No shortcuts

 For these past 10 days, Joanne and I have had the amazing opportunity for some time away from the city that we love.  We have been, literally, on the road through 6 states.  It's been a circular journey for visiting family and good friends while combined with sharing what is going on with our community, life and work in South Lake Union.  For a good section of the road part, sometimes more than I care to remember,  our drive followed the path of the infamous Donner Party.  I don't know if you've ever travelled this stretch of our country, through Utah, Nevada and into California, but there is a great deal of nothing... And a great deal of nothing can lend itself to a great deal of thinking and wondering.  I found myself wondering thoughts like "why?" And "what were they thinking?".  This path across the country can be challenging enough in a vehicle.  The only thing giving relief at times is the ability to legally drive 80 across the vast nothingness.  During a decent stretch of this, and wanting to give my wife the joy of speed in a fabulous car, I was able to dedicate more time than usual to consider these questions, along with the constant question of "how?"...as in "how in the world did they get themselves into their infamous predicament?" Along with what, if anything can one still learn from their tragedy?
Due to the marvels of modern phone technology, as well as the ever reliable google and Wikipedia, I took a refresher course on the drive.  I thought it a useful investment of time, seeing as we would be making a stop at the memorial to their demise.  Being in a journey of sorts ourselves, along the trail of church planting, I have been wrestling with what I might be able to learn from this.  After all, many who have journeyed before us, in the endeavor we now find ourselves in, have failed to complete the journey.  I want to learn from others successes as well as their failures.  I do not demand the right to make my own mistakes.  So here, for what they are worth, are some things that I've gleaned from their American tragedy which might benefit our journey.
1.  Make sure that you are following the right guide ... Many will try to influence the direction, but the path is already there, follow the one who knows more than the ones who claim to know.
2.  Be sure of your companions for the journey ...you will be relying on them through some of the most perilous times you will ever face.   The hardest journeys take a hard toll on everyone, and everyone needs to be of one accord and heading in the same direction.
3.  Be willing to wait.  Sometimes the wisest and bravest move that can be made is simply to  wait...insisting on "forging ahead" can lead to tragedy.  
4.  Money is nice, but it won't save you.  It was reported that one of the families left Illinois with $10,000 sewn into a mattress.  It couldnt push them over that pass.  It didn't save them on the Titanic, it didn't here, and it won't along the hard roads of planting a church.  I've been in ministry long enough to know that it won't overcome lack of leadership, wisdom and harmony.
5.  History will not remember the result of the journey over the tragedy along the way.  The end of the story is that "some" of them made it...only about half really.  Some of them made it, but at what
cost?  I am not naive enough that i dont understand that not everyone who begins this journey will be there in the end...whatever that looks like.  But I'm committed, more than ever to these things that I've seen on the road before me.  In the end, my dream is that people, somewhere down the road of time, will
remember this journey, not for what was lost, but for what was gained.

