A Timely Retrospective

As we prepare to once again launch a fundraising effort for church planting, I decided to repost this article I wrote on the cusp of our move to Burleson nearly three years ago. The details are different this time around, we're hoping to relocate to the other side of town, not to another state. We have 3 years experience in the ministry of planting churches and specifically working with people in this area. We've now been married over 10 years and for the first time ever have lived in the same house for over 2.5 years. We're hoping our next move will be the last for many years to come. As I reread this post, I was struck by how much things have changed and how much they have stayed the same. The economy got worse, then it seemed to get a little better...nationwide, organizations are giving less to charitable causes and non-profits while individuals seem to be giving more. Our prayer as we begin this process is that the Holy Spirit will guide us to connect with both churches and individuals willing to partner with us in the ministry of planting churches and equipping congregations to live missionally in their neighborhoods.

Bad Ideas and Ones That Just Seem That Way. Oct 3, 2008

So as you may or may not know, Rachel and I have been married nearly 8 years and we are about to (hopefully) complete our 8^th move together. Over the years we have become pretty proficient packers and movers, with a thoroughly tested and carefully revised system. Rachel has always been in charge of packing (I handle the garage, my closet and anything she tells me to do…). I’ve been in charge of moving day and take pride in the fact that when folks show up to help us load the trucks there are pretty much only two types of items in our home: boxes and furniture. When we moved from Mesquite to Dallas the total time from when the first box was picked up until we were all sitting in the new house eating lunch was 2.5 hours (that’s including the 15-20 minute drive to our new house).

But times they are a changin’. If you read Rachel’s blog you know that she normally has nearly half the house packed before we send the kids to grandparents’ house for crunch time. The jump from 2 to 3 kids has shifted the balance of power and we simply did not have nearly as much done. Wednesday when I took the boys to my mom, Rachel was sick – which meant that the whole day she had to herself to get stuff done without me or the boys in her way was…well, it wasn’t good. Then yesterday I spent the day battling off the ick as well.

However, last night as we prepared for bed, we felt that all-in-all we were in decent shape. Joey had been incredibly cooperative, we actually had several boxes packed, the garage was close to ready…and we still had all day today, Saturday, most of the day Sunday and Monday before the big day Tuesday.

But that wasn’t good enough for me.

While carrying some stuff out to the truck I accidentally walked into the side of an open drawer. That was not a good idea. Three hours later we were back home with seven stinking stitches. But you know, we still got a lot done today.

The doctor, after conceding that I wasn’t going to stay off my feet, requested that I at least spend an hour of so with my leg propped up so that the bleeding would stop (which it didn’t do the entire time they were stitching me up…it was kinda cool). During my long lunch break I watched CNN. There was plenty of talk about the bailout plan – which at that point was being deliberated in the House of Representatives. There was also plenty of talk about the overall state of the economy and the future for jobs and financial security for American citizens.

This isn’t a bombshell; things have been looking a bit dreary for quite some time now. And to be totally honest there have been a few people look at me like I’m crazy when I tell them that we’re raising money to plant churches. “Now?” they often ask. A few have even come right out and said that they think this is a bad idea. Is the decision to step out on faith and plant new churches right now an idea comparable to kicking an open drawer while packing?

The short answer, I believe, is “no”.

It is true that finances are tight and we are asking people, in the midst this situation, to partner with us financially. It is true that many people are unsure about their job security. It is true that for many people the hope, optimism and general sense of well-being found in this country’s prosperity have been shaken. But that is all the more reason for us to be doing precisely what we’re doing.

Chris Chappotin, my new coworker, just read a book called Death By Suburb. I’m currently reading N.T. Wright’s Surprised By Hope. Both of these books, in one way or another, discuss the danger of putting our hope and faith in something less than God. I wonder how many people have been uninterested in God because a prosperous society has been providing them with liberal doses of pain killers - never truly addressing the problems in their life but effectively masking the symptoms in the short run. But (at the risk of overusing the metaphor) perhaps the prescription has run out for many of us.

I believe that today there are many people who have lost or are afraid they may lose their security net and I believe that those people are going to be more receptive than ever to hearing the good news of God who has come near; a God who has come to repair the broken systems of this world which lead to insecurity, fear and oppression; a God who has called us to work with him to reconcile, heal and restore his good creation.

I believe that people are going to be receptive, but there’s more to it than just that. I also believe that right now we NEED hope. Part of why folks are receptive is that the good news which we proclaim is something which we legitimately crave. The truth is that the Kingdom of God is breaking into this world, even in the midst of financial crisis. This kingdom has implications (as Surprised By Hope emphasizes) for life after death, life after life after death and even life BEFORE death!

There has never been a more appropriate time in our lifetime to be engaged in God’s mission; planting churches right now is a GOOD idea.

Those we are asking to partner with us are being faced with a big commitment of faith – trust me, I understand that very well. However, I am more convinced than ever that this is precisely the kind of risk we are being called to take in the name of Jesus. We have raised nearly 50% of our goal (for the first year anyway), we are moving Wednesday and we are convinced that God is opening these doors. We are also convinced that the hurdles which keep popping up this week are examples of spiritual warfare. I believe that the forces of darkness at work in this world should be nervous – not because of us, but because of the powerfully advancing Kingdom in which our citizenship resides.

We are talking with a few churches right now about coming on board as a supporting church for our family and the ministry of planting churches in the Burleson / south Fort Worth area. Several of these churches are considering one time or special gifts – which we of course appreciate greatly. Our church here at Tammany Oaks has agreed to partner with us for one year. We need other congregations to partner with us regularly over the next three years or so. Make no mistake, we’re still looking for individuals to join us. But perhaps your congregation or one you know of would be interested in supporting (or partially supporting) a domestic missionary family. Perhaps your church family also believes that it is time for the community of God to advance into the darkness in order to reflect light into every dark corner. If so would you help us get connected with your church? Would you be the voice calling your leadership to partner with us?

I have now officially shed blood for this ministry, and the 7 stitches (a good, holy number by the way) are symbolic of my commitment…not my inability to watch where I’m walking, as you may have thought. I pray that very soon we will have raised our full support (because apparently I really need to get medical insurance!!). In the meantime we are continuing to pray for the individuals and congregations that God is preparing to bring into our lives as partners, as well as the individuals and families that we are going to be blessed to be in relationship with through the ministry of planting new churches.

A New Day Dawns

In the summer of 2005 my world turned upside down. I was a youth minister at a church in Dallas, only a few months away from finishing grad school at ACU and we'd just found out Rachel was pregnant with Micah (our now 5 year old). Life seemed to be progressing in fairly predictable fashion. My job seemed secure, my family was growing, we lived in a house we planned to buy in a nice but affordable Dallas neighborhood. We had some exciting things happening in the youth ministry. It wasn't all rainbows and lollipops, there were frustrations and struggles, but all in all, things were good.

Then one Tuesday I was told that the leadership of the church had decided to eliminate my position at the church. In one conversation the rug was pulled out from under us. I began looking for another job. We had grown to love Dallas and had very good friends there...but to find another ministry job would most likely mean moving. For months I searched. Time and time again we found ourselves among the final 2 applicants for a position - several of which were still in the DFW area - and every time someone from the selection committee would call to say they were very sorry but they'd decided on the other guy. In one week I got a call from one church saying they felt like they needed someone a little younger, another saying they wanted someone a little older...and another that just wanted someone else. I felt like I was the momma bear's porridge AND the daddy bear's porridge.

After 6 months, and jobs in insurance adjusting, Barnes and Noble bookshelf alphabetizing, bounce house set-upping, disaster relief child caring and even a few random jobs, we were invited to move to the New Orleans area on a one year contract where I'd work as an outreach minister in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The first year and a half were brutal. We were still wounded from our previous job loss...and in hindsight were probably not in the best state-of-mind to relocate to a disaster area. However, our one year contract became nearly three years, the outreach ministry position became the preaching ministry position and Tammany Oaks became our family.

I began spending time at local coffee shops and cafes. I met and developed friendships with people who had little or no desire to ever step foot in a "church building." It became apparent to me that in order to truly connect with such folks we'd need a very different approach than what we were used to. We began to discern a call to church planting.

