What do you expect when you go to a gathering of the radically indiginous Jesus people?

Is it always the same? Could that be because not all of the are “radical”? Are all gatherings of those who worship God emerging?

What do you expect when you go into a gathering of a worship of God?

Do you expect to meet the Father there?
Do you expect to meet Jesus there? Or did he come in with you?
Do you expect to meet the Holy Spirit there? Or has the spirit always beenwith you?

The one thing we should find is a group of people so moved by the fact they can do nothing to obtain a relationship with God, yet this is freely given to them. They will be so moved by the grace that they are compelled to do good things.

The Spirit will be present, Jesus will be there,and the Father will be there also…

That is what you should find….

Yet is it?

Do you have your d-min? Are you ready to exercise your d-min?

This conference is interesting… and seems to be a little bit more of a networking…

I have had a lot of really good conversations. I do miss my family, my girls, and my wife. I look forward to seeing them and welcoming our newest daughter into the world. I have made some great new friends, learned more about some old friends, and have learned a lot about myself.

The emerging church is an interesting beast… The church is something we need, meaning the ELCA or whatever large denomination you are with is something we need. As Karen Ward says “we all need someone in the dingy.” We all need to go out ahead of the rest and scout out what is happening… We need to be in the dingy, and scout out the place, and seek out where God is working to go there and join God. But if the dingy does not have the big boat, then the dingy will be lost in the greatness of the waters, and without the dingy, the main boat will not really know what is coming up…

That is why the emerging church is the hidden church coming up… Making itself visible. the church is a thriving organism, a living being. It is kind of like planting a resturant. If you are with Friendly’s, then you would scout for a location that does not have a Friendly’s, and then you would get the floor plans from corporate, and you would get the menu from corporate, and you would get mock schedules from corporate, and you would build and do this Friendly’s. Now you could tell the people who would come, because they are the people who go to Friendly’s. If they like Friendly’s they will come… But yet think about the organic resturant. If you wanted to do a resturant to atract the community. Then this would have to be an organism, a living being. One would have to do a study of the community. You would have to discover their likes and dislikes. What they were allergic to, and what they found to be foul. If you discovered that over 50% of the population was lactos intollurant, then you probably would not want ice cream to be one of the main menu items. The resturant would have a different feel depending on the community. The floor plans would be different for Orlando, then in Gettysburg. the menu would be different. It is contextual and it is a living organism. It is what the people in that community want and need. Why do we think there should be a cookie cutter method to the church, when the model of the contexual emerging church applied to other things, leads us to the conclusion it will always be different?

Exercise your d-min and go forth in the dingy serving God.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in prayer in Letters and Papers from Prison:

You have granted me many blessings;
Now let me also accept what is hard from your hand.
You will lay on me no more than I can bear.
You make all things work together for good for your children.

This came from a session on understanding the emerging church, where we went off by ourselves and thought about what it is that we have to do. Not what we want to do, but what do you have to do. You know there are people who play music, because they have to. Te play when ever they can because they can not help but play. Or people who paint because that is all they can do. It does not matter if any one ever buys their paintings, they still have to paint. So what is it that you have to do? What is the passion for your life that totally consumes you and makes you move to be in the world? That one thing that you have to do all the time you can?

And in doing this one thing you will be willing to fail publically. A person you has to write poetry will write it even if she/he does not make any money, and people say their work is garbage. A person that has to paint will be the same way. Even if people laugh at their work, they fail publically, they still must paint. We have to be willing to risk failure, in the view of others, to be real and to be ourselves. Yet if we risk at something that is our passion, that which we must do, it will not really matter if we fail or not. Failure is that which makes us stronger.

The question comes in whether we are really doing that which we must…

Are we just in love with the dream of a big church? Are we in love with the dream of a big ministry that highlights our abilities? Are we in love with an idea of what we envision ministry to be? Are we in love with the dream giver?

We need to be inlove with the dream giver, and allow others to be themselves, and meet them and walk with them and introuce them to the dream giver, or walk with them in their relationship with the dream giver. Relational understanding of community.

Community is presented to us in the dream giver. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. A community. We need to be with each other in relationship, just like the one who calls us and gives us the dream we have. We need to be relational and real. We needto be realso the patterns of relational dischipleship spread, but it is not like cancer. We need to be real and about ministry in the world, so that the congregation is not eaten alive by being cancer and consuming itself.