a story of real heroes

When talking about the concept of church planting with observers, I am often asked either "What excites you the most about planting a new church?" or its alter ego "What frightens you the most about planting a new church?".  In the quieter moments of this journey, like enjoying a caramel latte at my remote office, I realize that the answer is quite the same.  What both excites me and terrifies me is that, somewhere in the future, in part because of my participation in its conception, a life giving community of people who lead and live and love as Jesus did will exist where one didn't before.  Prior to this neighborhood, I was privileged to spend more than 13 years in a community that has experienced over 100 years of life giving and life changing influence in their own neighborhood... and it all began as a few people who felt a call to a new and growing neighborhood across the water. 
So this is all exciting to me, probably more so having experienced all that has occurred in that immediate context as well as literally worldwide.  To think that, because of a "mustard seed" beginning, years and lives down the road, a light to the community and the world, bearing witness to a life giving faith in Jesus who calls us to this, will be shining brightly because we said yes, both encourages and scares the hell out of me. 
It would all, most likely, be overwhelming and I'd want to walk away from it all if it weren't for the real heroes of the story.  As someone who thinks that Gods character is, has always been, and always will be unchanging, I think that his methods of working through and leading people has not changed either.  The names are changed and certainly the times and cultures, but the realities have not.  What I mean is simply this ... certainly God lays a plan before individuals ... insert Noah, Abraham, etc here.  This is true and is seen throughout the stories in the Book of Books, but what about those who followed those that are traditionally seen as heroes of the faith?  What about Mrs Noah?  What about the sons of Noah and their families who obviously did the bulk of the work without the benefit of a personal conversation with God?  In my opinion, those are the real heroes.  They were the original first responders that we talk about so often in our context.  They were the ones who sacrificed time, resources and reputations to run towards the challenge instead of going to the "safe spot".  All on the impression of another who thought that God was leading.  In case you were wondering...this still happens today in the form of church planting.   We may not be building boats, although my new neighborhood is home to the "Center for Wooden Boats" ... ironic???.  We are building refuge from the storm, if you'll forgive my reaching for metaphors.
Once again, the real heroes are those who have gone to this place with me.  First and foremost is most definitely my wife, a real time, real life, more beautiful version of Mrs Noah.  She is the one with the most to lose in this were it not really God's lead.  Fortunately, soon after my own wrestling's with God's lead, she is open to her own.  She's even pretty good with a hammer.  Other first responding heroes are those of my "core team" who, for whatever reasons, have followed into the unknown and grabbed on to the dream.  They have risked resources and reputations to help in the construction with something, not unlike the ark, that no one has ever seen before.  Its not that this neighborhood has never seen a church ... they've never seen "Common Table". 
So what about the rest of the story?  We know that in Noah's case, no one else participated in it.  I'm pretty sure, having dealt with volunteers throughout my years as a pastoral artist, that the work would have been much lighter, had anyone else jumped in...had anyone else been willing to risk resources and reputation to see it through.  I've heard that the process of church planting should be seen as a spiritual opportunity, not only for those actually doing it, but also for those willing to jump into it with the eyes to see it that way.  Everyone who reads this has an opportunity to be a hero...to be a first responder...to see participation in it as life giving, not just for the moment but for generations to come.  The heavy lifting of building a life saving and life giving entity is a spiritual opportunity that relatively few will ever be brave enough to run towards.  It falls on the real heroes ... those willing to risk resources and reputations to see it through until its afloat.  I am fortunate enough to know this first hand as my wife and I have had a hand, from a distance, in a number of new churches across the country.  My story has been part of theirs and my part, small that it might have seemed, has helped these to become realities where once they had only been dreams. 
The most responsible thing that I could do is invite all who read this to consider being a hero in this neighborhood, to people you may never meet, but who will be forever changed because something that wasn't before, is now, and will be for generations to come.  Resources are certainly a big part of the reality here and how you allocate yours is undeniably a spiritual practice.  You can consider the opportunity to be a hero in Seattle with your resources and/or you can contact me to put us into your prayer life.  I'm not sure where your life is at in this moment of God's story, but I do know that, while risky, being a hero is a great deal more fulfilling than being a spectator.  To all of the heroes out there, I salute you.... thank you for risking.  And right on cue, it's beginning to rain.

