Contagion

I forgot to mention that Bek and I decided to go camping on Tuesday. It was one of those spontaneous moments where I had a craving to camp, we asked ourselves why we couldn't and then decided that we would within the span of about 30 seconds. It actually felt good to do something compeletly spontaneous for a change (even though we have 2 days to go, we paid for the site a few minutes later, thus the spontaniety - haha). We seem to be pretty straight laced when it comes to life and I find myself being drawn to just break out of the ordinary and do what we feel like doing ( I know this isn't that crazy...but it's a start for us old geezers). Having two kids has really changed the way was live our lives. We can't just pick up and watch a movie (I can but Bek's just as much of a movie freak as I am so that tends to get me in trouble - we'll save that for another post) or go for a late night burger or anything like that because of the kids. I absolutely love my kids but it's just more of a chore to make sure my marriage is a priority with kids than it was before.

I'm just stoked to get out my life for a few days and just defrag in the forest beside a campfire with my hot wife and two amazing kids. Camping has always been one of my favorite things to do so this will just be an added bonus this year.

Just got back from whistler with some of our youth staff for the last retreat we will ever go on as this youth staff. I gotta say it was super relaxing. We had no schedules sessions at all and we just rolled with the punches. The guys kinda got roped into watch the Ultimate Fighter Finale (and some of the marathon all day long). It got us a little wound up but we made it through the day without beating each other to death - although I almost got a one punch from Dave.

It's been a good 5 years. I feel like I've grown as a leader in a lot of ways and I also see that I have soooo much growing to still do. I made some good moves and I made some bad ones. I wish I could say I'm walking away from a youth ministry that is huge and healthy but I'm not sure I can. It's been a hard go. It's been this way for at least 10 years. But I know that I'm passing the torch onto the best guy that I could imagine.

Eric Interned with me for the last two years and from day one I knew I wanted to bring him on staff as another youth pastor. We grew up together and he was my best friends kid brother. I never suspected that we would one day work together. Over the last two years I've seen him grow and mature into a leader of leaders. I took a risk in mentoring him without really knowing what I was doing and I think it may have worked a little bit. I know that Eric is going to take this youth ministry to new places and into new adventures and things are gonna happen.

It's kind of a bitter sweet ending to the saga. I've been in youth ministry for 7 years and it's been kind of a safe place. I've always had someone to back me up. Someone to take the punches when I almost got my head knocked off by some angry parents. But now I step out into the unknown. Quite honestly I don't know how to be a lead pastor. That could end up working out to my advantage as I get to forge my own path. But at the same time, it's a little unnerving. I like the comfortable, but I feel the adventure pulling me. I hear lies in my head everyday and it takes everything in me to push forward with the understanding and remembrance that I've been called to this. I have to do this. I'm meant to be in this place, in this time. I know that I can't do this. That's why every day I'm so thankful that this is God's church. I'm gonna give it all I've got and let God empower me to do supernatural things I never thought possible. It's gonna be a ride...right now it just feels like we're moving our way up the first incline.

Just so everyone knows, our website is under heavy construction right now, even though it's online for the whole world to see. We changed our whole look even though we just got our other site up a few months ago. We felt that it wasn't versatile enough for what we wanted to do in the future so we switched.

One thing the website used to say was that we are launching weekly gathering on Sept.24. That's how it was gonna shake down, but we've decided a different road - one that we are really excited about. Instead of weekly gathering in September, we are going to have monthly gathering on Sept.17, Oct.15, Nov.5 and Dec.3. They will all still be in SilverCity Mission and will all start @ 10am. (9:30 for Starbucks and donuts)

These gatherings will be exactly what we will be doing when we launch weekly on Jan.7. However, we chose this route because we felt that we needed to build a bigger base for our church before we launched fully public. These gatherings will give us the time needed to do that. As well, we will be able to figure out what we are good at and what we need to get better at. Setting up and tearing down each week is going to be an adventure all to it's own.

The way we intend to expand our launch team into a mini church is still a converstation we are having. There are a few possiblities. The one that I've been thinking of lately is that in September we would open up the launch team to anyone who wanted to be a part of the church. This will be a hard transition as the launch team will have been meeting for 5 months prior to this planning the future of the church exclusively. But I guess this has to happen some time. At this point, we would move to our elder/pastor model where myself and our worship and children's pastors would begin to meet on a weekly basis for leadership meetings.

