broken//stained//glass

Exciting Things Coming up with The Renew Community

Tim Keller said, "Don't try to build a great church. Instead, try to build a great city, because when you have a great city you will have a great church."

That's what we're striving for with this new faith community called The Renew Community.

Just this week I realized something: I'm so humbled, honored and proud of our Renew launch team and the ways we are intentionally striving to live out the gospel every single day of the week, not just on Sundays. Sure, we're not perfect, but we're growing and its inspiring to see the way they are serving and loving and leading.

We've said over and over again that we're more interested in launching people first, before services. That we want to be known more for our sending capacity than our seating capacity.
And I believe we're catching that.
Our team is striving towards a more holistic understanding of the gospel - individually and corporately.

There's a lot brewing this month that I'm really excited about...

-People are impacting their oikos. Oikos is a Greek word that means "family, household, sphere of influence. We all live in several "neighborhoods" (i.e. geographical, vocational, social, demographic, psychographic, genealogical, etc). We're seeing unofficial connections happening, friendships that are forging and spontaneous activities and relational spaces are emerging. We're attempting to live as missionaries who are 'cleverly disguised' as businessmen and teachers and college students and engineers and stay-at-home moms. The stories emerging from people being intentional in their oikos has been so encouraging and inspiring.

-Our house churches are off to a great start. They're eating meals together, sharing their stories, exploring the Scriptures, adopting a family/school/organization where they are serving on mission at least once a month and throwing parties for their friends and neighbors at least once a month as well. So many fun stories have already emerged from these house churches - I may share some of them some time in the future...

-We're serving at least twice a week at Manna on Main (the main soup kitchen/food bank/financial assistance organization in our community) by cooking/preparing meals and/or serving meals to the under-resourced and marginalized.

-We're serving at the North Penn Boys and Girls Club in their tutoring program, weight lifting program and helping to teach leadership classes. We've helped them with a blood drive last weekend. Others are considering coaching flag football.

-The Lansdale Farmers Market continues to take form and shape. Last summer we went to the borough leaders and asked "Would a farmers market be of help to the community?" They liked the idea and a team has been working very hard with other people from the community to see a farmers market start late spring/early summer in Lansdale. We're very excited about it! The LFM graciously received a grant for $12,000 from the North Penn Community Health Foundation to help us bring fresh fruits and vegetables from local venders to promote a healthy and sustainable lifestyle. The LFM team holds an open to the public meeting once a month.  About 50 different North Penn residents have come to one of these meetings to offer their help and their willingness to volunteer. The LFM team is constantly looking for people who would want to help serve to make this happen so if you are interested shoot us an email here.

-Every Tuesday morning a group of guys meetings at Zoto's Diner to eat, hang out and discuss three questions: (1) Where did you see God at work this week? (2) How did you join him this week? (3) How did you resist him this week? They've been great conversations as we strive to pay attention to God and learn to respond appropriately.

-We've been proposing some ideas and initiatives to borough council, the North Penn Regional Council for the Arts and the Lansdale Performing Arts Center for some ways we can help to cultivate the arts in the area. There are many artists who desire to connect with a community of artists and who long to exhibit and express their art in spaces in the commnity. We're attempting to work to see that happen. There is a lot of potential here!

On Saturday February 21 at 10 am we're hosting another Clean up day around downtown Lansdale. We're meeting at Railroad Plaza (next to the train station) to clean up the area around the Kugel Ball, Main Street and the train station as a way of serving the community to make it look clean and nice. This event is open to the public and you are more than welcome to join us!

-On Tuesday night February 24 at 7:30 we're renting out a bar and hosting an evening called Doubt Night to connect with skeptics and create space to air out our doubts, questions and thoughts regarding faith, life, Jesus, God and the Church. Should be fun! We'd love to have you a part of the conversation. Find out more information by scrolling down two posts and seeing the post below called doubt :: night.  We've also created a facebook group...join us. 

Other things we planning for later this spring...

-We will be hosting a Forum on Homelessness and Suburban Poverty. We will have a diverse panel of experts who work closely with homelessness and suburban poverty in the borough and in the Montgomery and Bucks counties. This will be educational and will intend to help residents in the community to know how we best address the systemic issues of poverty and homelessness in our region. Stay tuned to the website for more information.

-We will be hosting a financial seminar called Strategies for Surviving an Economic Downturn. We know the economy has been difficult for thousands of families in our area. We are bringing in my dad to teach a seminar in late March about practical ways we can work towards a more financially healthy lifestyle (reducing and getting out of debt, creating a budget, etc). We're doing this to bless the community and equip them in this difficult time.

-We will be sponsoring an Invisible Children Film Viewing and Discussion.

-Area-wide prayer walk: Prayer is important. All we do does not start with us. We never start anything new. We're are simply joining God in what he is already doing. We'll be hosting a Saturday morning time this spring to do two things: walk...and pray!

