We used this with our team tonight.

I think it went well, but when you’re running it its always hard to experience it in the same way.

I liked the flow of it and adapted it to suit our setting.

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Right now is a busy and at times stressful period.

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It seems there are so many things going thru my head at once. Its like my brain is channel surfing.

We were praying tonight at our team gathering and my mind was flitting and flicking as I mulled over the things that need doing, the things I ought to do, the things that just won’t get done…

So much for a quiet time of contemplation!

I’m starting to wonder what is ‘normal’ for a church community?

What should we expect of each other as we call ourselves a church?

How critical is the whole experience of gathering together?

My musings have come out of the last few months where we haven’t had one single meeting where every person has been able to attend. There’s something in me that wants to have everyone there all the time… but is that normal?.. Is that really just a silly expectation?

I have a feeling it might be…

To have everyone present all the time at team meetings is an ideal, and one of the things we are grappling with is the tension between ideals and reality. The pursuit of ideals can leave you very frustrated, because they are just that – ideals. When you have to live in reality it requires some compromise and some acceptance that ideals are rarely going to get lived out.

Tonight it looked for a moment like there were going to be 5 of us – total – out of 18. That sounds pretty lame but the simple fact was that everyone else was unavailable.

One family are on holidays

One bloke had to work late

One couple are sick and we didn’t expect to see them – but they did make it along.

Another couple had an important ‘one off’ meeting on.

The students were studying for exams…

We finished up with 7 of us – if you count Ellie and Sam (which we do!)

We actually had a very significant time of prayer for each other and for the team as we met together. It was a great night.

I remember in my last church of 300 people or so we would notice when ‘numbers were down’. There would be 200 of those 300 there on any given week, and then some weeks there would only be 120 or so and we would wonder what was happening. Where is everybody???

I guess its just life. In this microcosm of that big church scene, we are actually able to account for each person. No one sat home and watched ‘Idol’ because they couldn’t be bothered coming – they just couldn’t be there. I imagine its often similar on a Sunday at ‘big church’.

I know!… I’m rambling a bit, but I guess where my mind is wandering to is the thought that we really do have to be about much more than a once a week meeting. If we are hanging everything on the weekly meeting then we are really going to struggle. Church must happen in the rythms of every day life.

But…

Is it just my ingrained evangelical heritage that says the weekly gathering really does matter and we need to be there, or does it really matter as much as I feel it does?

I have a sense that if we don’t actually prioritise meeting with each other then it won’t happen. We will just hang out with the people we like or are close to – and that definitely aint a church.

So… we live in the tension.

Its not all about the gathering – we have always said that and now we are trying to live it. But, the gathering is still really important to our corporate well being, to our sense of identity as team.

I haven’t articulated all this very well. I guess I’m just trying to figure out how we function as a small fragile group who are focused on being a missionary team, but who have many other real and pressing demands on life.

A few weeks back I was speaking with Herds, a member of our team about the year that’s been – our first year of living here in Brighton as missionaries.

It has been a challenge to make the shift from being a pastor and running a church to being a missionary and leading a missionary team, as well as developing Forge as well as teaching two days a week.

Part of the journey in coming here has been a committment to ‘figuring things out as we go’. The level of certainty that accompanies estabslished church practice simply cannot be part our experience because we are entering and walking thru new territory. To quote Paul Borden we are ‘building the bridge as we walk on it’, which requires a letting go of old practices and a ground up construction of a Christian community based on the context we are now in.

As a lover of strategic planning and clarity of direction this has been a huge challenge for me personally. At the end of the day all I can do is ‘get over it’ because this is the nature of what we have chosen to do.

We agreed that as the end of year approaches we need to take some time to do some reflect and review – assess whether we have done what we came here to do – if we have been true to our calling – what have we learnt – where have we done well – where have we struggled and failed.

I am hoping to have a friend come in and help us do that review – someone who knows us but can look more objectively than we may ourselves. A part of that review will be for each family to review their own year of mission and their own call to live here in Brighton.

This is something we never did in my experience of church. It was always assumed we would be there next year unless we moved house or got cheesed off. Of course we may still move, get cheesed off etc, but what I am hoping will happen is that in reviewing and making it more personal we may accept our part in the success or failure of what we do. ‘The church’ will cease to exist as an impersonal abstract entity and we will be required to reflect on ourselves and our part in the team.

Anyone else doing this?

This morning I caught up with Mike for breakfast.

He is one of our team and is busy organising a sensational backyard blitz for a local woman who is in need. We visited the woman’s house today to do some planning and then it was off to the cafe.

Mike had just come from being with his personal trainer in Tuart Hill. Up at 5.30 – a half hour drive – hour’s training – half hour back and then he tucks into a feed of sausages and eggs.

I’d say that the calorie count is even at best!

When trying to grasp what we are doing here in Brighton people often ask me how it will look in 10 or 20 years time.

Here’s a quote from Wolfgang Simpson that captures what i usually find myself saying in one way or another:

But one of the emerging trends is that clearly “church” is getting defined in a very different way than we used to. It moves from a denominationally organized setup to organic regionality, from pastoral leadership to apostolic networks, from leaders to elders or parents. Church is no longer just a single organized “church” with a senior pastor, a building with a steeple and a program, but more the organic fellowship and community of Christians in a city or region – as in NT times. The body then is the sum total of all members of the interconnected housechurches, cells, groups and interdependent churches. Leadership is no any longer happening through one senior pastor, but through regional teams, often functioning acording to apostolic patterns. Connectedness happens through our belonging to Christ and a earthly home: our common region or city. Unity is practically expressed in house churches that are linked together as well as large celebrations, or at least regional leadership meetings in areas, where the church is being watched or persecuted.

