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Are we an Emergent Church?

I got another email today from an anonymous party (they always are) accusing me of watering down the gospel and being in this only for the big paycheck. Most of these "well intentioned" but misguided individuals also throw us in with a movement called the Emergent Church. It's a common question and a common mistake to categorize all progressive churches as Emergent.

If your definition of emerging is for a new church to "emerge" out of a traditional church, then we are. If your definition is that we are "emerging" into a faith community ready to share the gospel in a changing culture using the same methods that Paul did...

17If I were doing this on my own initiative, I would deserve payment. But I have no choice, for God has given me this sacred trust. 18What then is my pay? It is the opportunity to preach the Good News without charging anyone. That’s why I never demand my rights when I preach the Good News. 19Even though I am a free man with no master, I have become a slave to all people to bring many to Christ. 20When I was with the Jews, I lived like a Jew to bring the Jews to Christ. When I was with those who follow the Jewish law, I too lived under that law. Even though I am not subject to the law, I did this so I could bring to Christ those who are under the law. 21When I am with the Gentiles who do not follow the Jewish law, I too live apart from that law so I can bring them to Christ. But I do not ignore the law of God; I obey the law of Christ. 22When I am with those who are weak, I share their weakness, for I want to bring the weak to Christ. Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone, doing everything I can to save some. 23I do everything to spread the Good News and share in its blessings.

...If that is what "emerging" is then we are. (By the way, you will likely never see this passage in many of the websites that attack us...it just shoots too many holes in their theology)

However, when we talk about being an Emergent Church or not, the question has to become "Do we agree with the teaching of the most visible Emergent leaders?" The answer is no. Emergence began a movement and that movement has continued. We share commonalities like loving people, engaging culture, and being a church that is relevant in today's world. We have common ground in caring for the creation and paying attention to issues that are hurting people around the world. We are united in our work to repair broken and rejected people from traditional church mindsets and bringing the gospel back into the places that the church has abandoned.

But...we also part company at a very specific point. The Emergent movement has begun teaching a theology and a gospel that everyone, despite your faith, belief, or trust in a Savior is forgiven and heaven bound. In older circles it is called universalism and it is not consistent with what the Bible teaches. The Bible says that God loves us all and that His desire is for all to have a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. But it is also emphatic that this relationship can only come when we recognize our need for a Savior, that we ask to be forgiven for our disobedience to His ways (that's sin for the fundamentalists reading today), that we believe that Jesus was God's son, He did walk this Earth, He was crucified and killed so we could be forgiven, and He did rise from the dead 3 days after his burial from the crucifixion. He is our hero and our savior.

We are surrounded in our city by modern day pharisees that know enough about the Bible and religion to be dangerous. Their goal is to insult, judge, and hurt others while elevating themselves to a position of purity and authority. They use the Bible out of context and devoid of any period cultural analysis to understand what is meant and not simply what is said. Many at Journey have been hurt by them or are giving the church one more chance to see if we are any different or if we are giving hope for hurting people.

Well, that's enough for now. We will continue to work unashamed and un-detoured from our mission to lead others to a growing relationship with Jesus Christ by Loving God, Loving People...Period.

Decompression...

It's Sunday night and I'm sitting in my overstuffed chair icing my foot. It was a great day and our volunteers outdid themselves. We had setback after setback to contend with as we faced the issue that there is a villain the story God is telling. Some of the things we dealt with were...

-Of course my wreck which ended up being an incredible blessing. Still sore and unable to help with most of the setup but volunteers stepped up and did a great job. Mike and I had to make sure we didn't get our canes mixed up
-Our lead vocalist bailed at noon yesterday and we had to cancel the big opener we planned. Daniel and Don did a great job filling in.
-Josh got popped in the eye putting banners up, thankfully he was okay
-Steve did a great job on sound even though he was absolutely miserable from allergies
-David was still recovering from stuff he's been sick with for over a week.
-We blew a breaker during rehearsal, don't know where that came from
-Norris was sleeping between jobs from the crud he had, as least that's the story he's telling and he's sticking with it :)

But despite the setbacks, we had one of the best worship experiences yet. I'm convinced that all of these things were a direct result of the topic for the day. We were talking about the battles that we deal with because there is a villain in the story that is consistently attempting to draw our attention away from God. He is the father of lies and distractions but we saw through it, got to work, and supported each other. We could engage the enemy and be victorious with the power of God through Jesus Christ. Some of the great things that happened...

