Weaving It All Together

Posted on Feb 12, 2012 in Missional Church | 0 comments

As I shared earlier this week, I believe one of the primary roles of a minister is helping people cultivate the practice of listening to the sound of the genuine in themselves. However, ministers cannot do so authentically unless we cultivate the practice of listening to the sound of the genuine in ourselves.

As I sat in New Orleans, I was so thankful to FTE for reminding me that I too am on a journey.  I spend so much time guiding and nurturing others along in their journey, I had stopped listening to the genuine in myself.

Over the past few months, I have had several Kairos moments – moments where I could feel the eternal God breaking into my finite little world.   In those moments, I heard an “echo” of the genuine in me.  Each time it was a powerful moment but at the same time the sound was so faint, all I knew was I needed to pay attention.

Our lives are so busy, so rushed, so scheduled.  We rarely make time and space both physical space and internal space to pay attention to that still small voice that is breaking through in our loud, noisy lives.

Last Sunday, I decided to take the morning off – off from work, off from church, off from family obligations. I decided to listen intently to the “sound of the genuine” in me.  God brought back to my mind several events from the past few months where I was called to pay attention:

• My online debate with David Fitch was the first event I began to wrestle with.  I began asking myself, “Why did I find his words so frustrating?”  I realized as I prayed over this that he made me feel dismissed.  It was really not David the person but more David the representative of the established Church structure that so easily dismisses those outside the establishment.  While I hold a Masters in Divinity and have spent the past 18 years of my life working in and for churches, all he saw was my role as an Executive Director of a non-profit that does Asset-Based Community Development and therefore I was not qualified to speak into the shaping of the future of the church.  I don’t blame David.  I actually like what he is trying to do and I think if we ever met, we would likely find we are a lot alike.  I actually want to thank him.  He made me realize that the genuine in me is that of a Missionary, Pastor and Minister.  I never wanted to be an Executive Director of a non-profit.  My desire was to mobilize the church – to help the church live more authentically in the world.  David simply reminded me of the genuine in me and helped me recognize my current title and role are not the fullness of who I am or who God called me to be.

 

• My debate with my mentor Jay Van Groningen also came to mind.  When Jay told me that it was nearly impossible for a church to be the driving force in community development work, I set out to prove him wrong.  Two months later, I am willing to accept defeat.  Churches are living organisms.  Living organisms consist of DNA – internal scripts that direct their functioning.  Churches planted with an attractional – our mission is to grow a strong church script, cannot change that DNA to a missional- our mission is to join our neighbors in transforming this community script.   Why was it so important for me to prove Jay wrong?  Because deep down, I want to be a part of a recognized truly missional church.  I believe the missional church movement when undertaken with solid Christian community development practices, holds the key to the renewal of the church and the ushering in of God’s kingdom now.  For me to give up on the inherited church was to give up on the future of the church universal and I could not do that.  I now realize there is a third way.  The way Jay tried to show me – church as asset to the community and blessing instead of driving force.

 

• Insights into nurturing Christian Vocation.  As I sat in the FTE training on VocationCARE in Atlanta, I realized that the heart of a missional expression of the church is that it releases Jesus followers into the world as change agents on mission with God.  It is not that Christians don’t want to live like Jesus; it is more that they don’t know how or aren’t released and at the same time encouraged to do so.  They have not been taught to listen for the sound of the genuine in themselves and those that have heard that still small voice calling them into a new way of living, often do not find the support they need in the church to live fully into that call.  Years ago, I heard the sound of the genuine revealing to me that my call was to be a “dream releaser.”  In Atlanta, I reconnected with that piece of my call and reclaimed it.  There are dreamers in our urban context and there are dreamers in our suburban context.  Some are in churches, some are not in churches.  I began to dream of a way of being the body that would connect these dreamers and unleash their full potential.

 

• Weaving it all together through Church of the Savior.  So with all these unconnected pieces rolling around in my head, I climbed aboard the bus and headed to Washington D.C. to visit Church of the Savior. At the time, I thought I was there to help one of my church partners envision a more missional way of being, which is still partly true.  However, God had something far bigger to show me.  It was in DC that all the threads came together.  Church of the Savior is structured as follows:

1. Mission Groups organized around a specific mission in a specific neighborhood.  They are remarkably similar to our “Dream Teams.”
2. The Mission Groups support community development programs like affordable housing, employment services, and youth leadership development, most of which are independent 501c3 corporations.  These programs are remarkably similar to the “initiatives” supported by our teams – family strengthening, vocational development and community building.
3. There is a strong emphasis on helping people discern their Christian call or vocation.  That sense of call is nurtured and respected throughout the organization through a commitment to the inward and outward journey of each person and mission group.  The practices bore a striking resemblance to the practices outlined by FTE’s VocationCARE approach with the same goal as our Dream Circles and Dream Academy workshops.
4. The Mission Groups have formed 9 worshiping communities, or churches.  These churches have no paid staff but are run by the mission groups.  Each church consists of one to five mission groups who come together simply to worship.  Some of these churches are less than 10 people with the largest church expression being 50.  This flat, simple, light weight church structure struck me as not only doable but sustainable.  While not currently an intentional part of Embrace’s design, I found the COS way of doing worship refreshingly simple.

The epiphany:

• I am called to be a Pastor not solely an ED of a Non-profit.
• I am called to be a part of a missional church.
• Embrace Richmond is more like a missional church than it is a non-profit.

I am not sure where this epiphany will lead me, but I have to pay attention to the sound of the genuine in me.

Are you listening to the sound of the genuine in you?

What tapestry is God weaving together in your life?