So in place of our launch team meetings we would gather as an open faith community where anyone who has come to our preview gatherings can connect in. We will also have a BBQ/community fair in a local school that is in a neighborhood that we will be targeting. We have a team from our local Bible college that will be helping us and serve as a type of outreach team for the first four months. this is going to be a huge thing as they will be able to do much more than I would be able to on my own.

Meeting small could be a challenge for us when we go public in January as everyone will be used to a more intimate vibe than will be projected in the theater. I think my job is going to have to remind people that this gathering is not about us but it is ultimately about the searching. As long as that is at the forefront and we are heavily involved and integrated in the community, my hope is that we won't run into that problem. I guess the monthly gatherings at SilverCity will serve as a reminder of what's coming up as well.

Anyways, I unloaded my brain here so I hope it makes sense. If you have some stellar ideas, leave a comment. I don't claim to have all the answers, if any at all. If you check the website out, take it with a grain of salt. If you can wait, please do until mid next week. By then we should be on the ball.

Have yourselves a great weekend! I'm gonna be up at Whistler with some of my youth staff for the very last time. So I'll pray for you as I lay beside the pool...relaxing.

Dream Huge!

Man it's been a rollercoaster this last week with our launch team and the church. Unfortunately, we had a couple step down which I'm sure will turn out. It was a blow but I still felt pretty positive. I've been talking with other launch team members and they are experiencing spiritual warfare like mad as well. I think we've just made a new worst enemy.

And then yesterday, I heard some amazing news that our district is going to give us a grant of a substantial amount for our start up costs and then in January they will assess our need for monthly support! That was such good news to hear. So we are slowly creeping up on our goal of $75,000. Sounds like a crazy dream but I know someone out there (or multiple someone's) have the money and I'm trusting God that he will speak to them in some way or another so they will release it to us.

Even though church planting has it's challenges, I couldn't imagine doing anything else. It's the craziest thing because 4 months ago I was intending on staying at the church I'm currently employed at. But I guess God has a way of changing hearts and mine has changed drastically over the last 4 months. I'm amped that I get to be on this journey right now. I'm so glad that I've got people around me that are just as excited and committed as I am. God is going to do some incredible things through us in the coming months.

As we get closer to launching our monthly gatherings starting in September (we will launch weekly gatherings in January), we are going to be strategically involved in the community of mission. From doing a free BBQ in the Junction to volunteering at the Mission Folk Music Festival (along with many other things), we intend on putting ourselves in the middle of culture as a means of putting our second core value into practice: Passionate Spirituality.

When we say spirituality, the tendency could be to think of church, singing or God; this isn’t what we mean. We believe that our spirituality needs to permeate our whole lives – and it needs to be passionate. There is so much spirituality in the world these days that it doesn’t work to just tell people we love Jesus. There are many people who are more passionate about worshipping rocks than some Christians who say they worship Jesus. If we are passionate about our love for Jesus, others will see it and it will be contagious. We don’t think that it’s possible to compartmentalize Jesus into the subcategories of “Church” and “The rest of my life”. Either Jesus is the boss of our whole lives…or he isn’t boss at all.

The collective gathering that takes place on Sunday is vital for passionate spirituality to take place. There is a huge element of encouragement that takes place and should never be compromised. However, being the church can’t end as soon as we walk out the church doors. Sunday serves as a catalyst for the rest of the week; it’s a type of “re-sending” each week. We get re-sent into the culture as missionaries (Core Value #1) to passionately live out our Spirituality (Core Value #2) in the midst of the culture, not apart from it.

The days of putting on a good “show” and sitting quietly, waiting for people to come to church are gone. We have to go to them. It’s a messy place to live, but this is The CrossCurrent – where life is meant to be lived.

Dream Huge!

Hayfever is gonna be the death of me...I've got two choices...go and empty out my bank account in order to purchase pills that will last me for one day to take away the itchy eyes, nose, throat and runny nose. Or, I endure the itchy eyes, nose, throat and runny nose and get absolutely nothing accomplished today. Come to think of it, there is another option: rob a bank and head on over to Hawaii until the plague of death passes over. I'll fill you in on what my choice was. (Could be a little delayed response if I choose option 3).