So, we told Tammany Oaks what we were thinking and our desire to take up this calling in north Texas - to be sent home as missionaries. I was nervous, I'd been dropped by a church before, how would this one respond? My fears proved to be unfounded in this instance. For six months we remained at Tammany Oaks while we raised support - in the midst of church family that prayed over us and pledged a year of financial support themselves, and friends who are still very dear to us.

Four of us had left Texas in April/May 2006 and five moved back to north Texas in October of 2008 (Josiah was born in Covington, Louisiana, but still secretly on Texas soil as I'd had a bag of that beautiful sandy-loam smuggled into the delivery room...) We began working with Christ Journey, a young church plant in Burleson. I spent time developing spiritual formation and discipleship processes for a house church based ministry, got to know waitresses and strangers in the park, started new house churches and began working on a doctor of ministry in missional church studies at SMU. My school studies were helpful and have led to the development of a training resource for groups - particularly established congregations who wish to begin connecting with people like the ones I'd met in south Louisiana coffee shops...and Burleson coffee shops.

But the real learning took place in the midst of the Christ Journey community and our attempts to cultivate a missional community in the midst of Bible belt culture. I gained insight into the struggles that come with planting churches in an area that author/professor/church planter, David Fitch recently described to me as "extremely comfortable with church."

I learned about the limitations of and the need for godly leadership in young communities of faith. I learned about the inherent relational risks associated with an approach to faith that calls you to invest in one another beyond merely attending events together. I learned about the difficulty and the necessity of leading as a fellow follower, co-laborer and travel companion and the danger of abdicating that calling.

I learned the importance of serving the poor and connecting with neighbors as central elements of life as a disciple of Jesus - experiencing life as "the scattered church" ...and I developed a whole new appreciation for the value of gathering regularly for worship - life as "the gathered church."

I struggled with the role of preaching and proclamation in a culture that values dialog over monologue...and am learning how to navigate that path.

I learned to recognize the need for structures that benefit organic growth and learned how stunted that growth will be without such structures.

My learning is far from complete. But my family and I, along with a few other families have now been sent out by Christ Journey to continue the ministry of planting churches. The Gathering is already connecting with others and inviting new friends to taste and see that the Lord is good. Just as planting an apple tree means planting apple seeds, planting churches means planting not the finished fruit but rather a seed, which is the good news that Jesus himself planted - The kingdom of God is at hand!

Since we moved to Burleson we have been supported financially by a combination of raised support and part-time (and sometimes full-time) jobs. As we launch out on this new phase of our adventure, we are once again seeking others to partner with us financially. In addition to our ministry with The Gathering, I'm currently working several part-time jobs (4 to be precise, along with completing the final stages of my degree at SMU) and am in the process of starting a non-profit ministry called Intentional People, formed around Communitas, the process I've developed through SMU. Rachel currently has 3 jobs of her own (in addition to caring for the infamous Wellsbrothers).

One of our primary goals for fundraising is to be able to raise enough support to let go of a few of these other jobs in order to devote more time to church planting and Intentional People.

We have put together a newsletter which describes The Gathering and Intentional People, and provides information about how others can partner with us. If you, someone you know, your church or another group may be interested in learning more about either of these ministries, please leave a comment, email me at bret@intentionalpeople.org, or send me a message on Facebook or Twitter.

Prophets and Priests

Somebody put a quote on twitter a few days ago that I've been thinking about a lot. It basically said "young preachers who want to be prophets should first strive to be priests."

Before I go any further, I want to make sure and clarify what is meant by “prophet” and “priest.”

Many of us have a mental image of the prophetic role as someone who sees the future, has supernatural visions, hears voices...or all of the above. While this has certainly been the case in several instances, it should not be used a general descriptor. The role of the prophet has been described as “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.” It is the call to inform the emperor that he is, in fact, quite naked. The prophet is called to imagine what life would look like were we to experience the reign of God; the coming of the kingdom, in our midst...and to help others imagine in such a way as well.

In this conversation “priest,” does not imply someone who wears all black and changes their first name to Father. Instead it refers to the pastoral role of caring for the spiritual and emotional needs of others. In scripture the metaphor is that of shepherd; one who protects, defends, comforts and guides.

For years I've listened to people tell me that young people have no place being prophets - its only after you've learned the system, earned your stripes, as it were, that you have a right to be critical of it. I've always had 2 major problems with this idea.

1) I look around and, with a few notable exceptions, many of those who've spent enough time in the system to offer critique seem most interested in keeping things calm and perhaps protecting their hard fought place in that system. Perhaps they’ve experienced a Shawshank-like institutionalization, maybe they just don’t have the energy anymore or maybe they’ve learned how to make the system work for them. Whatever the reason, it begs the question of whether we should keep the younger people from serving as prophets when the older people refuse to do so.

2) My other problem is that neither scripture nor history seem to agree with this position. Samuel was a young man, David was a young man, the apostles were young, Mary was young, Esther was young... (I would point out that Jesus was my age when he began his paradigmatically prophetic ministry...but, being the eternal Logos and all, Jesus was what we might call, an old soul.) Throughout history it has been youth movements that have often caused the most important and needed social change and revolution.

As far as being a priest before being a prophet, again scripture doesn't share this prerequisite. Some of the prophets, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, were priests... but many were not. There were schools of prophets in ancient Israel; prestigious and in high demand among the elite... and then there were the nut-jobs, like John the Baptizer who everyone knew were a little off their rocker, but whose words carried wisdom beyond the person.

I realize that the prophet/priest comment is not meant in quite these literal terms. At its purest it is a statement about loving people. A warning to hold up both the afflicting the comfortable AND comforting the afflicted aspects.

But honestly, sometimes the “be a priest first” requirement is merely a new spin on the old political adage, “first you get along then you go along.” - In others words, this little bit of advice can seem a touch business-as-usual given the radical reshaping of world systems and rejection of political pandering modeled by Christ.

With that said, it is still a needed reminder to young men and women that in their (or shall I say, “our”) zeal, we must not forget Paul’s reminder that without love we are, at best, just a bothersome noise. This point is well received.

Perhaps part of the problem is that many of us, young and old alike, seem to confuse being a jerk with being a prophet. We confuse healthy confrontation with someone who enjoys picking a fight. We confuse speaking the truth with saying whatever you want however you want because you have some external validation which provides diplomatic immunity.

The ability to identify someone’s insecurities and point out their flaws doesn’t make you a prophet, it makes you a bully. Just because (or perhaps especially when) you do this in a humorous way doesn’t make you less sinister, it doubles your guilt.

I do not want there to be any confusion, so let me be as clear as possible. The prophetic call is not a free pass to run around being an ass. It does not release you from the call to offer compassion or mercy to the weak. Again, the prophetic call is just as much about comforting the afflicted as it is about afflicting the comfortable.

For the sake of full disclosure, yes, I am well aware that several prophets did seem to have, shall we say, diplomacy issues. I guess if you’re going up against someone with all the cards perhaps you can’t afford to bluff. But beware of temptation. Calling people white-washed tombs can be addictive. Its easy to enjoy the rush so much that you begin throwing out zingers at the slightest offense (real or imagined)...and once you cross the line to afflicting the afflicted, by proxy you’re also comforting the comfortable and the prophet’s finger is pointed at you as the one who stole that poor guy’s lamb (if you missed that reference, let me know and we’ll read about a dangerously exciting example of rhetorically dominating a warrior-poet king.)

Being angry or rejecting authority does not mean that you have a prophetic calling on your life. A chip on the shoulder does not a prophet make. It is important to remember that the prophetic role involves more than critiquing the system, it involves casting a compelling vision of God’s alternative to the present system. If both the criticism and the engagement are not in your heart, you may be called to another role.

However, here is the very painful truth as far as I can tell: the time for sitting around pretending that things are mostly okay and just need a few tweaks here and there is over. The time when God’s prophets could afford to bite their tongues until society deemed them properly invested (as if that would ever happen) has past. Like everyone else, the prophets must remember the admonition to put on love first, but once they are clothed with love, it is time to let that love lead them to acknowledge the brood of vipers wearing sheep costumes (I love mixed metaphors). The prophetic role is, in a sense, like being a missionary sent to the church.

