Just When You Thought It Would Never Come - Recap

Sorry for the delay, I had every intention of getting this out much sooner but have just been busy.

Last Sunday was a historic moment in many respects as three different communities came together for one day to worship God together. It was an amazing experience really.

Doing church this way means someone has to set things up so a number of folks from the various communities arrived early to set up tables and chairs and get everything ready for the day. At 10 AM we had a time of fellowship and tons of food.

At 10:30 we began our more formal time. A brother from the Church at Opelika lead the singing and was assisted by one of the young ladies from that church as well. It was a mix of some older hymns and some of the newer praise songs. In between the songs representatives of each community told a brief history of their community. It was very evident that we all share a similar philosophy though many different backgrounds were represented.

At around 11:00 we transitioned to communion. This was a bit different than the normal and frequently rushed version of communion in most churches. We had extended teaching sections before the bread and the cup. Jon Commander of CJ did the first teaching segment and used numerous Old Testament verses. Jon has studied communion a good bit and did a fine job. Tom Tippett of the Church at Opelika did the second teaching section and camped out in II Corinthians. He did a fine job as well.

Following communion, we did a couple more songs which were led by a brother from Mosaic. At around noon we wrapped things up. The CJ folks all went out to each together at Buffalo Wild Wings.

Most likely we will begin doing these joint gathers on some basis going forward - probably quarterly if I had to guess. We will likely include a full meal together the next time and incorporate communion into this - like it used to be done by the early church from what it appears. Overall a very good day.

Peace.

This Sunday

We'd love to have anyone in the area join us on Sunday for our joint assembly with Mosaic Family Church and the Church at Opelika.

A time of fellowship begins at 10 AM. At 10:30 our service will begin with a time of singing. The day will center around communion.

This gathering will be held at Auburn Christian Fellowship, 315 South Gay Street in Auburn. For a map to our meeting location, see Mosaic's web site.

Updates and Catching up

TODAY AT CJ
We had a very encouraging gathering today. The Farmers lead today's gathering and it focused on several texts dealing with encouragement. It was one of our best days of discussion in some time in my view. It also drifted back toward the reason for our existence as a community which in some way can be summed up with: to encourage people in their spiritual walk where ever we encounter them. We think we are somewhat unique in that we would love others to join our community, however, we will help you even if you never come to our gatherings. We aren't after your money, we aren't after big numbers, we are just a community open to whatever doors God places before us. We have no staff to support, no building to keep up, no programs to staff, no machine to keep primed, none of that, just a simple community of people doing the best they can. There is something nice about simplicity. That's not to say things won't change as far as where we meet or things like that, but if we add those things we all agree we must be cautious to ensure loving people comes ahead of any institutional trappings.

NEXT TIME AT CJ
We will have our joint communion gathering with Mosaic and the Church at Opelika. We will again meet at 10 AM at Auburn Christian Fellowship on Gay Street in Auburn. We'd love for you to join us as we know it will be a great day together.

THE NEWBYS
The kids and I went to Birmingham yesterday to witness the wedding of Adam and Kara. It was a wonderful event and a beautiful fall afternoon for this outdoor wedding. The reception was held at Disciples Fellowship. It was good too see many friends at DF. They are a wonderful group of people. I got to talk with my buddy Ken Haynes - who did a wonderful job at the wedding with the music.

AROUND THE BLOG WORLD
Some very interesting reads I've came across lately. From Precipice Magazine an interview with Brian McLaren.

Darren King: Some have suggested that if the Church goes smaller (in numbers per grouping) and more organic in structure and expression that this might threaten the existence of the paid pastor in future decades. As a pastor yourself, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on this?

Brian McLaren: This is a huge question that I plan to address a bit in the emergent/c piece I mentioned earlier. Let me say that I'm for vibrant faith communities in all forms - from micro churches and house churches and quantum and liquid churches, or whatever you want to call them - to the new monasticism work - to renewal and reinvention in the historic denominations, Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, and so on. I'm for cafe churches and megachurches and everything in between, including virtual churches. I think the worst thing we can do is get into an either-or argument. We need both-and.

