The Future Has Become Present

We have had conversations with many people who resonated to various degrees to what Teena and I envision. There has often been a need to explain or clarify some of what makes our hearts beat. Never have we had such free-flowing conversation until we met Ben and Rebekah Curfman. God has bent our mutual paths so that they are now crossed. We are excited and joyful.

Ben posted this on Facebook and I am putting here for other friends and the reading community may see.

Nine years ago I had a unique experience in my relationship with God. Many people interpret their experience as a “call to full-time Christian service/ministry.” The experience is different for everyone. For me, it was at a Christian summer camp during a worship service. I was thirteen years old at the time. I did not hear the audible voice of God. I was not visited by an angel. I just simply became extremely aware of the pain and confusion in this world and my responsibility to share the hope that I had.

Since that time, it has been an interesting road. Because of my religious background, I felt that I needed to find a position or description of what God had set my heart toward. I pursued this calling through bible studies and heavy church involvement in high school, two years of religious education in a liberal arts college, and another two years of religious education at the school I will soon graduate from. During that time the question had been burning in my mind: “What is it I am supposed to do? How will I define myself?” I am finding more and more that God has defined my ministry of His Gospel precisely how he wanted to – namely by creating me the way He did. I am my own definition.

Knowing this, I began to ask myself, “If there were no limitations on where or what I could do to accomplish the mission placed in my heart, where would I go and what would I do?” Sometimes the right answers are discovered only through the right questions. I soon found that I was not most effective in a traditional church setting both because of growing convictions about traditional church practice and limitations on the scope of ministry I felt let to do. I decided that an atmosphere most conducive to ministry was a coffee shop.

After prayer, I began considering opening a coffee shop in Asheville, North Carolina in order to minister one-on-one with individuals who need personal attention and mentoring in their spiritual lives. After all, coffee and Christianity are two of my greatest passions. My wife and I began praying, along with others, that God would open the right opportunity for this ministry to take place. I specifically began praying for someone to handle the shop from a business perspective, so I could focus on my strengths – coffee and ministry.

A few weeks later I was visiting my parents near Hickory, North Carolina where I grew up. The Lord showed me then that the Hickory area is in desperate spiritual need. I had never realized that such a need existed in my hometown. The next question came: “Lord, would you have us begin the coffee shop ministry here in Hickory?” So we prayed again for a few weeks. The next time I visited my parents we went out to eat. Before sitting at our table, however, I recognized a good friend that I used to attend church with. I had shared our vision for a coffee shop ministry with him a couple of months prior to this meeting. He told me about a place called Java Journey that was opening soon. He said that their vision seemed similar to ours and that I should get in touch with them. So I did.

We contacted Jeff and Teena Stewart, one of the key couples involved in the ministry of Java Journey. I offered my services in the coffee industry and my ministry experience to them as a way of "throwing out the fleece" as Gideon did. “Surely they already had help and wouldn't need someone such as myself,” I thought. Nevertheless, we felt that we needed to at least get in contact in case the Lord was making a way for us. He has.

After some great conversations and a sharing of passions, Rebekah and I have agreed to relocate to the Hickory area and make a serious effort to change the community with the Gospel through Java Journey. We believe that this is what God has been preparing us for. We will be seeking financial and prayer support in order to make this a reality, with the faith that God will provide our every need as He has done in the past. I will be continuing school until the spring of next year when I graduate in addition to helping Jeff and Teena manage Java Journey. We ask for your prayers, gifts, and encouragement as it is an exhilarating and terrifying experience at the same time. We will also be seeking part-time jobs to take care of our living expenses until Java Journey gets off the ground financially.

Burning Questions

I found this while doing some web-surfing ("cowabunga"). The page has no dates and broken links. A friend of mine recently drew the same comparison of the use of "organic" with the food industry marketing strategy. "NOT to be confused with..." is all I can say.

The questions asked have been on my mind and in my heart for several years. At first I thought "Purpose-Driven" was the answer, but eventually realized it was merely a racing stripe on a Model T.

I love being stretched and then sharing the pain with others!

The UK is facing an organic revival! Check out (sorry!) tesco.com and you can get organic everything from the standard organic fruit and vegetables to organic baby food, organic wine and even organic pet food. So maybe it is time for the Church to go organic too, or maybe it was always meant to be an organic community movement of the followers of Jesus Christ anyway? Perhaps during the last two millennia the Church has been spoiled by a multitude of additives and preservatives and now we just can't tell the difference.

Once upon a time God spoke through a prophet saying "I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring me choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never failing stream!"