We think my son has some type of allergy to dogs (His face gets all blotchy. Too bad my parents have a dog - sorry mom and dad...it's either the dog or your grandson. j/k...on top of that he was sneezing about as much as I was last night so we are suspect that he's got some hayfever as well...poor kid. At least I've got some company now.

Even though Edmonton lost the Stanley cup final, they proved that they have some incredible heart. They came back from what seemed to be impossible odds and gave it their all and nearly brought the upset. It sucks that we didn't win but it's nice to know that we didn't wimp out.

We found out today that one of the couples that was initially on our launch team has decided that it isn't going to work out for them to be on it anymore. They first decided to be on the team when the had three kids. Shortly after that, they got pregnant with their fourth and the time and energy demands soon started to add up. They are really connected in with the community of Abbotsford and decided it would be best for them as a family to stay connected in Abbotsford.

I'm excited because they made a hard decision but put their family before the church. Too many times there are highly committed people to churches that spend more time at church than they do at home with their families. I'm not advocating boycotting church. I just think it's vital that families are the spiritual training grounds before the church is.

At the same time I'm sad because they are some of our really good friends. I asked them because they have incredible character. I knew that it would probably be hardest on them out of everyone but they are such awesome people I had to ask. I'm sad because now I have one less set of friends embarking on this journey with us (even though we will only live 10mins away - it's nice having people that you can trust working closely beside you)

I know that God has some incredible things in store for them. I know that God has some incredible things in store for us. Even though things don't seem to make sense sometimes, I can see that God has had his hand on this church up to this point and he will continue in the future.

I don't live in Mission yet, but I love the place. And when I say love it's not just a word I throw around flippantly...I seriously am passionate about that city and that has GOT to be a God thing. I say that because I used to think of mission as a small town without a clue (this was before our dream to plant over there). But as the days keep moving on, my heart breaks more and more for the people there and I am so stoked to be able to partner with them in making mission the best place a person could ever choose to live. I'm looking forward to volunteering at the Mission Folk Music Festival and getting to know some people through that. The weekend after that we are doing a free BBQ on the Save On Foods patio in the Junction just as a way to bless people. We understand that we can't sell ourselves to people with our words...they have to see that we care - and actually care about them and not as projects to be completed but as people that matter.

I'm stoked! (The fact that Canada is in the Stanley cup game tonight could be a factor in that as well)

I'm gonna start posting the inserts we have been putting into our mother church's bulletin just to inform people of what's going on as we get closer to our launch date.

The launch team of The CrossCurrent (TXC) has been meeting together for the last month and a half and it has been an amazing ride so far. The launch team is the core group of this new church and is comprised of 6 families in total. We will all be heavily involved in the different areas of the church in order to get it healthily off the ground.

Our mission is “to become people who contagiously follow Jesus with our whole lives.” We realized that this was a nice statement but that it didn’t hold much weight if we didn’t have a way to measure how someone could “contagiously follow Jesus with their whole life”. So we came up with a simple formula. If we want to know if we are contagious or not (In regards to the mission of TXC), we can look at all 5 of our core values and see which ones are in operation in our lives. If all 5 are in operation, you could say we are 100% contagious.

Our first core value is “Missional Living”. When we say this we are implying that, as Christians, we are to be missionaries to the surrounding culture in which we live. We believe that we are to proclaim the unchanging truths of Scripture in a continually changing culture and our aim is to do this in a way that makes sense to the people we are trying to reach. We need to be students of the culture in which we live, just as an overseas missionary studies the culture in which they are going into, so we can understand how best to communicate the gospel and see peoples’ lives changed by God. As missionaries to this culture, we are on God’s mission of bringing people back to Him. In order to do this, we have to go to where the people are and not sit back, expecting them to just show up. We want to be actively involved in the community of mission with the various events that go on just to show that we care about the community and our reason for being there is to help and make it a better place for everyone. As we do this, we are trusting that God will be in the middle of our conversations with the people we come in contatct with and that people will be drawn to him because of our contagious faith.

This is the first part of the equation and needs to be followed by the other four core values which we will look at in the coming weeks. Until then…

Dream Huge!

