broken//stained//glass

Renew: leadership accountability

Many have asked about Renew’s leadership accountability.
It’s a very important question, one we don’t mind answering, especially since we are a non-denominational faith community.

First, legally, because we are a 501(c)3 non-profit organization in the state of Pennsylvania we are required to have a Board of Directors. (And we have some great board members, by the way). These people are my boss. They have the right to hire, fire me, set my salary, etc. They hold me accountable.

Secondly, spiritually, we are in the process of thinking, planning and praying through what biblical eldership looks like. We will be selecting and commission leaders and shepherds to fulfill a biblical role and function as elder. We are excited about this.

Thirdly, relationally, though Renew is a non-denominational church we felt the need to have outside accountability. We believed it would be important to voluntarily submit ourselves to a gospel-minded, missional church planting leadership network to speak honestly into our lives. During that time, we were approached by Chris Backert, the director of the Ecclesia Network, a small but terrific missional church planting network based out of Richmond, VA. He asked if I would consider Renew being involved with Ecclesia. In May I headed to Richmond to participate in a personal assessment process as well as a week-long church planter’s boot camp training week. I (J.R.) and we (Renew) received a “thumbs up” after that week and were officially invited to join Ecclesia as an officially participating church.

Ecclesia does not function as a denomination, but as a network. While everyone in the network is evangelical in its theology, Ecclesia does not intend to be a doctrinal network, but a philosophically missional network in orientation.

Renew’s involvement as an Ecclesia Network church includes the following areas of accountability:

-Officially, every few years we agree to have a complete audit done of Renew (in areas such as finances, relationships, health, mission, leadership etc)
-Financially, we commit to giving at least 10% of the Renew annual budget towards kingdom-minded missional expressions locally, regionally, nationally and/or globally.
-Relationally, as a Ecclesia network church planting pastor I am required to connect face-to-face or voice-to-voice with at least one other Ecclesia pastor once a week. (This can be for mutual encouragement, prayer, talk about best practices, ask about advice, etc. The purpose is to make sure that no church planter in the network feels isolated or alone and feels the support of other like-minded missional church planters around the country.

We are excited about this healthy grace-filled level of accountability and support.

The author of Hebrews writes that we are to “spur one another one toward love and good deeds” and to “encourage one another, as long as it is called Today.” I’m grateful for this spurring on, encouraging accountability and find it be extremely healthy for us as we move forward.

A Muslim, A Hindu and a Church Planter walk out of a bar...

Earlier I blogged about some exciting and fascinating ways in which we were seeing evidence of God at work through the start of Renew. I wrote about it here, here and here.
He continues to show up.

But there has been a slightly different turn of events.
It seems now that the church planter needs to walk out of the bar.
We have thoroughly enjoyed our time renting the facilities at Third and Walnut.
However, a new state law, which takes full effect on Thursday, has made things difficult for us.

On September 11 the Pennsylvania Clean Indoor Air Act officially begins. The Act itself is a good law intended to protect the citizens of the commonwealth of PA. The Clean Indoor Air Act prohibits all smoking in public buildings in the entire state. (Several other states have enacted this law.)

However, certain establishments - especially drinking establishments - can qualify for and receive an exception and allow smoking in their facility. Third and Walnut Bar has received an exception and will allow smoking. However, in order to receive the exception Third and Walnut, and other establishments receiving the exception, must agree to never allow anyone under the age of 18 into the building at any time. Seeing that we have almost twenty children under the age of 18 on our launch team this has posed a problem for us.

For the past several days we've been on the phone with state senators, employees of the Tobacco Prevention Council and directors of the Department of Health attempting to explain our unique situation and to see if there is any way the law is interpreted in our favor due to our situation. They looked at our case, asked questions, spent time discussing the implications and interpretation of the law and were sympathetic to our situation. But when all was said and done, we received an official "no" from lawmakers.

I've wondered this week: How could such a good law actually be so bad? It seemed like the perfect place for us to meet in...why did this happen?