So I think people who are pronouncing the death of the local congregation with a paid staff are overreacting. God knows, being a pastor is hard - it's the hardest job I've ever done by far - and it deserves a person's best effort, and responsible preparation, and it deserves a congregation's faithful financial support. But ... here's where the both/and comes in - I also believe that we need spontaneous neighborhood faith communities that will not be able to afford a paid pastor, nor will they need one. The problem will be to find ways to do this that don't destroy the unpaid pastor or her family. I was a bi-vocational church planter/pastor for many years, and I know that the cost on marriages and family life is often very high.

This is where the both/and comes in. What if well-funded megachurches decided to see some home-based faith communities as partners in ministry, so they could overlap and share resources and not see one another as enemies or even alternatives, but as two expressions of the same thing? That takes us in the direction I think we need to go, and will be good for the whole range of faith communities.

In my view McLaren's point on both/and is exactly right. Because we are in the midst of a cultural shift many different ways of "church" are needed - the organic kind and the traditional kind - and variations on themes among those groups even. Wouldn't it be great if these places would work together? From our view we would welcome it; however, I don't know how welcome it would be the other direction. Oh sometimes we have people referred to us from the traditional churches, but its always under the table. You know, "don't tell anyone I told them about yall, but they won't fit into our culture." It would be funny if it weren't sad.

To read all of McLaren's interview click here: Precipice Magazine

Dan Kimball has a very thought provoking blog entry titled: "Pews, Pulpits, Pastors, Preaching and other things that can get in the way of the church "being" the church"

Kimball is the author of "Emerging Church" and several other books.

On Pews -We moved from the intimacy of a home, to standing and still seeing each other and relating to one another and able to bow down and pray or even lay flat and pray prostrate, to sitting in seats all looking at the front. Most of our church architecture today was either adapted from the Roman Basilica (the law court) which is the way most long rectangular church buildings with pews and raised stage and pulpit are - or the 17th Century Theater as churches adopted seating and layout like contemporary theaters.


On Pulpits -There were no such things as "pulpits" in the early church or first in the 300 years of the church. They were primarily adapted from Greek and Roman forms of communicating and at first people sat to speak and standing to "preach" developed later. Pulpits became a focal point and raised high primarily after the Reformation. They create a definite distinction between the people in the seats and the person who gets behind the pulpit.


On Pastors (or preachers) - In the early church it was all small house churches and there were the "shepherds" (pastors) who were leading and caring for the people. So there is leadership needed, but not as a formal title given only to paid professionals, which was a spiritual gift. When someone in any church over 75 or so people call the person who gets up front "pastor", it becomes different than the "shepherds" who knew all their "sheep" by name etc., which was possible to do in smaller house church settings. But as we use the now use the title "pastor" for the person who gets up and teaches - it is not the way it was in the New Testament. Again, I am a "pastor", but I am wondering if how we title ourselves like this can be detrimental to people not understanding there are also many of them who are "pastors" , who have that gift. We seem to only use it for the paid professionals (we only do that in our church currently, because of the current cultural defining of the word).

To read all of Kimball's blog click here: Vintage Faith

Good thoughts.

Peace.

CJ and Other Catch Ups

TODAY AT CJ
We had a very good day at CJ. Some very interesting discussions were held and much reading of scripture from all over but especially out of the Gospel of John. We had a nice group today, including a second visit by a family new to the area who had been part of a house church in the Memphis area. It still is fascinating to me how much of a network has developed among these new and different kinds of churches.

NOVEMBER 5
It is official, on November 5th there will be a joint gathering of CJ, Mosaic Family Church and the Church at Opelika. A time of fellowship begins at 10 AM. We will meet at Auburn Christian Fellowship on Gay Street in Auburn - its just a bit south of Taco Bell - Mosaic will have a sign out. This facility is home to the independent Christian Church's student ministry and is used each Sunday by Mosaic. At 10:30 we will have a time of singing and the overall gathering will focus on Christ's sacrifice and our remembrance of that through communion. We'd love to have you join us and are very excited about these communities coming together and focusing on unity through Christ.

