Neighborhood Mission Learning Day

I just returned from Seattle, after spending the day at Seattle First Church of the Nazarene at the Seattle Neighborhood Mission Learning Day conference. Sponsored by Praxis Mission Center, this was a gathering of church leaders and practitioners sharing about how we live out our ministries in missional ways in our communities. The gathering of emerging church leaders included a key note by Brian McLaren, hosting by Mars Hill Grad School’s Dwight Friesen, and other special guests including a panel of Seattle pastors.

The day kicked off with some good words from Brian McLaren about his recent travels through Latin America. He focused on how the communities of faith that he encountered during his trip worked out how to be the kingdom of God in their settings, whether it be through direct service to their towns or through speaking out against injustices caused by the government. It was an emotional time of sharing, as many of the places Brian talked about have impacted the way he viewed our own place within the broader community. As ministers, lay leaders, and other people who serve within the church, we must find ways to impact the culture and world around us as vital members of the community.

Brian went into a discussion about how the Church may be in very desperate need of saving in many places around the world and in our own nation. Maybe we are in a setting where a gospel of prosperity and affluence is being preached, not a gospel of poverty and self-sacrifice. Or maybe our church communities have isolated themselves from the culture abroad, by becoming commuter centers where everyone drives in from miles away and then drives home, not connecting with the community around the church building or with their neighbors in their cul de sac. If the church doesn’t understand the people it is meant to serve and it forgets about it’s vital role within the city community, within the neighborhood, maybe we are the ones worth redeeming? Is the Word really becoming flesh and moving into the neighborhood (John 1:14, the Message)? The idea of Christ’s relationship to our neighborhood’s was the center of the discussion today. Our ministries are not isolated and cannot live as though they were.

The rest of the day was spent listening to some really great Seattle pastors talk about how their communities are taking action to live in the neighborhoods, to impact and become a part of the cultures around them, rather than separate themselves from the culture. I was most intrigued by Karen Ward from Church of the Apostles and their relationship with the arts community of Fremont. Developing out of both Lutheran and Episcopal backgrounds, Church of the Apostles (COTA) has become a key piece of the Fremont community, taking part in parades, celebrating art, and all the while doing church in a mix of very traditional and creative ways.

It was great to hear stories, listen to people’s questions, and watch people get excited about making an impact in their local settings, living out the gospel with renewed sense of purpose for their ministry communities. I have many questions that I will wrestle with, especially as I try to apply what I’ve heard to a college ministry setting. In many ways, our jobs are different than the rest of the ministry world, in that our students move through our community at a rather quick pace, compared with the Nazarene church who has been off of 45th in Seattle for 56 years, probably serving a relatively consistent community. Our relationships must be built faster because they may be shorter lived as students move on. And our community changes from year to year, based on where people are in their academic lives. However, I think we could learn a lot from the discussion I heard today and at least we should always be asking the question of how our community impacts the Bellingham, WWU, Whatcom County people in ways that brings about participation in the kingdom of God.

So, a question to end: What ways is your church or faith community making an impact in your immediate proximity (city block, town)?

Vancouver – Post #2

Morning #2 at Blenz coffee. Different location though. They have these places all over. Starbucks definitely has a strong Canadian competitor, at least in the center cent(res). As I’m walking around, I see just about an equal amount of each, so that tells me they must be competing; also it tells me I pay too much attention to coffee shops; and there are too many corporate logos around to look at.

Today we begin our first full day of work. I just walked with the first group who will work with Salvation Army. We’ll be serving breakfast with them in the mornings all week at one of the locations on the edge of the East side. It was a good morning for a walk and I enjoyed seeing off the first team.

I’ll be headed back to the church now to pick up the rest of the teams, make lunch, and drive the vans back to pick up the Salvation Army group to go to our next location, Urban Promise. We’ll be working with Urban Promise all week as well, in the afternoons. This program works with kids who are in and around the city. I’m not quite sure their situations, whether it’s an after school thing only or what not, but we’ll find out today. Our group is pretty excited about the chance to work with kids, so I think this will be fun.

Finally, my group will wrap up the day by going back down to E. Hastings, into the tough areas I mentioned yesterday, and work with a ministry called Agape. We’ll be working as a team on the street, doing a variety of services, so I’ll have to talk about it more once we’ve been able to experience it.