Just as in mission work, the soil may not always be receptive or hospitable. But before we get to wound up in testing the acidity of the sandy-loam mixture upon which we tread, its interesting to remember that in Jesus’ parable about good vs bad soil, the farmer wasn’t all that careful where he scattered the seed. We often gloss over that little tid-bit because we don’t plant much. Perhaps it was just a necessary story-telling device. Or perhaps, once again, Jesus was describing the upside-down nature of this kingdom. The seed gets scattered everywhere, it is the soil’s response to the seed rather than predetermined markers of receptivity which determine its “good” or “bad” status.

I mentioned before that a healthy prophetic ministry combines criticism with engagement. Similarly, for the message to be received with open ears people must a) mourn the current state of affairs and b) have the emotional capacity for hopeful imagination to be fanned into flame. Those whose heads are buried in their...sand, and those whose hopes have been thoroughly crushed will both likely be just as resistant to the call for change as those who actually benefit from things staying as they are.

For this reason the role of the prophet is always painful and seldom externally rewarding. It should not be undertaken by any, save those who have been called and can do no other. Wounds and painful pasts will often exist in the life of the prophet, but someone operating out of untreated woundedness (the “walking wounded” as Nouwen and others have referred to them) will likely only bring more harm to themselves and others. They may have a tendency to overcorrect or unconsciously embark on campaigns born more of personal vendetta and retribution to those who have wronged them than out of a desire to help others imagine a life under the reign of the new kingdom.

With all that being said, I’m not sure that those who would be prophets should first strive to be priests. However, just because you like causing a scene it doesn’t mean you’re a prophet. Lead with the imagination, save the white-washed tombs for when you need them.

Previous Thoughts Revisited

In keeping with the themes of my previous post - namely the themes of community and revisiting things I've written before - I thought I'd repost these thoughts on community, originally posted on this blog over a year ago...

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer once talked about our desire for community; he noted that many people love the IDEA of community more than the experience itself. Why is that?

To speak simply about a complex matter: Actual community is messy.

When we think about community we begin to realize how great it would be to have others to walk through the trials of life with. It would be wonderful to have someone(s) to join us in those things that stoke our passion and vision. It would be great to have the synergy that comes from people sharing talents and resources. We know that it is not good for people to be alone and community seems to be part of God’s answer to the dark and oppressive prison of isolation.

And the great thing is that all of this is true.

But...

Community doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it happens in the context of life with real, actual human people...all of whom carry around their wounds, flaws and smelly baggage. So, getting close to others (an unavoidable requirement to cultivate community) means that we can see their flaws and smell their baggage.

And they can see ours.

So there are lots of people who know they need community; people who realize that they can’t deal with all of life’s curve balls alone. Many of those people are seeking to fill that hole of loneliness.

For many young people the desire to join gangs is a desire to find a family that will accept them and be loyal to them. This is the pull of the drug and party culture...as long as you’re partying you’re usually accepted. And for a while this seems like community.

Until you get arrested and no one from the party shows up at your hearing.

...Or until you run out of money and no one who you smoke with helps you pay the electric bill - even though you can’t pay the electric bill because they smoked most of your weed or drank most of your beer.

...Or until you try to leave the life of violence and that same gang that welcomed you in refuses to let you out.

But these aren’t the only folks who find it difficult to cultivate authentic community. Many of us have sought community in very healthy ways. There are lots of larger churches that hire a Community Connections Minister - people whose sole responsibility is finding ways for their congregation to connect with their community and for visitors and new members to connect to the congregation.

Christ Journey is dedicated to the cultivation of real, deep and true community. And guess what we’ve found? It is hard. It is messy. Sometimes, it is dangerous.

People let us down. People who we love hurt us. People we love are hurt by us and we let them down.

We try to reach out and our efforts are not reciprocated. We invest in someone and love them and then they move.

We trust someone enough to let our guard down and be vulnerable and they betray our trust in one way or another.

Or we do one or all of these to others. Sometimes unwittingly and sometimes because our sin and selfishness are just a little too deeply ingrained.

Community is hard because of all of this. Its also hard because we begin taking on the hurts of those we love. Our friends go through a separation or divorce and we feel a bit of that pain. A home is foreclosed on and it feels like it was our own house. We see a young single mother struggling to keep all the plates spinning and also go back to school so that she won’t be stuck in poverty and continue this cycle for another generation...and we want to pick up all the plates, but we don’t know how.

We can’t make the marriage work, we can’t pay the mortgage, we can only help so much. And we begin to think, “It was easier when the answer to ‘how ya doing?’ was a simple, ‘fine, and you?’”

We begin to think, it was easier when I just occupied a pew and there was no expectation that I would be vulnerable around these people. We begin to say, “things were better in Egypt...” (check out the story of Israel in Exodus and also read Numbers chapter 11).

I understand this fear. Rachel and I have lived with the fear that comes from trusting church after being let down in a major way by church. But, like the prophet Hosea (whose life was meant as a metaphor for God and us) we are called to commit to our community even if we have good reason to suspect we will be betrayed again.

We have to because, as Andy Lancaster commented to me once, “Community is hard, but life is harder.” If we continue to try life without community we will find ourselves constantly retreating from both.

I know that community is hard, but life without it is not easier - unless we hide behind sports, alcohol, addictions, gossip, or any number of other escapist activities and fantasy worlds.

I am so glad to be a part of a church that is trying to cultivate real community. It doesn’t happen overnight and it will never happen (during this leg of the journey) in a complete or perfect way, but at least we don’t have to continue retreating.

Someone once said, “Its not as if we really think we can say anything, but in light of what we’ve seen we can’t say nothing.” Perhaps its the same with community. We may not have much hope for cultivating a perfect community, but in light of what we’ve seen and experienced we can’t sit by and do nothing.

Thank you for being my community.

Is Theology Even Important?

So I just finished posting the transcript of a podcast which describes a missional theology - or perhaps a part of one anyway. And the question that comes up in some conversations is, “Why does it matter?”

I’ve gone back and forth on how to begin a response to this question because I don’t want to sound like I’m going on a rampage against anyone...not today anyway. :)

So I’ll say this. I know many, well meaning people who love God and in whom I see the hand of God at work, who for several reasons find discussions or articulations of intentional theology to be a waste of time. My concern isn’t that they don’t have a theology, because everyone does. Theology is “God talk” - its what we believe about God and what God is up to in this place.

What worries me is that the opposite of intentional theology isn’t no theology, its unintentional theology. A recent conversation with an old friend reminded me of this point. He was describing how an acquaintance recently tweeted about God blessing his new business. My friend noted that this person was already very blessed materially and seems to be content with God continuing to bless him more without any concern for the difficult state of others. My friend made a comment to the effect of, “So why does God care about giving this guy more than he needs when other people have nothing?”

Of course, this is only a sound byte of the conversation. From the larger story, it doesn’t sound like the guy is a terribly greedy person who thinks he should have everyone else’s stuff. However, I do think that there are some consequences at play from unintentional theology. The guy, raised under the “personal relationship with Jesus” mantra seems to have no paradigm for how Jesus’ ministry of reconciliation has anything to do with the plight of others. Jesus came to earth so that I can be saved and salvation is about me going to heaven when I die.

I’ve written and talked about this topic before, so I won’t get on a soapbox. The point here isn’t that this theology is wrong so much as it is that, without thinking through the implications of our beliefs, our practice is effected without us even realizing it.

Here is why I believe it is important for the church - even decentralized, organic churches without the resources to pay “professional” theologians - to take theology seriously. If practicing the Way of Christ is our goal, then we need to be serious about considering the ways in which our beliefs about God and Christ lead to (or away from) practice.

I spend a good deal of time with folks who do not consider themselves Christians. It has happened, and I believe it will continue to happen, that these friends see something authentic in our commitment to God, to them and to one another and are drawn to our community.