Let us be real and relational. In love with the dream giver, and remember it is not about us…

And I will end with a prayer from Girolamo Savonarola:
Lord, I pray not for tranquility, or that my tribulations may cease;
I pray foryour spirit and your love,
that you grant me strength and grace to overcome adversity;
through Jesus Christ.
Amen

Well it is the evening of day 2…

the things I have in my PalmPilot for notes is…

We should & could ourselves to death

“Hiper than thou“

inoculation to reality

What does this tell us about ministry…How can we be ministers when we think that everything is works righteousness?

We need to get over our Lutheranness on this. We are saved by grace through faith, apart from anything we have done. Ok, we can do nothing to obtain our salvation. We all know this, we all live this, and we need to accept it and move on. We need to get beyond thinking that we should not do works, because being captivated by the love of God compels us to do things. We just need to understand that the things we do can gain us nothing, except some one might see the love of God, and allow God to work on their lives, yet this is all God’s work. We do things because the love of God compels us to, not because of what we get.

We do not need to worry about being hip, we need to worry about being real, being authentic. Ministry is contextual and relational. Be in relationship with everyone you come in contact with. And in order to do this, you have to know yourself, so you can help the other person know if your congregation is a fit for them. if not then we need to send them some where where they can get into a relationship with God. It is not about the numbers in our congregation or even in the ELCA, or any denomination. It is always about the kingdom, it is always about God. If we can not see where Jesus is, then we need to rethink things, or revision things. Being hip is not what we need to worry about is being real.

We also need to not allow our religion to be an inoculation to reality. We need to embrace our context and the society around us, without being sucked into the society. In and not of, we are citizens of heaven, bought with the blood of Christ, beyond what we have done, yet called to be in the world, and a part of the mission of God. We need to not see our claiming by God as an inoculation to the reality around us, yet claim our acceptance as the call to be the body of Christ and do the mission of God.

What does it mean to do ministry in this postmodern era???

What does it mean to be a pastor in this era???

Is it better to have a conference with carnies, or the casket company?
Does it say more about us that we are here with Circus workers or a casket company? Does it show the decline of the church that we should be measured for our caskets and look at the style of lining we want for the box in which we will place our church, because we can not get beyond the traditionalist attitudes and understanding of the way we do ministry…

My question to all of this is where is God? Is it not God’s mission? The question brought to us this morning at the Creative Ministry Pre gathering Pastor Jeff Linman was Where does the power come from? Are we doing things in our ministry because of what we have finances to? Are we adding on to our building the amount of space we can afford to add,or are we looking at how God is moving in the area and doing what needs to be done because God is our undergirding and our power? Can we allow God to be God and follow him in His mission and risk, knowing he will not leave us alone?

Can we trust God to dream God Sized Dreams? Can we allow ourselves to dream the dreams and seek the ministry that needs God? In order to do this we need to think and vision beyond ourselves and know that God will see us through and do His part if we will only let him? Are we able to find Jesus in the darkness, in the black of night, when we think that we are all alone and the plan we thought was what God wanted us to do, is really not what we needed to do… Can we hold on to the vision and look to the dawn, trusting that God has not let us down?

We need to live on the fringe of losing control ourselves, yet always knowing that God is in Control. If we do not do this, then our ministry will truly be that of maintenance. Our ministry will be that which maintains the status quo, and does not build the kingdom. We will be keeping the “members” happy and not building the kingdom. Our visions will not be kingdom visions, they will be that which keeps the doors of “St. Careaboutmyself” Lutheran Church open. We need to move beyond being plate spinners. We need to move beyond being the people who run around the congregation making sure none of the plates hit the ground, that they always keep spinning. This is maintenance. We need to be kingdom visioners, kingdom dreamers…

We need to grab a old of Paul’s words to the Philippians in chapter 4:11-13
11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

Remember the focus is on Jesus, and that will take you far, even with a carnie in a hot tub!

Here we are in Orlando….

Day one down.

And I need to reflect on extraordinary audacity… And what does it mean to be real radical renditionists for God.

We need to grab hold of that which is real. That which will ground us. That which will help us wade in the waters. That which will make the unsafe jump into the water safe.

My life is going a lot of different ways right now. With the new girl coming next week, with the looming first call, with the denial of designation of Mission Developer. These things tear at my soul and make me question what I am doing. It makes me wonder if this is really where I want or need to be. Where does God want me? Will this conference feed me and help me discern that which God has for me?

