Emergent Brethren

I subscribe to Off-the-Map.org’s ezine. Today, they have an article by Steve Sjogren, former pastor of the Vineyard in Cincinnati. Now, he is lead pastor at Coastline Tampa Church. He’s got an interesting article here that should spark some agreement or disagreement.

“During your weekend services, do a spot check before you speak. Tally up how many vehicles sport some sort of Christian symbol. Usually churches that are seeing many come to Christ and have an internal book shop that sell these things have a high percentage of people who sport these on their vehicles. Enthusiasm to declare Christ is magnificent, but there is no worse way to do this today than by putting a symbol on your vehicle. . . ” To read more of this article, go to:

http://conversationattheedge.com/2007/09/09/its-time-to-remove-christians-symbols-on-cars/

What do you think? In our culture, is it a good idea to have a Christian symbol on your car? Does it help or hurt your witness for Christ? Does it draw others into conversation with you or separate you from others?

Jeff Glass

Every once in a while I hear or read a question that really makes me stop and reflect on something worth considering. That happened recently when I was watching a You-tube video. In it the person asked the question, “Do we have a church that has a mission or a mission that has a church?” 

On first glance or hearing, that question may not seem to make much sense… BUT ponder it a while… read it aloud a couple of times… and I hope you will agree with me that it is a question worth asking and not only that, but it is a question worth answering! 

My desire for the congregation I lead– Community of Joy Church of the Brethren– is to be a mission that has a church! This is particularly a challenge right now for us because we just bought and moved into our very first building… it is what you might call a church building, but we are choosing to call it a ministry center because we (the people) are the church, not the building! 

All of this and the many other things we have yet to plan or think about, will help us be on mission for Jesus! Being a mission with a church will keep us from doing only things that we like or want or meet our needs. Being a mission with a church means that we realize that our mission is not about us… but about Jesus… helping others experience Jesus’ love, hospitality, hope, healing, and peace (the key components of our mission statement)! 

What will the church of the future look like?  There is only one answer to that question! It depends on US! I pray that we will ALWAYS be a mission with a church! Thoughts???

We just finished the annual week of Vacation Bible School here in Modesto. It is one of the weeks that seems to take an incredible amount of time and energy to make happen, and all you need is a reason to cancel and save yourself from that prep time.

But then the week begins, and the kids arrive, and things start to happen, and you begin to get a glimpse of the growing possibilities for the kids and the adults who are making it happen. What a great week of activity center based growth in living and following in the Jesus way. We used as our base theme and materials Be Bold! God is with you by the Mennonites. Ten different activity centers encouraged us to think and try being bold. Being it repelling from the church roof (awesome), to sessions on prayer, breaking down walls that divide us as people, learning about our Prayer Shawl ministry and trying to knit, and of course the standard creative expressions in art. In 5 days, we all took steps to becoming bolder in our living for God. 25 minutes of worship, singing, and Bible story, and then 1 1/2 hours of time engaging one another and God.

Maybe that is the mix we should be striving for in our worship times on Sunday morning. 25 to 35 good minutes of gathering as God’s people, and an hour of good time interacting with each other and God that would bring us more fully into relationship and experience. I’m talking about more than a station folks could go to but a major reworking of time and experience. Not sure how or if we will get there, but it sure is interesting to dream about.

Shalom,

Russ

I read the “Getting to Know You” post. I thought that this tag was in reference to how we are getting to know one another in Christ. I was mistaken, but am still going to put my comments here. I just finished McLaren’s book “More Ready Than You Realize” and found it to be inspiring– forming spiritual friendships with the sole purpose of helping the other discover his/her own path. It details his emailing with April (aka Alice) and kind of the flow of that relationship.

One of the most poignant reminders was this on pg 94, “I think a lot of us would be better Christians if we spent less time at church.” That to meet spiritual friends will mean developing friendships outside of the church– attending sporting events, recitals, neighborhood gatherings– without the expectation of getting our spiritual friends _into_ church. Walk the walk _next_ to them.

I love that. Getting to know you is about really getting to know _you_ not about WIFM (what’s in it for me). Duh. =)

He closes that same chapter with this benediction and I leave it here now:
May the Spirit of Christ empower you to love and serve your neighbors, welcoming them into your lives and home and schedules and hearts, so that through belonging they may discover the joys of believing and becoming. You are more ready for this than you realize. Go in God’s grace and peace.

See you “out there”
Angie=), Peoria, AZ

I just bought some books today and one of them was “Organic Community” by Joseph Myers (author of The Search to Belong). I have a feeling that this book will help the development of the Veritas community (www.veritaspa.org) as we are striving to be an organic community formed and grown more by relationships than programs and grown by those relationships and not so much by advertising (though we are still doing some of that). The first Foreward is by Randy Frazee and I was struck by two quotes he uses. The first one being, “He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils” (Francis Bacon) and the second is “There is nothing more perilous than change” (Machiavelli). I am struck by these two statements. We in the church seem to be stuck in the middle of these statments. Some don’t want to change but by not changing they bring, what Bacon calls, “new evils” and others want to change but don’t always see the effects of said change. Frazee goes onto say, “Because change is so difficult, we often delay moving in the new direction due to the mistaken notion that while things may not get better, they certainly won’t get any worse. Now, instead of making the necessary changes, we also must deal with the negative effects of postponing that change.”

That I believe in a nutshell is where I am right now. (see my previous post) Somewhere between risk, change, and the status quo.

But aren’t we all?

Ryan