Vision

I, along with others, am convinced that Christ the King cannot succeed without changing.  You've heard many of the reasons such as numerical attrition, shrinking financial resources, uncertain continued outside support, the Gywnne's leaving, and wider cultural changes.  People, increasingly are not seeking out a "church to go to."  It's not compelling to many that we have a good nursery, nice music, sound preaching, and warm and loving people to engage with over coffee and snacks after the service.  And while I believe that all of that's true, the challenges we face are not because the Gospel has ceased to be Good News and it's not because we as God's body are failing.  We are a microcosm of the wider changes around us.

Instead I believe that we are being called to *go* with God as our inspiration, protection, blessing, and Good News.  We are being called to engage with our community in new and different ways to listen to and love our neighbors (particularly those we've overlooked in the past) and to participate in the work that God is already doing in His Kingdom.  Consider Abram for minute:

"1 The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

2 “I will make you into a great nation, 

 and I will bless you;

I will make your name great, 

 and you will be a blessing.[a] 

3 I will bless those who bless you, 

 and whoever curses you I will curse; 

and all peoples on earth 

 will be blessed through you.”[b]

4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring[c] I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.

8 From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD.

9 Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.

10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe."

When I read, I see a prototype of the journey we will embark on.

• God just said "Go" and not even somewhere specific...  "to the land I will show you"
• God offers his protection and blessing
• Abram leaves even at an old age (i.e. this wasn't an ideal time to leave)
• Abram takes everything (i.e. he didn't leave a "lifeline"/exit strategy)
• Abram travels extensively through Canaan ("as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem") until God speaks.
• Abram continues to travel (he didn't just wait to receive what God had promised)
• Abram has to adapt...  Famine strikes so he has to go to Egypt

Now for a little personal history.  I grew up in the United Methodist Church and since I don't remember much of my childhood I don't really remember a time when I didn't go to church.  That's not to say that my parents were deeply religious when I was young.  They grew up much like me.  Mom grew up Methodist and Dad grew up Catholic.  It wasn't until I was a teenager that Dad began to take his relationship with God seriously.  During college Shiree and I participated in Intervarsity and through that found a PCA (Presbyterian Church of America) that fit the season of our lives; brain food, a spirituality that prized rationality.  When we moved to Seattle we continued to attend a PCA church, but it was different, largely because Seattle is different than Harrisonburg.  It was liturgical, we had communion every week, the music and other aesthetic elements were important to worship, and being in a city an impulse towards mission was inevitable (art nights, soup kitchens, neighbors who were literally 20 feet away, many people who had never even cracked the Bible and it didn't bother them).  Our PCA church in Seattle was also much the same; deeply intellectual/rational, and very little room for mystery.  We moved back to Harrisonburg in 2003 and picked up where we left off in the PCA church we attended during college.  Around that time God began stirring me and I wanted a faith in my heart as well as my head.  I wanted mystery and beauty and I wanted to be connected to something ancient.  So I started exploring in lots of different directions.  I started reading a bunch of books by Brian McLaren ("New Kind of Christian" series, "Generous Orthodoxy"), NT Wright ("Simply Christian", "Surprised by Hope", "Evil and the Justice of God"), William Young ("The Shack"), Shane Claiborne ("Irresistible Revolution") and other "emerging church" books.  Shiree and I also helped financially with a church plant called "The New Deal" that a pastor friend (whom we met in Seattle) in Indianapolis started.  In hindsight, and while we didn't have the vocabulary for it, it was very missional.

Almost by chance I came to the Ash Wednesday service of Christ the King in 2006.  It is a powerful service with beautiful touches (the cross and the flamable paper).  I knew immediately there was something at CtK that God was calling our family so we left the PCA and have been at CtK ever since.  Shortly after joining CtK, Geoff pitched a vision of ABF to me that I was excited about and so I took on being the outreach coordinator/emcee of ABF.  ABF was to be something more intimate than corporate worship but less intimate than a small group would be with a focus on doing mission in the community around us.  The Sunday times were to be fuel for us to "go" and through our going find people who heard the echoes of God's voice and wanted to connect with Him and His body here in Harrisonburg.  I coordinated projects with the Volunteer Farm, Skyline Literacy Coalition, United Way, and others.  We didn't know it at the time and still didn't have the vocabulary but we were wrestling with being "missional."  We did good in the community, but it was an uphill struggle to live into the vision and I believe this was because the Sunday morning time was bound to become "Sunday School", and the busyness of our lives made it hard to do kingdom work.

