It took us a while to arrive at team name, but we have finally done it. As of tonight we have adopted the name ‘Upstream Communities’, (almost feels quite anticlimactic now that I write it…) as the name for our group here in Brighton.
It was a toss up between ‘seachange’ and ‘upstream’ as the key words and in the end most people weren’t overly concerned where we landed. I didn’t mention it earlier either here or in the team meeting, as I wanted to hear other people’s input, but ‘Upstream’ has resonated very strongly with me as an identifying term.
At the end of last year when we went thru a review process we had to draw some symbols to describe what we felt we were called to. One of the symbols on the ‘team flag’ was a fish swimming upstream – an image that has never left me, and in fact lodged in me very powerfully from the moment I saw it.
Why ‘Upstream’?
Well it all started last year when we were studying the sermon on the mount and seeing what Jesus was calling people to – a complete re-orientation of life and values. I sense that as disciples of Jesus we are called to be people who swim against the current of society. We are to be continually discovering what it means to live counterculturally here in the burbs. Its about discipleship.
It also defines what I believe we are calling people to. We aren’t asking people to come to church or ‘believe in Jesus’. We are asking them to radically redefine who they are and what they are doing on this planet. We are asking people to ‘take up their cross daily and follow Jesus’. We are asking them to join us on a journey of laying down our own ambitions and picking up Jesus’ dreams for our lives.
And if we are going to do that then we sure as hell better be about it ourselves. A name like upstream will hopefully serve to ‘keep us honest’. I know. Danelle has already the used the expression on me in the last few months when I have bucked at some difficult choices… ‘Andrew, what was that you were saying about upstream?…’ I hate it when she does that 🙂
So in one sense that’s a great thing – we now have a name – we are no longer ‘that mob in Brighton’ and yet in another sense it means nothing unless we actually live it.
This blog will continue to be ‘Backyard Missionaries’. (I actually feel that’s the best name I have heard for us, but its not one you can use around the place too easily!)
What happens in three years time if we find it all too hard?
Well… we just change it ‘Downstream’ communities, admit it was all too hard and go with the flow…
As if.