On Sunday I explained this to the Renew Launch Team, saying that we had done everything we could do to stay in our current location. Even the bar owner told us that he wished we could stay. But as great as the location is and as much as we loved it, we needed to look elsewhere. (We did say that we didn't want our identity to be wrapped up in being "the bar church" so maybe this is a good thing in the long run anyway, I don't know...)

Sure, we're disappointed, but we also know how God has been showing himself faithful, how he has been guiding us and directing us through this entire process - and He's not done with us yet.

There are some positives from this experience:

I told our launch team this is a teachable moment for us, a chance to allow the Holy Spirit to teach us, remind us and reinforce in that church is not a place, but a gathering of God's people with the promise of God's presence (wow, that's a lot of P's in that last sentence).

I taught this weekend on the idea of the Tabernacle mindset of church versus the Temple mindset of church.

We began by looking at Exodus 13-14 - how God's people were given a gift of a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud that guided them through the wilderness and across the Red Sea. God's presence was guiding and directing them day and night, despite their lack of a place of permanence.
His presence among them was enough.

We then looked at Exodus 25 and 26 - God's specific instructions given to the Israelites for the tabernacle's construction. The tabernacle (simply meaning "dwelling place") was a temporary tent where God's presence would rest.  God's people experienced God among them in the midst of a temporary tent as they traveled around the desert. No matter where they went, God was among them. 

Then we looked at Leviticus 23:33-44 - the festival that God commanded the Israelites to celebrate: Sukkoth (or the Festival of Tabernacles, or booths). An experiential God had his people reenact this wandering experience of their ancestors for one week every year to be reminded that God was with them in the midst of the uncertainty and the transition. Location changed, but God and His character never did. What a great thing to do: a once a year spiritual camp out that lasted one week to remind them of God's provision!

Then we looked at the Temple and its construction in 1 Kings 6 under King Solomon. It took him seven years to build a permanent, centralized location for people to come worship God.

Several years later Jesus shows up on the scene. John 1 says "The word became flesh and dwelt among us." The word "dwelt" is best translated "tabernacled among us." I love how the Message says it: "The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood."   

In John 14 Jesus promises a friend, a comforter, that will be with them always: the Holy Spirit.

And then the book of Acts, the start of the church of Jesus.
In chapter 1 they are told not to leave Jerusalem, but to stay there and wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 2 we read about Pentecost - the Holy Spirit shows up in a dramatic way.
How does it show up? With fire over their heads.
What would the Jews be thinking of when they saw fire above their heads?
That their ancestors had been given guidance be fire of their heads in Exodus. That this mobile, experiential, compassionate God desired to guide them with certainty by his presence into the uncertain future.

The Church stays in Jerusalem until in Acts 7 Stephen is killed. Acts 8:1 says, "On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria..."

It was hardship that drove them out to other places around the country and the spread of the gospel was enhanced.

Ch 8: Philip goes to Samaria
Saul converts.
Ch 9: Peter travels to Lydda and then Joppa.
Ch 11: the church starts in Antioch.
Barnabas goes to Tarsus to look for Saul and brings him to Antioch.

The mobile Holy Spirit guided them to new and exciting places without permanent locations but with permanent presence - and the gospel spread.

All this happened because God's spirit decideed that the movement of His people and the spread of the great Story of God and Man would be a movement of mobility. And the spark that allowed the spread of the gospel was hardship - the death of one of their own brothers for the sake of the gospel! Without that they would have stayed in their little Jerusalem club, content as they saw God do some amazing things.

It has been said before on this blog that ekklesia, the Greek word in our Bible used for "church" was never used to describe a physical edifice. It was always in reference to the gathering of the redeemed, renewed, called-out people of God who attempt to pay attention to God and His character and then respond appropriately. (This reminds me of a picture my South African pastor-friend Tom Smith took of a church meeting in Mozambique...I love this picture of church).