-And, Lord willing, we're looking to hold our first public corporate gathering this spring. (Stay tuned).

Exciting stuff! Again, stay tuned to the Renew site for more information as it becomes available. Oh, by the way: if you live in and around the area we would love for to join us for any and all of these things listed above.

Regardless if we know you (yet) or not. Regardless of your faith background.Regardless if you are currently involved with us at Renew or not. We would love to have you join us for any of these events. If you want to be involved just let us know. Log onto our website or contact us.

Why I'm Involved at Renew: Jess

Check out this post on our Renew blog entitled "Why I'm Involved at Renew."
It's written by Jessica Salasin, a member of our launch team.
Jess is a deep thinker who loves people compassionately. She is as authentic as they come.
She refuses to allow us to cut corners - which has been very helpful for us as a community of faith.

Ashtrays & the Kingdom of God

The house churches at the Renew Community started last week and its been so exciting to see their initial birth and formation.

On Sunday afternoon Tracy and I facilitated a training session for our House Church Shepherds.
At the beginning of the session I handed each one of them an ash tray (97 cents a piece at Wal-Mart) and asked three questions:

(1) What are you thinking and feeling when you see this?
(2) Why did I give you one of these as a house church shepherd?
(3) How can this object work as a symbol to remind us of our mission?

We had a great discussion.
People caught on quickly.
They knew where I was going with it.

We say that we desire for Renew to be a faith community for skeptics and dreamers.
We're wanting to focus on the dechurched and the unchurched (rather than the overly-churched).
We say that the only rule is that no perfect people are allowed.
We say that we are here for people who are not here*

Just over 1 in 5 Americans smoke (21%). If house churches at Renew are not going to be Christian clubs for the already convinced but instead are outward-focused communities of love where each month they are exploring, celebrating and serving together what it means to be in a relationship with Jesus, then there's a good chance that people will be using these trays.

House churches at Renew are going to be messy.
They are going to be uncomfortable.
And we've got to learn to be okay with the mess.
In fact, in some ways the beautiful messiness is appealing.

When we look at Jesus in the Gospels we see the God-man who was accused in a derogatory manner of being pals with sinful people (though I am sure he took that as a compliment). We see that he's accused of being a drunk and eating way too much food. We read that he was accused of being around the wrong crowd.  This begs the question: If we are passionate and obedient followers of Jesus living in his ways, might we be accused of similar things?

There's one thing I'm convinced of as I read the life patterns of Jesus in the gospels: if Jesus were here today, in 2008, he would be hanging around in places with people who would need an ashtray.

The point of me giving ashtrays to our Shepherds is not to make a statement about smoking.
It's not a judgment against smokers (I have friends who smoke).
Whether our house church shepherds see their trays being used in their house churches or not is not even the point.
The point is that these ashtrays can act as a helpful metaphor to remind us to stay on mission, to be an externally-focused community of faith who exists to see people enter into a life of unbelievable purpose and adventure and joy, whether they light up or not.

__________
*yet

Ministers: All Members

I did a wedding up in the Poconos a few weeks ago. The wedding was held at the First Presbyterian Church in Stroudsburg, PA. I had never been to Stroudsburg or this church before but it was old historic church that was beautiful - both inside and out - a beautiful location for a wedding.

But what caught my eye was the last line of the church sign and I just had to take a picture of it on my phone.

Imagine if every church believed that the ministers were the people of God? That would have some amazing implications on how we do church.

Renew: Sending Capacity

Last night Renew's board of directors had a meeting (it sounds so formal and stuffy, doesn't it? In all honesty, its really just a few dudes hanging out, laughing, praying, planning, processing and discussing what God might be doing and where God might be taking this little faith community of ours. We alternate meeting places between my upstairs office and Third and Walnut, the bar our launch team used to meet in).

We have a lot of fun together when we meet (but don't tell anyone...because I think there is a rule that you are not allowed to have fun at "board meetings"). It really helps that we're all friends first, which provides such rich opportunities to see Renew move forward, as we fight for every missional yard possible. And to do this we push back, challenge each other, process out loud, dream and make decisions together - in addition to catching up on our lives.

Last night we opened by looking at Matthew 9:37-38:

"The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send our workers into his harvest field."

The Amplified Bible translates it well: "So pray to the Lord of the harvest to force out and thrust laborers into his harvest." There is an urgency to this sending out.

We have said often that at Renew we want to be a faith community known more for our sending capacity than our seating capacity.
We want it to be a place of equipping and sending.
We strongly believe that if the church is not about training, equipping and sending out people to be missionaries we aren't doing our job.

Which is why Matthew 9 is so important.
Jesus says that we need to ask - urgently seek God and pray - that he would send more people out.
It may seem obvious but what Jesus is saying is that the harvest is ripe with transformational potential - its ready - and yet there are few willing to go out and work in those fields that are ripe with that potential.
And its his field - he does what he wants with it. We're workers under his direction and authority.