Now that Edmonton has walked all over Carolina, I feel much better. The machines have stopped. The Garage Sales are over. I had a succulent steak for dinner. I think I will be able to sleep tonight (until the construction crew fires back up tomorrow morning - pray I don't lose my salvation!)

So for the third time, I have left my good friend Dave hanging at IHOP waiting for me to show up. We are supposed to meet every second week for accountability and I have managed to make 2 of 5. Yes you heard that right. As a matter of fact, I should be there right now...but I'm not. I'm blogging about it instead. The story goes as follows...

11pm last night I decided to text Dave and just make sure he's still on. Obviously he was sleeping so I was just hoping he'd check his phone and confirm with me in the morning. 6:30am roles around and the construction crew behind our house fires up their equipment and decides that they would just love to make our blood boil. Bek gets up to feed emma, all the while she's furious. I hear her put emma back down, storm upstairs and head outside. I duck under my covers because I know exactly what she's doing. She picks the first worker she can find and demands to talk to the foreman of the job. Too bad he didn't speak English. She flies back inside and starts calling numbers to get SOMEBODY TO SHUT OFF THE STUPID MACHINES! Of course that didn't work.

In the meantime, I'm still lying in bed waiting for Dave to get back to me as the time creeps by very quickly and stressfully up to 8am. 7:50am roles around and I figure Dave is still sleeping so I consent to Bek's unceasing pleas to go garage saling (to be honest, I said yes because I didn't want to be at the brunt of her rage that should have been directed to the construction crew - I HATE GARAGE SALING! - just so you know.)

8:02am rolls around and Dave texts me telling me he's at IHOP. Wow! Doesn't that just make my day! First off, I've committed to going garage saling under the assumption that Dave was still sleeping - have I mentioned that I HATE GARAGE SALING?! Second, I've effectively stood Dave up 3 times and am getting quite good at it to be honest. I absolutely detest letting people down when I've committed to them. I could care less when they expect something of me when I haven't committed anything to them. But when I've committed, that's a different story.

Nonetheless, this day has started GREAT! It's 8:46am right now, I'm starving and we are out the door to buy some other dude's junk so that we can sell his junk (which will be ours in a few minutes) at our garage sale in a few years. What's one man's junk is another man's....junk. Let's just be honest. Wish me luck.

***Oh ya...the machines are still out there. Pray for the workers...they're gonna need it.

Well it's been a few days since I posted last...I just came through a few day of what I'm calling spiritual warfare. I'm not sure of the specifics of all of the spiritual realm except that I know that it's real. I know there is a battle for my mind, body and soul. I know that the Devil hates me. I don't know how strategic the plans of the enemy are or how direct attacks on me are. All I know is that I know that I was in it. I guess it's going on all the time but these last few days were really heightened. The last time I felt like this was two days before the dream for this church plant was birthed in my heart. There was no explanation for this whatsoever. The last time it happened I was talking about worship at youth (Wed/Thurs). This time it was my last two nights as the youth pastor. I'm not sure if there is any correlation there but it's an observation I've made.

So I've spent the last few days resisting temptation, speaking truth into my life and resisting lies. It's been pretty crazy. This time was different than the last because last time I had no idea what was coming up. Little did I know about the church plant dream that was a day away. This time I knew why I was being attacked. This church plant is meant to happen. I am so convinced of it...the more people I talk to the more that become excited and affirm that this is right. I know that God has called me to plant this church and no amount of lies will be able to detour this bus. We are headed into an adventure that is gonna rock us out of anything that we've ever know. Bring it on.

Word is getting around about our church. I was out for coffee today with Vaughn and Amy (who works at the Starbucks in mission - hey, if you are reading this) over heard me talking so boistrously about the vision of the church (boistrous is nothing new for me when I'm passionate about something). Anyways, I gave her the church website and maybe I'll run into her again in Starbucks -- seeing it will be my office in a few months. The fact that some evesdropping got someone excited about the church is rad in my opinion. Maybe I should talk louder next time -- haha.