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Over the last year as I have led the Brighton team there have been many times when I have felt somewhat at sea. It is a new experience leading a church that has no form, structure or traditions. There are no rules to follow and no boundaries we can’t cross (in a sense).

At times people have suggested I ‘lead stronger’ as we have sometimes floundered around lacking clarity on issues. I could do that – its the kind of leadership that comes naturally to me, but at this point I believe it would be less helpful to the group.

The stronger I lead the less others feel the need to think and tussle with issues – thinking gets outsourced. And the longer term consequence of that is lack of ownership. At a foundational stage we must have very high owenrship of directional and DNA issues. I see my primary role as that of guarding and instilling the DNA into the group – of living and teaching the concepts we have all said a notional ‘yes’ to.

I was writing a prayer letter recently where I expressed it like this.

“There are two things I will not do:

1.I will not lead strongly and use my influence as power simply to sway the group in a direction they are unsure of and that suits me.

2. I will not let anyone else do that – I will not let anyone come in with an agenda and drive the group in their preferred direction especially if it is contrary to where we feel called to go.”

In those two things I am very strong and I will fight for them.

Does that make sense?…

So perhaps your question is how do we get anywhere at all?! The answer is slowly, but together. It is not a perfect system and I see some glitches that need ironing out. But for now we are laying foundations – doing the hard work of thinking together and bonding together and moving together.

I feel fairly sure that one day we will have a leadership team in whom will reside the DNA we have set as the core for our community and who will keep our mission and values clear to the rest of the group. But until that day comes… its steady as she goes!

‘Counter-cultural’

Tonight we start our time in the sermon on the mount (Matt5-7) and we look at all that crazy stuff Jesus had to say. It really is quite over the top… The theme seems to be very much aorund that of counter-cultural discipleship – challenging the way we see the world working as we follow Jesus.

If this was Jesus manifesto as John Stott would claim, then its a pretty tall order to fulfill.

I am doing an overview of the three chapters tonight – kind of a birds eye view before we hone in a bit.

Two of the questions I’d like to throw out there are

– What does countercultural discipleship look like in middle class suburbia?

– Can download bourne supremacy the divx you live counter culturally in middle class society?

If Jesus really means for us to take him seriously then we have a bit of a way to go I reckon.

One thing I find interesting is that he only thing Jesus ever posits as another God is money. You can’t serve God and… money. Why not sex? Why not sport?

I sense money is possibly one of the most powerful and alluring substances in our society because everything else often comes with it.

And for middle class people money really is the key… whether we admit it or not.

We are still on the journey of figuring out a rhythm that works for us as a team when it comes to meeting and spending time together.

Recently we agreed to continue with weekly meetings – but move them to Monday nights and start at 7.00pm so we could engage with the kids to some degree. We had been on Tuesdays and had no specific way of including our kids.

We also agreed to have a number of smaller groups of 3 or 4 meeting during the week for spiritual formation/encouragement/nurture etc. These are same gender groups and have just got under way.

It feels like a healthy rhythm… but only time will tell.

Over the next 5 weeks we will be exploring the sermon on the mount and each small group will be responsible for taking the night. They will need to engage the kids in some way, lead us in worship & prayer, help us connect with one another and learn from the scriptures and encourage or inspire us in mission.

I think ‘experimentation’ is a huge part of our journey and if we accept that, then we can enjoy it!

Over the last three weeks Kim Hammond and Herdo have led us thru some very valuable team building and affirmation experiences and it feels like we are in a healthy place as a team

Perhaps you ask ‘how is any of this different to normal church?’

The answer is in many ways its not – and nor should it be. We all need to worship, learn, connect etc. But… I am hopeful that where we may differ is that we are grappling with the reality of the missional setting we are in and that our gatherings are a reflection of this.

By that I mean, rather than saying ‘this is what we do – take it or leave it’. We are seeking to develop communal practices that will be true to scripture and yet resonate with the people who we hope will one day join us. And we will figure it all out on the run and change it as we go.

Ironically its pretty much the same thing Bill Hybels did so many years ago in Chicago…

I doubt as many people will copy us though!

Tonight we met to decide what to do in our meetings as a team/community/church.

We really haven’t found a decent rhythm yet and are still making it up as we go (doubt that will ever change!) so what we decided tonight may work, may work for a while and need changing or it may not work at all”

We’ll see”

For the next 6 weeks we will be exploring the sermon on the mount (Matt 6 & 7) and using it as the basis for what we do together.

We now have four smaller groups within the total mix that meet weekly for spiritual formation and the like. We decided that each group will be responsible for pulling together a night each. They will need to use some aspect of the sermon on the mount and lead us in some form of worship, teaching, community building and prayer with kids incorporated in some way also.

Perhaps it’s just me but I love the opportunity to be creative with scripture and to develop an evening that will embrace the truth of the message, yet in a way that isn’t simply ‘sit and listen’.

I really hope each group takes the opportunity to bring some active and imaginative approaches to the whole thing. I imagine we have the potential to learn in new ways and really enjoy our time together.