FACING THE GIANTS
Tonight most of CJ went to see the new movie of the above title. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and there were some really funny parts. Good family flick. I guess my only concern about the film would be the danger that it sends the message that everything works out great for believers right now. In the movie the main character gets everything he wants and life is good. Life here just doesn't always work that way - it didn't for the first century martyrs - and it doesn't for the 21st Century kind either. Still nothing wrong with a feel good fun film and it was entertaining and a feel good kind of flick.

SPEAKING
As I've mentioned here before, I enjoy speaking. I got a call last week from a state audit group out of Texas inviting me to come speak to them next spring at their annual meeting. I'm excited about visiting with these folks. The president of this group heard me earlier this year in Kentucky and wants me to come talk on leadership. I love the topic and look forward to this event. I hope to have even more of these in the future - its something I have a blast doing.

WEDDINGS
Bloggers Kara and Adam are getting married this Saturday in the Magic City. I hope to make it up there to witness the big event. They are neat people who I really like even though they are not blogging much anymore.

I COULD HAVE BEEN A PLAYAH (and still could be)
As I write this blog the second game of the World Series is ending - the winning pitcher for Detroit is 41 year old Kenny Rogers (no, not the singer). The winning pitcher in the World Series is older than me! I could be playing in the World Series were it not for my lack of talent. That is comforting to know - that I'm not too old - not that I don't have baseball talent. I turn 41 on Friday. What could have been. :)

Peace

This Weekend at CJ

SATURDAY -
Most of our community gathered for a tailgate party prior to the Auburn - Florida game. It was a beautiful day and we had a nice time in the early fall outdoors. We had a tv set up to watch the early games including Georgia - Vandy and Alabama - Ole Miss. Tons of great food and a good time was had by all.

The game went pretty good too. :) I can say, I'm not sure I've heard Jordan Hare louder than last night. At home my ears were ringing long after the game. I've sat in the same section for many years so I know many of my neighbors sitting around us and have to say it was just a fun time. We had a blast up there with lots of laughs and lots of high fives.

SUNDAY -
Our gathering focused on the vision and values of CJ. We've had a lot of folks new to our community and its important for them to know the story and for everyone else to be reminded of the vision. Singing was tough as many of us could hardly talk today. Here is the handout for today along with a few notes I added. I lead the discussion today primarily so I thought I'd just put the handout on here for you to see what all we do.

ChristJourney
Remembering our Vision and Values
October 15th, 2006

I. Welcome and worship in song

II. Vision – how would you define this term?

a. Historical example (excerpt played of Martin Luther King's Dream Speech)
b. Biblical thoughts on vision Prov 29:18
c. What Biblical characters exhibited vision?
d. The Jesus Vision Matt 16:13-19; John 13:34
e. The CJ Story

III. Our ChristJourney Values
God Loves All People
John 3:16
I John 3:16
The Steadfast Love (12)

We Love All People
Matthew 22:39
Romans 12:10-13
A Common Love (40)

We Love The Bible
Colossians 3:16
Psalms 119:9-11
Firm Foundation (35)

We Love The Church
Ephesians 4:15-16
Romans 12:4-6
We Shall Assemble (36)

We Love God
Matthew 22:37-38
Exodus 15:2
Hear O Israel (73)

IV. Communion Thoughts – a vision for common unity

That gives you a rough idea of our day, we did spend time on all the texts listed above. During the communion thoughts I referenced the Cane Ridge Revival of the Second Great Awakening as an example of a brief moment of unity and how a vision sprang from that - it unfortunately died out into sectarianism, but was a noble goal none-the-less. Also talked about the body passages that Paul wrote.

Peace

Upcoming Stuff and the Matrix of Modern Church

This Week at CJ
Saturday 1 PM - tailgating at the arboretum. BBQ is on the menu. This all starts at 1pm. Feel free to drop by and see us whether you are going to the game or not. Each time someone has a birthday they get to pick the social event that goes along with it and I have a birthday coming up and selected tailgating.

