New Blog Series this Week:

September 20, 2010 — 2 Comments

image: jimmywayne/flickr

I wasn’t introduced to The Wesleyan Church until I ended up attending a Wesleyan school, but my time at Bethany Bible College exposed me to some things of Christ that I saw in The Wesleyan Church which made me want to be part.  Sure, there are things I might change and I know the denomination is looking at a number of creative solutions to a number of issues, but over the next few days I’ll be sharing what I see as some deep-in-our-DNA aspects of The Wesleyan Church I don’t think we can ever lose without fundamentally altering who we are.  Keep in mind, these are just my opinions, and I hope you feel free to chime in.

I also hope none of this comes across as though I think the Wesleyans are ‘better’ than others or the only ones invited into heaven–I know there really is only one Church and I love Jesus much more than denomination–but I love the part of the body of which I am part… over the next few days we’ll discuss why 🙂 .

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FFD Video

September 15, 2010 — Leave a comment

I still can’t believe I get to be part of what God is doing in Pittsburgh.  One of the highlights thus far has been our Family Fun Day, held at the end of August when we were able to connect with a ton of people from the community and see what can happen when many churches come together just to love on people.

If you haven’t seen it already, this highlight video is well worth the four-and-a-half minutes or so it takes to watch — it does a great job of giving you a little sense of what it was like to be there.  (Thanks again to Ken Depeal and the Sandy Lake Wesleyan crew for shooting, editing, and sharing this video.)

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Day One

September 14, 2010 — Leave a comment

image: elleinad @ flickr

Yesterday marked a serious step into bi-vocational ministry for me.  I was able to get a four-to-six week temp position as a ‘personal care aide’ in a local facility for transitioning special needs students from high school to the ‘real world’ and yesterday was day-one for me assigned to a specific (and awesome!) student.

There are a number of reasons why this could be tough: I’m not sure I have the ‘makeup’ of someone who can successfully work a number of jobs, especially when one of them is of the consuming nature of church planting; I have a couple of health issues that mean exhaustion sets in easily; I’m going to be a new dad very soon and need to/want to be present with my family.  I may get to the end of this first stint at bi-vocationalism and realize I need to find a different, creative solution to our need, and I don’t think that would be shameful or out of place.

But there are also a number of reasons why this has the potential to be something really great:

  • Money: With some of our supporting churches not-yet sending in their promised amounts, and the uphill trek we’ve had to raising funding from individual and group sources, our personal support is running low.  Money helps us do things like eat and pay rent, both of which are awesome.
  • Delegation: working an additional job or two forces me to identify the things I’m doing that someone else should be doing because they can do them better and probably find more joy in them than I do.  Over the next few weeks, I’m going to have to be more intentional about giving ministry away–and that really, really excites me, not because of what will be off my plate but because it means raising other people up.
  • The future: if I can learn to hit my stride now as a bi-vocational church planting freelancer (:-)) while being a new dad trying to juggle life, ministry, and all the rest, it means I can develop a discipline that will allow me to keep working an additional job while planting The Bridge2.0–and that means more money for ministry/outreach in new ventures.

So, we’ll see how this next season of life goes, whether wildly successful or chalked up with ‘life lessons learned the hard way,’ I’m excited to see what God does.

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Preview!

September 13, 2010 — Leave a comment

The Penn Hills Library: Our Meeting Place

Part of our process in launching The Bridge involves a series of monthly ‘preview’ celebrations.  We’re hoping these monthly gatherings help build momentum while setting the tone for what will be once things are officially up-and-running.  They also help to figure out what connects well and what doesn’t work so well given the culture and context of Penn Hills.

Yesterday, we had our first monthly celebration–our very first public worship gathering, and it was a phenomenal experience.  Thanks to those of you who were praying for us before and during the gathering; we know that it is God’s Spirit who is doing the real work in Penn Hills and that he honors the prayers of his people.  We had a pretty healthy crowd of just over 50 (not bad for a first-go on a Steelers’ Home-Game Sunday!), but of the greatest points of excitement for us is that we’re beginning to see the answer to our prayer for a multiethnic, multicultural local church.  When your launch team is made up of a group of anglos from Western Pennsylvania, it can be difficult to help people see that though we may not look multiethnic or multicultural yet, we are.  It was awesome to see a great deal of diversity in our gathering yesterday.

Reflecting on what happened yesterday got me thinking about our future, as well.  Even though I know that The Bridge won’t stay in ‘church plant mode’ forever, there are a couple things I hope we never lose from these early days:

  • The sense–inherently part of a ‘preview’ service–that we haven’t ‘arrived’ yet: we’re moving toward something greater.
  • A culture of change: Elements of this month’s celebration, timing, and order may never happen the same way again–and that’s okay because we’re attempting a variety of things to connect with those far from God, help people get to know Jesus better, and send followers of Christ out to live as Jesus.
  • Permission to fail: as mentioned above, we’re experimenting to see what works, connects, communicates, and builds the Kingdom of Christ; the beauty of ‘experimentation’ is the freedom to fail at something but keep pressing on.
  • The safety to dream big: the more I journey, the more convinced I am that God calls us to dream big, as long as they are his dreams and not our own fabrications.  The dreams we have for what God can use The Bridge to do in Pittsburgh and the world are. huge.  At least to us.  And in these early stages it is still ‘safe’ to cast gigantic vision and grow in excitement about how ginormous our God is and what he can do, even with broken vessels like us.
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Beauty in the Cluster.

August 31, 2010 — Leave a comment

image: NASA

One of the points of conversation following our FunDay the other day was the beauty of a cluster of churches working together with a missional focus.

We know that there’s no way The Bridge could have, by herself, provided the kind of quality event that people experienced this past Saturday during the Family Fun Day.  We could not have handled the expense, procured the necessary supplies, or raised the army of volunteers needed on our own.  One of the the things that made the day great was seeing so many of our District churches, all with different histories and of varying sizes, partnering together to love on the people of Penn Hills and demonstrate solidarity with us.

The same is true for church planting: for some churches, there’s no way they could, by themselves, daughter a healthy, multiplying church; at least not yet.  For all kinds of reasons, raising up a church planter and sending them out with a healthy team of co-laborers and maybe a good chunk of financial backing (not to mention the prayer support and cheerleading of a mother church) is not really plausible given the present reality of some churches .  But that doesn’t mean they are exempted from the call of church planting or living as missionaries in their spheres of influence.

The beauty of planting and working as a cluster is that the ‘churches that couldn’t’ suddenly CAN find themselves making a tremendous difference and planting healthy churches through partnership.

Sure, there are the needs to make sure there’s a shared vision and sacrifice and maybe someone to give point-leadership during the process… and I know it wouldn’t be easy or clean (but I haven’t yet found the easy, clean parts of following Jesus), but what I saw this past weekend is a small glimmer of what a few connected churches and groups of committed people can do when working in harmony.  It really could change the world.

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