under construction

So after a whirlwind 2 weeks of packing, moving, unpacking, and trying to catch our collective
breaths, I find myself finally able to sit down for a few minutes to record my thoughts.  Providentially, our new home is located, once again, 50 yards from a wonderfully caffeinated environment.  Really... where in Seattle is this not the case?  Regardless, I am very grateful, once again, to have such a work environment.  I can already tell that it will provide a great vantage point to the subplots and characters of our new chapter.   When I stop long enough to think about it, I realize that I am very fortunate that God generally has my story playing out as my own virtual metaphor.  This morning I stopped just long enough to be reminded of that.  While walking through the, yet to be finished, courtyard at our new home I was encouraged to sit down on a bench for a few moments, between boxes, and record the photo in this post. 
As I sat there it occurred to me how much I was anticipating the finished product.  I was struggling trying to imagine what it might look like without the heavy equipment, the fences and the fluorescently vested people charged with carrying out the plan.  It caused me to think further back to a time when someone, completely unknown to me, presented a vision of what this would all look like one day...most likely complete with artwork and computer generated walk arounds.  Having been through a significant building process before I am reminded that someone picks up the first shovel and digs the first hole and then it begins...the following of the plans till the place of completion when life finally looks somewhat like the vision.  We are somewhat in that place now, as the community known as Common Table.  We are under construction.  We now physically live in the midst of it even as we are virtually under construction ourselves.  It would be nice if I had the finished view somewhere on display so that I could always point myself and others to it ... so I could answer good, well intentioned and legitimate questions with something more significant than "I don't know".  I am still confident though that this is a good place to be.  How many of us understand the danger of our "experience"?  What I am referring to is the point where our familiarity with a process leads to carelessness as assumptions.  So far I only know that we should, as the great book of Jeremiah reminds me in chapter 29, settle into and dwell in the city that we love, while we pray for and work for its prosperity (my paraphrase).  Our only manual is the life of Jesus and the conviction that if he is here, through the lives of his followers and the community of his church, then people will be drawn to him.  He is the point, the finished product.
So as I continue to imagine...I am reminded that the finished product is not an accident.  You need to follow the plans of those who first envisioned it.   As the one in the fluorescent vest, you realize that you are not the planner.  You are the follower ...and in fact you usually are only privileged to have one part at a time.  I am ok with that for now ... it's part of my own construction process.  As for the rest and how it all plays out... for now I am content with "I don't know".

dwell

a toast to the launch of Common Table

When it comes to inspiration for this journey, I have found myself increasingly meditating on a passage in the 29th chapter of the book of Jeremiah.  In my opinion, the understanding of this section could be one of the most transformational realities that followers of Jesus and the churches  they inhabit could possibly latch onto.  Many to most of my evangelical friends think that they know where I may be going with this...that I am headed straight for verse 11 and the promise that God knows the plans he has for me.  Good verse, but I'm not going there today.  I have found that some of the best, yet least known words in the book of books are found in fairly close proximity to some of the most known words.  They are hidden gems, rarely encountered because of our tendency to parrot back the known words, extracted from their total context.  The best case result of this might be an incomplete or watered down truth.  The worst case can be a total distortion.   If we were honest, sometimes the sound bite suits our comfort more than the entirety of the teaching. 
Prior to verse 11, God, speaking through Jeremiah, encourages his people, exiled though they might be, to make themselves comfortable in the place that they find themselves.  Someday will be deliverance, but that day is not to-day.  While they are there, they are to make use of their time.  They are called to, what probably amounted to a nearly inconceivable task.  They were to pray for the city that was not their own in the land they were captive in.  They were to work for the good of, the peace of, the blessings of, the city they now called home.  They were called to stop trying to hide from, wrestle with, and avoid their circumstances and live in the moment for all they were worth.  My translation of this is that they were called to "dwell" intentionally in their city.
The following questions keep me up at night.  They form the foundation of my life's mission as well as a leveling mechanism for "Common Table"

• What might happen if we who call ourselves followers of Jesus were to take this seriously?
• What if a considerable focal point of our faith was this admonition to "seek the peace and prosperity of the city"? 
• What if we actually "lived in" rather than ran from the influences and realities of our neighborhoods...not because of a random service project coordinated by a paid staff person or an overworked volunteer at a church? 
• What might happen if concepts like "shop local" and "green conscious" weren't seen as liberal agenda, but a biblical mandate? 
• What if we understood that peace and prosperity for the city translated into the same for those of us being called by God to work towards them? 

From personal experience, I can tell you that it would make an incredible difference.  As we leave a neighborhood that we have called home for 14 years, it is very gratifying to hear that we will be missed as much by the community as the church we served with.  When God came down in the form of Jesus, John tells us (in the Message) that he "moved into the neighborhood".  May the same be said of us.

In the beginning ...