We can teach until we are blue in the face that we don't go to church. We are the Church. But until we experience a lack of permanence in our location as a church - like we are right now - I am not sure we can ever truly understand it and let it get into our bloodstream. This is where we learn that we are the people of God with fire above our heads, having the Spirit guide us on Sundays...and every day throughout the week.  And the good news is that our launch team is learning a lot! I am really proud of our launch team: committed, flexible, understanding, prayerful and faithful to the vision God has called us to.

The challenge for us right now (in addition to attempting to find a place to meet this Sunday!) is that we have a choice to make: are we going to be a Temple mindset faith community, believing that we "go" to church and have the unspoken mindset that we "do church" only in a building or are we going to have a Tabernacle mentality where we realize that we as God's people have the promise of His presence wherever we go?

In the meantime, we are making a lot of calls to different locations for availability to meet in a short notice. (Pray for us this week, if you think about it!) In fact, if you have any ideas or know of a place that allow us to meet regularly in the Lansdale area email me.

Despite the disappointment - and the stress of being without a location for this weekend - we feel a strange sense of anticipation (excitement?) about what God has in store for Renew in the future. Originally, when we had agreed to rent a facility (a school where I am still enrolled as a student) we were informed a few days before we started renting that we could no longer meet there. As a result, God provided a storefront room for us to meet in the first week for our team. Then, He provided a bar for us to meet in for the past five weeks.

What will he provide for us next? We wait in anticipation to see what will happen and its exciting.

I can almost see a visible flame above my head right now as I type this...

Christ. Mission. The Church.

I've been pondering a diagram from Alan Hirsch's wonderful book The Forgotten Ways. (Check out Alan's blog here).

CHRISTOLOGY   -->   MISSIOLOGY   -->   ECCLESIOLOGY

As we study and learn about who Christ is and what he calls us to, we understand his mission more which informs and shapes who we are as the Body of Christ and how we live out the mission of Christ in our context.

Christ. Mission. The Church.

Simple chart, but quite profound.
The implications of this chart are making my brain smoke...

Repeated themes of Acts 1-5

Reading through the first five chapters of Acts recently I took note of some of the repeated themes and concepts...

-prayer
-Scripture
-the Kingdom of God
-the resurrection of Jesus
-commonality/generosity among the believers
-a call to repentance
-addition of numbers
-teaching (mostly spontaneous)
-courage and boldness

But the most repeated words/concepts were:

-Holy Spirit (a gift of)
-Witness(es)
-Jesus
-chaos (i.e. words such bewildered, amazed, awe, astonised, perplexed, wonder, questions, great fear, etc)

It makes me wonder: are these repeated words, themes and concepts in my own life? my leadership? my preaching? our faith community? If not, it most certainly should be...

I have been particularly struck by the concept of chaos and surprise in the first church, rather than order and predictability. Hmmmmm.... I am not sure what to make of it.

More on this on a future blog post...

The non-negotiables of the Body

As our Renew launch team has been meeting weekly at the bar we've had some great conversations revolving around the question: "What is church?"

As we've been centering around and studying the first several chapters of Acts we've wondered what is it that absolutely has to happen for us to "be church" - the basic, yet essential elements, the non-negotiables of being a healthy, God-honoring, biblically based Jesus community.

Michael Frost, in his book Exiles, writes that a church is not a church unless it is:

1. Trinitarian in theology
2. Covenantal in expression
3. Catholic (universal) in orientation
4. Mission in intent

Alan Hirsch, in his book The Forgotten Ways, writes that we need several elements to be the Church. We need to be:
-a covenanted community - a deep bond that holds us together as we live accountable to God and one another
-Jesus-centered - this will result in lives that produce worship, community and living out the mission of God.

In our discussion here is what our launch team came up with:

God/Jesus/the Holy Spirit (a Trinitarian emphasis)
Evidence of discipleship
The Scriptures
The grace-saturated gospel
Worship (in its various forms)
Love
Prayer
Believers
Sacrifice
Mission - in word (proclamation) and deed (service)

We realized that when there is evidence of these components the byproducts will be:

passion
forgiveness
messiness
boldness
truth-telling and truth-living
the sacraments (baptism, communion, etc)
generosity
compassion

What would it look like for us to be led by God's Spirit in such a way that we were a faith community that embraced and lived out the elements listed above and experienced the byproducts listed above?

