Emergent Brethren

Hi all,

I have been reading Mark Batterson’s blog evotional for a good while now and want to highly recommend that you check it out!

He is doing some great stuff and has lots to offer us!

On Sunday, we made a shift that, in my experience is one of the hardest shifts for “brethren” to make… and that is to go from one worship gathering to two!  What an amazing group of leaders I work with… they were afraid and left to their own, would not have made the shift, but they allowed me to do what I thought best and WOW!  We went from a 10:30 mix with a heavy lean toward contemporary to a 9 a.m. traditional and a 10:30 contemporary gathering.  The first week we jumped in attendance by a little more than 50%!  I think that is HUGE!

Can’t wait to see what next week brings! 

 Yes, this shift means we have to adapt and sacrifice some valued things for gaining other things of value… we will have to do carry-in meals differently and we will have to work at community building, and we will have to depend on leaders to lead all the more… but all those things are doable especially when growth happens.  The value of growing the kingdom usurps all other values in my mind!

 Just wanted to share an exciting moment in the history of Community of Joy Church of the Brethren!

 For more info check out my blog.

At Community of Joy, we really want to be a place where relationships matter…. so when we renovated a church into a ministry center in a great diverse neighborhood, we set out to meet the neighbors.   Yesterday, Sept. 23, we held a Pork Roast after our worship gathering for the neighbors.  We went door to door in a two block radius of our building two weeks ago and handed out or left invitations to the festivities… the invite also included worship.   We also put out a large lighted sign inviting the neighborhood.   Everything was free… we also challenged our folks to invite 3 people to come.  I am happy to say that we doubled our normal worship attendance yesterday and had neighbors coming from all directions…. don’t know how many came… I would venture to say aroudn 150 – 200 in all….check out my blog for more info and pics…. www.martinhutchison.blogspot.com.   There was no agenda other than saying we are happy to be here and we want to be a positive force in the hood.  What are others of you doing to engage your communities?

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???