We prayed last night that God would bring people to us, not so we keep them here under our roof, but so we can equip them adequately and then send them out into the world to be missionaries cleverly disguised as plumbers, attorneys, businessmen, students, stay-at-home moms...and even as pastors.
We prayed that we would train people sufficiently to be passionate followers of Jesus.
We prayed that we would train up future leaders and pastors and shepherds to see the kingdom expanded.

We're sending out several house churches that will start officially within the next two weeks.
We also strongly believe that we need to be planting another church out from under Renew within the next five years - whether that's locally, regionally, nationally or internationally.

As Darrell Guder writes, we're trying to cultivate an ethos where we have a strategy for gathering, but we also have strategies for when we all scatter.

Would you pray for us at Renew?
Would you pray for our leadership - that we would have wisdom and courage to follow Jesus who sends us out?
Would you pray that we would be a sending church?
Would you pray that we would be a place committed to consistently, humbly, courageously, faithfully asking God to send workers out into the harvest?  

Renew: why we're taking our time

Many have asked why we're taking our time with Renew.
We posted this on our website this week.

Church Planting: An exciting and perilous journey

A thought hit me last week about church planting.
It startled me at first, but then I felt a sense of gratitude wash over me.

Church planting is the most difficult thing I've ever done.
It's the scariest thing I've ever done.
And yet, I have never had so much fun in my life.

Yeah, that's right: ministry can actually be fun!
Megan and I are loving the place we're in right now.
What an exciting and perilous journey church planting is.

I still don't know what I'm doing (please don't tell anyone I said that...) but I'm beginning to sense that where I'm at right now is a good place to be.

Renew House Church meeting and Q and A

If you're interested in being involved with Renew this is the best way to find out how.
House Churches are central to what we're doing.
Check out this link and consider joining us on Sunday afternoon.

Adoption Sunday

This morning I've been reading Adopted Into God's Family: Exploring a Pauline Metaphor by Trevor Burke (who teaches at Moody). It's a commentary on the metaphor of adoption that Paul speaks of five times in his letters.

I am studying up on this because I've been asked to preach at Franconia Mennonite Church at their Sunday morning service on November 16. This church has a real, genuine heart for adoption and sees it as an important way to flesh out the gospel in the family. Each year for the past three years Franconia has hosted "Adoption Sunday," a day to highlight adoption by focusing on the heart of God and how he cares for the alien, the orphan and the widow. They have asked that we share Carter's story and then teach on God's heart for adopting us into his family.

I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to tell Carter's story in order to highlight God's story - the gospel message, Paul says, is about God adopting us into his family, calling us to be his kids.

Later that evening I am scheduled to preach at a church in Bethlehem - should make for a good, but very busy day.

Remembering the poor

On Tuesday morning several dudes got together for breakfast (as we do every Tuesday morning) to talk about what it means to be a free man. We've been discussing and working our way through the book of Galatians, the manifesto of freedom. (This is open to any dude who wants to join us. If you are interested, email me and I'll give you more information).

We're in chapter two. In verse 10 Paul says this:

"All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I [Paul] was eager to do."

We had a great discussion about poverty and our role with the poor and how as Christians, for the most part, we really suck at doing our part (including me).

After I got home Megan asked me to print off several copies of a document so she had created so that she could distribute them throughout our neighborhood. A few others from our launch team are creating similar fliers and getting their neighborhoods involved.
Here's the wording of the flier she created.

AREA FOOD CUPBOARDS RUNNING LOW

You may have noticed the article in The [Lansdale] Reporter on Monday October 13, 2008  about the need for donations at food pantries in Lansdale:

“Food cupboards in the area are bare and the scarcity of items for the needy is becoming a serious situation. Community Housing Services, on Broad Street in Lansdale, has slim pickings… Manna on Main Street in Lansdale had its food cupboard almost wiped out on one recent day when 27 families stopped in for help.”

Please help in any way you can by taking donations directly to Manna on Main [the main food pantry and soup kitchen in Lansdale] or Community Housing Services [a non-profit organization that works with women and children who are victims of domestic violence and abuse]. CHS also helps those in need of baby products, diapers, wipes, formula, etc.

You are welcome to drop any items off on our front porch and we’ll be happy to deliver your donations.

We understand this is a difficult time for many of us, but if each of us can give just a grocery bag full of food CHS and Manna on Main will be in much better shape to help the people who come through their doors.

Thank you for partnering with us to help those in need in our community,

J.R. and Megan Briggs

Ironically, a friend emailed me a few days ago about her desire to do this very thing in her neighborhood in Lansdale, too.

If you live in the region would you consider picking up an extra bag (or more) of groceries for Manna and CHS? You can drop it off at our house or at these agencies directly.

Or, better yet, create your own flier and getting your neighbors involved in this as well!