This is the sixth post of a mini-series on my emotional journey of leaving church-as-we-knew-it to become a missionary-as-a-way-of-life in Los Angeles.  To read previous posts, click below:

Something’s Crossed Over In Me - Intro. 

Part 1A – Mildly Panicked: Missing my old trees. 

Part 1B – Mildly Panicked: Naming my old trees.

Part 2A – Ravenous: Not on bread alone.

Part 2B – Ravenous: Feeding this hunger.

PART 3: WILDLY FREE

Over the past year and a half I’ve struggled with fear and anxiety about leaving behind some of my Christian culture and walking into unfamiliar territory to reach God’s missing ones.  (Leaving Christian culture and leaving the faith are not the same thing.)  Sometimes I still get anxious, but with less frequency now. 

I’ve realized more fully my role as a stranger and alien in this world – not fully at home in the cultures I’m reaching and not fully at home anymore in the Christian culture I came from.  Consequently I’ve become overwhelmed with an insatiable hunger for God’s Word and his loving Reign.  This hunger, thankfully, is not going away. 

And lately I’m noticing that I am starting to live with an altogether new feeling now: More and more I am feeling free, or put more correctly, uninhibited.  I am feeling unihibited to simply be church at will, anywhere, anytime. 

To illustrate this, my teammate Ed likes to share this story with our team: 

In the past we thought we couldn’t tell certain coworkers and acquaintances about Jesus Christ because they lived too far away from our church building.  Seriously.  It didn’t matter that we had relational influence – after all we spent more time with some of these coworkers than with friends and family.  Since there was little chance that our coworkers would be in a position to commute the long distance to our Sunday services, church social events, and weekly small groups, we didn’t even make the attempt. 

But now that we are realizing church is not centered around getting people to enter a geographic location, but into God’s kingdom, we feel free to share Jesus with literally anyone.  They don’t have to commute to a church building (or in our case, to a house church gathering).  God can work with each person right where they are. 

I know what you’re thinking.  This ought to be a no-brainer.  Ed add that we all probably said as much before we started this mission.  Still, it’s amazing how much we get caught up by the parameters of what we have come to equate with “church”.  Plus, some things are best learned through experience! 

So now if we find we are crossing paths a lot with someone from Compton or Whittier or Pacoima (places in the LA area that are too far to commute to E-Ho), we can rest easy.  We don’t have to persuade that person to drive all the way to Hector and Roxy’s house for a church gathering in Hollywood, for example, just so he can know his Creator and Lord.  We can help that person discover who God is, lead him or her to a commitment to Jesus Christ, and help that new disciple to lead his or her own network of relationships to Christ.  Each new disciple and his or her household or affinity group is a potential new church …right where they are!  There are many examples like this.  

Something has crossed over in me, and I can’t go back.  Again, I’m not talking about leaving the faith.  My faith in Jesus Christ, while it continues to have its obvious ups and downs, is generally speaking stronger than it’s ever been.  I do not attribute this to the house church model, as some house church planters are prone to do.  As I’ve mentioned before, some of the churches started in LA will stay home-based and laity-led; others will assume other structures.  That’s up to them.  For me it’s not about how, when or where we do gatherings.  It’s about being Jesus’ followers as a way of life in every place we go, with every breath we take.  I don’t want anything less for myself, for my family, or for anyone. 

It’s also about a difference between having a church-centered mindset and a kingdom mindset.  Rather than building a new church with all its programs and trying to get new disciples to be loyal to the thing we’ve built, we share life among God’s missing ones and lovingly help each other receive God’s reign over our lives.  In the process new disciples are made and the Holy Spirit causes new churches to spring forth.  We serve as a guide in the process, but our focus is changed.  And more and more, I am feeling free.

For Thursday: Conclusion

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