Yesterday was great. We went to two church services: First Baptist of Vancouver, where we are staying and The Rock Garden, a college-aged gathering out in Burnaby. I enjoyed both, but they were very different experiences. I’m not entirely familiar with a Baptist service, but we got to see a very full service, including two baptisms and member inductions. It was nice to be hosted by the church we’re staying at and get to experience church with them. The Rock Garden, on the other hand, was a lot like the INN. About 150 college-aged people from around the greater Vancouver area join together to worship, hang out, and listen to a great speaker every couple of weeks during the school year. They have been around for 6 years now. Rikk Watts, a Regent College professor is the speaker at each gathering. Rikk is known around the world for his biblical scholarship and is a very well respected professor at Regent, so I was really excited about hearing him speak. The talk lasted about an hour, but it was so rich that even though we were tired, most everyone in our group seemed to be very engaged. He spoke on the end of 1 Corinthians 6, a great text about all things being "permissible, but not beneficial." I really enjoyed his words and the encouragement of this community. It reminded me of the INN in many ways, so I appreciated the fact that we could go and have the students be able to experience some thing similar while we are up here.

Everything is going well and we’re going to get into something of a routine today. Most of us are getting pretty tired, but everyone is generally upbeat and seems excited about the work ahead. Please continue your prayers for health, rest, and safety for our group this week.

Well, got to finish this cup of coffee and head back.

FPC2 – Congregational Summit, Part 2

About 3 weeks ago, we had our first congregational summit at First Presbyterian Church, part of an ongoing vision process for the church. I wrote about it, about how encouraging it was for me as a staff member and as a newly-involved member of the congregation as a whole. This Saturday, we had the 2nd of the summit meetings and began to move forward with how the good ideas everyone brought to the table could be concentrated into some real points of action as we move forward.

This Saturday’s summit focused on discernment, engaging the ideas brought together by the congregation with where God is leading our community. Here I experience some more of the order of our church and denomination, with a set procedure and purpose to the working out of the actions we’ll take together. We asked "What does Jesus want us to do as a church?", moving beyond our own opinions or bias and attempting to discern our calling together in Christ. We also asked the question "What is God doing globally that we can join into?", trying to be in touch with God’s larger movements in our city, our state, our world, and being willing to take part in those actions.

Through a very interesting process of conversation, clarification of our focus areas, and prayerful discernment, we all chose the top 3 areas (of about 22) that we felt we should act in over the next 5 years. The priorities for the next 5 years are as follows: Discipleship, Local Outreach, Facilities, Stewardship, Small Groups, Children, and Youth. These categories were then talked out more and we began to shape some sort of vision for these areas in concrete action items. As we are Presby(-terian), these are only potential action items and our Session will have to discuss and approve our actions and the ways these areas are worked on over the next 5 years.

Pastor Doug noted that our top choices, Discipleship and Local Outreach, reflect both an inward focus on nurturing the spiritual lives of people within the church, and an outward response to the needs of our community. This is a crucial point for us, because we are acknowledging the need to direct and grow as a community on the inside, but we are also looking beyond ourselves and seeing a need for action. Our discussions focused a lot on how our discipleship will action influence our outward action. One helps the other.

All in all, I was very encouraged to be a part of this process with other members of our church. I’m excited for the future of FPC and the direction God is leading us and moving us as we grow and develop over the next 5 years and beyond. Being one of the youngest participants, I also felt a greater tie to the larger community of the church, beyond just my peers, but really connected with the people who have been involved for years and have made significant commitments to shaping this community over the long run. I hope I can be like that some day, some one who has remained faithful to a group of people and care for a community over the long haul.

why i am presbymergent

This post is featured at Presbymergent as well. I think this is called "cross-posting" and if it’s a faux pas, I’m sorry. Deal with it and enjoy!

I’ve attempted to place a finger on the exact reason I feel called to be a part of this Presbymergent community, this emerging conversation about faith, theology, and our tradition. I’ve thought about my own background, growing up in a Presbyterian church, going through membership as a youth, and understanding the great community I was joining as something of significance and as a place where God had been active for years and was continuing to be active. I’ve also examined the way my faith has shifted over the last 5 years, as I went off to college, where my world view and perspective developed and I was challenged to reflect on what I believed, who I was. All of these things shape my engagement into this emerging conversation. I doubt my story is that unique from others out there who are starting to engage these new ideas within their own traditions.

Earlier this week, I sent some of my thoughts about this new community, Presbymergent, to my pastor and asked for his input on what I have been thinking. He responded to my thoughts and to the question of being emergent within our mainline, PC(USA) denomination by recalling Jesus’ parable of the new wine and new wineskins. He mentioned that the wine skin of the PC(USA) might have room for some new wine from the emergent movement, some room for evaluating our ideas and seeing Jesus in new and exciting ways within our communities. His caution was that we focus on the wineskins alone and forget to focus on the wine, Jesus, in light of working out all of these details.

