What If…

Eddie Gibbs, Mike Breen & Lance Ford

// May 13th, 2009 // Comments Off // Church

If Ben Can Move the Island, We Can Move the Church, Part 4

// February 25th, 2009 // Comments Off // Church

This one is simple and short.  All of the ideas have built on each other and all demand a reordering of our ideas of stewardship of time and resources and our ideas of discipleship.

1) We go to where people are
2) We remain who we are
3) We show them a preferred future.

And today…

4) We walk with them there.

Today's while the simplest is the scariest to me because making disciples takes time – commitment.  These are things that we don't seem to be very good at these days.  What if everyone in the church was a disciple maker like you?  What would the church look like in 10 years?

We must slow down…look around…see who needs us and join God in what He is doing around us.  We have to spend time with people on good & bad days and shepherd them toward Christlikeness.  Then in and of itself brings up another challenge because it demands that we allow people to be close to us.  They get to see us more  and more and get to see our junk.  It calls us to be more holy and more pure as well.

It calls us to embrace the our roles as priests as those who are called to be broken and poured out for the world and maybe more importantly today to be temples.  The scriptures tell us that we (the church) are the temple of God.  We must seek holiness in our midst so that just like a queen from the east, people will be drawn to our uniqueness and worship our God.

So…that's a wrap.  Be intentional.  Be real.  Be visionary.  Be the message.

Peace ~

If Ben Can Move the Island, We Can Move the Church, Part 1

// February 8th, 2009 // 301 Comment »http://williamguice.com/2009/02/08/if-ben-can-move-the-island-we-can-move-the-church-part-1/If+Ben+Can+Move+the+Island%2C+We+Can+Move+the+Church%2C+Part+12009-02-08+20%3A41%3A59williamguice // The Church at Spring Hill

How crazy was it when Ben climbed down the ladder into a frozen cavern in the Orchid Station.  Then even more bizarre was grabbing the old ships wheel turning it and BAM…the island is gone.  Some go with it.  Some are left.  Most of us were just scratching our heads.

I keep having great conversations – conversations with good Godly people who realize that there is so much more than what we are settling for as local church bodies.  For years I have done college/20's ministry work and heard the passionate rebellion of many who see that so much of what we are doing in the name of Jesus simply doesn't match up with what the Bible tells us of Jesus, but now I am so encouraged as I find myself surrounded by people who are older, at a different life stage, who are thinking these same thoughts.  It is invigorating yet challenging.

About 6 years ago now I was asked to speak at a conference in Phoenix about what we were doing with our young adult ministry in Louisiana.  It forced me to think through what we were doing at a deeper level and with the help of some close friends I boiled it down to four ideas.  These ideas have stuck with me since then and I find even more value in them today.  They have really for me formed my ministry identity.  Over the next few days I want to expand them and discuss how they have shaped my ministry and probably our church.

1) We have to go to where people are.  I don't just mean those who we label as missionaries.  I mean all of us and we as church leaders have to be part of a re-education of our tribes about this.  We have to help people embrace their sentness into the world.  We have fallen into the tired trap of being a cathedral based people. In protestant/evangelical world we have replaced the Eucharist and the sacraments with a whole new band of rituals that are all about us being an event/gathering people.  Our concert halls  are the new grand cathedrals of the past.  We have lost our sense of "sentness"; we have lost our call to be exiles, to be a contrast to the surrounding world and we seem to be okay with it.  We except for the radical few are okay with being defined as a church by what our worship gatherings are like or who our teacher is or what our buildings and programs are like.

What we do in our worship services is needed but it cannot be the definition of who we are.  Jesus never commands us to worship him by gathering the way we do.  These are our on construct and while it has been part of our story since the early church met, it maybe has taken on way to much value in our identity…especially in affluent suburban America.  Our worship extravaganzas provide us with a good warm fuzzy and don't demand a whole lot out of us. Taking the church with us does.  You as a believer are filled with the divine and gifted by him to be
him where ever you are…with this realization, a whole new layer of responsibility sets in. 
Are we wiling to accept it?  Are you willing to embrace the fact that
every moment, every conversation matters. 