Right after coffee I went over to Save On Foods to talk with the manager about doing a free BBQ on their Patio in July. I told him that we were starting a church in SilverCity but I don't think he heard me. He proceeded to suggest that maybe it may be a better idea to do it outside of our church. I then proceeded to recall to his memory that I had just told him we were starting the church in SilverCity and he got the confuzzled look on his face and told that that was the oddest thing he'd ever heard. He then told me that he didn't see a problem with that and his attitude basically said "I don't understand why a church would meet in a theater but it sounds cool and I don't know why they would do a free BBQ and pay to give people a free meal, but it sounds cool." So at this point, I'm excited. I think that there is going to be some heavy buzz starting up in regards to this church. People in this area just aren't familiar with church in a theater - even though it's a super popular thing in different places. They hear about it and their curiosity is automatically piqued. This region is loaded with churches and most of them are doing the same thing. Even though we aren't doing this for shock value, I think people are shocked but excited about a fresh approach to church. I know I am.

There should be a rule put in place that construction crews can't start working until 10am. We had this church burn down last year that got bulldozed and is now being rebuilt. So of course the work crews show up @ 7am with their massive machinery pounding the ground right outside my son's window. But I'm not bitter.

We had a great launch team meeting tonight. It seemed like everyone was on the same page and we moved a few steps forward. We began the process of determining what we will do and what we won't do. Some things we decided that we will do are missional small groups (undercurrents), creative, engaging sunday gatherings and a kids ministry that is super high impact that meets during the week in the community as well as Sunday mornings during church. Some things we decided we would NOT do are altar calls, embarassing guests, age/gender specific ministries (maybe youth - the rest will be included in the undercurrents), and....picnics! Instead we are going to try something that is aptly stolen from Southside community church in Surrey called the Big Pig Gig. It's a massive pig roast and we will open it up to the entire community or possibly tag it on with some other event in the city...who knows...maybe it will become an annual citywide event. Anyways...I'm excited for how things are shaping up. We may be naming our kids ministry "Upstream" which I think is pretty cool. The future is looking bright!

When I was a kid my parents always had naps on Sunday afternoons and made us boys take a nap too--I hated it. What a waste of time. But now that I'm a whopping 27 years old and Sundays can generally be my most emotionally draining day, naps are like gold. In fact, if I could have a nap everyday I would. But when I say nap, what I really mean is a power nap. I'm in my element when I can get a nap for 5mins. More than that and I feel like I just got hit by a mac truck. Anways, all this talk about naps has made me sleepy. I'm out.

If I said that I wasn't a little nervous with planting a new church I think I'd be lying. I told my wife that I feel like I'm putting my whole potential as a lead pastor on the line with one shot. Everything that I've learned up until this point is going to used to the max and I'm gonna feel pretty inadequate in a lot of situations. There are a few things that make me nervous. They aren't anything to do with the public end of things. I'm pretty confident that we have all the potential in the world to have a super good and creative gathering on sundays. Like I've said before, our launch team (even though we are small) is packed with talent and ability. The problem is that this stuff is a vital part of who we will be, but it's only one piece. On it's own, it will be absolutely useless. It's not even the fact that I will be preaching every week--I'm good with that--actually excited about it. What turns my stomach sometimes is the hidden stuff--most of it with me.

I've found myself thinking about my character quite a bit lately. Is it where it should be? Am I honest? Do I have integrity? Am I the same person all the time? Can I be trusted? Do I talk about others behind their backs? These are some super tough questions and as I wade through the waters of answering them I'm trying to be brutally honest with myself because I fully understand that my character is one of the biggest things that will cause this church to move forward or crumble to pieces.

Another thing that's got my wheels turning is my ability to connect with people that don't know Jesus. To be brutally honest, I've always had a hard time starting conversations. Most times I feel like a 6th grader at the school dance just trying to muster up enough courage to ask the dream girl to dance without making myself look like a total moron. I don't know what it is but I just don't have that salesman charisma that wins the hearts of people right off the bat. If anything I look like an ex con that is coming to sell fake watches that I just smuggled in across the border. I joke that maybe I should botox my eyebrows in a "happy" position so that I don't scare all the kiddies away--maybe it's not such a bad idea!

Some of this is genuine concern and others of it is just plain ol' insecurity. I know that God will be made strong in my weakness but I've gotta make sure that these weaknesses aren't of my own doing--that I'm constantly trying to become more like Jesus.

