It’s what Baptists do right? Have meetings?

Well, this weekend just gone was our first ‘church meeting’ for Yanchep Community Church, a gathering of the tribe to reflect, pray and look forwards – to have an open conversation about what we sense God doing in our midst and in our community.

I’m as excited about this venture as I have been about anything I have done.

It’s been 9 months since we first got together on August 5th and ‘pressed play’, and in that time we have been slowly gathering people, seeing some ‘stick’ and become ‘regulars’ while others have come, looked around and said ‘nah not for us.’ No worries.

The first 6 months were very much ‘slow and steady’, with just a small handful of people gathering regularly. On a big week there would be 30 of us there including kids and on a slower week just 15-20. You could get disturbed and discouraged by that – or you could look at the quality of the people in the room and see that God was gathering a very strong core group of faithful, and seasoned people.

More recently we have had an influx of people seeking to find a church home in the area – a mix of Christians who haven’t been to church for a while, a number of Catholics and other people just keen to find a church in their own community or at least close by. Our building legally holds 50 and we have been pushing past that most Sundays as the word has got out. It’s been great to see the small crew swelling and the energy in the room rising as people begin to put firm roots down and call this church home. Including our core team there would be around 20 families or households who are now YCC regulars – hardly a massive mob, but a growing tribe almost all of whom live locally.

What has surprised me is the willingness of many people to bypass a local church and continue to head south to large churches, some for reasons of longstanding relationship and others simply because they can deliver ‘better services’. That’s fair enough – although because my own thinking about church is so intensely ‘local’ I have never understood why anyone would travel for church when a community is right there.

So it’s been 9 months now of running Sunday mornings at Quinns and then turning around at 3pm to do it all again on a Sunday afternoon. The demands were more than I anticipated at first – my body clock was very used to winding down after a full on Sunday morning, but now it needed to keep going. My new routine is leave for church at 8.00am then surf or snooze before heading off to church again at 3pm. It makes Sundays a full day and the goal in that is to ensure it isn’t ‘busy’, that we don’t end up frazzled and frustrated. So far so good. We have managed to sustain a steady pace and I have rarely gone home exhausted.

I never thought I’d say these words, but I am feeling it would be really valuable for us to have a concrete presence in the local community in the form of some kind of venue / building. I mused about this in March last year but its become more of a reality now as we have to grapple with questions of growth and space. I loathe the idea of being a fund raiser, but I see the value of a building as a statement of permanence. How that happens is yet to be determined, but I have been sniffing around the local real estate to see what is suitable. I don’t have a couple of million dollars to spare – but I know someone with a lot more than that…

In my own prayers for this community I have sensed two phrases resonating over and over. The first is ‘here to stay’ and the second is ‘big faith’.

I think the ‘here to stay’ idea is very simple – it’s about permanence and commitment for the long haul – about letting people know we aren’t ‘giving this our best shot’, and hoping it all works out, but rather we have ‘dug in’ and come hell or high water we will keep going. No one wants to align with a group of people who lack a common purpose or a will to move forwards. ‘Here to stay’ feels to me like saying ‘you will carry me out of here in a box’ – hopefully not too soon… But in the meantime we will be making long term plans and putting down deep roots.

‘Big faith’ on the other hand is a simple call to look well beyond what I/we may be capable of creating or doing and believing that maybe God wants to do something bold, significant and even surprising in this area. I sense my part will be to call people (and myself) to follow that God sized dream and to grow in my own faith. I am not sure how all of this works out, but I know that after 28 years of leading churches I can do the regular stuff with ease. Where the challenge lies is in stretching and trusting that God can do far more than I can if I will get out of the way (mentally) and allow him to ferment new possibilities in our imagination.

Our mode of planting this church has been to deploy a small group of people including 2 pastors to ‘run a bit harder’ for a period of time in the hope of establishing a community that can then be quickly be self sustaining. While a small crew have borne the bulk of the strain during this time, it has also implanted clear DNA and given strength and form to this new community. In gardening terms it feels like we ‘taken a cutting’ off the QBC tree and put it down in Yanchep. While there are some differences in the shape of the community, the culture is largely the same and that was the intention.

We feel like the future sees Ryan spending more time in Yanchep and being the main hands on deck around here – giving day to day leadership to the church. At this stage I think I will continue to span both churches and give my own type of leadership to them while Danelle attends Yanchep but works at Quinns. It’s a ‘messy’ model in some ways, but its quite organic in its form and we feel like its working – at least for now.

