The time I spent in Peru as the son of missionaries has definitely had an impact on my concept of home. During the ten years I spent there, our family moved eight times. One of those times we moved from a beautiful four bedroom home to a one-bedroom apartment where we lived for ten months. My bed was located under the breakfast table.
Despite all the moves, I always felt like we were home because we were together as family.
It was right around the time our family finally found a permanent home that it was my turn to graduate from school and move back to the U.S. for college. Figures. I remember standing in the Jorge Chavez International Airport saying my goodbyes, and moments before I boarded the plane my dad gave me $120 and told me that was all he had to give me. He told me I’d have to trust God, because that was the truest inheritance he had given me - a faith in a good God. I had no real concept of “American money” back then and figured $120 could last me several months up here.
When I moved back to the U.S. in 1996, I had a similar nomadic experience where home was concerned. I moved seven times in the first three years of my return, yet this time I felt alone through the process. It wasn’t until I got married in 1999 that I finally felt home again, and it wasn’t because we had a place of our own, but because I was with my best friend and love of my life, Stephanie. Because my concept of home has less to do with location or infrastructure and more to do with who I am with and those who surround me.
***
I wonder if all of these life experiences were a purposed conditioning of sorts. Because the past year of church planting has brought many of these times back to mind. In the past seven months our team has visited ten churches and gathered for worship ten times hopping between three different locations. And my office has been the breakfast table.
In the process of planting a church together as a team I have watched this highly unlikely group of people go from being friends to being church family.
Last Sunday we had our last preview service. In the car on the return home my wife looked at me and said, “I finally felt like I was home.”
She was right. It felt like we had come home. It felt like all the travels and moves had come to a end and all the journeying had been worth it. It gave us stories, relational history, and memories together. The people, now friends and church family, those who surrounded us that morning had made the moment home.
On September 13 we open our home for others to come. And I can’t wait!
[Our church, Bloom, opens to the public on Sunday September 13 at Central High School in St Paul, MN. We gather at 10:30am as an unlikely group of friends who now has become family.]
You know, those times when doubt flashes through your mind about whether or not the moment you’re living in is actually true. The times when you feel like the quick flash of pain that a pinch delivers will ground you and confirm the moment is, in fact, real.
Tonight I had a pinch-yourself moment as I sat on the deck of my home enjoying some good Peruvian food with Dr. John Cionca. This man is the real deal. He is a legend around these northern regions, and surely respected all over. I first heard about John through a book of letters he edited and wrote entitled “Dear Pastor.” I first read it two years ago when I was on vacation. It was one of those books that reads you, instead of the other way around.
I won’t bore anyone with the series of events that led to him accepting our invitation for dinner. Instead, let me just say that I was pretty nervous about the whole evening.
Even though I put a pen and notepad by my place setting I didn’t write a single thing down tonight. Our conversation never strayed toward the nitty gritty of church methodology, church growth or the like. Instead, it was one of the most comfortable conversations I’ve had in as long as I can remember.
I learned tonight from a man who seems to know nearly all there is to know about church, what the heart of a pastor looks like. Not one filled with knowledge and information (not saying there is anything wrong with that) as much as one filled with genuine interest and sincere caring. From the time he walked in, he was completely at ease. Peaceful. Big smile. He talked briefly with my daughters. Asked about how my eldest lost her front teeth. He chatted with me as I served up our food. He made me feel at home in my own home.
And our conversation was amazing. Whereas I thought I’d ask him questions particular to church governance, doctrine and other matters, we instead talked about my years as a missionary kid, my years in ministry and my hopes for our new church plant. He turned the tables on me and got me to open up my heart. And he listened. I’m still amazed.
More valuable than any tidbit he could have left me, was the gift of demonstrating the pastoral art of breaking bread with another person in their home.
I feel like I dined with Jesus. I’ve always imagined Jesus enjoying dinner with his disciples and friends. I’ve always imagined him laughing and engaging conversation, sharing wise insights in a way that the commoner would understand.
Thank you, John.
***
Is the art of table fellowship lost?
Are we too busy as a society to find time to invite people into our homes for a meal?
What stops us from inviting people over or accepting people’s invitations?
Over lunch today, some of us from the Bloom team were reading through a few of the cards from Foodie Fight, a trivia game for people who love food. We were transitioning out of a three hour meeting that was heavy on operational tasks relating to church planting and moving into a creative meeting. We needed a palette cleanse for the brain. It worked!