... there was a table. This week marks the official beginning of what forever more will be known as "Common Table".  One of the questions most asked at the beginning stages of this journey is "Have you found a place for your church yet?"... practically every day in fact.  Its completely understandable as "church" is identified primarily by a location.  My wife and I have spent a considerable part of our ministry trying to undo that concept.  Interestingly (or not), on the very day that we move into our new neighborhood, many of my evangelical colleagues will be leading their places of worship in a national "Back to Church" campaign.  The irony is not lost on us. 
For us and this new chapter, "church" won't have an address as much as it will have an atmosphere.  Don't misunderstand, at some point that only the designer of this plan knows, the "church" will undoubtedly have an address.  For now all it has is a table. This isn't your average church.  Actually it's not even your average table.  The table is currently being constructed by a very gifted friend to be a unique, one of a kind, gather people around, to celebrate and mourn, to know and be known, kind of table.  It represents the reality that, according to Jesus, the kingdom of God is like a great banquet or a feast and it will be surrounded by many people, most of whom might be considered unlikely guests.  In fact, many of those whom one would expect to be on the list, in reality won't choose to attend. Chances are the ones you would never have considered inviting will show up anyway.  This might be because, contrary to all thoughts previously held so closely, we are not really the ones who extend the invitation in the first place.   
Anyone in catering can tell you that banquets can be messy affairs and even a casual glimpse at the earliest gatherings of the faithful can bear witness to this.  So our table and our community will have to accommodate mess.  This is understood going in.  We will also have to allow the true host to lead in the cleanup.   Chances are, if we let it, and prayerfully we will, the party will get quite out of hand.Have you ever hosted or attended a party where, all of a sudden the realization hits that there are more people than were planned for?  In no time at all, a frantic grab for chairs ensues and its no longer a priority (if it ever was) to have chairs or place settings match each other.  Soon nothing matches, but that is just fine because neither do the guests.  In reality, they probably never did.  People are as different as the chairs and places at the table end up being.  Its not important.  What is important is that everyone is there for the party and everyone is welcome.  It is our belief that this is what the kingdom of God was intended to be, and in fact it was wherever Jesus could be found.  Our prayer is that Jesus would be found within our community, through our gatherings around a common table with mismatched chairs.  Our prayer is that He would also be found through our serving and loving the city that we call home.   

Old or just experienced

Last week, during a brief getaway, I found a shirt in a basement thrift sort of store that declared "I'm probably too old to be doing this".  It was too good, the shirt not the price, to pass up.  It happens to be the main phrase of an anthem that Joanne and I have heard a few times over the course of our journey into this new chapter for us.  Apparently there is an understood, by nearly everyone but us, principle in the modern world of church planting that you really need to be in your 30's to be able to pull this off.  If you knew anything about us you'd know that I'm not one to follow a mold and Joanne is not one to acknowledge all of the rules.  In her eyes, they are more like the "Pirate Code" ... Merely  a guideline.  So it only goes to reason that, within the realm of accepted age, we might break from the accepted norm.  Age means many things to many people.  In some contemporary understandings of church planting, it could indicate energy level, coolness factor and or ability to relate to the context your are immersing yourself in.  In our understanding, it has come to represent patience, discernment, and most importantly resilience.
This past week marked a turning point in which we were able to finally nail down the epicenter of the new work.  It culminated a few months where we spent most of our free time walking the neighborhood, touring apartment complexes ... Some repeatedly ... Walking the neighborhood, interviewing with leasing companies ... Some repeatedly, walking the neighborhood, and praying extensively.  We did this so much that the sticker shock began to wear off as we poured over countless floor plans.  We also agonized daily order the decision in the first place.  There is no switch to be turned where the second guessing stops and its only forward thinking.  Every interaction with the friends made over 13 years in our church and our community brought reason to doubt.  Every evening sitting by a fire on our deck brought reason to doubt.  Every moment playing in the backyard with grand kids brought reason to doubt.  Walking in to the building on Sunday mornings brought reason to doubt.  There is no switch to turn that off...just an annoying still small whisper saying "keep going, this will all be worth it".  That is advantage number one to being "too old to do this".  I have been around long enough to have seen "worth it".  Those of lesser age, maybe not so much.
This past week, after all of the "not yet" indications in our prayers for timing on new housing, we finally decided that it was time to put all of the walking, talking, prayer of these past months into action and make a move to secure the place that we will call home for "Common Table".  It turns out that God was apparently walking the neighborhood with us.  I say "apparently" because, even though I'm in the pastoral arts profession and by profession I'm supposed to believe that 24/7, sometimes you don't feel him.  Read the Psalms.
Anyway, on Thursday morning, as Joanne and I prayed together at a coffee shop in the new neighborhood, my prayer went something like this ; " God we know that we could probably move anywhere here and it would be fine, but we don't want fine, we want what you would deem is best ... Selfishly for us and more selfishly for the ministry.  God you also know that I'm not always very good at following your trail so could you throw me a bone on this today and make it so obvious that even I can see your hand".  Probably not the sort of prayer that will get me invited to give the opening prayer at a congressional gathering, but honest.  So off we wandered to our appointments...the last one being the place that had continually risen to the top of our list.  So you'd think that being on the top of our list, the fact that this is in fact where we landed would not rate up there with the water into wine sort of miracles that you can read about in the book of books.  But I'm going to tell you that this is exactly where God showed himself so obviously that even I could see it.  The short version is that, while we thought that this would be a great place because of many practical things like location, newness of community, floor plan, amenities that would benefit an infant church, etc, we discovered that we could see good, but we couldn't have envisioned best.  Because of our patience in the process and not jumping earlier on what might have been a good spot here, our continued prayers, the relationship formed with the leasing agent, and the timing of our decision day, God delivered best.  In this case "best" means a place that should have been, except for a fluke in timing and listing accuracy, out of our budget by hundreds of dollars a month.  "Best" means that instead of a place where we have only inside access, primarily on our floor in our building, we have outdoor access to all three buildings of this new complex.  "Best" means a free month off of a lease and waived security deposit and application fees.  As we review all that is provided through this long awaited home, we see "best" written all over it.  In earlier days I would not have had the patience to wait on "best" when good enough made an appearance.  Age has given me patience.  In earlier days I would have given up as the doubts washed over me and discouragement hung around.  Age has given me resilience. 
So I have no doubts, at last, that we are the right age to be doing this.  Everything has led us here and, if anything, these past months have reaffirmed our calling.  In the end though, it is the stories written before ours, in the book of books, that encourage me.  The stories of Noah, Abraham, Moses, and the like are stories of God saying "I'm not quite finished with you yet".  Age has its benefits.