I don’t think it is necessary for us to form a Christ Journey 101 class that lays out our written systematic theology. Most of these folks would head for the hills as soon as it was suggested. I do believe that, like the disciples of Jesus, we learn in process, as we go along. Learning doesn’t have to take place in a classroom or through a formal curriculum. That doesn’t mean that it should happen on accident or without thought.

Neil Cole, author of Organic Church, Church 3.0 and several others, is a proponent of rapid church multiplication. In his model, which is highly successful in what it sets out to do, new faith communities are started through an incredibly grassroots oriented movement and spread into new homes and coffee shops like wildfire. Leadership is very decentralized (even more so than in our context) and, in fact, he notes that it is common for churches to be born without any awareness of the church planter who “started” the movement...perhaps just a few months and few blocks away.

He has been asked about heresy in this movement, since there is little accountability outside of the small local group which may be comprised completely of new disciples. His response seems, to me anyway, to be very dismissive. He points out that heresy is more common in highly centralized structures because that is where someone who is seeking power can find it concentrated in one place. Decentralized movements are less prone, in his argument, because these power-seeking leaders don’t have a large group of people to influence. Thus, the leaders may take a small group off in a strange direction, but they don’t have a huge crowd to follow them and the heresy, in effect, dies out.

I see his point, and to a certain degree it makes sense. I’ve seen the way that certain kinds of unhealthy people seem to seek out positions of power to launch empire building schemes...and I don’t think they’d get much satisfaction attempting that with Christ Journey!

And yet, there are a couple major flaws in Cole’s assessment. His assumption seems to indicate that bad theology is the result of a dangerous person with an agenda. That isn’t always the case. Each of us have some levels of bad theology we’re working through and there are scores of well meaning people with unintentional theologies pulling them in directions that move them away from active participation in God’s mission. It is our connection to the larger community, including but also beyond the friends who gather in our living room from week to week, that allows to hold our beliefs AND actions up for discernment, consideration and continued formation.

If the assumption is that people are blank slates and a simple reading of the Bible, with no outside influence is going to lead to healthy discipleship...I think Cole has missed out on the warning of history.

We all have theological assumptions (good and bad), whether we were raised in a Christian church or not. People in the Bible belt may have heard the “personal relationship with Jesus” mantra. They may believe that God is merely a vending machine for all our wants and wishes. They didn’t put money in the machine before because they thought it was empty, but now that they’re starting to believe...its time to find that roll of quarters. I have several friends who haven’t attended a Christian worship gathering in years (and who only went before that because their parents carried them kicking and screaming) and others that have never “gone to church” who, when they do talk about faith, do so in these terms.

My friends who have been missionaries in Africa talk about the difficulty they had in getting African converts to stop worshiping their ancestors. Studies in the history of African missions (and early missions to North and South America) are full of warnings against colonial approaches that simply transplant Western Christian theology, dress and church polity over the old “pagan stuff.” It doesn’t work.

However, the answer can’t be to simply ignore both the old theologies and new ones and just hope something good comes about. We have to think carefully about our beliefs and their necessary actions; every context is cross-cultural and demands that we treat it with respect and careful consideration. We must ask, “What is the Gospel in this place?” That question will get us nowhere if it is a strategic marketing consideration. It is deeply theological. It gets to the very essence of “God-talk.” What is God’s message of reconciliation to these people? Where is the darkness that is pregnant with anticipation for the light? What are the ancient infected wounds that pump toxin into the system generation after generation? What strongholds of the old kingdom are cowering in a dark corner, praying that the Kingdom of Light doesn’t discover their presence?

These questions are not best answered in a lab, by the scholar’s pen or in a seminary classroom. They are answered by the community of light that is following Jesus into that darkness. And they are questions of theology.

My other concern with Cole’s laissez faire approach to theology and discipleship is that it seems to put rapid multiplication of churches ahead of people; ahead of reconciling the brokenness in the world. This seems odd, given that it is a highly relational context that emphasizes the ability of everyone to read the gospel and put it into practice. However, what if, instead of patiently walking with and instructing the struggling early church, Paul had decided, “Meh, they won’t affect that many people anyway.”

This mindset in effect says that if people are led into some unhealthy theology, its their own fault for listening to bad information...and there are a million other bodies to take their place. I’m not sure that this is significantly different from the modern church that sees each family as a “contributing unit.”

Is the mission of God to start new churches or to inaugurate a new kingdom and a new life? If it is the former, then theology isn’t that important. Just organize folks around the Bible, call them a church and who cares what happens next. However, if the point is new life with a whole new paradigm of what’s up and what’s down, then a more intentional process may be warranted. We are learning to think in new ways, spend money in new ways, interact with neighbors in new ways. If just putting a Bible in people’s hands and calling it victory was sufficient, the Gideons would have completed this task years ago. In case you’re wondering, that’s a gross oversimplification for emphasis, and I feel like I should acknowledge that there is a lot to commend in the work of Neil Cole. He is a leader in the movement to reclaim Christianity as a way of life which engages and embraces God's Kingdom breaking into this world...

I think there is still a great need for intentional theology that is processed and discerned in the midst of the community of faith. Perhaps what we’ve reacted to are propositions formed in “the ivory tower” that are passed down to be accepted blindly by the masses. Many of us have a strong reaction to rigid hierarchical leadership that, again disseminates the accepted beliefs everyone must uphold, though from the pulpit rather than a distant headquarter.

However, I think that what we’re struggling against here are forms of leadership rather than the need for theology. We who are attempting to follow Jesus into the dark places are more in need of clear theology than those who see their role as simply filling a pew. When people ask us why we put the grill in the front yard, our answer (whether they or we realize) is deeply theological. That answer says something significant to what we believe about God. We need intentional theology.

And we also need good healthy leadership. As much as we may think we want to, we can’t get away from either. So, on Monday, I’m going to post a few thoughts about leadership. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the relationship between theology and leadership. Specifically, I’ll be wrestling with the common assumption that our preachers, teachers and theologians are the primary leaders in our churches, precisely because of their role as teacher. Is that the best approach?

It may be that our resident theologians help guide discernment as participants in the conversation rather than as the authoritative leader. What if the role of preaching, teaching and theologizing was not where we understood the locus of leadership to reside? What say you?

a Missional Theology: part 3

I recently posted a podcast at our new site - www.MissionalMonks.com - titled "a missional theology," which addresses my understanding of who we are called to be as God's people. I decided to post the transcript of that podcast here. Its a little long, so it'll show up as a series of three posts (this is the final of the three).

Note that its entitled "a" missional theology...not "the" missional theology. What I attempted to describe are some basic understandings of functioning as God's community of ambassadors to all creation. There is plenty of room here for the different denominational distinctions and doctrines - I didn't even try to get in to all the finer points of systematic theology here. So, if you think that something I added is wrong, please feel free to open dialog. If you think I left something out...I did. Add it and serve faithfully.

If you aren't interested in reading 3500 words over three posts, you can listen to nearly the identical thing at missionalmonks.com - the "music" player is in the left hand column - its just under 30 mins including the intro (shorter than most of my sermons...). Whether you read or listen, I'd love your feedback.

Towards a Missional Theology

part 3

Broken or not, we are created in the image of God and I think one of the great examples of human pride is the false belief that there is anything we could have done (like the concept of original sin and total depravity) that could ever completely destroy what God placed in our very essence.

We are not God. We are broken and fall very much short of our ideal, but we still carry within us the image of the Divine Creator. Because of this, our identity is formed not only by our difference from God but also by what we’ve seen God at work doing, who we’ve seen God revealed to be.

Before the beginning God existed as a complete Community of Love. Unlike the claims of some religions that hold the beliefs that the gods need human worshippers to maintain their power, we worship the God who needed nothing. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit share in a fully contained and unified community of Love. The full understanding the Trinity is certainly beyond us. But this much is clear, one cannot love without an object to receive love. Unlike us, God needs no external object because the Father loves the Son and Spirit, The Son loves the Father and Spirit and the Spirit loves the Father and Son. And yet, the nature of love is to make room for others to experience loving community and so God created. And when God created, God made room at the table for creation. However, this is not a story of a wealthy landowner simply throwing occasional parties at his mansion. Time and time again we see that God is not only willing, but apparently anxious to be out in the midst of those God loves.