I've always loved the teaching part of ABF with amazing teachers like Aaron Cook and Bob Brown, but architecture was winning so I proposed a different idea to the leadership community called the "outreach incubator".  It was going to be something like a small group with people who felt a call towards connecting with and serving their community in unique ways.  Shiree and I started that up in 2007.  People from several small groups and other friends we knew began meeting our our house (much like a small group).  We kept an often very honest blog (this one....  which I've been re-reading and has inspired me with "old new ideas"), read lots of books and scripture (for a season we just read all of John together from the Message like a bed-time story), brain stormed ways to engage our community, and did projects together.  Again, we fell short of the vision and again I think that was at least in part because of the architecture.  We were shaped almost exactly like other CtK small groups and so we became a small group like others.

Most of the people in our "outreach incubator" moved away and my movement towards this thing which I didn't have a name for, "missional-ness" slowed.  Last year I brought the idea of Stop Hunger Now to the Leadership Community and Geoff pushed me to help that project take off.  Once again I was excited by a project that served justice in the world, that connected with God's Kingdom, and that helped other people align with God (even if they didn't know it).  Stop Hunger Now turned into HARTS and once again we got to connect meaningfully with people in our community whom we've never connected with before (in 2010, kids were allowed to participate in HARTS and Brody made friends with a lot of homeless people ;)  From there personally I kept seeking ways, with varying degrees of eagerness or success, to connect with our community.  I helped out with OCP in a few different ways one of which was simply to supervise the shower program at the Lucy Simms center.  Some of you may recall Khaleel from HARTS in 2010.  I met him through OCP and got to connect with him in a tiny way with the little bit of Arabic I've learned working at Rosetta Stone.  This spring and summer we've connected with even more people in our community through the Community Garden and in a couple of weeks we'll elbow up with our neighbors to once again do the work of feeding a hungry world.

Earlier this year Geoff read some books and started talking to us about "missional-ness".  I think it named what I'd put energy into over nearly the last decade.  The leadership community has wrestled with what "missional-ness" is, how, and whether to embrace it.  I find it beautiful and exciting and I think God has plans for us....

It is within this context that me and my family are deeply excited about a Saturday expression of missional-ness and worship.  I'm, hopefully, not naive about the prospects for success.  I know that we may "go" and it may not work.  I do however believe that change opens new doors and if we do walk through them I think God will do wonderful things.  Here are some things that I hope we embrace in a Saturday format:

1. Continued use of and aprecitation for the Episcopal liturgy
2. The Episcopal Eucharist.
3. A pattern of "Kingdom exploration", "Worship", and "Fellowship": Do stuff in and with and for our community before worship, seamlessly transition into worship and then continue on into the evening at our leisure.  We may not do all of those parts every weekend, but I'm hopeful that we can follow that pattern often.  Acts 2:42-47 seems impossible in modern American life but maybe we can come close one day a week, and maybe it overflows into other day?  "They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common.45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."
4. I hope we eat together often...  Nothing fancy or expensive.  Maybe it's just BYOD, sandwiches, etc.
5. I hope that we get in the pattern of having fun together.  Music, movies, games, coffee shop, etc.  We should be friends.
6. I hope that we bring other people into our midst often and that they get caught in the flow...  A response to the "echoes of a voice," a need to eat and have fun like everyone else.
7. I hope we retain a "mobility" of place and format.  When we "go" we should be prepared and open to God's leading to "go" somewhere else, to try different things, etc.

I think Saturday is great for this format.  You can fit the entire flow in one chunk (Kingdom exploration, Worship, and Fellowship).  The night is unrushed (there isn't architecture to forcing anxiety about finishing work, packing lunches, etc.) and I think the difference opens doors to people we haven't had a chance to engage with in the past.

I believe that God is doing something and that when we "go" he is going to lead us.