We discussed whether we see Yanchep as a ‘campus’ of Quinns or whether it will become a separate entity. The second option seems much more likely. Right now we are thinking parent-child and that child will get all the support she needs as she matures, but eventualy she will ‘move out of home’ and be self sustaining. At that point she becomes her own entity, and does all the stuff that goes with that. I’m not sure where that leaves me – either employed by two different churches or needing to jump one way or the other. I feel like somehow having ‘dual citizenship’ is the way to go, but I’m not sure how all that works out either.

Anyway – that’s the scope of things at the 9 month mark. Exciting and challenging – stirring new thoughts in my mind and feelings in my heart and I’m beyond grateful for it all!

I was chatting with a mate this morning about what was going on in his church and he let me know he wasn’t sure as he hadn’t been that often lately – maybe fortnightly – maybe less often…

I asked why.

Because some days you’re tired, you’ve had a full on week, need a break etc. I’m sure you know the deal. Most of us wake up on Sunday morning with some sense of weariness and entitlement to an easy day. After all – it is a day of rest right?…

There was a point in my life (maybe 20-30 years ago) where I would have encouraged him to listen to that inner voice saying ‘slow down’… ‘take it easy’ because so many people I knew were busy with church activities and church itself had often become a dutiful commitment. He may not have made it on Sunday but he was gonna be at 3 other church events that week!

Not so these days.

So my response was a hefty push back to seeing participating in the church experience as an important and significant spiritual discipline. (We had been talking about other disciplines of engaging scripture and prayer, so that was the context of the conversation).

It used to be a ‘given’ that we would turn up every week to worship with the church family, but more recently it has become one option among many. In those days when church often felt  ritualistic and routine and we sometimes attended weekly out of duty or fear of being visited by the pastor, it was important to show people freedom and encourage them to discover anew the joy of Christian community. But the ground has changed and now it’s much more common to ‘attend as we are able’. . And in that new context it’s all too easy to mistake genuine weariness for laziness, to have a little more ‘me time’ than perhaps is warranted and eventually to turn up to church every now and then.

Even for the faithful ‘every Sunday’ can seem like a lot. But I am sensing we need to shift our thinking around church gatherings to see them as a key part of our spiritual disciplines – to ‘turn up’ whether we feel like it or not (like we do with footy practice and other sports) partly because its good for us and it is forming us in ways we may not see, but also because when we don’t turn up we actually deprive the community of our presence and our input.

My encouragement to my friend was to see Sunday church as an almost unbreakable deal, to be there every week, but not just to turn up and digest some teaching and be inspired by some great worship music – but to go there asking ‘God what do you want of me in this space today?’

When we are ‘irregular attendees’ rather than part of the family the church will feel unfamiliar, we will not be in the loop of the community life and more than likely we will go as consumers rather than contributors.

But the value of the church experience is found being in it rather than sniffing at it from the fringes. A few weeks back we said goodbye to a family who were moving interstate and there were tears all round – not because any of us are particularly emotional people – but simply because we loved on another and had shared life for a significant time.

I want to be able to be part of a community where I am elated when things go well for people and I feel it deeply when there is sorrow, but it only happens by turning up and choosing to be intentional about being part of the family.

I never thought I’d write a post saying ‘you should go to church more often’, but in this current climate I think you should… An important factor in that call is the realisation that for most people their Sunday interaction is likely their only church engagement for the week (we no longer run anywhere near as hard as we used to).

And as with all disciplines don’t quit if the results don’t immediately wow you. It takes time and it takes genuine discipline to participate (more than just attend) and to become a part of the family.

Back in the days when I owned a boat I would often use it for getting to a distant reef break to surf, or some remote diving, even the odd sad, pathetic fishing venture. We would head out a few kms, maybe even 7 or 8, but at no point did we lose sight of land. It wasn’t so much fear that kept me close, but simply that I had no need to go further. (I could fish just as badly 5kms off shore as I could 20kms off.)

However I imagine there would be something a little chilling about losing sight of land in a 5m runabout – losing your most primal bearing and being afloat in a very, big and unpredictable ocean. You would need tools for keeping your bearings and a steely crew not easily unsettled by the absence of that clear source of guidance and comfort.

In that sense I have a feeling the ‘Christian’ boat is losing sight of land – and it’s not heading back any time soon. If ‘land’ is the security of a society that both recognises and affirms the Judeo-Christian story then my sense is that we are headed for the horizon at an ever increasing pace.