Sunday 10:30 AM - gathering at the Farmers with the Robinsons planning the time together. We will be looking back at the CJ vision and core values. We will talk a lot about vision in general and what it looks like to be a Christ centered community in a post modern world. We wont have a meal this week is a go out to each week.

Joint Gathering November 5th
As previously mentioned, we have a joint gathering upcoming the first Sunday in November with our old friends from Mosaic Family Church and some friends from the The Church at Opelika.

You've head about Mosaic before here, but the Church at Opelika is a new mention. They've been around since 1994 and while they grew out of a different heritage than CJ or Mosaic, their DNA is very similar. Take a look at their site and their history and you can see this. We had heard of this group for some time and got to know Tom Tippett the past year through homeschooling.

Details are still being worked on but it looks like we will meet at Auburn Christian Fellowship for this gathering at either 10 or 10:30. Its exciting to come together like this and we hope this might even be something that becomes a regular thing a few times per year.

The Matrix
One of best movies of the past few years is "The Matrix." We at CJ watched this recently as part of a birthday celebration one evening. Its a neat movie with lots of spiritual applications and metaphors. I was recently on a web site of a house church network and noticed a discussion that was very interesting. This couple had been part of the house church network, then moved to another city where they are searching for their place spiritually and visited an institutional/modern type church service. The wife's comments below are very interesting and I love the Matrix analogy by her husband. Those who know the movie and have been unplugged will get it, if you are still in the Matrix we'll there is still time - which pill will you choose? :)

We are now faced with the question, how do you do what American society calls church after being a part of a Body that "does things a little different?" Dan compared this to the Matrix. Once you have been taken out of what you thought was reality, you see that so called reality in a whole new light.

You don't quite fit there any more. In our case, we were so blessed to be a part of a Body where there was an understanding of family and relationships, where the word hospitality was lived out in many lives above and beyond what I would have ever thought to do for another person, and where no one had a Sunday's best because they were the same everyday of the week, which is a good thing. I know that we all choose the attitude that we have in any given situation, but that can be a real struggle sometimes to choose the right one.

I don't know what the answer is as far as a Sunday service, but I do know that we need to connect with others in the family of Christ, and that seemed like the easiest way to do that. I guess I was looking for the easy answer and finding that maybe this is where we apply what we learned about doing things a little different and need to focus on someplace a little different than the obvious.

An interesting side note here is that this family was part of this community linked here Christ's Community in Price Hill before they moved. This is a house church network in Cincinnati. I have followed this site a while and really like what it looks like they are doing. If you read my Barna review of Revolution - this is it in action and I think a major way church will look like in the future. Who knows if this will be what CJ looks like eventually, but it wouldn't bother me if it did.

Peace.

Systems and Communication Thoughts

At the conference where I recently spoke, there were two really good general session speakers. Here are some notes from their talks. I thought they had some good comments. The speaker's comments are in italics and my comments are in regular type.

John Alston's topic was "Moving From Ordinary to Extraordinary"
Here are some of his gems:

You are born and you die - everything in between is negotiable.

People will remember how you make them feel.

If you don't control your mind somebody else will.

Every outcome is the result of a perfectly designed system to generate that outcome. If you don't like the outcome, change your system.

This comment above was one of my favorites and is really profound when you think about it. Organizations that are ineffective are just getting the results they are set up to get. If your organization is dysfunctional, then its set up to be dysfunctional in many respects (or at least on some level). I've been around some really dysfunctional groups and looking back they just get the results they are organized to get.

Take for an example an organization whose leaders are visionless - is it any wonder people in the organization get frustrated over the lack of vision and direction? Its set up for this. Its a perfect system for dysfunction so don't complain, you can change the system or change your environment. Do something about it or simply learn to live with it but don't waste your time complaining.

Simply working harder at it wont work in a bad system either. Take for example if you are wanting to drive to California, but say you are headed toward Florida. Simply driving faster won't work. You have to change the system. The applications for this seem endless. Oh I'm sure there are probably some kind of exceptions some how to this but generally speaking I think this is profound.