-The band was tight and sounded the best so far. Daniel and Don were able to learn the vocals for the set
-Kim and Don did a great job drawing our attention to the need to care for the world through supporting the poor and recycling our waste.
-Coffee was ready on time for the first time! Way to go Carol.
-The auditorium was set up in a record hour and a half. The crew is really getting it down
-The band pitched in and got everything moved into the theater from the trailers
-KidMo knocked it out of the park for the second week in a row I'm told. I may just ditch the message next week and go to KidMo, too.
-Kelly, Jason, Richard, and David (probably more that left before I got there) had all the trailers loaded in 45 minutes from the end of the worship experience....INCREDIBLE!
-I felt great about the message. After all, I've been living it for the last few months and apparently I'm not the only one.
-We had some new volunteers in Journey Kidz!
-Charlie did a great job with ProPresenter and is going to begin infusing us with creativity. Check out his blog at www.charliegann.com
-It becomes more evident every week that everyone who is part of Journey is stoked about our vision to love God and love people

I can't wait for next week when we talk about the hero entering the story. I'm beat tonight and will be taking it easy for the rest of the night and most of the week. I'll hopefully get the knee brace off this week but my stylish orthopedic boot will take a while longer. I am definitely getting used to this and wouldn't trade places with anyone, anywhere.

Built Ford Tough...

For all of the guys out there who love pics of wrecks, I walked away from this with only a few stitches.  Miracles do happen and I have the pictures to prove it.

I believe in Ford Trucks.  They know how to make one safe.  I hit a bridge pier going somewhere around 50 mph.  I'm not sure how fast, I was focusing on avoiding as much injury as possible.  I didn't have a chance to check the speedometer as I went over the embankment.

I couldn't pass up this picture.  Apparently a few calls were made.  I can't imagine why.  I walked away with a few stitches and bruises.  Well actually carried away by the paramedics.  I don't think they appreciated the 150' climb up the embankment but they took great care of me.  In 3 weeks we are going to be celebrating everyday heroes.  These guys are definitely my heroes.

If you look real close, the wheel is at about a 90 degree angle from where it should be.  When the guys got my stuff out of the truck, my phone had flown into pieces.  The battery was stuck in the sun visor and the phone and battery compartment were somewhere else.  When they put it together  and turned it on, it worked like nothing had happened.  I love Blackberry's.  Now if you'll excuse me, I'm out to buy a Ford F-350...definitely "Built Ford Tough".

Amen, I'm Alive!

I'm living the chorus of Nickleback's If Everyone Cared, Amen I'm Alive! My day job was to deliver railroad trucks around the country.  Yesterday I was headed to Clinton, SC on my shortest trip to date and somewhere around Athen's Georgia, I went off the road and over a 150' embankment. Bottom line for yesterday is that I shouldn't be here today.  No one can believe I was able to get out of the truck. All I can say is Amen, I'm Alive.  For whatever reason, God spared my life for something. He is a great God even if I didn't make it.  But I am very thankful he let me live this part of the Journey a little longer.  I'll blog more about this later and share the details this Sunday.  Thanks for your prayers for us and my family.  All I wanted to do yesterday was to get back to the kids. Love you guys.

Journey is no doubt a Mega-Church!

Coming up in traditional church structures, large churches that had over 2,000 people were called mega-churches and they became the measuring stick for a church to be "successful". Numbers were everything and "ministerial estimates" of attendance closely resembled fishing stories because they rarely lived up to the hype. I gave up trying to start a megachurch a long time ago, but I think Journey is one after all.

You see, the concept of "churches" is not exactly biblical. THE church designated a group of people that followed Jesus Christ and did life together in faith communities around the known world. In other words, church was made up of people, not out of bricks, siding, or steeples.

Since it's made up of people, I think we have some of the best mega-people out there willing to give their time and talents to create something they don't get paid for, don't get recognized enough for, but do it each week. The set up crew gets to the theater around 6 to start setting everything up, the kids and lobby volunteers start showing up around 8 to create a welcoming environment for guests and children, the band practices together, and several people help with administrative tasks throughout the week. People make up the church and they make all the difference

We may not have 2000 people attending Journey, but we are definitely a megachurch! I am thankful to be a part of it.

Ready, Set, Launch...

It's hard to believe that our launch day has come and gone. The months of prep time and years of development to plan for a day that we thought would never get here finally arrived. When we were getting the trailers out of the warehouse, I looked back at them and it finally hit me....this is it. We've been in this same position 3 times before with our preview services but it wasn't the same. Two trucks, two trailers, ready to start on a Journey. What imagery!