One of the the cards read:
True or False: Mexican avocado growers sometimes “store” their crop on the tree for up to a year.
Answer: True (Avocados normally ripen only after they’ve been picked.)
Ripen after being picked…
Avocados.
Perhaps people, too?
This past weekend my friend Shannon opened our third soft launch service with a welcome and a bit of her story. This is no small deal. Shannon wasn’t into church. She didn’t go to church. She wasn’t a fan of church. In fact, she shared that she always felt judged at church, never loved. So she stayed away.
It seems like just yesterday that I had a conversation with her on my deck. I told Shannon I’d love to have her on our team. In essence, we “picked her” to come help us. I think she was shocked that we’d want her on our team since she wasn’t into church. Some might even say she was green.
The person who I talked with on the deck and the person who opened the service yesterday is the same person - just totally different. Shannon is still Shannon, but she has identified with the cause we stand for. Thus, she is not coming to church, Shannon now is the church.
She stood up there, poised, authentic and comfortable, and she shared what this young community had done for her. And she was ready.
***
Are people more like avocados? Do they need to be picked to play a meaningful role in church for them to ripen?
Are our churches like Mexican avocado trees, “stored up” with fruit that just needs to be picked for it to ripen?
And one of the biggest issues we’ve come to recognize is similar to what Luther found – there’s a structure, organization, and philosophy that discourages and hinders, if not prevents, the involvement and collaboration of everyday people in the most important parts of church and ministry.
Too often it seems like church ends up being all about place and not enough about people. – Page 127
At Bloom’s first soft launch service I took pictures. That was it. I sat in the middle of the crowd and watched as everyday people led a gathering that I will never forget. I find one of the most beautiful things about church to be the moments when unlikely people have so identified themselves with the church – not institutional, but church spiritual – that they allow what God has put in them to bloom.
The blurring of lines and the upending of traditional walls has happened in each generation and will only increase in this one. It’s really about learning to flow. Following the Jesus way of doing things. Just as in John 1, when we see the Son of God becoming man, the God of the universe allowing us to touch, smell, and see him, the living God. The work isn’t the key thing as much as who we are. The work changes depending on the situation. Our calling remains the same: to glorify God by learning to flow with him. Our forms and styles will be varied and beautifully diverse. – Page 146
I’m glad we are opening up to more varied forms and styles that are “beautifully diverse.” One size will not fit all. One church cannot reach everybody in a city. With Bloom, who we are has become far more important to me than what we do. We’re all about creating opportunities for people the experience the grace of God. For that to be a reality, we have to be graceful. And where sin abounds, grace abounds even more.
Collaboration regurlarly takes place in the business world like it never has before…The level, the degree, and the nature of collaboration are changing so rapidly. For us in the church, this is yet another major concern, because collaboration is something we’ve never really understood or done well. – Page 150
I find great encouragement in the fact that we have experienced an enormous amount of collaboration during this church planting season. From Jeremiah Curran at Westbridge, to Jeremy Scheller at Sanctuary, to Peter Haas from Substance, Scott Hodge from The Orchard, Buddy Winn and others from Living Word, Daniel Konold from Solomon’s Porch, the ARC, the guys from Mission St Paul - the fourother church planters we’ve met going into St Paul – the open handedness has been over the top. Our hope now is for this collaboration to translate into our community. Can we be this open handed with local non-profits and community organizations that are not Christian and who are doing remarkable things? Can the collaboration extend into networks formed outside of the church? I’m hopeful it can.
When we were launching NewSong, I’d heard about all these burned-out church-planters. They’re entrepreneurs, right? They’re starting new churches, they’re working like dogs, and they’re killing their families. I just went to the Lord and said, “God, I can’t do that. I don’t know if you want that of me – to burn out for you. But that just doesn’t make sense to me.” I struggled with that whole thing. It’s about burning on, not burning out. – Page 160
I resonate. The “doer” in me is bent on burning out. The “just be” in me beckons a healthy life rhythm. I’m not quite there yet, but I am determined to rest and be in peace throughout this season and all seasons of my life. I am not God’s gift to the earth – Jesus was and is. I take myself entirely too seriously when I take on the burden of having to change the world. I get to be part of the process, in which millions of outstanding people are engaged.
