So this weekend was fairly amazing! I'll explain in a moment.
Some of you may know - some not. We have "made an adjustment" to our schedule lately as a Church community. For the past two months or so we have been meeting every other week at our "normal" location (our facility) at our normal time (6-7:30 PM). That's right, every OTHER week. Call us weird but we felt like God was directing our energy else where - at least for the time being. When I say "elsewhere" what I mean is simply outward. I still am a bit unclear about what that looks like. What I am clear about, however, is that we (all of us probably) could use a good dose of face to face interaction with the people we claim to love that frequent our cities but probably not our churches.
So to answer that call we decided to "practice" doing life out in our communities as an augmentation of our regular church services twice a month. You may be asking the question I mentioned a moment ago "what the heck does that look like?". Well, I'm still asking myself that same question. Lately for us, we have hit some local hang outs (Seaport Village, Lake Murray, Fiesta Island, etc.) and just spent time looking complete strangers in the eye and talking with them about.....well, whatever. It's amazing how poor we are at doing this. I am astounded that we (as the light of the world) can't even hold a normal conversation with someone about their dog or job or shoes - at least not easily. Funny that Jesus not only was really good at this - he loved doing it. Apparently he made a ministry out of it. Jesus prelude to the Kingdom was usually "Let's eat".
To be sure indeed we find it easy to get kind of religious or hand out an invitation (at least somewhat).....but to open up to someone and talk plainly about the struggles of life and the risk of love - that's another story altogether. So the mandate has been this for Mission Vineyard. Bring me THEIR stories. It's working. Find out a little about this person whom you share this great affection from God with. Give them some footing to get to know you and this God you proclaim. Engineer an arena for relationships to happen - to be born. Do it on purpose and you will not be disappointed.
Here is what I have found so far. Our cities miss us. The people in our cities, as it turns out, are just as lonely as we are. What they are lonely for are friends. What they are starving for is Jesus. What's going to connect them is discipleship. The great romance of this century seems to be between a person and their cell phone. We are trying to learn to "look up" and see what's in front of us. I am learning that friendship is a great gateway to Jesus. What a powerful coupling of resource! When we take the people of God and turn them loose on the city - to love and converse about anything and everything: and we do it as a Church "doing" church.
The "format" is simply one where we do what we should be doing every other day of our lives - connecting. At least in some way. How can we disciple if we refuse to connect - truly connect? If nothing else it has been good practice. The fruit is there.....check it out. Try it.
I started by saying that this weekend was amazing. It was. This "out" weekend we went to Green Valley Campground located about 15 miles south of Julian. I'll list what was so amazing about it.
1. Had a great Church turnout - about 30 people between the two days.
2. Night one - we had spontaneous worship with a group camping next to us. Complete strangers.
3. Night two - we had Church worship around the campfire with smores as an encore.
4. Along the way we met 15 new friends of all ages and played in the river together.
5. Shared the night sky with discipleship and story telling.
6. Baptized one of my guys in a freezing cold mountain waterfall.
7. Had two newcomers to the church experience this as their first "gathering".
8. Had wild turkey calling lessons. It worked. We had 10 gobblers come through.
9. Smoked more cigars that we should have.
10. Laughed till it hurt and we almost got kicked out by the Park Ranger.
11. I learned more about the people I "do" church with in two days than I have in two years.
12. AND we froze our behinds off both nights.
and we are going to do it again. Somewhere. Soon.
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