Communitas

I am grateful to Alan Hirsch for introducing me to the word communitas. It is a latin word that refers to community which develops and is cultivated among people who have a shared struggle, ordeal or mission. Like sports teams that endure long difficult seasons, or soldiers who share a foxhole, communitas refers to that bond that comes from being in a place where you have no choice but to depend on those around you. We see this in the very nature of the Triune God. Be it the act of creation or the redemption of creation through the cross, we find Father, Son and Spirit with a shared mission and apparently even a shared struggle. It doesn’t take away from God’s greatness to acknowledge struggle - because the struggle doesn’t come from God’s inability to overcome, but rather from God’s willingness to neither overwhelm creation nor abandon it.

If we are the people of God, created in God’s image, then communitas is going to be a vital component of our lives. When it isn’t, we know something is missing. This is part of why both gangs and fraternities are so popular - whether they are healthy or not, they are an experience of communitas. I also think this is why buddy movies, war movies, sports movies are so captivating - they tap into our desire to go through something significant with others.

Hospitality

Because God, the Community of Love, not only created us but made space for us within the Community, we see the importance and even centrality of hospitality. When we trace the story of Scripture we see over and again that God welcomes us into his presence. We see God clothing the naked and even the poorly clothed like Adam and Eve. We see God feeding the children of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness. We see Jesus feeding the multitudes, washing the disciples’ feet and going to prepare a place for us in his father’s home. (Which by the way, is a reference to ancient marriage customs...where a betrothed male would actually build a room for he and his future wife onto his father’s house. He would continue working on the room until the father decided it was ready to be inhabited and then the father would send the son to get his bride). Throughout the old testament we find God instructing the Israelites that they were to be people of hospitality - welcoming the stranger into their homes, making sure that foreigners and the poor were taken care of, even ensuring that they’d have a place at the annual feasts. Hospitality is a central component to the revealed nature of God and is a vital piece of identity for the people of God.

Hospitality means so much more than just inviting our friends to our house for dinner. It literally means to welcome the stranger...and if we take Jesus seriously, it will also include loving and welcoming even our enemies. It means caring for the poor. It means remembering those who are overlooked and forgotten by society. It means that we are a community that practices the customs of the new Kingdom, the Kingdom of God that is here but still coming. It means that we should live in a way that seems radical and even foolish in our get ahead at all costs society.

Missional Living

But again, God doesn’t merely welcome us in, God comes to us and brings his peace with him. In addition to hospitality we see that God is the preeminent missionary. In other words, from the very beginning to the very end and everywhere in between, God is not content to sit in heaven and watch our lives from a distance. God draws near. God sets up his tent among us. In Exodus we read about the Tabernacle. It was basically a large tent that the Israelites carried around with them. The Tabernacle represented God’s presence with the Israelites.

Several years ago I realized that in the Gospel of John when it is says that Jesus made his dwelling among us, the Greek word used is the word for tabernacle. In other words, like God with the Israelites, Jesus set up his tent in our midst...as Eugene Peterson says it in the Message, Jesus moved into the neighborhood. The cool thing is that when you read Revelation 21 - the end our Scriptures. It says that when everything is finally brought to its culmination, the new Jerusalem will come DOWN out of heaven and God will dwell with his people. Again the word is tabernacle. The dwelling of God will be with his people. From the beginning, to Jesus’ life to the culmination of all things, God chooses to come down and tabernacle with us.

How can we choose anything different? If we are God’s people, formed in the image of God we must seek to cultivate communitas - which means that our life in God will not be carried out alone but in community. We must be a people of hospitality, welcoming the stranger. But we must also be a missional people - a community sent out by God to dwell among the people, among creation, in the dark places where the light needs to break in.

These six things: discipleship, spiritual formation and worship because we are not God and communitas, hospitality and missional living because we are created in the image of God, are not meant to be the final formula to fix the churches problems. However, I contend that if we, as a church, can live into these principles we will find that we are in a place where we are more likely to witness God at work, praise God for what we see and answer the call to go and do likewise.

a Missional Theology: part 1

I recently posted a podcast at our new site - www.MissionalMonks.com - titled "a missional theology," which addresses my understanding of who we are called to be as God's people. I decided to post the transcript of that podcast here. Its a little long, so it'll show up as a series of three posts.

Note that its entitled "a" missional theology...not "the" missional theology. What I attempted to describe are some basic understandings of functioning as God's community of ambassadors to all creation. There is plenty of room here for the different denominational distinctions and doctrines - I didn't even try to get in to all the finer points of systematic theology here. So, if you think that something I added is wrong, please feel free to open dialog. If you think I left something out...I did. Add it and serve faithfully.

If you aren't interested in reading 3500 words over three posts, you can listen to nearly the identical thing at missionalmonks.com - the "music" player is in the left hand column - its just under 30 mins including the intro (shorter than most of my sermons...). Whether you read or listen, I'd love your feedback.

Toward a Missional Theology

Over the last couple years I’ve been working on a degree in evangelism and missional leadership from SMU. It has been an awesome experience and I’ve really enjoyed the diversity of folks I’ve been blessed to study with. I’m usually the youngest in the class, usually one of the only (if not THE only) white males and so far I’ve been the only one who would be described as a “missional church planter.”

So I’ve had anything but the experience of sitting in a room with people just like me, telling each other what we want to hear to feel better about who we are and what we do.

I’ve learned a lot by listening to the struggles and questions of folks in contexts that appear so very different from my own. When they ask me to describe my context, it isn’t usually very easy to do. Partially this is because “my context” changes pretty regularly. At one point I would have basically described us as a typical non-denominational suburban store front church that was trying very hard to keep our focus outside of ourselves, but not succeeding very well. At some points I’d have described us as a small group of shell shocked survivors huddling in a living room. Sometimes we’re a vibrant community of families serving our neighbors. Sometimes, we’re a haphazard collection of individuals wanting to experience an authentic connection with others, but unsure how to escape the individualism we’ve all been raised in.

At our best, I think we are a community of disciples in process who sense that church as usual just isn’t cutting it. But rather than defining ourselves over against traditional church, we’re seeking to emulate Jesus by living more fully into our lives. We’re committed to living the gospel in the midst of the suburban disconnect. Proclaiming gospel isn’t about getting someone to join our club. Its about getting our club to join God in the ministry of reconciling the brokenness we see all around us.

In some ways our context is hard to describe because we are exploring territory that hasn’t had many visitors recently. Yet, we aren’t really trying to be novel. We’re trying to faithful to God and the mission that God has entrusted to us, the ambassadors and image-bearers of the Triune God.

So, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking, reading, praying and discussing what it means to be church. I’ve gained a lot of understanding from reading Exodus, the prophets and the Gospels - even though I was trained (implicitly if not explicitly in church growing up and in seminary as well) to look to Paul as the primary source of insight for church organization.

Authors such as Alan Hirsch and Mike Frost, who wrote The Forgotten Ways...and numerous other books - Hugh Halter and Matt Smay have also been very helpful. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and the new monastics have helped me think more specifically about the role of community in our development of whole life faith.

Really where these authors have been the most help is in painting a picture and providing language to describe what we see in the text when we stop reading through the lens of the empire.

In many ways and for many years, I believe that our reading of scripture has been heavily influenced by Christianity’s way to comfortable relationship and even identification with the dominant culture. I think this is problematic. It is very hard to take to heart Scriptures admonition against the powerful and God’s overwhelming consistency of siding with the oppressed when we’re associated with the powerful oppressors.

Take the Scriptural concept of “The Day of the Lord.” For those who have been oppressed, the day of the Lord is an event to be looked forward to with great anticipation because it is the day of deliverance and justice. For those who have been guilty of oppressing others, it is a day to fear greatly for the same reason. But we don’t ever like to assume that we are the ones being prophesied against...we never associate ourselves with the Pharisees. And so the Day of the Lord becomes about judgement to those outside of our group. We can oppress, neglect or ignore people all we want, so long as we show up for church, don’t cheat on our spouse and sign off on the doctrinal statements that our group feels are most important. God sides with the weak, the overlooked and forgotten. If we want to find ourselves on God’s side, sitting in a comfortable worship assembly completely oblivious to the darkness all around us may not be the best strategy.