I was secretly hoping I could be a pastor without ever having to do a funeral or memorial service. I’m an emotional person - the kind that mimics people’s facial expressions when they tell riveting stories - and the thought of having to do a service under such sad circumstances kind of freaked me out a bit. I’d always imagined myself sobbing uncontrollably behind the pulpit, as surviving family members comfort ME.
But earlier this week I was asked to do a memorial service for the daughter of a young couple who I met a little more than two months ago in the hospital, when I went to pray for their newborn baby. She had complications during birth and was, at that time, fighting for her life. Earlier this week the baby went home to be with Jesus. The church they reached out to had a fee they could not afford, so they remembered me and my visit with them in the ICU. (Fees for funerals? Maybe that’s the standard practice, but the thought of billing grieving family makes my stomach churn. Can’t do it.)
It was hard. Unannounced punch-in-the-gut hard. My heart broke for them when I learned the tragic news. Here they were planning to raise a family, and their dreams turned to a nightmare overnight.
I never liked thinking about having to someday do a funeral, and I certainly never imagined my first memorial service would be for a beautiful ten-week-old baby girl. But today I was blown away by the strength I saw in this young couple as they were surrounded by their friends and family. In a jammed-packed, people-standing-in-the hallways memorial service, I was able to be a part of their healing process. What an honor. The outpouring of love and support I saw there was amazing to witness. And today, I felt a part of their community. I felt like a friend, a family member even.
***
Turning away from people during their times of pain may seem like the safe route. It’s a lot more comfortable. But turning toward people in their time of pain and being fully present with them in the moment brings a deep sense of fulfillment. Don’t get me wrong, today was very sad. But in one of the many paradoxes of life, it made me very glad that I got to be a part of people surrounding one another and hurting while others hurt, and comforting each other. To give them beauty for ashes. This is what the prophet Isaiah spoke of in regards to Jesus. Today, I got to witness Jesus in the midst of a loving assembly doing just that.
Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. - Romans 12:15
[I want to thank my father-in-law for taking the time to help me think through the message. Thanks Tim.]
I am reading an incredible book by Dave Gibbons entitled The Monkey and the Fish: Liquid Leadership for a Third-Culture Church, and I read a snippet that caused me to suddenly sit back in my chair.
The internal dialogue that was charging through me at the moment was simple. “I am not the only one!! This has happened before!!”
See, I keep telling people my story. That I was born into a Christian home, grew up on the mission field, worked at a church, was a pastor even, and THEN I fell in love with Jesus. It seems backwards, I know, because I suppose that it is. But it is what it is. I have always loved Jesus, because he was like family. A good uncle, pretty much. But I had never fallen in love with Jesus until I came to understand what grace is. Not the “grace period” that I once thought it was, but as Brennan Manning describes it, the furious longing of God… for me.
When I came to understand that, I fell in love. And as people in love tend to do, I began saying crazy things like, “Wherever you go, I’m going with you.” “Whatever you want me to do, just say the word.”
That’s why I’m planting a church. The one I love asked me to.
That I didn’t have this experience of falling in love with Jesus until recently is no reflection upon the way I was raised or those who mentored me. Now, looking back, I can think of countless ways I experienced the grace of God, never realizing it for what – or who – it was. Somehow, someway, I simply did not understand grace. I’ll take full credit for being dense. Grace surrounded me all those years and I didn’t get it until early last spring, when I had a similar experience to the one described here.
[Excerpt from transcript of a roundtable discussion recorded in The Monkey and the Fish. My own commentary is in parentheses.]
“I lived twenty years as a missionary kid (I lived only ten years as one), and I was the best missionary kid around (I was not!), and yet I didn’t know Jesus Christ. But I was a Christian, because I was a missionary kid. Well, I was in seminary, and I was twenty years old (I was on staff at a church and I was 30) when I truly came to know the grace of God and actually had a conversion experience.
I was studying Greek for a summer at Fuller my last year (I read a book by Joseph Prince, then another by Brennan Manning), and I got down and I wept for three hours one night (been there) because I looked at Ephesians, and somehow God’s grace came alive, through Greek of all things. And I thought, ‘If this is true, then this is the best thing that I have heard in my entire life!’ Because I had always been performing for God (me, too). God just broke through to me (And I’m so thankful that he broke through to me, too).” -Jim Gustafson, son of missionary parents in Laos and Vietnam.
Glad to know that I’m not the first one. Even more glad to know that I won’t be the last.