The growing secularism we are living in is fast taking us away not just from the structures we are familiar with, but also from the story we claim to align with. The question I am currently pondering is how we speak to the challenge of forming disciples of Jesus in this fast shifting and disorienting culture.

Each year at this time, as school holidays end and people settle back into regular routines we (as pastors) ‘rally the troops’.  For some its ‘Vision Sunday/s’ and we do our own version of this, except every year we say the exact same thing albeit in slightly different ways.

‘Follow Jesus – do it – don’t talk about, think about it, whine about it – just do it.’

It’s not very nuanced. I don’t believe in the need to shape a new vision each year or to inspire people with a fresh picture of the future. If there are new things there to get excited about then all well and good, but the primary task of the church never changes – ever.

It is to form people into Christlikeness and send them into the world while praying ‘your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.‘

That’s my ‘job’ and I love it. I also take it very seriously. There is nothing more important in the world than that task.

The unique challenge at this time in history is that we seem to be moving further and further from an old and familiar (albeit tired) Christendom towards a seemingly hopeful and glossy  secularism. As the church our strongest inclination may be to sail the ship back towards Christendom – back to land – to ‘safe and familiar’. But while there was much that was good in that time, (and some stuff that wasn’t so good), it is definitely not the form ‘Christianity’ will take in the years to come.

Simply put – we no longer have the same authority in society. In fact we are often cast as the ‘bad guys’, the ones standing in the way of a world that could be. A real danger in this space is that in the absence of a ‘Christian heritage’ to appeal to, we will find ourselves aligned with either the left or the right side of politics and we will see this as pivotal to shifting society back towards a Jesus like posture. We will look for sources of power to leverage and with Christendom dead in the water those sources are most likely going to be political parties.

I don’t believe we don’t want to go that route.

My son came to me today and told me about a 16th C protestant group called The Levellers, a far left group who practiced ‘Christian communism’ based on their reading of Acts 2. One of his school friends who is an ardent Green supporter pointed him to them as an example of ‘Christians who had got some stuff right’. The levellers were an interesting mob, but as we talked I found myself again saying that the answer is not in any political ideology.

While these may seem to be our only ‘visible’ options at the moment the answer has been and always will be the kingdom of God as it takes form in local churches. The kingdom of God is neither ‘left’ nor ‘right’, (although both can put their cases for it being better represented by them). Instead this will be the way in which the world will be changed – as ordinary people give their lives to a ‘powerless’ way of living that inspires by its Jesus like qualities rather than its ability to rule and exert power.

So as a pastor preaching to a garden variety suburban church at this time of year my focus will be on preparing people for a world that is going to be increasingly unfamiliar and unforgiving – a world that at times will be openly hostile. It will be to encourage people to find strength in the tools of faith that have always been there – the spiritual practices that form us into Christlikeness and to prioritise being together as the church to encourage and support one another to follow a different story.

I won’t be encouraging anyone to head back to land. (I don’t believe ‘Christendom’ was ever the answer.) Rather I will be equipping people to sail confidently and humbly into the world trusting that the spirit of God is able to work thru a church that no longer has its position in society to appeal to, but rather only has the lives of its people as a credible witness.

It worked pretty well 2000 years ago…

As the Willow Creek saga unravels further one of the most disturbing parts is the deafening silence of Bill Hybels himself – its as if he has vanished off the planet.

Why?

With 10 women making statements against him and the entire eldership and two senior pastors resigning there seems no question that tragically – sadly – he is guilty, and we may have heard just the tip of the iceberg.

The longer Hybels waits to come clean the worse he will be perceived – if that is possible. The opportunity to be perceived as a failed leader / a broken man has passed. If he had owned the failure we would all have been deeply disappointed, but acknowledged ‘there but for the grace of God…’

As time wears on you hope Hybels isn’t gathering a ‘spin’ team to either fight the accusations or to downplay them. That would be the worst scenario imaginable but right now, the longer the silence the less genuine any (possible) repentance appears.

While I’m not a megachurch fanboy I have found Hybels missionary heart inspiring and his teachings on integrity (Who You Are When No One is Looking) felt so valuable… albeit dissonant with his own practice… so watching this very public schmozzle has been actually distressing.

I love that churches are full of broken, screwed up people – that God’s love for us never changes in spite of our own darkness – but when we fail to acknowledge our brokenness and when we put on an air of togetherness we set the cause of Christ back and we wound the very people we claimed to champion.

Come on Bill… The clock is ticking… and many are watching to see if you can practice what you preach in the tough parts of life.