I remember one day a few years back--when we had super early morning prayer at the church--I was praying and felt very strongly that God was talking to me about something. I'm a worship leader as well and at the time was feeling pretty insecure about my singing ability. What he said was that he made me the way I was so that he would get the glory instead of me. That my voice wasn't "rock star worthy" so that I wouldn't get "rock star syndrome" and think I was better than I actually was. That freed me up to lead worship uninhibited by the opinions of others. I just have to constantly remind myself that God is the one in control of this bus. I may be moving the wheel with my hand, but he's the GPS guiding us to where we need to get--I just follow.

When this church starts making a different in this part of our world, God will get the glory because I know who I really am in light of who He is.

This is a question that I've been thinking about for a while and I think the question has to streams to it: the church gathered and the church scattered. When we get together on a Sunday morning, what is the point? Is it just to have a good time, sing some songs (without fighting about style and noise level of course), hear some good teaching, eat some good (but fat filled) food and go home? Does it exist to build us up and encourage us? Does it exist to run a program for every age group in the church, sometimes 3 or more each? Does it(the building) exist to be open 24/7 so people can come and pray, thus being shielded from the fiery darts of the evil one? Does it exist as a type of Christian ghetto were we can develop our own culture and language so we feel better about ourselves? (Sorry for the sarcasm...I'm just speaking from where I am right now). I think some of these things are good to a degree. The problem that I see is that the church gathered hardly becomes the church scattered.

The church gathered does not exist for itself! It can't. If it does, it's not a true church. The church gathered exists so that it can better be the church scattered. It does not work when we check our "church card" at the door when we leave on Sunday. If that's all that happens, we may as call ourselves a club and get on with life cause I'm just wasting my time by thinking I'm making a difference by attending church.

The church exists for the searching. You are the church. I am the church. There is no way around that and it just chaps me when we get all caught up in arguing and bickering about things that are Christian cultural preferences. They are not life or death issues affecting a world that won't experience the life and freedom that we have. It's all pettiness. Yes I know blue jeans offend people. Yes I know some people have sensitive ears. Yes I know some people think that moving backgrounds are demonic. That's fine. But if someone has the audacity to voice their opinion about something like this but can't make one friend that doesn't follow Jesus...I'm not sure I have time to listen.

Everything we do needs to point us towards the searching. Bottom line. No questions. No arguments. No apologies. The TXC bus will be headed in the direction of the searching.

Bek and I went out for breakfast to IHOP like we usually do on Friday's. We figured it would be just like any other day...but we were wrong. I think we went a little bit late (11:30am) because it was super cram packed in there. We didn't end up getting seated until 12:15pm and probably didn't get our food for another 20mins. Surprisingly enought I didn't get cranky like I usually do when I'm starving. This got me thinking a little bit about church. I'm reading a book right now called "first impressions: creating wow experiences in your church."

What would happen if you were to go into a restaurant and no one asked you what your name was. You just stood there...and waited. After a few minutes of waiting you decide that you're just gonna find a seat and hope someone will notice that you are new. You take your jacket off and sit down, clearing your throat loud enough for the booths in your immediate vicinity to notice you. You pick up the menu only to see that it's all in French. You search for words that look somewhat familiar but to no avail. It's all jibberish to you.

Finally, after 15mins, you manage to wave down a waitress. She briskly walks over to your table as if you are the biggest waste of her time. You ask her if you can get a drink and maybe some food but when you try to lock eyes with her you see that she's looking around at all of her other tables that need her assistance. You feel your blood begin to boil a bit as you sit in this high class restaurant getting the worst service ever. After attempting to make this thing work, you grab your jacket and take off. Do you think you will ever go back there again? Didn't think so.

One thing we all understand is customer service. Guests coming to church understand it as well. They may have no clue about God or this new Christianeze language, but they know fake when they see it. They know when they are being treated well. I wonder if we pay enough attention to guests. I wonder if what we do on Sunday's is so geared towards the 65 year veteran Christian folks that the guests who haven't even taken a step towards Jesus are left in a confused state of dislexia. I wonder if when we abandon all effort to communicate the gospel in a creative/innovative and inspiring way, we bring the stats of the declining church on ourselves. When we make no effort to relate to where a guest is at on their journey, why would we expect them to return? This could possibly be why so many Christians that I know have no friends who don't follow Jesus. We are so enamored with our Christian ghetto that we've forgotten how to just be real with people.