As I’ve thought about what it means to be God’s people - the church - I find myself returning to passages like Genesis 1-2 quite often. Those of you who know me are probably used to hearing me comment on the paradoxical descriptions of God in these two chapters.

In chapter 1 of Genesis we read of a God who is anything but like one of us. In fact there are very few things in this chapter that seem to describe God in even remotely human concepts. The Spirit of God hovers over the waters, which gives us the impression that God IS somewhere and isn’t just a concept. God speaks, implying a voice and the ability to make sounds...which we can do. Beyond that, this Being, whatever he, she, they, it is...it isn’t one of us.

And yet, in Chapter 2 God is described in a very different way. Still great. Still mighty. Still in charge. But also familiar. Intimate. Like a father - the good kind of father, not the abusive absentee ones that some people have experienced.

This God walks in the Garden, kneels in the dirt, forms a body and breathes life into its nostrils. This God walks with his children, talks to them and empowers them with productive tasks to accomplish.

This may be the most simplistic and obvious statement I could make, but it strikes me that in some ways we are like this God...but we are not this God. I think, however, that it is very important for us to remember to keep both of these truths in front of us. If we forget that we are not God all kinds of things go wrong - Scripture, human history and personal experience will all attest to that!

to be continued...

What Does it Look Like?

It’s been a year now since I began attempting the life of bi-vocational domestic mission work. I started off last fall as a substitute teacher in Mansfield. Then in February I began working as a roofing contractor - slowly at first, still subbing as I learned the ins and outs of this trade. This summer, after some very heavy storms, I spent five or six days a week doing the roofing thing in Oklahoma City. All throughout this season I’ve wondered what life looks like for the long term.

Working bi-vocationally came about as a necessity, with bills and groceries and whatnot, but it also makes a lot of sense theologically and strategically. The reality that we have slowly come to see is that raising long-term missionary support in the US is difficult (even in a good economy) and the work we’re trying to do is slow...and often among people with few financial resources to support us.

We could go the route that many others have and focus on gathering a large crowd of Christians who are dissatisfied with their current church. However, I did not feel called to leave my job preaching in order to seek out people from other churches. I felt called, and continue to feel called, to go out in search of those who haven’t heard that there is a new kingdom at hand. Mine is a missionary calling. More specifically, I feel called as a missionary to join God in inviting others to live as a community of missionaries under the banner of a new (old) kingdom.

So, I am a missionary with gifts in teaching and discipleship, not merely striving to impart information but to participate in a particular way of life with others. The past couple years in Burleson have been a series of ups and downs, victories and failures. I’ve witnessed miracles I couldn’t have anticipated and watched helplessly as friends decided that this way of life wasn’t for them, and walked away.

I’ve discovered that my struggles aren’t unique, even though I have often felt isolated and at times, even abandoned. There are others who even now are experiencing the same insecurities and confusion.

Today the small part of the church that I am a part of is growing - slowly by “church growth” standards, but often faster than we’re prepared to handle. There are problems and difficult life situations we don’t feel equipped to help people escape. Then there are the logistical issues for which we have no brilliant solutions.

For both practical and theological reasons, we are convinced that “church” should be a community of shared leadership under the reign of God; people on mission together sharing life and the responsibilities of ministry. But what does all that look like?

The reality is that people look for a point person. The slaves in Egypt needed a Moses, the Israelites wanted a king, the disciples followed the man Jesus, the early church looked to the apostles, then later to bishops and elders. We aren’t advocating a leaderless church (and please note that we are not discounting the role of Christ as our head, however, God has always chosen to work through human leaders). We ARE advocating a church that recognizes that we were neither created nor called to a life of passive consumption; deferring the call to make disciples and proclaim the new life to a few chosen “professionals.”

We believe that when God’s people take seriously the call to make disciples, the church will spread through neighborhoods, coffee shops and work places. The church should be at the forefront in standing against injustice and oppression, declaring the hope of life in the face of death’s despair.

The difficulty we face is relearning what it means to be this kind of community. Those of us who grew up in churches have only seen one primary model - that of the professional minister. Now, to be sure, growing up in rural Texas I was acquainted with many congregations who had part-time or volunteer ministers. With no disrespect to those wonderful people, I did not see many of them joined together in a meaningful ministry of transformation. Some of those small town churches were filled with people who’d known each other their whole lives, and unknown and “fringe” members in their little country churches were rare...because strangers in their little country towns were rare. If you were born in the church you were part of the church, if not...

But I also know that often in those congregations, members had little to no contact with each other between services. There were no attempts at service, outreach or ministry to their community. There was little, if any, emphasis on evangelism - even that done by “ministers.” The life of those churches was a couple official meetings each week, and whatever friendships already existed between members.

This isn’t to disparage those congregations, most of them were filled with very good people, doing the best they could. However, the model of the rural church doesn’t seem to offer much help to our current situation. The reality remains however, that if I (and Chris) are working full time jobs and raising families, we simply will not have the time to fill the same rolls that we did when church planting was our sole vocation. We are, in the sense of finances, part-time or volunteer ministers.

When we initially invited Christ Journey to enter into a more intentional shared leadership we witnessed a mass exodus of folks who felt that other, more established ministries would be more beneficial to their families. To quote a relatively unknown person engaged in this same struggle in WWII Germany, “It is not that we who stayed are good, and the others bad...It is just that they saw everything as an experiment, and we know it is a calling.”

As the school year has begun, Chris is now engaged in his first year as a teacher and I am still struggling to string together sufficient pay checks. I am still willing to use my gifts for our community and I’m committed to connecting with unbelievers, but time is in limited supply. The other members of our community have jobs and families as well, so it isn’t just an issue of people not being committed. We have folks who are ready to do what needs to be done, but I think everyone is looking around for someone to take point. We don’t have money to pay someone...and when we do have money, I think we’d rather use it to help people who are struggling anyway.

This is going to need to look different than what we’re used to, and I don’t think it will work if we just tell everyone what we’re going to do. This will need to be something that the community discerns together so that we have a shared investment and firsthand perspective of what’s being described.

So what does it look like? I admit it, I don’t really know.

Wells Family Church Planting Update - April 2010

I put new roofs on three houses this past week (well...I managed the projects).

The life of domestic missionaries in Burleson, TX continues to baffle and astound us all. 2010 has gotten started with a whirlwind of seemingly random activity (unusual for our family, I know).

For starters, many of you are aware that the Christ Journey community and several friends in various locations decided to engage in a shared commitment to prayer and scripture reading. From January 1 to February 16 we spent six days a week reading through substantial passages of scripture and then processed our reading together on Sundays. During this time we read through Isaiah, Micah, Haggai, Hosea, Zechariah, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts and Ephesians. We also spent time each day reading and praying over Luke 10:2, begging the Lord of the Harvest to send out workers into the field, asking that we may be those harvesters and that we would encounter those God was preparing to become harvesters as well.

Words cannot describe the impact that this has had. It was incredible to witness the ways in which the Holy Spirit opened scripture to our community and opened our eyes to miracles occurring all around. We came to expect our worship gathering each week to be opportunity to replay the miracles of the previous week and to anticipate even greater transformations in the coming week...what a novel thought for the people of God!

During this season we witnessed no fewer than a dozen NEW connections with broken people in search of something. Friendships were begun with exhausted single moms, angry dads and frustrated grandparents. We “randomly” reconnected with a few high school friends and had “chance” encounters with strangers.

Coming into this season, Chris and I both had some friendships that had developed over the past couple years but which seemed stuck. We had no idea how to help these friends take the next step in their journey...until we began praying more regularly and more specifically. Some of those friends have now shared dinner and spiritual conversation at the Chappotins’ house. I spent a morning at Denny’s with another of those friends, describing what it would look like to begin a house church in his living room.

