What do you want to be known for?  I couldn’t agree more with my friend Jared Looney’s post on keeping first things first.  I absolutely love church, but I don’t want to be known as someone who talks about “church” all the time.  I too want to be known for being a devoted follower of Jesus.  After all, as another person has said, “Churchianity didn’t die for me… Jesus did!”  In the past, ’sharing my faith’ meant telling others about how great my congregation was, as if the goal of the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) is to get friends to come (and keep coming) to our churches.  Since we haven’t started any new churches yet in East Hollywood, this helps me to remember it’s all about Him, not the stuff we’ve created that we can invite people to.  As Jared has written, when people get to know Jesus, church happens.  Thank you, Lord, for this reminder. 

As Jesus-followers, let’s be known for talking about Jesus way more than church…

Categories: the why
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In Los Angeles we are finding that an alarming number of our established churches may be geographically close but they are culturally too distant to attract many of our neighbors into our buildings and retain them as members.  So we are stepping outside our churched culture to live among the ones who will never be reached by our established churches.  Rather than trying to attract them to our churches to sing our hymns and follow Christ in ways that make sense to us culturally, we are trying to attract others to Jesus …and in the process our role is to coach new believers to form their churches, compose their songs, and follow the Risen Lord in ways that make sense in their cultures.

Categories: the why
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The fact is we need different kinds of churches to reach different kinds of people.  A growing number of neighbors will never be reached by estabished churches.  Whether others recognize it or not, this nation lies under the shadow of a giant breaking wave of Jesus-followers who have sacrificed (or are seriously considering sacrificing) the comforts and familiarity of church-as-they-know-it so they may live out church-as-we-are-about-to-experience-it… not as a religious event but as a way of life.  Some are doing this for selfish reasons.  Many are doing it for the sake of finding God’s missing children.

Categories: the why
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In my last entry I wrote about how we’re in the “meeting people” phase of the ministry.  But for the past week and a half Meri and the kids have been my primary ministry.  Thank you to those who gently reminded me that is the way it should be.

Thank you to everyone who is praying for Meri’s recovery from her broken ankle, and to everyone who has sent a card, flowers, visited, arrived with cooked meals, cleaned our apartment, washed dishes, given us pizza money, cared for the boys, the list goes on.  The loving care we are receiving from some of you is overwhelming. 

Categories: stories, stuff to pray for
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What an exciting time this is in our church planting ministry!  These days I tell people we are very much in a “meeting people” phase.  We moved into the neighborhood only months ago.  There are no new Jesus-followers to speak of (yet), much less any new churches (yet) as a result of our ministry in East Hollywood.  We’re getting to know people in our community who are as-of-yet-uncommitted to Jesus Christ, and engaging them in spiritual friendship.  This is both scary and fun!   

Also, we are in a “we are not experts at anything” phase.  Longtime church-goers, our two families recently stepped away from church-as-we-know-it (for at least this season in our lives) to seek out God’s precious ones in the city who need to know Jesus in a context of church-as-we-are-about-to-experience-it.  Do you want to know what these new churches are going to look like?  So do we!  We’re learning as we go, and we love it!

Categories: stories
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Katie invited some neighborhood families to hang out with us in her garden on Good Friday.  Three families joined us, and another stopped by to tell us they were sorry they couldn’t make it!  We helped the children dye and hunt for Easter eggs.  Katie read a couple of stories about the Resurrection to the kids.  We munched yummy snacks and had fun conversation.  One of the families decided to join us the next day for Easter dinner!  All in all, it was a great time of relationship-building.  (Thank you to Scarlett for helping out, and to John who showed up with pizzas – two of our friends from the Hollywood Church of Christ!)

On Sunday morning our children heard the Resurrection story and experienced it through a hands-on activity with “Resurrection Eggs.”  A series of plastic eggs (which they found in the garden outside) each had an object inside that coincides with the story of the Passion of the Christ (for example, one egg contained a nail to symbolize the nails driven into His hands and feet).  When the kids opened the final egg in the series, it had nothing in it.  It was empty just like the tomb in the story!

Categories: stories
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Not all of our encounters have gone so well with people who are as-of-yet-uncommitted to Christ. What do you do when God’s prodigal sons and daughters run away at the sight of you?

A few weeks ago I teamed up with another church planter in the area to meet students on the Los Angeles City College campus. We approached a group of self-proclaimed atheists sitting in a circle on the grass. (This group, I was told, is known for performing a mock lesbian wedding, during which they yelled, “There is no God!” on campus.) My missionary friend said something to the effect of, “Sorry to interrupt you guys. We’re a couple of Christians who are on campus today to share God’s love with people. Is that something you’re interested in?”

As I was standing there watching things unfold a couple of things occured to me. First, my friend is crazy to be doing this! Crazy in love with God’s estranged children. I am impressed with my friend. He’s got more guts than I do to put himself out on the line like that. He doesn’t fear rejection and failure like I do. I want to love the students sitting in that circle like he does, like our Savior does.

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Categories: stories
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