I just got the heads up on this video today through twitter. At first glance, I thought it was one of those funny clips that was simply going to make me laugh. And it did. The guy in the clip is awesome. He’s froogin out like it ain’t nobody’s business. He couldn’t care less what that hillside of people thought of his moves. It was as if there was something inside of him he just had to get out.
But I stopped laughing half way through the clip. I sat and watched him in awe instead, with a smile on my face and a huge desire to congratulate this guy.
If you listen closely, at the very end a person asks almost incredulously, “How did he do that? How did he do that?”
He was unstoppable.
He just kept moving to the beat in his own way.
***
As a church planter, I have to thank this guy. I sometimes wonder what others are thinking about how we’re doing things. I sometimes wonder if I should make the same moves as the others that have gone before me. You know, like maybe square dance or a more traditional ballroom waltz. The Marcarena even.
But what is inside our team just can’t be contained. It is a desire to move in a new way, as if that is the only thing we were created to do. The beat is the same beat that has inspired followers of Christ throughout the ages; the lyrics relay the same message. It is the rhythm of God’s heartbeat that undeniably tells us we’re loved. It is in that love, and as we share that love, that we become an unstoppable force for good in this world.
How did he do this? He just kept moving, and others joined in.
I’m inspired by this man to keep moving and simply wait for others to keep joining in on the fun.
I’m not sure where I got the gut feeling that my phone call to the city of St. Paul would be a painful experience. I don’t call city offices much, if ever, and this was certainly the first time I was calling St. Paul.
Maybe it’s all of the memories from my visits to county service centers that gave me a bad feeling [shiver]. You know, the line to take a number, the number that sends you to a letter, the letter that sends you to a color.Then the long wait for your numberlettercolor (Blue76K) to be called before your lunch break expires. (This may be just a reoccurring nightmare of mine and all service centers are really like bureaucratic Jiffy Lubes – I could be wrong.)
Point is, I was expecting a complicated governmental runaround. And I was just looking to purchase a colorful neighborhood map. So, I called the clerk’s office, mostly because clerk starts with “c” and it was close to the top of the enormous phone directory, in hopes that someone could help.
Then someone answered right away. And that someone was really nice. So nice, in fact, that I wondered if I had dialed a wrong number and gotten a retail store. To make matters worse, I had indeed called the wrong office, but I was the only one who seemed to mind the mistake. Because Sherry offered to take my number, find out who could help me, and then call me back.
Had I called Nordstrom’s? I was confused.
A few minutes later, Sherry called back with the name and number of the person who could help me buy the map I was looking for. I was convinced that the incident was a fluke. No doubt this second call would bring to bare the runaround and charade of voicemails and typical call holdings.
But Terri answered and was just as nice as Sherry. She was helpful, not in a rush, and offered to send the map that very day. And then the shocker came: she offered to simply put her card in with the map and have me mail in a check once I got it and was sure I liked it.
I was baffled by how nice these two gals were. Remember, we are talking about the offices of a large metropolitan city. It only gets better from here. I got a package in the mail today from Terri with not one, but two maps, and a hand-written note. She said she noticed that the maps had printed up with a small defect and so she was giving them to me for free.
FREE. City offices. Two maps, in full color. Hand-written note. And I was never once transferred or put on hold.
***
I wonder what gut feelings people have when they think about coming to church. I wonder what memories feed those gut feelings. And I wonder if the expectations people have when they come to church are similar to the feelings I had before calling the city.
Perhaps people see church and service centers much in the same light. Do they perceive church as caring only about people as numbers? Do they sense the church categorizing them into colors or groups? Do they feel the whole process has become about a cold, impersonal exchange? Do they think they’ll have to wait until they’re perfect before they can fully connect with God? And what if all they are looking for is someone to talk to who can help?
Let’s change these perceptions. What if we give them the opposite of what they expect? Love instead of judgement. Acceptance instead of rejection. Help instead of rituals. Relationship instead of orthodoxy.God’s righetousness instead of legalistic condemnation.
What if, more importantly, I woke up everyday and purposed to shock people with kindness and became the church with generous actions?
Thank you, Terri. Your kindness was completely unexpected. I hope to do the same for others.
“Every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world and practice resurrection.” Wendell Barry
Some things are hard to put to words. Like last Thursday night, when as a proud parent I got to hear my 6 year old, who was sporting a mini-me-sized cap and gown, sing with the biggest smile ever, “How great is our God.”