Our conversation needs to center on Christ and how he impacts our churches in ways that shape our future and open the doors to a world in need. I’m excited to think that I belong to a church and denomination that has such a rich tradition and a strong theological base that would allow us to ask new questions and be willing to see our ways of doing church in a new light. It’s exciting to see that people of the PC(USA) are finding themselves asking "emerging" questions and being willing to honestly evaluate the way the Holy Spirit is being active in their communities with a willingness to develop new forms of worship and learning.

So, what does it mean to be "Presbymergent"? How does one practice emergence in their PC(USA) community? Clearly, from all the discussion on this site, from all the books and articles and conferences we’ve all taken in, there are many ways, many "right" ways, of engaging emergence into a new kind of community. We need to be Presbyterians who seek the best for our congregations. We need to be active in our churches and not let the "old ways" frustrate us or stifle our creativity. We also need to honor those who have founded and been faithful to our communities and teach each other how to ask questions about where God is leading our churches over the long run. And we need to exercise grace and humility as we face challenges along the road to becoming Presbymergent churches. As God leads this reformation of our theologies, our ways of doing church, and the ways our churches impact the world, there have and will continue to be hiccups and setbacks, as well as encouraging breakthroughs and exciting moments of divine presence.

I believe this dialogue that begun here at Presbymergent is a positive step for all of us. We have begun to lay out ways in which we will be faithful to our church and denomination, but also be willing to ask new questions. I really like this term "loyal radical" that has been brought up in our discussion. I feel very loyal to the people who have shaped my life in church, in the PC(USA) church. And yet, I feel a radical call by God to move forward and open wide for the new wine of the Holy Spirit’s ongoing action to flow through us and continue to make all things new. It is a pleasure to journey out in this with all of you.

Presbymergent

So, you’re Presbyterian? You’re into that "emergent" stuff too? Sounds like an interesting combination. Maybe there are others like you.

Adam Walker Cleaveland and Karen Sloane came up with this new website/community called Presbymergent. The idea behind the site is to provide a place for PCUSA members, lay people, pastors, etc. who are interested in the "emergent" conversation to communicate, share ideas, and collaborate. They started it up this week, I think with the Mainline Emergent/s conference in Georgia next week in mind.

I’ve registered and contacted Adam about getting involved a bit. This sounds like a great idea and a cool place for sharing ideas about what’s going on in our churches and ministries, as well as what kinds of questions, struggles, and excitements we’re experiencing as we grapple with some of the ideas of emerging theology. Check it out: http://www.presbymergent.org/

FPC2 – Congregational Summit, Part 1

Yesterday I had the privilege to take part in the first of two congregational summits at First Presbyterian Church of Bellingham. Part of a current vision and evaluation process, this summit brought together about 75 members of the church community to discuss the future vision for the church and begin to brainstorm ideas for moving forward over the next 5 years.

The day began with a discussion of many of the congregation’s responses to the question posed by Pastor Doug Bunnell: "What is FPC doing well? What would Jesus commend?" This portion was very encouraging, as people talked about the history of the church, the way it’s grown, the strong programs and ministries that are reaching out to the city and the people of the area, as well as some direct encouragement for the ministry of the INN and it’s relationship to the the university community.

Next, we broke into smaller groups and began to discuss points of improvement for the church, centered around the question: "What could FPC be doing better? What are areas of difficulty?" Rather than this turning into a gripe-fest, we engaged in a very constructive discussion of some of the pieces of the church’s mission that needed reevaluating and growth. It was very exciting to dive into some of the areas that we could improve and think of the possibilities of working in new ways to change or revitalize the way we respond to God’s call for our church. This time ended with a prayer of repentance for the ways we have not responded to God or missed out on ways to minister to His congregation and city. I was very impressed and encouraged by the wisdom of the people and the way everyone was willing to listen, respect opinions, and be driven to re-envisioning the direction of the church.

We will reconvene for the second half of this congregational summit on February 10th, where we will develop some of the areas of focus that we established yesterday and begin to plot a vision for the next 5 years and beyond for the church. It was a joy to take part in this discussion and I was left with a stronger faith in this community of people and in God’s action within us.

A video from my pastor

I know I’m at the right church when my pastor sends me this video in an email about our small group. I thought I’d share it with ya’ll. Thanks Doug.

 

The Sound

I finally finished a little project I’ve been working on for the past couple of months. I’ve been redesigning the website for The Sound Community, a local church here in Bellingham, WA. You can check it out at http://www.thesoundcommunity.com.

I became acquainted with The Sound through a guy in my small group a couple years ago. It’s a really cool community and I’m happy to be able to help them out with this site. While I’m not attending there regularly (we’re at First Presbyterian), I feel like a part of me is in this church because I’ve seen it grow from being 6 people in Ryan’s (the pastor) living room to something like 30 people now gathering at the Episcopal Church on Sunday nights.

God is doing great things with that community and I pray they continue to grow, learn, and seek Him in exciting ways.