Chris and I have both had friends who are either avowed atheists or who have said they have no use for church (regardless of whether or not there is a God) say to us in the past several weeks, “That is a Jesus I could get behind. Why haven’t I heard of this before?”

Over the last couple months, I’ve gotten to know a young man who is trying to leave behind a life of selling drugs and stolen merchandise. He’s already spent considerable time in jail. This past week we had a conversation about the radical new kingdom that Jesus came to announce. A kingdom that functions with a different understanding of power, success and wealth. The reign of God announced by Jesus is a direct attack against the systems of power fed by greed and manipulation. His response, “I like this. Is this way ever going to be possible?”

Our first season of reading was so transformational that we and the Chappotins have now completed our second round...and we’re making plans for what we’ll cover in round three.

I wish I could say that this amazing experience has solved all our frustrations and struggles. It hasn’t. Not even close. But it has certainly strengthened our framework of faith in order to accept those struggles.

The reality is that to reach many of the broken and hurting people in our community, many of whom have been burned by “Christians” or the church, we must go to them. Creating the newest high impact worship gathering or glossy invitation mailer will not get their attention because they aren’t interested in attending any religious gathering. A rocking worship band is cool...for people who are looking for Christian worship music. A fantastic children’s and youth ministry is attractive to those who are looking for a Christian place to take their kids. But what about those who aren’t so sure they want Christians teaching their kids anything?

To reach these broken people, we need to have a presence of hospitality in our neighborhood. We must be actively praying for God to open our eyes to those he’s allowing to cross our paths. We need to be inviting our kids’ friends and their parents to the park, and if Sunday morning is when they are available...

There’s a question that Chris and I have been asking people lately, “How long do you need to sit and listen to stories of Jesus before you are ready to share those stories with others?” I’ve known of good, kind, loving people who sit in Sunday school classes every week for decades on end without ever feeling that they are ready to invite someone else to follow Jesus. Why is that?


We realize that our goal must go beyond merely planting churches. Our goal is to call people to become fully devoted disciples of Jesus. Fully devoted disciples of Jesus are those who hear the words of Jesus and put them into practice; they make disciples who in turn make disciples. These disciples certainly worship together (we are still planting churches!) but they refuse to simply form a club that meets weekly. They are on mission together to be like the one they worship.

This is much more difficult than just planting churches...which isn’t an easy thing to begin with! Please continue to join us in prayer for the harvest and harvesters in the south Fort Worth area.

Now back to that comment about roofs...

This school year I’ve been substitute teaching to cover the balance of our financial needs. We have been so blessed to have such a large group of friends and family supporting us financially - some of you have now been partners with us for two years! We know that many of you have been giving, not out of your abundance, but sacrificially. We cannot thank you enough. Truly there are times that I am kept from despair by the realization that so many people believe in us and are praying for us. It is an honor to be entrusted to this ministry by God and supported in it by you.

In addition to subbing I began the process for obtaining certification as a junior high/ high school teacher. However, it became apparent that we weren’t going to be able to make it to September before that more substantial paycheck would possibly come along. So we continued moving forward in faith, praying that God would provide an answer.

We believe that answer was provided through a phone call from a friend I haven’t seen since 10th grade. David works for Quick Roofing here in the metroplex and invited me to join his team as a sales rep / roofing contractor.

After some time of prayer and deliberation we decided to go for it. I’m still subbing some, but mostly I’m devoting a large amount of my time learning and developing a customer base as a roofing contractor. It has been so promising that my little brother has decided to join me as well.

After this summer I will only have 1 class remaining in my DMin work (with just my doctoral project remaining), I do not anticipate subbing next year, and as my customer base and referrals grow in roofing, time spent “pounding the pavement” will decrease. I am hopeful that a more healthy and stable lifestyle is within reach.

We feel called to devote our lives and our time to proclaiming resurrection in the midst of darkness and pouring ourselves out for those who are skeptical and wary of the Christians; for those who desperately need to hear the good news of hope and new life. It appears that, at least for the time being, to do so faithfully I need to develop a “tent making” approach as Paul did at different points in his missionary journeys.

Such a transition is difficult and slow. I’m working very hard to keep all the plates spinning, but I continue to need your help. We are in a particularly vulnerable position right now and over the next year. In order to get this new job off the ground without abandoning my church planting and evangelistic calling, I will need continued support during this period.

If you are currently a financial partner with us, we hope that you will continue with us over this next year. If you are not currently, would you please consider doing so? Perhaps you have friends or a congregation that would be willing to contribute to this specific goal.

There are people right here in our own backyard who have never heard the gospel. Our Lord Jesus has called me to announce the arrival of the Kingdom to these very people, to proclaim good news to the poor and oppressed. I readily acknowledge that I will not be able to fulfill my calling without the support of God’s people in this land - this is a call that must be lived out in and supported by the community. And I am convinced that God wouldn’t have it any other way.

Our Struggle

So, here is a 15 minute discussion with David Fitch - a writer, church planter and teacher who has been quite influential for several of us church planter types. He is discussing issues of church planting in a post-Christendom context (if you aren't sure what that means, Fitch describes it in the clip). Let me just say that we here in the metroplex are not really in a post-Christendom context YET. It is happening but this is still the Bible Belt. 

I think that many of the people we encounter are post-Christian - they don't know much about Jesus and don't necessarily care. But our culture is still filled with images of the megachurch and expectations of program and event driven church models. 

In this clip, Fitch lays out several struggles that we are definitely experiencing. Interestingly in talking about his 7 year-old church he references their near-death experience around year 3. His conviction is that missional church plants must hang on because it takes about 5 years for the community to really solidify. We're in the middle of that battle right now. Christ Journey is doing great things, but there are some serious hurdles that must be overcome.

He also talks about bi-vocational ministry. This is an issue that we've wrestled with in prayer. Chris and I are both pursuing several things to bring in some additional income, but have decided that for now, an additional 20-30 hour/week job is not the right route. We're about to enter into a new period of discernment regarding the next phase of life for Christ Journey and our families...hopefully it will be spiritual discernment and not merely financial pragmatics that decides the issue.

In any case, I thought the video was worth posting here. Thanks to James Nored for putting it up on missionaloutreachnetwork and Chris for linking it on facebook.

Take a look and tell me what you think.

Dave Fitch - the Cultivate Talk on Missional Orders from Bill Kinnon on Vimeo.

Community Is Hard

But Life is Harder

I'm taking a break in my Arkansas recap to put up this post that I wrote for the Christ Journey page on Thursday. If you read it there, don't expect much to have changed in this version. 

For some time now Chris and I have been in conversations regarding the difficulty of cultivating authentic community - where people are actually invested in one another's lives and attempting to live beyond merely transactional relationships. This is a fundamental part of our vision for church planting.

And yet we've sat around the table with other church planter friends listening to their stories of community starting to form and then violently breaking up. We've talked together about just how counter-cultural and difficult this approach really is. 

It is difficult for people who come from traditional church backgrounds and it is difficult for those who come from no church background. Why is that?

The German minister and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer once talked about our desire for community; he noted that many people love the IDEA of community more than the experience itself. Seriously, why is that?

To speak simply about a complex matter: Actual community is messy.

When we think about community we begin to realize how great it would be to have others to walk through the trials of life with. It would be wonderful to have someone(s) to join us in those things that stoke our passion and vision. It would be great to have the synergy that comes from people sharing talents and resources. We know that it is not good for people to be alone and community seems to be part of God’s answer to the dark and oppressive prison of isolation.

And the great thing is that all of this is true.

But...

Community doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it happens in the context of life with real, actual human people...all of whom carry around their wounds, flaws and smelly baggage. So, getting close to others (an unavoidable requirement to cultivate community) means that we can see their flaws and smell their baggage.

And they can see ours.

So there are lots of people who know they need community; people who realize that they can’t deal with all of life’s curve balls alone. Many of those people are seeking to fill that hole of loneliness.

For many young people the desire to join gangs is a desire to find a family that will accept them and be loyal to them. This is the pull of the drug and party culture...as long as you’re partying you’re usually accepted. And for a while this seems like community.