We are all teachers - if others don't get it, then you must change the way you teach.

Telling is not the same as teaching.

This is profound especially today, the way people learn is vastly different than it was 15-20 years ago. Technology has had a major impact here, more than we most likely realize today. Just as the printing press brought a new era in how people learned, so has technology and the speed information travels. Today you can at any time hear and see the best speakers in the world on spiritual or any topic really all from your computer or television. That has a profound affect on spiritual communities, but I think also raises the bar on the need for community. You can get great teaching all alone like this, but you cant get community that way. It involves face time in my view, though I do admit many on line communities fill at least part of the relational role, I don't think it can fill it completely however.


Three Elements of Knowledge
1. Facts - you must get them but you can't change them (gravity for example)
2. Skills and Techniques - you must practice these
3. Thinking - the way you do it takes you to the toilet or it elevates you, your choice.

Great Leaders Have
1. Vision
2. Passion
3. Purpose

What we need to think and know
1. If you showed up today - you are in the game, life said yes to you today.
2. You cannot change the past.
3. Work toward creating great experiences.

Final Points
1. Life is a gift, don't trash it.
2. Of all your gifts, you mind is the greatest, so develop it.
3. The goal is to fully develop all your talents and skills, then give them away.
4. Work toward being the most decent human being you can be.
5. There are no guarantees on time.

A guy named Mark Towers spoke on "Communication is Everything and Everything We Do Communicates."

Towers was an excellent speaker, though he wasn't charismatic, well dressed, or anything other than a normal regular guy. Yet he grasped how to communicate as well as anyone I've seen in a while. He really grasped the power of story and knew how to involve an audience even if it was a crowd of more than 400 people.

Here are a few of his gems:

3 Hardest Things in Life
1. Return Love for Hate
2. Include the Excluded
3. Admit it When Wrong

Your life will be defined by the risks you take.

Towers told a great (true) story about a homeless blind man in San Francisco. This man asked for donations from passers by each day and had a sign that read, "I am blind and I need help." One day a man saw him and made him a new sign that read, "Its spring and I cannot see." The money he received from passers by quadrupled immediately. Communication does matter.

Peace

Weekend Recap

YESTERDAY AT CJ
We had a nice day at CJ and most of our regulars were back. We also had a nice visit from our friends the Freemans. It was great to see them again. They are good friends and great people. Adrian showed us a short video of their Malawi mission trip, very impressive. He may give Tim Broadwell a run for the money if he keeps that up. :)

The vast majority of our time was spent camped out in Genesis 4 and the story of Cain and Able. (This will come as a great relief to some of our readers.) :) We looked at the account of Cain and Able and also quickly some other conflicts noted in scripture. Conflict runs throughout this book. Jesus clearly had lots of conflict - especially with the Pharisees - those who thought they had it all figured out in their day but also even from within the twelve. He didn't do things like they thought he should either. We spent some practical time discussing conflict resolution. Good community discussion.

As always communion is a central focus of our gatherings. This is important - not from a check the box standpoint at all - but rather a reminder and proclamation of what Jesus has done and that this is the basis for our community. It also serves as a teaching moment in many respects as it proclaims the gospel. I was always amazed at places where people would run in take communion, then they felt it was ok to leave. Seemed to me that might well be simply an adventure in missing the point, but that's just me.

CJ IS OFFICIAL
We finally got our administrative stuff taken care of so we are an official church as I understand it, whatever that means. I expect we still won't be official to some without a building or paid preacher, but that's ok. From what I can tell they did ok early on without those innovations. :)

CJ TAILGATE
This Saturday we will tailgate in the arboretum beginning I think at 1pm. Please drop by and join us if you are in town. The Tigers take on the Gators and ESPN will be here for game day and the 6:45 kick. Too bad the luster was taken off from the AU perspective, but this is where history says we thrive - when expectations are low we play our best for some reason. Not a great way to win national titles though as at some point you have to become comfortable being the front runner and getting everyone's best shot week in and week out.

Peace.