[Deep Breath]
It’s hard to express the moment with words because it is equally hard to put to words the emotions of the day the doctors told us that our first pregnancy was not “viable.” Ultrasounds were pointing to a rare genetic condition that would end her short life before she was even born.
Not compatible with life.
You’re behind the eight ball.
Your wife’s body will naturally terminate the pregnancy.
She won’t make it full-term.
…The picture was grim.
I could write for the rest of my life the many lessons my daughter has taught me and continues to teach me about life, God, and pure relationship. But my thoughts today turn toward church planting because I can’t shake the echoes of our journey through Madeline’s pregnancy with the process of birthing…er, I mean… planting Bloom.
Lesson 1: “It” doesn’t have to be perfect to be loved.
The hum of the Level II ultrasound was creepy, the room was dark. We already knew something was up; we were young, but not that young. Yet, when the doctor started to refer to our baby as “it,” something went off in me. I wanted to fight.
The well-trained doctor may have recognized some deformities, discovered some chronic issues, even confirmed some suspicions, but she did not realize that we were committed to our baby, because she already had a name. Madeline. And the name is perfect.
Yes, we could see the images too. Things were twisted, not the right size, and there were holes in her heart. But she had a name, and we could see her kick and move. And that was enough for us to want to fight for her.
Bloom’s back-story is not perfect, either. In fact, I wonder if any church plant was conceived in a grove of plum trees and rainbows. Bloom was planted in dirt, then covered with manure. The manure of my own internal struggles, fears, and humanity. It was like God putting something beautiful and eternal all over again in an earthen vessel.
Besides, the economy couldn’t be worse, I could have many more years of schooling, and I could’ve maybe made every single person I knew happy if I just did this, that, or the other in the process. We’ve certainly made many mistakes already, and we haven’t even launched yet.
But our dream has a name. Bloom. And the name is perfect.
And it’s worth fighting for through every single challenge that arises. I look at the team that has assembled for this cause, and not a single one of us is perfect. No poster-kids here. We’re just a bunch of loving people who want to live, feel alive, and share life.
Lesson 2: We can’t do this alone.
Madeline’s story doesn’t belong to me. I keep reminding myself of that. It first and foremost belongs to her, because she is the inspiration behind it, fueled by the life of God in her. But the story already belongs to hundreds of others too.
Incredible people like her grandparents. These four oak-like people filled with sweet nougat filling. They prayed when things were pretty darn scary. They held our hands when things got tough. And their story is about legacy, because Madeline belongs to them too.
People like her teachers, these amazing souls who didn’t squelch our desire to believe she could do more than expected. Libby, Ginger, Andi, Chris, Linda, Trina, Kris, Lisa, Darlene, Karen, Grandma D, and Alicia. God bless every one of them. They never went the extra mile for Madeline; instead they grew wings and flew for her.
People like our friends. Dawn & Rodney, Matt & Melissa, Chuck & Joy, and many others who have been there for us throughout the years. See Madeline still has special needs, and yet I’m positive that would come as a surprise to all of our friends because they love her so much they forget that it’s there.
Which gives me hope for Bloom.
I remind myself that the story doesn’t belong to me. It first and foremost belongs to God; it’s wholly His deal. But the story already belongs to many others as well, whose lives inspire it to grow.
Incredible people like my brother Manny, who just a year ago couldn’t stand being around me. Who now calls me almost everyday to tell me he’s wholeheartedly with me on this journey.
People like our fellow pastors, Luke and Amy, who have walked the limb with us every step of the way. They laid everything down for the Bloom story, and for us.
People like our friends. We have too many to mention, but most notably the friends who have encouraged us along the way and those who have joined us on this adventure. All these friends are people who will always see Bloom through love and not performance.
And what’s more, the people who one day will join the Bloom story. We can’t do this without them either, and so I long to meet them, have coffee, and talk about what life can be like when we choose to really live.
Lesson 3:Love wins.
If there is one outstanding characteristic about Madeline, it is that she loves everyone. Her favorite thing to do is greet people, all kinds of people. She loves even when other kids reject her. In fact, she seems more determined to love in those cases.
Madeline is a life coach at age 6; she just doesn’t know it yet.
But last Thursday, as she walked the graduation stage, it hit me. Love is what did this. It is love that inspired the million acts, big and little, by the many who helped her along the way. It is ultimately God’s unyielding love for her that made that graduation day a picture perfect day.