Until you get arrested and no one from the party shows up at your hearing.

...Or until you run out of money and no one who you smoke with helps you pay the electric bill - even though you can’t pay the electric bill because they smoked most of your weed or drank most of your beer.

...Or until you try to leave the life of violence and that same gang that welcomed you in refuses to let you get out.

But these aren’t the only folks who find it difficult to cultivate authentic community. Many of us have sought community in very healthy ways. There are lots of larger churches that hire a Community Connections Minister - people whose sole responsibility is finding ways for their congregation to connect with their community and for visitors and new members to connect to the congregation.

Christ Journey is very dedicated to the cultivation of real, deep and true community. And guess what we’ve found? It is hard. It is messy. Sometimes, it is dangerous.

People let us down. People who we love hurt us. People we love are hurt by us and we let them down.

We try to reach out and our efforts are not reciprocated. We invest in someone and love them and then they move.

We trust someone enough to let our guard down and be vulnerable and they betray our trust in one way or another.

Or we do one or all of these to others. Sometimes unwittingly and sometimes because our sin and selfishness are just a little too deeply ingrained.

Community is hard because of all of this. Its also hard because we begin taking on the hurts of those we love. Our friends go through a separation or divorce and we feel a bit of that pain. A home is foreclosed on and it feels like it was our own house. We see a young single mother struggling to keep all the plates spinning and also go back to school so that she won’t be stuck in poverty and continue this cycle for another generation...and we want to pick up all the plates, but we don’t know how.

We can’t make the marriage work, we can’t pay the mortgage, we can only help so much. And we begin to think, “It was easier when the answer to ‘how ya doing?’ was a simple, ‘fine, and you?’”

We begin to think, it was easier when I just occupied a pew and there was no expectation that I would be vulnerable around these people. We begin to say, “things were better in Egypt...” (check out the story of Israel in Exodus and also read Numbers chapter 11).

I understand this fear. Rachel and I have lived with the fear that comes from trusting church after being let down in a major way by church. But, like the prophet Hosea (whose life was meant as a metaphor for God and us) we are called to commit to our community even if we have good reason to suspect we will be betrayed again.

We have to because, as Andy Lancaster commented to me today, “Community is hard, but life is harder.” If we continue to try life without community we will find ourselves constantly retreating from both.

I know that community is hard, but life without it is not easier - unless we hide behind sports, alcohol, addictions, gossip, or any number of other escapist activities and fantasy worlds.

I am so glad to be a part of a church that is trying to cultivate real community. It doesn’t happen overnight and it will never happen (during this leg of the journey) in a complete or perfect way, but at least we don’t have to continue retreating.

Someone once said, “Its not as if we really think we can say anything, but in light of what we’ve seen we can’t say nothing.” Perhaps its the same with community. We may not have much hope for cultivating a perfect community, but in light of what we’ve seen and experienced we can’t sit by and do nothing.

I am grateful for community, even if it is a bit scary.

Brief Foundations Update...no seriously it'll be short

We began our Foundations retreat last night. As I've been talking to people leading up to the retreat, especially people who grew up going to youth retreats, I've had to say, "Its not really that kind of retreat"

There are no blind-fold walks or trust falls. 

However, last night was pretty hilarious. There were several moments when I experienced flash backs to my years as a youth minister (in a good way!)

Several of these folks were friends in high school and so there were stories of doing group projects together in 7th grade and the crazy teachers they survived. We even had a couple teenagers present who were cracking up because they have those same teachers and have the same experiences with them!

What was great was that the laughing and goofing around our tables was not the kind that happens when a bunch of adults are trying to protect their carefully crafted facades; very little evidence of posturing - just good friends and family, letting down their guards and experiencing life together. 

That's an important part of this Story, isn't it?

Greetings From My Couch

This short (for me) post is special; it is my first “from the field” of church planting. After 6 months of fundraising we were finally able to make the move to Burleson. We have nearly 50% of our monthly commitment raised, but the blessing of one time and special cash gifts has given us enough to cover our first three months – the goal we set for relocation.

The last couple weeks have been unbelievably hectic for our little family. We reached our goal on a Monday (Monday Money Days, part of Rachel's recent prayer schedule, have been incredible reminders of God’s faithfulness – if you haven’t heard about this, check out Rachel’s blog post). A couple large gifts from churches caused us to leap forward to a goal we were anticipating would still take a while. After the shock wore off we let our family at Tammany Oaks know that we’d be leaving in four weeks.

So we packed our belongings for move number 8 in our almost 8 years of marriage. Tuesday morning with the help of some great friends, we loaded everything we own into two Penske trucks. That afternoon the Chris’s (Chappotin and Robey…who, for clarity, were referred to as Pablo and Coach respectively) flew into New Orleans. Wednesday morning we threw the remaining things in our trucks and the four vehicles headed northwest around 5am.

Saturday the big brothers came home after 11 days at my parents’ house and we were SO ready for them to get here. If you follow Rachel’s blog then you’ve gotten most of the scoop on the exhaustion, mix of emotions and rollercoaster events that comprised our transition from Mandeville back to North Texas. We are exhausted but incredibly excited.

Yesterday Rachel’s mom drove over to help us unpack. In the afternoon Jodi, Robert and Ira brought dinner and around 8:30 Chris and Lydia called and said they needed to kill some time before their movie…so they swung by our house. Everyone went home when they were ready – a process which required neither a day’s drive nor a trip to the airport.

So here we are…I’m sitting on my couch, watching my TV, listening to Josiah’s nighttime cd over the monitor, Rachel is laying the big brothers down and the news just said that the humidity was UP to 56 percent today...

To those of you who have partnered with us financially, through prayer or in other ways, we thank you. I am so looking forward to sending you future updates with stories of our life within this community – both the community of believers we refer to as Christ Journey and the community of people loved by God we refer to as Burleson and the south Forth Worth area.

We are of course still in the process of raising our support – nearly 50% raised means we have a little over 50% to go. We ask for your continued prayers. If you know of anyone who may be interested in partnering with us financially, please let us know.

But for now I am about to go to sleep…in Texas.

About Me

My name is Bret Wells. My wife, Rachel and our three sons, Conner, Micah and Josiah and I live in Burleson, Texas. Since 2008 we've been working locally with Christ Journey Church in the ministry of planting new churches. We are happy to announce that we have now been sent out by Christ Journey to begin a new church planting work in the northern part of Burleson.

Prior to this I served as the Preaching Minister for the Tammany Oaks Church of Christ in Mandeville, which is on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain outside of New Orleans. Before that I worked in youth ministry for about 7 years in Madisonville, Corpus Christi and Dallas, TX.

Rachel and I met and were married as undergraduates at Abilene Christian University, where we both graduated in 2001 -  her degree was in Speech Pathology and mine was in Psychology and Ministry. I then began plinking away at grad school while working full time in ministry. I eventually earned an MA in Christian Ministry from ACU in 2005.

Most recently, I've been working on a Doctor of Ministry in Missional Church Studies from Southern Methodist University...if all goes according to plan I should graduate in May 2012.

I'm also in the process of starting a non-profit ministry called Intentional People which focuses on inviting people into the missional and incarnational life of faith. We are developing videos, podcasts, articles, discussion forums, and other media through a collaborative website. Through my work as a church planter and my studies at SMU, I've also developed a 6 month experience for groups called Communitas (a Latin word meaning community that is formed through a shared struggle or mission). This process serves as the first step in our attempt to not only shared conversation about missional life, but also provide guidance in cultivating it in the participants' real world local context.

I also serve as the part-time director of IT for The Academy of Missional Wisdom, which is a 2 year process for individuals focused on training for the development of missional and monastic micro-communities.

To be missional means that we are seeking to be a people who are both the called out and the sent out - we are called out of a life of despair and sent out to proclaim freedom for the captives. As Church Planters we're also referred to by some as "domestic missionaries" - meaning we function more like a missionary than a preacher in an established, settled congregation, we're just doing it domestically (here) versus in a foreign (overseas) context. What we are seeking to form and cultivate are churches and missional communities that form and cultivate new churches and missional communities.

bret@missionalmonks.com