunday only spirituality, stop being fake, and to have intentional focus on participation, spirituality, and education.  Our organizational model was loose, we operated as a church plant within a church, so we had a building, supplies, and a nice launch.  We’ve had to develop our own leadership structure and identity along the way.  Every week has been a blessing, and we always feel wonder and amazement that God will bring people to our service each week and to be involved in home communities, etc.

Now that we’ve been around for 2 years we’ve seen an increase in our leadership team, a steady number of dedicated people, and some really exciting tangible examples of our communities dedication to mission.  I think the best thing has been seeing how excited people get when their spiritual community comes around them to help them obtain the vision God is calling them to.  Which is so much different then the top down model I grew up with.

So now some of the lessons I’ve learned over the past 2 years (in no particular order):

1)Organization is important: My first inclination was to do everything free form, no schedules, just ask people to help out with things and to really take ownership of certain areas.  This failed to work, people needed to make a solid commitment, and for the most part I have head a steady team of volunteers for 2 years.

2)Direction is important: It is important to constantly be talking about direction, where we’ve been and where we feel God wants us to go.  It is direction that casts vision for the community and solidifies identity.

3)Leadership is important:  It is important to have regular meetings with leadership, to pray, analyze, and create Direction.  In periods where we didn’t meet as leadership for months, the stagnation in direction was almost palpable.

4)God is important:  It is easy to focus on all the organization and tasks that need to be done to operate a community and a weekly gathering, but keeping God at the center is key for maintaining sanity and keeping priorities and focus in the right place.

5)Being Missional is important:  It is important, especially with people accustomed to a traditional church to focus on Mission.  They have had years to learn, and be preached at, but a lot of people don’t even know how to interact with their community.  I’ve found that you have to take baby steps and to re-educate people about what it means to “evangelize” and be in the community.

6)Being patient is important:  When beginning a missional community with people accustomed to traditional church, patience is key.  It is natural to want immediate change but 2 years down the road and only a small fraction of our community really gets it.  However, we continue to see more and more people get it and it is exciting to see them embark on God’s Mission.

There is a lot more to cover, but it is time for bed, so I’ll have to leave that for future posts, I hope these lessons can help you in your own community.

 

 

I picked up Jesus today

On my way home from a bar tonight, I was given the opportunity to either pick up Jesus on the street or to go home to my nice comfy bed. I’ve got to say that I am tired (as I write this) and it would’ve been an easy to choice to just go on home. However, I felt that I should stop, for this woman who needed a ride someplace. She was trying to get home like the rest of us, but she had missed the last bus.

So I hit the unlock button on my car door and let Jesus into my car. Jesus smelled of alcohol and cigarettes, when I asked her what she had been drinking, it was a terrible cheap beer, but I withheld my Portland consumeristic judgement of her choice of poison. We got to talking and I got to hear a bit about her life, she was in prison over Christmas and didn’t have much family to spend time with. So I spoke to her about how it can only look up from now and to keep her head up but didn’t want to get too preachy so I kept it low key. I chose to keep driving past the location where she asked to be let off and to take her a few more miles down the road to a public transit hub where she could take the train to where she needed to go.

Before she got out of my car, I gave her a hug, told her that God loves her, and that the reason I stopped was because of how God had changed my heart. I then continued on driving home. Jesus was in my car tonight and it only took 20min. to get Him closer to home.

Cool God Story

So I had a cool God story today. I’ve been a bit bummed about my wage level the past couple weeks. I was thinking about who to talk to and the best time to make the inquiry about getting a raise. Last night when I was praying I said “you know what God, could you please deal with this? I don’t quite know how to go about it right now.”

The past few weeks I’ve been doing special projects for the CFO to basically build them a custom database tool for job costing as their age old system finally bit the dust. I’ve basically completed for them an entirely new Access database to do exactly what they want. So the CFO comes over and makes some comment about my employment status, that he didn’t know I was working part time, etc. So I took the opportunity to tell this person how I felt, and I wasn’t sure the best way to go about it. So the CFO went in and talked to my boss the owner of the company and I ended the day with a significant raise starting the 1st of the year.

I know God doesn’t answer all our prayers, but this was a nice affirmation that God is out there and he does answer prayers, even for something as small as getting a raise.

I’ve never looked at “lol” the same

One of the funniest things i’ve seen. Now whenever I use the phrase lol, this is what I think of.

Like the Monks of old, I am now Homebrewing

It’s funny, how I grew up in a spiritual environment where drinking was at least sub-textually frowned upon but tolerated. Now I find myself in a spiritual community that has actually helped me get into the hobby of homebrewing. In the tradition of monks, or of perhaps Martin Luther, I find myself fascinated by fermentation science, and I think I’m going to enjoy this.