This conference is all about God. it is all about making it real. It is about be a renditionist for God. It is about being radical. It is definitely about being radical. With an extraordinary audacity we need to radically proclaim the love of God. We need to do this radically, because of what radical is. Radical is that which is so much different from the norm, something which pushes the limits of our understanding to breaking, to the point at which it is so beyond the norm it is something other. We also need to be radical because of where the word radical comes from. Radical comes from the Latin radix, which is root.

We need to be that which takes us back to the root! Let’s audaciously step to the radical nature of God. Let’s take us back to the root, back to that which nourishes us, to that which sustains us, to that which gives us everything we need,to that which grounds us. The root is that which fixes us to the One who will keep us safe when we jump into the depths off the diving board. The root is the On who will keep us safe in everything we think we can never be safe in.

Radically be extraordinarily audacious.

Alright it is 5:20 AM and I am getting ready to leave for the airport for Orlando for theCreative Ministries gathering of the ELCA…

My wife is due in 8 days, I am a liitle bit on edge, and wondering why I am doing this…

Let us see where this journey takes us!

Well isn’t life grand. We are in a place that is good, the house finally sold, and we are ready to welcome the third child into the world, and the van… Have mentioned the van to any of you. The longed after vehicle that will allow the five of us to go place as a family… Well we bought our van on December 22nd. And on January 15, before the first payment was made, we hit something, like a small sign. I roughed up the paint on the rear bumber and knocked the bumber loose… Probably not anything major, yet it is the first accident, the first dent the first ding…

We always joke about getting it doen early. So it is out of the way. Yet it does not make it any easier. And now we wonder if we should have it checked out or not… Life happens. We need to live and enjoy and know that the things we have are for us to use and are not the end all be all of our existance.

The van is no longer the “perfect” van we bought. It is still a wonderful vehicle to use and help us be a family, together.

Aren’t relationships grand!!!

They have their own beings and breath and live a life all there own. We get the great pleasure of taking part in them. Sometimes they are pluses to our lives and sometimes they drain us of everything we have. They are joys to us and they truly sometimes are pains in the _____!

But as bad as these relationships are think how it would be if no one was around. If you were the only person on earth… Might sound great when those relationships are sucking you dry, but how about when you needed to talk to someone about life, or love. Who would you love?

We are made to be in relationships, for the good and for the bad. We were never promised a rose garden, or a stink weed garden for that matter.

Relationships are the fuel for our days and times here, soak in the beauty of the wonderfulness of those around you who love you, and do not let the drain of bad times get you down, as the son will come again.

As I ponder the realativities of life and love and completion of assignment papers, I wonder if I have presented myself correctly. I wonder if I really know what I am getting myself inot with wanting to do mission development? Am I crazy, or truly gifted? Do I really want to put myself and my family out there on the line and risk everything for the sake of the call? Can I really do this thing anyhow? I mean really in the whole grand scheme of things who am I?
As I prepare for the first call process and await the coming of what the Holy Spirit has for me and my family, I am confident that the Spirit will move through the process and bring me to the place I need to be. Yet in my humanness I am struck by the fact that I am so insecure in my own abilities that I am having a hard time letting go and completely trusting in the process. I mean really who am I to think I am being called to mission development? Who am I to think that I can go out and start a congregation from the ground up? There are so many things I do not know, and do not have the gifts for…
My pastor told me tonight that I should listen to my wife, and follow her lead in this process, as she probably understands my gifts and sees how I have grown and trusts that I am able to do this. I want to cling to that which I have known, and not venture out to where I am the one to use the gifts and talents given by God to do that to which God has called me.
It is easy to say we trust in God. It is easy to say that Jesus Christ died for you and you are saved by Grace through Faith becaise of Christ’s faithfulness to go to the cross. It is quite another thing to accept that same grace for yourself, and to fully trust that God has brought you to this place and will give you the neccessary tools to see you through to the other side. God will not let us down, but sometimes it is hard to truly make this our own. It is easy to say it to others, and to believe it for them, but quite another to bring it to heart in your own life, and to accept that you are accepted and forgiven, and gifted by God to go and to do.
Why do I second guess myself so much? Why do I look for the affirmation that I am where I need to be, when I can look at my children and see the love that God has for me? When I can see the support that my wife gives me, even when she is left with all the house work for days on end, as I try to keep up with class work? Why can I not see the signs all around me of the wonderfulness of God that shines on me everyday and keep questioning my call, and keep second guessing where I need to be, or if I presented myself correctly?
So many things happen because they happen, and it is not because we did nto do our best, ir give it our best, or wrote the right thing in the paper work, but it happened because it happened…