This is how we are praying and dreaming and thinking...and hopefully, one day in the near future, living.

Holy Spirit: Sailing as the Metaphor for Church Planting

While in Florida with my extended family a few week ago my uncle took us sailing across the Sarasota Bay for the afternoon. My uncle admitted that he knew very little about sailing, having just bought a 19 foot sailboat from an ad in the newspaper at the beginning of the summer. He asked two people he knew to come out on the boat and show him how to use this 19 footer that he just bought. He learned the terms and the language. He learned how to raise the sail, where to anchor the boat (sort of), and how to read the impulses of the wind.

My uncle shared with me that sailing is a great metaphor for church planting. We talked about the similarities (and I have added a few more here). Hopefully I'm not taking this metaphor too far here, but here's why I agree with my uncle:

• Church planters (just as my uncle with sailing) know little about how to plant churches (or sail) but are willing to ask others to show them how to do it. It's a hands-on learning process.
• My uncle kept saying, "You learn to sail by sailing...you just figure it out as you go and learn what works." Many have said the same thing to me with starting a new church.
• Sailboats oftentimes have a small motors to get you out into the bay, but they are not meant to be used the entire time. The main "motor" of the sailboat is the wind. The motor (experience, education, book smarts, know-how, conference, etc) helps...for a little while, but ultimately you're dependent upon the wind (the Holy Spirit) to fulfill what you were created to do.
• The experience is most enjoyable (and less dangerous!) when done with friends. Especially when you are teaching those friends how to sail.
• Knowing when - and where - to put your anchor down is extremely important. Without an anchor one floats purposelessly into the bay, oftentimes without even knowing it.
• It's hard work and takes constant attention - but man, is it a blast!
• Sailors always acknowledge and greet other sailors on the water. There is a kindred spirit among others who are doing the same thing by depending upon the wind for their progress.
• Sometimes it can give you headaches and make you want to throw up, but you still would do it all over again.
• Sailors must have the right equipment. Sometimes that equipment is expensive and takes a lot of sacrifice to attain, but having the right equipment and knowing when to raise and lower the sails is of utmost importance.
• Wind: without it's work, you get absolutely nowhere.

Holy Spirit: Nudgings on the way to Gate D95

A few weeks ago Megan, Carter and I went to Florida for a family reunion.
We flew home from the Orlando airport.
As we were walking to our gate, we let Carter get out and run around to get some of his energy out before boarding.

Megan was in front of me pushing the stroller down to our gate, Gate D95.
Carter was following Megan and I was behind him making sure he headed in the right direction.

Carter, now almost 20 months, would walk/run/rumble his way down the corridor following mommy...but occasionally he would get distracted and begin to head in the direction of a gate that wasn't ours.
He is at the age now that he is getting so big. He is tall enough that the back of his head is perfect for me to reach down with my hand and nudge the back of it.

As he would be moving in a direction that wasn't toward our gate, I wouldn't say anything. I would lightly, tenderly, silently cup my hand around the back of his head and nudge him in the direction he needed to go - down toward gate D95. It was a silent exchange. Neither of us made a sound during the whole ordeal.
And each time it would remind him that we were going some place together and we needed to keep going and not get off track.
Every 15-20 seconds or so I would nudge him in the right direction as we walked and this continued for about five minutes until we arrived at our gate.
It made me smile.

As the gentle nudging of Carter continued I realized that the Holy Spirit was nudging me, telling me more about how he works and what he desires for me. He wanted me to know more about his character - how he guides me and points me in the right direction when I am so easily distracted and begin to move (oftentimes more willfully or unconsciously) in the wrong direction.
He simply wants me to travel with him toward the destination he has set out for me.