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With no fanfare whatsoever, I have moved my blog to wordpress at the following address:

http://www.whatischurch.com/blog/

That is all.

What I am Thinking About....

When Amber and I go out on dates, she usually asks me this simple question a few times during the evening: "So what have you been thinking about?" Usually I have a few things on the tip of my tongue that become conversation starters. Last night, since the focus of my mind was mostly what draft beer I would pick for dinner, it took me a few minutes to answer...

The most obvious things on my mind are what consumes most of my time right now: Family, work, a class I'm teaching for a few folks in the community on Biblical interpretation, a friend going through some very difficult times. Lack of time alone has really hurt my blogging capability the past few months. But in the midst of everything, there are some clear threads of God's action that have been occupying my thoughts.

First is the ministry of the Spirit. Healing, the prophetic, deliverance - the signs of the Kingdom present. There is nothing happening right now that I haven't seen before or even an unusual increase of God working in this manner. It just has been a regular topic of conversation and we have been having more opportunities for training / experimentation with others. I believe with all my heart that the signs of the Kingdom should not be for 'special Christians' (i.e. weird) or those that are who are supposedly able to turn their left brains off for a while. As an engineer, I'm as left-brained as they come and have never been accused of being one of those hyper-Spirit people. My attitude is that if you cut off yourself from what is available through the supernatural intervention of God, you are severely handicapped in dealing with the mess of your own life and helping others. The fact is, most people who for one reason or another struggle in this area just have never had a safe, low-pressure environment to ask questions and see thing modeled in an appropriate manner. What I've been thinking about is how I can help foster that environment and give people more 'wins' in relationship to the Spirit's ministry.

Second is networking and supporting fresh works of mission in our area. Recently I was praying and God gave me an image of Amber and I standing at the top of a cliff. We looked over the ledge and saw about 50 climbers slowly making their way up the rocky wall. We had nothing to help them get to the top, and they didn't know we were already there, so there was not much else to do than wait. I felt that God was showing me that the past seven years has been our time of climbing. Much of it was done alone or with only a few others and in some cases didn't even know why we were making the climb. Regardless, we've made it to the top of this particular cliff, and God is sending others. I think there will be an increase among our community here in Jupiter, The Well. But I do believe what God was showing me was broader than people we worship and live with. It has to do with a movement of people of no reputation. Those who simply want to get their hands dirty with Jesus. The other night, Amber and I met with two young women (via Shawn) who want to work with victims of sex trafficking. They are typical, evangelical Christians who just heard the call of God. We don't have much to offer them other than our support and companionship. But I think at this point, that's enough. What I've been thinking about is how Amber and I can support people like them follow their dreams and press into the heart of God.

Finally, I've been thinking about transformation - becoming more like Jesus. My friend T has gotten me thinking about AA, the 12 steps, and the Gospel all over again. (He's been blogging about this...check it out here, here, and here.) The sooner we come to terms with the fact that the world doesn't need just another cool church, but transformed people, the better off we'll be.

Well...my boy wants to play Lego Starwars. More later.

Church as a Co-op

My friend Jason Evans just began an interesting series of posts on using the structure of co-ops as a lens for better understanding church in a way that transforms people and society. He included a quote from Moltmann that is fascinating:

"If Christianity is to become aware of what it is, we must abandon the pastoral church, which takes care of people, which is the usual form of the Western church. Instead, we have to call to life a Christian community church. Either we set about this church reform by ourselves, or it will be forced on us by the loss of church members."

And I love Jason's follow-up comment:

"What Moltmann implies is that we have built a church system that is dependent upon the professional, in his words, this is the “pastoral church”. In this environment, the professional, the clergy provide spiritual goods and services to the many. Lay people become consumers and their faith, a casual hobby. What would it look like if we re-imagined all members as clergy–as those called to co-create Christian communities amidst the world?"

Good stuff. Go read it!

One Word...Awesome.

	Make your own at MoreCowbell.dj

Norah needed more cowbell.

Unplanned Outage

Sorry for the missing blog last week. I am in the process of building a new site for whatischurch.com and wanted to transfer the url to Amber's hosting service. Well, like a dummy I canceled my old service too early and had to wait 5 days for the url to transfer. Live and learn.

There's a lot in the works for me right now and I'll be writing about it soon. In the meantime, enjoy this:

Redemption

We bought this bench from Home Cheapo about six months ago. In the South Florida sun, wind, and rain, the wood had already started to warp and deteriorate. Seeing that we were approaching the point of getting a nasty letter from our HOA ("Get that piece of crap off your front yard!"), I took it out of service this past weekend. A bit of sanding, some paint, some creative reinforcement (hurricane strong-ties, painted and screwed to the underside with stainless-steel screws) - and voila - new bench!

Amber and I have always loved making dilapidated things useful again. We once bought a $99 TV hutch from K-Mart. We kept it in its fake wood, press-board state for a while, then refurbished it with paint, trim pieces, and even full size doors. It was painted two or three times before we gave it away last year. Several of our houses have been fixer-uppers until we ran out of steam during the baby years. One day I'm sure we'll find an old beater around here, lure Amber's parents into pitching in their expertise again, and do our magic.

I used to dread the work (and usually frustration for me) of renovating houses or things. But I'm seeing that one of the antidotes to the consumer disease we all have is rolling up your sleeves and fixing something. How easy is it in our culture to take something to the dumpster and go down to Stuff-Mart to buy another one? Believe me, my nature is to pull out my wallet rather than sweat and cuss and bust my knuckles for the 15th time. Fixing a bench may not be a big deal to you...but I'm pretty doggone proud of my handi-work.

I Have a Theory...

This morning I got in the car with Shawn, drove 15 minutes south to Palm Beach Shores, met our friend Ahren, walked another few minutes to the Lake Worth inlet, and went snorkeling. Afterward, I met Amber and the kids at the beach to try out our new longboard that Ahren gave to us this week. Later, back at home, we took a family nap, then off to the Bourques for common meal with the community. Sitting out on the back porch with friends, talking about what Jesus is doing with us, and laughing in the warm South Florida evening sun. A perfect day.

A few years ago, everyone I knew absolutely hated living here. It was quite frustrating, honestly. When we left Gainesville, we felt that God had called us here for the long haul. So when everyone you meet complains how much they hate the people and the busyness and how hot it is and how expensive everything is...it just gets old. I'll never forget writing this post in January 2006. It was me being bluntly honest with the difficulties of building deep friendships and community in our area. Don't get me wrong, I had some wonderful friends at the time. But something was missing and there was a voice in the back of my head wondering if anything deeper would ever take place.

Later that year, Amber and I came close to packing it in ourselves. But we felt God drawing us back to just being present to the few people around us. We were moving into a new house and the Bourques were living just a stones throw away. That fall, God began bringing people together and a community began to take shape. These days, I never hear people around me talk about hating South Florida. In fact, when I brought this up in conversation tonight, someone mentioned how they fear actually having to move away for some unforseen reason. So what changed?

My theory is that community radically changes our perspective and value of place. And not just any kind of community either. You might have friendly neighbors that barbecue once in a while, but if you are trying to follow Jesus, friendly neighbors just don't cut it. If people are pursing Jesus together - however broken and imperfect that attempt to follow is - there is an anchoring effect. The world looks different. Desires that once seemed important (for example, a big one in our context - I want to be rich!) just don't seem to matter much any longer. The beauty of a place gets, well, more beautiful. But also, people begin to be drawn to the brokenness that is right under the surface that Jesus wants to heal.

I am truly enjoying South Florida now - living with this community of people, wrestling with hard things, laughing, working, raising children, learning together. As my friend Chris would say...good times.