On another note, our buildings cannot be the center either.  I have learned this at a new level over the past few months.  It is absolutely amazing what you can accomplish how much better you can steward resources when you let the building thing go.  Overhead kills you; it stifles ministry to your gathering and to the world around you that is in need.  The amazing exponential growth of the early church happened with no buildings.  Alan Hirsch points out in The Forgotten Ways that the church grew from roughly 25,000 in 100 AD to 20 million in 310 AD with no buildings.  It can be done.  There is precedent historically and in our world to today as the church explodes in China and South America.  Acts 2 & 4 happened because committed people made tough calls.  They lived out what they had seen in Jesus and the apostles…even to the point of martyrdom.  They gathered often (often under the threat of religious or government oppression), in homes, they ate together, they remembered Jesus, they pooled and re-distributed wealth, they learned from the apostles  and they worshiped together but from every indication in the context of the home/neighborhood gathering.  The problem is that we want Acts 2 results without Act 2 commitment.  To see it happen I fully believe we have to re-embrace re-learn our sentness into the world.  It is not easy but it is who we are called to be.  We can talk about going all we want but when the majority of our resources are spent on gathering…then it is all just talk.  Maybe we should borrow a phrase from Marshall McLuhan, "The medium is the message."

For way to long we have been defined by how we worship.  Maybe this is why when groups try to change worship styles it is such a struggle.  Maybe for many churches and congregants that is their identity, who they are as a church.  For us to be effective in this world that has to end.  We have to embrace our roles as priests, heralds of the gospel, shepherds…(you pic your image) wherever we are.  I don't want to sound like I am throwing worship services "under the bus" but if they don't help us "know" and "be" better when we are outside the building then they are just religion. 

Our big gatherings are part of what we do – not all of what we do.  My fear is that we have canned the things Jesus overtly told us to do for the things we can do because of affluence and the environment we live in (…maybe the easy things).  We have to re-identify ourselves as a sent people that gather rhythmically.  Our ID can't be our worship style or who our teacher is or what our building looks like.  It has to be that we are bringing good news where ever we are.  We are the kingdom.  We are the church; not just in a certain space but everywhere, everyday. I think in theory we know this, but when you dive into it and see the leadership calls that it demands…the waters become really scary.  It is a big leap into an uncertain future.  It demands that we may have to re-think church as we know it.

A year ago on this blog I posed this question…

What if next Sunday at the end of your churches worship gathering your pastor made the following announcement:

We here at Imaginary Church believe completely that our church is
really not about what we do here on Sundays but about people.  We don't
just come to church we are the church!  So to prove this point we are
going to forgo corporate worship gatherings for the next 60 days after
which time we will continue our weekend gatherings.  During this time
we would like to encourage you to focus on the relationships that you
are a part of and expanding the kingdom in the places where you live,
work and play.  Remember, you are the church now go and be Jesus.  See
you in two months!  Peace be with you.

What would your church look like at the end of two months?  Would there be a church left?

So…if you are still with me.  Lately I've been intrigued by Jesus teachings on sheep & shepherds.  Shepherds lead, protect, feed and care for their sheep.  Shepherds lived with their sheep.  They were a constant presence.  I love the line, "My sheep know my voice." Here's the thing…

You can't shepherd sheep from a distance.  You have to be with the sheep.

My friend you are your brothers keeper.  We as believers are called to sacrifice for others. This means time with people…more than just 40 minutes with coffee and donuts on Sundays. I hope that we will go and embrace that. A great friend, boss & mentor of mine, David Uth, once told me in a moment I will never forget.  "The most important sermon you will ever preach is the sermon before the sermon – it's the time you spend with people."

I am praying for more people who will spend time with other people.  I am praying for more & more people who want to shed religion and embrace the adventure of moving/re-inventing the church to where we live, work and play.  I am praying for us to be what the early followers seem to have been a force that was built not just on gathering but on scattering.  I'm praying for pastors and church leaders to get out of offices and into coffee shops and across their streets.

So…turn the wheel.  Move the church.  Go to where people are.  You are not alone.  God is with you & for you. Hopefully with this move, we'll be left scratching our head at what God has done through us and our churches.

Peace ~

WIlliam

Next:  Be Who You Are!