Rethinking "Church"
Do you ever get fed up with the religiousness of communion? When Jesus said "do this whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me" (1 Cor. 11.25) he was not instituting a religious ceremony but rather encouraging us to remember him every time we eat and drink together. As the church goes organic we will do a lot more eating and drinking with friends, neighbours and strangers because that is where real community is built.

Do you ever get fed up with meetings? How often do we hear it quoted from the Bible "do not give up meeting together" as the reason for attending the Sunday meeting every week or to coax you to join a small group or attend the latest series of special meetings? Biblical theology makes it very clear that it is impossible to 'go to church' - when anyone aligns their life with Jesus Christ they are initiated into his community: the church (1 Cor.12.13). As the church goes organic people will stop 'going to church' and start being the church 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Do you ever get fed up with paying your church tax? Why should we be disempowered by centralised giving mechanisms? As the church goes organic it will empower individuals and households to do such things as: give to those in the community in hardship, save up and buy a set of text books for a local school, support facilitators of the Christian community or put aside money in case of a natural disaster.

Do you ever get fed up with singing the songs? Within the evangelical, charismatic and Pentecostal traditions of the church, which many of us have grown up in and love - worship has been reduced to the singing of hymns and songs. Our language of 'lets worship' gives us away - if we don't mean it, then lets not say it. As the church goes organic it will encounter God in the whole of life as we offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God (Rom.12.1).

Make it happen
Perhaps you, like me, feel like this but you dare not say anything because you know you might get branded as 'unsound'. As the Director General of the BBC, Greg Dyke says 'lets cut the crap and make it happen'! Everything you have called Church call it congregation and everyone you have called a Church leader call them a congregational leader. As an organic community of the followers of Jesus Christ we are all the church and leaders of it in every sector of society. Let's take the name church upon ourselves because we are the church - it does not exist outside of us. As a friend of mine says: 'whoever gets the name church, wins'.

Let's put a stop to our pre-occupation with meetings and lets rediscover organic community. Let's grow a faith that is meaningful for life, for our workplace, for our households and for our neighbourhoods. These are the places where we spend our time. These are the arenas where our faith needs to work rather than confining our faith to a few hours a week in a meeting. Let's encourage our congregational leaders to reinvent themselves to coach and facilitate an organic grassroots movement of the followers of Jesus Christ.

We must expect that like every new church movement in history this groundswell (which I do not want to name) will not be recognised as a valid form of church by the majority. However let's be different from every other new church movement in history and say this is just another way of being and doing church rather than 'the way' and thereby condemning everyone else.

Let's stop taking the additives and preservatives and let rot and die what is meant to rot and die and see something organic begin.

Matt Bird is Director of Joshua Generation a charity developing leaders to transform society, a strategic management consultant, author Christian Book of the Year 2002 'Manifesto for life' and Councillor for the London Borough of Merton.

Cleared for Drywalling

I got to Java Journey shortly before 8 am to let 82-year old volunteer, Joe Guthrie, in so he could frame the doorway for the French doors. I knew the city inspector was coming later and I had to finish what he was going to review. We met Joe when he stopped by on a Saturday morning on July 18th when the youth from Trinity Church in Greensboro were volunteering. He told me he loved to work on things as a volunteer and gave me his number. After he finished the French door frame he asked: "What else you got?" I told him the other 3 door frames needed wood added, so he did that!

The inspector arrived while Joe was working on the other doors. I fully expected that we would be told to make a few adjustments and then call for a subsequent inspection. I was making haste taking into account the work to tweak everything and then be ready by the end of the week to be given a green light. The concern was brought on by the fact that 20-30 volunteers are scheduled to gather at 2149 N Center St on Sunday to put up sheetrock.

What a joyful surprise when the inspector spent about a total of fifteen minutes before saying: "I'll let you move on with this." Part of the time he looked at plans, wiring and plumbing, and asked a few questions. The rest was filled by conversation of our mutual enjoyment of music (I told him he looked like Peter Yarrow and found out he plays the drums).

Today was another big mile-marker day.

Organic Elements in the Corporate World?!

My friend, Dennis Cheuvront, e-mailed this link to me: The Customer is the Boss at FAVI by Kevin Meyer. Dennis sent it to me as it parallels principles of Java Journey and our "liquid church" gatherings (I love the idea of the "plant manager" in the blog).

It amazingly sounds like a lot of the things espoused by a single individual a couple millennium ago and the earliest form of his community. Applied in today's society, it may look something like this.

Sadly, many of us are indeed "measuring something irrelevant."

Finding Balance

I'm still reading and enjoying the book "The Rabbit and The Elephant - Why Small is the New Big for Today's Church" by Tony and Felicity Dale and George Barna.