Once upon a time in a city called Perth (and not so long ago) when a group of people began a church they did so firstly in a home, then maybe a community centre, or a public building of some sort until they decided that they really needed their own building… a proper church building with a foyer, a ‘sanctuary’ and a baptismal pool (if you are so inclined…)

So the people got together, gave gifts, sold assets, mortgaged houses, and by hook or by crook (or by faith… maybe a bit of both…) raised the funds needed to buy land and erect some kind of building – often a small ‘hall’, which served as ‘stage 1’ of any future work. Sometimes stage 1 was all there ever was and that was fine. But stage 1 created equity so that stage 2 could then happen. In those days land was cheaper and developers would often allocate churches space in new suburbs at minimal cost.

That was ‘then’. Those days are gone.

Today we are in a very different cultural and economic space, so the task of church planting and becoming established and rooted in a community becomes a very different consideration. The last 20-30 years has seen the ‘community centre’ church building, the sports centre church building, the commercial venture and the Christian school arise as significant means of establishing churches in the newer suburbs.

What seems to have has largely disappeared (in new church development) is the idea of a community of people pooling their resources, giving generously and/or taking a loan to build a dedicated space.

As I look around the far outer suburbs in Perth I see churches meeting in schools, churches meeting in community centres, but very few meeting in premises they own. It seems only the wealthier, centrally funded denominations (Anglicans/Catholics) have the resources to pull off that kind of thing, or the ‘franchises’ that can use equity in an established building elsewhere as security against a loan in a new development.

My musing comes as I’ve been wandering Yanchep looking for space to gather a bunch of people and its not an easy task. I have had very curt refusals from two schools, making me wonder ‘what happened there?…’ Maybe this is how it is now… There is precious little community space and strict rules around who can use it and when, and there is no larger facility in the suburb itself. Finding a space to gather people is one of the things we need to get sorted, but its proving problematic…

One of the limitations of being a church that currently meets in a school is that we have no asset base of our own if we ever did wish to build something else. (The upside is a fantastic free facility…)

Lately as we have scoured the suburb looking for space I have found myself wondering just what shape church planting will take in these next 20-30 years.

Will we have to wait for a denominational school to set up shop and give us space?

Will we be shunted from public building to public building?

We could decentralise and meet in homes, but my experience of this has been a degree of unavoidable fragmentation.

Maybe we need a new privately owned commercial venture that can double as a meeting space?

Perhaps its time to come full circle and rally the troops to raise funds? But no matter how strong your ‘faith’ the thought of a $2-3 million dollar building project being undertaken by a fledgling group of battling families in the mortgage belt just doesn’t seem like a wise move either. I’m sure this is why no one is doing it. I’m really reluctant to lead any bunch of people on a building project in this day and age, partly because it is such an all consuming thing, but it also moves me from ‘pastor’ to ‘fund raiser’ – a man with mixed motives… Its unavoidable when large sums of money come into play. And costs do tend blow out… just a bit…

So I’m pondering… and praying… wondering what’s next? What shape will our missionary endeavours take in the barren outer suburbs? Those planting in established areas with plenty of community buildings may yet experience the struggle to find space too, but when there’s no space available anywhere the question becomes ‘what now?’

I’m up for creative thinking and exploring new options – maybe there are possibilities we just haven’t seen.

Oddly enough in a recent conversation with a mate we were discussing the value of being a physical presence in the community – being seen – being there – being present. He suggested that a church that meets in a local facility often ‘doesn’t exist’ in the minds of the community, and perhaps even in the minds of the church people themselves.

So there’s that consideration too.

If you live at the fringes of the city where infrastructure is minimal and population is booming then church planting takes on some different questions to days gone by.

I was pondering church architecture today, partly as I observed the fairly bland ‘multi-purpose’ nature of all newer buildings and partly as I read Petersen’s ‘memoir, The Pastor’ and reflected on the way he and his congregation planned together the shape and form of their new church building.

Petersen and his crew saw their building as an extension of their identity and as a definite theological statement. Hence their building was less of a ‘community centre’ and more of a reflection of their identity in Christ. The building needed to be shaped by them rather than shaping them. After a less than inspiring meeting with an architect who offered them ‘colonial,, ‘neo-gothic’ or ‘contemporary’, they decided to work at developing their own design and what emerged was a building that was uniquely them and where they fitted perfectly. (The chapter is called Bezalel if you want to read it.)