A call to different

It has been my experience that there are many different means to an end.  This is not always the case to be sure, but it often is true.  And it is in within these differences that we get derailed into conversations arguing one better than another.  There is no doubt that some would be better than others, but there is also much value in understanding that sometimes different is just different.   Such, I believe, is the case when it comes to following what those of us desiring to follow Jesus know as the "Great Commandment".  It's the " go into all the world and make disciples" directive that he left his followers with just before he left this earthly dwelling.
The difficulty, in my opinion, is that the directive itself is fairly wide open.  It's hardly a field guide.  It's not very descriptive.  It's simply "go" and "make" with a few specifics like baptize and teach thrown in.  To be honest, the history of those who have followed that moment have proven that not even the specifics are specific enough to avoid controversies and schisms.  It's been my experience of 20 years in the pastoral arts that this section of the Book of books is about as helpful as an IKEA diagram.
There, I believes, lies the problem of creativity and diversity within the expression of the Christian church.  We have been taught to believe that different expressions of "church" are an expression of rebellion and condemnation.  Could it be just "different"?  A close examination of the earliest of followers in "church" gatherings would illustrate how different the expressions really could be.  The gathering of followers in Jerusalem with a heavily Jewish influence surely expressed themselves differently than those of the Greek cities.  And yet, in our culture that claims a value for creativity and individual expression, we look sideways at anyone seeing the "go" and "make" through different lenses.
As we begin this journey of creating a community known as "Common Table" we have many thoughts and ideas as to how it might look...but really it is one of the great " I don't knows" of my life.  The only thing that I do know is that we will take what the community offers and form an expression of worship, serving, going and making that may not make sense to those who want sameness.  I have a feeling though that it will make sense to those who are seeking and searching outside of the usual places.  Out of the many criticisms that exist for the church today, one common theme for people is that they feel that the church should, could, be "different".  My prayer for this community as it gets off the ground is twofold;  that it will be faithful, and it will be different.... Not better, just different.