So I spent the morning cleaning, and I spent the afternoon brewing. It was a pleasant Sat. I learned a lot about process, and I hope I sanitized everything well enough to have this first batch be a success. The one area for improvement was chilling the beer called “wort” as I didn’t have much ice, I bought a small bag at the store, and that was gone quickly, and it took like 5 or 6 hours to get down to temp where as if I had more ice, I could have reduced that time significantly. I started early enough in the day though that I was able to be finished by around 10:00.

The beer is now on its merry way fermenting in my closet downstairs. So in a week or so I’ll be putting in some dry hops, and a week or so after that, I’ll be ready to bottle.

Next year I’m planning on growing hops and having a brew party for local brewers to enjoy the fresh hop season. That’s about a year away, so I better get pretty good at it.

You have the power to change the World…

One of the little things I do to focus at work oddly enough is listen to music. Radiohead, Alice in Chains, various reggae artists, etc. It is strange how listening to music, that should be distracting, actually helps me focus on the task at hand. Sometimes though, I like to put on podcasts, and just catch little snip-its here and there between tasks. Today I was listing to Rob Bell and he was preaching on Acts 1:9-10.

7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

I listened to bits and pieces as Rob exegeted the text, darting in and out. Than he hit me with this. “You have the power to change the word, so why are you standing there?” I had to stop my work for a second, to really think about that. How often do I sell myself short? How often do I hear and talk about the gospel, even pray to God, and not ask Him to change the world? I think more often than not, I simply don’t believe it. Being a fan of the Matrix the line that comes to mind is “so you’re supposed to save the world?” “What a mind job. What do you say to something like that?.”

Being a person, who has no idea where my life is going to go, I live life one day at a time. Take every day’s challenges, and try to have a good time with it. I do feel some trepidation, or angst, or whatever that I “don’t have it all figured out.” When I am reminded that I have the power to change the world, I must admit I ask “how?”, what is it in my existence that proves it? I become almost paralyzed because I honestly don’t know what to say to something like that.
There in lies the rub, yes?

So I hope that this is a starting point, for me yes, but also for you. That we start to believe in God, and that have been given the power to change the world when we received the Holy Spirit. To stop staring into the sky, buckle up, and get to work. We can change the world.

IBM Creates… Skynet?

An article titled IBM produces first ‘brain chips’ I read this morning. The speed at which technology is increasing makes me wonder, will we have to fight off wave after wave of mechanical beasts sometime in our life? Or will we have friendly little robots that will enable us to be lazy Americans increasing rates of heart disease to all time highs. Eitherway it doesn’t look good.

The Video Venue Strikes Again

Apparently Mark Driscol is coming to Portland according to Christianity Today. Well, he’s not really coming to Portland, only a digital version of his sermons are. I am not a fan of video venues for churches. A “pastor” is literally supposed to be a shepherd. He is supposed to guide people into the likeness of Christ. I am not convinced that watching a video can really supply the same love and care that comes from leading a community of believers that are your friends and neighbors.

Also, how can one question the teachings of someone who isn’t interactive, and can’t possibly reply to all the people they preach to? It’s at times like these that I’m not surprised people think the whore on the beast is the apostate church. So easy to go astray when our faith is more about indoctrination and less about discovery.

Okay, now that I’ve gotten my gripes out of the way, let’s face it, as much as I don’t like it, there will probably be people who will be reached by this venue. It is one more way to scatter seed, and who knows where it will grow. Without actually being involved in a video venue church, I also can’t speak to the level of involvement that goes on at the local level. Perhaps the local community will end up disagreeing with everything Driscol says, and will use his videos to spark discussion on why they disagree.

If God is in this, and uses this venue to reach even one person for Himself, I must say that it is worth while. I can complain, disagree, and fight all I want, but it’s all meaningless if even one holy person is to be found.

So while I disagree with the method, and I think it can be potentially harmful, I must conclude with a prayer that God use this venue to bring glory to Himself and to prove me wrong.

If you want to learn how to write Christian music…

I just got back from a Matisyahu show. While he is a Jewish reggae rapper from NY, his music has always struck a spiritual chord in me.

I’ve posted before that a lot of christian music is not honest, and that’s part of it, but after today’s show, I was thinking. Christian music isn’t spiritual enough, the lyrics don’t often get deep. It’s like “Jesus loves me this I know…” which is fine for a children’s tune but it’s not like Matisyahu’s “One day” where he talks about one day there will be no jealousy strife, or competition. He hopes for the day that men will lay down there arms. One day.

My advice to aspiring Christian artists. Make real music first of all, than talk about important spiritual and philosophical topics, not the typical Sunday School responses that most Christian music emulates.

Believe me, your passion and honesty will break through. People Christian or not, want a spiritual experience and you have the ability to share that with them. If you just want a great example, listen to Matisyahu. His music can show you how to do it.

all of time is a deception

I was watching the movie Waking Life last night and I found this idea interesting.

“I heard that all of current time is a deception by a demon in 50 a.d. trying to keep people from believing in Christ. But really all of time could be just God posing the question of basically do you want to be with me.”