In a discussion about "The Values That Define Us" there is a needed caveat for those who may become prone to smugness. But it is followed by another courageous observation about the M.O. most conventional churches operate with.

I must confess that it is easier to view the challenge from an outside-looking-in perspective than it is when trees hide a forest. I recall squirming in my seat hearing such observations during seminars with Reggie McNeal and George Barna when I was in that proverbial forest not that long ago.

Any of us who think that we have all the answers or that we are 'where things are really happening' are merely deluding ourselves. A synergy occurs when we lay aside our differences and work together across the body of Christ.

Christians in the West have followed the gods of the American dream of materialism, or popularity, of numbers. We have become performance driven rather than love motivated. We give Jesus the title of "Lord" or "Head of the Church," but in reality, we devise our own plans and then ask Him to bless them. We build buildings and create programs, following the advice of church-growth statisticians, and then we expect the Holy Spirit to come in power. And when, in His great mercy, He delights to bless us through some of these things, we presume that we have built His dream church. How can we have fooled ourselves so badly?

I would like to publicly acknowledge and express gratitude toward Trinity Fellowship of Hickory - under the leadership of Dodd Drake - for recognizing and proactively supporting Java Journey. TF has prayed for JJ and promoted our cause. Many have volunteered to spend time and energy on the build out effort.

The family of Safe Harbor Rescue Mission has also spent many hours helping JJ prepare to launch.

This is the kind of synergy mentioned in the quotation. Both ministries have not caved into the M.O. of growing big just to grow big.

I pray that more of this will happen across the American ecclesiastical landscape.

Melting Ice Blocks

I'm borrowing a quote from a FB friend's blog (Brad Boydston) that he pasted from the "Out of Ur" (David Fitch) blog posted yesterday.

...Having said all this, the “great halls” (stadiums) of preaching distribution will not connect to the lost souls of post-Christendom. Post-Christian people are not attracted to the sermon as the first place to go in their spiritual distress. We must help leaders understand that if you spend 35-40 hours a week in your office preparing a good sermon on Sunday, making it not only theologically competent (which is worthy) but slick, you are ministering to the dying vestiges of Christendom.

You know my "mantra" that this is all based on a blind dependency on an M.O. we refuse to see and break away from. The paradigm is the old church as a big block of ice sitting at one location never to move. The institutional church is hooked on invitation/attraction and all it is really doing is shuffling a small percentage of society from ice block to ice block. So we persist with the poor stewardship of pouring our resources into the block and expecting someone to sit within it for several hours per week to dazzle the shuffled masses.

Alan Hirsch has stated that in America a large percentage of evangelical churches are "tussling with each other" to reach a small percentage of the population. He qualifies the small percentage by noting the a majority of Americans report an alienation from the current form of "church" where you go to one location on one day a week for an hour or more.

Tony & Felicty Dale (with George Barna) have nailed the problem in their recent book "The Rabbit and the Elephant" with this observation:

"Liquid church happens when we stop inviting others to come to church and instead we go out into every sphere of society as the Lord leads. We reach out to our neighbors or our coworkers, and instead of asking them to come to church, we get together with those people right where they live and work. In this way, segments of society that might never have experienced church life are affected by the Kingdom of God."

May the Holy Spirit's heat once again go to work!

What Is an Organic Church?

-Frank Viola, Finding Organic Church 2009 (pp 20 & 21)

As I have stated elsewhere, I’ve been using this term for over fifteen years now. Today it has become somewhat of a clay word, being molded and shaped to mean a variety of different things by a variety of different people.

By organic church, I mean a church that is born out of a spiritual life instead of being constructed by human institutions and held together by religious programs. Organic church life is a grassroots experience that is marked by face-to-face community, every-member functioning, open-participatory meeting (as opposed to pastor-to pew services), nonhierarchical leadership, and the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ as the functional Leader and Head of the gathering.

By contrast, whenever we sin-scarred mortals try to create a church the same way we would start a business, we are defying the organic nature of church life. An organic church is one that is naturally produce when a group of people has encountered Jesus Christ in reality (external ecclesiastical props being unnecessary) and the DNA of the church is free to work without hindrance. It’s the difference between standing in front of a fan and standing outdoors on a windy day.

To summarize, an organic church is not a theater with a script. It’s a lifestyle – an authentic journey with the Lord Jesus and His disciples.

The difference between organic churches and nonorganic churches is the difference between General Motors and a vegetable garden. One is founded by humans, the other is birthed by God. One is artificial, the other is living.

For this reason, church planters are like farmers and midwives.