Maybe it's time to pop the bubble and crawl into this thing we call culture. Maybe it's time to ask ourselves if the Jesus we say we believe in has any relevance to the world in which we live. If he does, why aren't they getting it? Why aren't they catching it? Why isn't my faith air born? Why can't people see it?

Maybe it's time. Pop your bubble and pass the pin.

I've been thinking over the past few days about the future of our new church and how it's going to look. I've been challenged to rethink our strategy and we've been starting to implement some of those ideas. I've also been challenged to rethink the structure of the church and consider if the traditional model is the right road for us to take. And even though I can see the validity in moving away from some of the form, I still see value in it. I definitely think there needs to be a philosophy shift in the mind of Christians about what their role is in the world and maybe the form of how we gather does need to change to help facilitate that shift.

At this point, I feel like we are supposed to be doing both. we need to continue meeting in the traditional way we have in the past(we'll be in a movie theater which tends to promote spectating) but shift our understanding of how we should act as the church at the same time. I still dream of having a highly creative sunday morning gathering where we can have fun together, dream together and be sent out together. I still dream of seeing us more fully understanding what our role is as the church (the people). That we would embrace the call to live incarnationally, bringing Jesus into every crack and crevice of the culture we live in. That sunday wouldn't be the end of the week but the beginning.

I fully understand that this is gonna be a hard thing to accomplish, but heck, at least it's gonna be an adventure.

I'm just about finished reading this book and I have to say, I really like it. It resonates with something deep inside of me. Basically it says that men hate going to church because it's geared towards women. It dismisses (largely) the masculine side of Jesus (warrior on a white horse, clearing the temple, confronting religious people, etc) and instead focuses on the feminine side of Jesus (loving eachother, sharing our problems, relying on God, being intimate with God, holding hands in a circle when we pray). Some of this stuff will really tick a lot of religious people off but it makes complete sense to me. I REALLY DISLIKE holding hands in a circle with a bunch of other dudes that I don't know from a hole in the wall and have sweatly palms cause they are as nervous as I am that someone's gonna walk in and see us being "intimate" with each other. Call me whatever you want, but it's just the way I'm wired I guess.

The author (David Murrow) goes on to talk about how women's greatest fear is not having relationships with other people and how a man's greatest fear is losing his independence. Now think about it...when you go to church, what are you expected to do? Join in relationship with other people (calming the women's fear) and lose your independence by depending on God (aggitating the man's greatest fear). There are a lot of things that you can't escape, like depending on God, but there has got to be more of a balance in how we approach things.

He notes that Christian men talk more like women than they do like "normal" men. Talking about intimacy, love, personal relationships with Jesus, etc. He observes that most men equate personal relationships to those they are connected 'inimately' with. So why would a man want an intimate and personal relationship with Jesus? Most men go running.

The recent rise of homosexuality in the church and the publicity of sexual abuse makes men cringe. First off, they don't want their kids even near that stuff. Second, they don't want themselves to be near that stuff. So they go running.

It's my personal conviction that if the man can be lead to see that Jesus wants to lead him in a life altering adventure of risk, mystery and ultimately, building a kingdom (the kingdom of God), he will lead his family to Jesus. We see it time and again. The wife follows Jesus and yet the man remains hard and calloused to the gospel. But when the head of the home (sorry to all of you who don't see it this way) decides to follow Jesus, the rest are more than likely to follow as well. It seems to be the natural order.

At The CrossCurrent, we are going to make sure men are one of our primary focuses, along with kids. We will make sure that we are doing our best to be excellent (most men I know hate mediocrity) in everything we do, our advertising will be geared towards men (read: no flowery frilly stuff) and we are going to be dreaming about how we can more effectively get men integrated into the life of the faith community without asking them to check their manhood at the door in exchange for a passive, weak life of never accomplishing anything that leads to greatness. I want to see men challenged and asked to risk their life for the gospel. I want to see them challenged to pursue greatness. To be challenged to life their life to the fullest. To risk; to make life altering adventure a core value in their life.

If real men can get the guts to rise to the challenge, I believe we will have an epidemic on our hands. Our problem won't be how to get men into the church, it will be how to release them to tranform their world fast enough.