We had a great day kicking off "Epic". It was Easter, which is always fantastic, everything was in place. Deidra and Christina launched KidMo in our kid's theater and had a blast! Land of a Thousand Hills coffee was fantastic, and Sound Method nailed the songs we put together.

Josh put together an amazing set of graphics for the series that will be unveiled each week and they looked great on screen. Gene put together another incredible video for us. I couldn't believe the music, the video, and the images of Jesus on the cross. He knocked it out of the park after putting in over 20 hours on the project. If we can, we'll post it on our site.

One of the most exciting things to me was the interaction we're having with each other. It's our goal to become a community doing life together. At first we are all strangers, but now we are in the room talking to each other. Very cool. But the best part? We get to do this again in 1 week! I love it!

Blogging 101

Alright, so I'm not the most popular blogger on the net.  Just take a look at my site meter.  But, I have been reading a lot of blogs over the last few weeks and as inexperienced a blogger as I am, I find myself wondering about the first rule of blogging.....who's your audience.

There are some very cool ways to blog today, some rebellious, and some just outright funny.  But I often find myself wondering who we are writing to.  If it is just to ourselves like some kind of diary, all you need is a notebook or word processing program.  You certainly don't have to post it on the internet for everyone to see.  If it is to someone in particular, who is it exactly. 

If we really take a long look at who we are blogging to, how are we coming across? What are they hearing? And what responsibility do we take in the help or damage our words do? For me, the first rule of blogging is to know your audience and write to them.

It's Like Hanging Windows

I spent the day, today, helping my father-in-law hang windows in the log house they're building.  Let me say first, that I've hung windows before but it's been a while and never before in a log home where chainsaws are needed for adjustments :( .  We started around 8:30 this morning with the first one.  Around 10:30 we realized that something just wasn't right.  A seasoned carpenter would have noticed that around 8:32, but for us it was 10:30.  We worked and shifted, retried and tried again, cut and hammered, figured and measured, and finally got out the sawsall.  Another hour went by and the solution to our problem just appeared.  The window was in and we started on the second.  An hour later, it was in.  On to the third.  30 minutes and it was in, too.  Now that we had hit our groove, it was quitin' time. 

I've been working in churches for the last 18 years and pastored for the last 8.  Until now, every church I had worked in had systems, staff, and volunteers already in place.  They may not be the most effective or efficient, but they kept the church running.  When we started planning for Journey's launch nine months ago, we started with no money, no staff, no volunteers, and no systems.  Marketing was completely on us as well as graphic design.  Everything seemed to take forever to get down.  In fact, our first business cards took a month to finish.

The first wave of planning always took an immense amount of time and work.  Then things began to work faster.  We started putting systems in place that made things run smoother.  People started plugging into volunteer positions working hard and working smart.  I won't say we're on to the third window yet, but the second is about finished. 

I hope we don't ever hit a such a groove that everything runs itself.  Part of the adventure is figuring out what to do and how to do it.  We haven't copied any other churches or followed a plan from a church planting book.  Everything is custom made to our church and our community.  And even though it may take us some time to get in a groove, it will be the groove God designed us for. 

Thanks to everyone making Journey the adventure of a lifetime.  Loving God, Loving People...Period

Launch is almost here!

Nine months ago, I thought the official launch for Journey would never come. Journey has been over four years in the making. The last nine months have been a blur. I said goodbye to a steady paycheck almost three months ago to pursue a passion for people and to do the thing God had been preparing me to do. But, it's been worth it to put all of the pieces together to create a safe place where you could experience true community with others and true intimacy with God. I don't know if we're smart enough, talented enough, or prepared enough. I do know that the time has come and I can't wait to get started. The movement is moving, the revolution is beginning, the vision is growing. Let's go on this journey together!

Out of the closet

Well, it seems the fundamentalist Christians have found me. I've started getting hits from some fundamental sites who feel free to pick me apart. In the next few days, I'll address why some people who claim to be Christians seem to be so angry and so off target. As we saw last weekend, most of the people attending have been affected by Christians and churches who just don't get what Jesus was talking about. Loving God and loving people is the point of becoming a Christ-Follower. Some people need healing, some need to forgive, but all need a safe place to experience community with each other and intimacy with God. That's why Journey is here, to be a safe place for anyone from any walk of life to explore God and the claims He made in the Bible. More coming...