I have given buildings very little thought in recent years and seen them as purely utilitarian. I have abhorred the thought of churches spending millions on a new worship centre because its ‘nicer to have our own stuff’. But Petersen has challenged me to consider the role of the building in spiritual formation.

The trend in recent years in church buildings has been away from dedicated religious buildings with steeples and stain glass windows etc, back towards ‘shared use facilities’ that the local community can use also. This isn’t a bad idea per se and it emanates from both a missional impulse (to ‘bless’ the community) and a desire to ‘demystify’ our spaces and make them more accessible to the average punter. That said I’m not sure if our ‘demystifying’ has been such a good idea as I can’t help but feel that when people turn up to a church they want it to feel like a ‘church’ and if there is nothing ‘spiritual’ then maybe we have shot ourselves in the foot.

Today I was pondering how our buildings and gathering spaces influence our communal identity and then our behaviour. ie how do we express our identity as a church as a result of being in these spaces?

By and large most newer church buildings (while ‘multi-purpose’ in intent) are still auditoriums that facilitate a concert type experience. There may be out-buildings (halls/meeting rooms etc) that the community can use, but the actual ‘worship auditorium’ is still a stage / audience scenario. If Petersen is correct – that our buildings make a theological statement – then this has to sit uneasily with us – no matter how we explain it away… When church becomes a concert / motivational talk to attend and consume we are always going to struggle to move into discipleship mode.

Its not that the older architecture got it right either. Enter any of those cathedrals and there was a clear clergy/laity divide at work, and a very Old Testament flavour to the undergirding theology. They were ‘holy’ places with sections where only the qualified could access. Hence the idea of ‘reverence’ was an issue we used to hear talked about in thee buildings. (‘Cathedral God’ doesn’t like noise on a Sunday morning)

Then there are those of us who meet in schools, community centres or hired spaces – and use dual purpose auditoriums. One day its a music classroom and the next its a space for worship.  One day its got the Reiki crew meeting in it, the next the Baptist church. Its a shell, where the contents change day to day. What impact does that have on the people meeting there?

We are one of those churches. The room we use also seems to be the place where stuff gets put when you run out of room elsewhere, so it is often cluttered and uninviting. I’m still wondering what kind of a theological statement it makes, but I can’t help but feeling it is less than conducive to encountering God. Our building seems to say ‘it doesn’t matter where we meet – but that we meet’. That’s somewhat true… but I think ‘where‘ does matter. I feel like the tone of the space influences our experiences and needs consideration. If I had my choice I would meet in a different space to the one we currently have because the ambience is too utilitarian and non-descript. We are neither a cathedral or a concert. We are beige and bland and I sense that affects our worship.

A common practice in church buildings recently has been to do a factory refurb. Buy a warehouse in an industrial area and deck it out as a space to gather. I’m not a big fan of this either. The economics may work, but it still feels odd to have a worship space wedged between the  carpet store and boat mechanic. These buildings are also somewhat removed from the communities of people who inhabit them. That may not be a big deal, but I kinda like the ‘corner deli’ church a bit more than the factory one. I’m sure it can work, but I imagine if given a choice those who have bought factories would far rather be in the middle of a suburb.

If we want to get a bit more back to basics then we could meet in homes around a meal a bit like those first Christians before Constantine came along with his government grants and ‘lotteries money’ to help us build our ‘sanctuaries’ (there’s an interesting word…) The theology of the house type space sits well with me, even if the practicalities can bring it unstuck. Houses limit the numbers of those who could attend – which can be a good thing… Personally I think optimal church size is under 50 – a ‘household’. However houses are very private spaces and may not feel accessible to all – or we may prefer some folks didn’t have access to our homes. Therein is a great wrestle for what it means to be ‘the church’. ‘Hospitality’ is nice idea, but a more difficult reality.

Theologically I sit most comfortably in the house space – because my primary imagination of church is as family. Over the years our Christian culture has so morphed this original biblical idea that now we call ourselves a family but don’t operate as much like one as we might like to think. Larger buildings and gatherings make ‘hiding’ possible, both for those who don’t wish to be seen and for those who don’t wish to ‘get involved’, which seems very ‘unfamily’like

I don’t have a simple solution as everything is a compromise to some degree, but I do love Petersen’s idea of forming our buildings to reflect our theological identity and if I ever was forced to lead a church on a building project then I’d be doing this kind of thinking first and the economics and practicalities second.

What are your reflections on how the building in which you meet has either assisted or detracted from your own spiritual formation?