EL’s Dribble

Next door to the place we rent for our monthly worship are these boarding homes for many formerly homeless and persons with mental illness. And we’ve sporadically gone over and tried to find ways to love them. Honestly it’s been hard. We’re just beginning to understand [after 4+ years] what the issues are. We’ve tried different things – some things worked well and other things failed royally: clothes drives, small Bible studies, simple worship services, etc. What we’ve learned is that so many of them live very lonely existences, suffering from all of sorts of problems [some self-imposed and others just by consequence]. They live lonely existences because many of their families have rejected them, people generally don’t talk to them and they are a “forgotten” people in the system.

So what we’ve been doing [until God tells us otherwise] is that we go over, bring lunch for all of us and just hang out. We’ve been doing this off and on over the course of the last year. We ask them how they are doing, what their story is, where they are from, etc. And we ask them if they need any prayer and we pray. And that’s about it – there’s nothing fancy, we don’t stay terribly long. We just share a meal and be friends.

And what it’s done is remind us that there’s no reason to be afraid – these are people most wouldn’t talk to on the street. But they’re people just like us – who have experienced some hard moments, who are working through their struggles and are just needing a reminder that they matter in this world. The truth is that we’re all the same.

We went yesterday and had a great time in the sun, eating Chinese food and talking life. We’ve been doing it for a while, but I think we are just beginning to get why we need to be there [for both our good] and we’re slowly understanding Jesus’ heart to love the least. I got a hug from James Taylor yesterday… he said, “You guys are good people… you’re our buddies.” This is after 4+ years of knowing each other. Things don’t happen overnight. And God has used our time there to birth something in them and in us.

We got this letter today from Michelle who is a resident there:

Dear Elton and family,their friends,and their church community;

THANK-YOU!!!,very much for the fun get-together and lunch that was put on by you guys yesterday here at the Victorians Independant living community.Everybody that I talked to said that they had a good time,and to tell you “Thank-you!!!We feel very honored to have you and the prescence of GOD here every time you come and fellowship with us.Through the love of Christ,you show consideration and compassion for us-we really do appreciate this.May god bless you always,in the great work you guys(and gals) do for us and everyone your hearts “Touch”.We are truly blessed.

With love,through God, The residents of the Victorians.
ps- Great food!!! )))))))

Also posted @ ihaven.org.

From my friend David – it’s so short, I’ll just repost the whole thing… his quote and commentary. It’s very true. David’s last statement reminds me of the response the Pharisees had when this heretical Jesus guy started threatening the “institution”; they were very aware of what was at stake – per John 11:48.

As I talk to more people about our community I realize that the disconnect most often begins at this point: that church is not something you build/create, but the church is who you are.

Now this isn’t new news. It has been long talked about among many of this generation’s church planters and failed mega-church dreamers. I can hear them now, “We need to BE the church! Not DO church!” But in the end, most people still do church. I see this because many still see church as this thing you build.

It’s not necessarily all wrong in that there is an environment/ethos that each person of a church community contributes to. And that “thing” then becomes the driving force to do/build/create “church” as we know it.

Though some of that isn’t wrong, we miss something very crucial… that if church is something outside of you then that thing can easily become the “product” – the thing we produce. Whether it be the physical aspect of the building or an expansion of the organizational entity [more groups/worship services, etc.]… that becomes the thing we produce. And we miss out on why Jesus does what he does.

Jesus didn’t die on the cross for more buildings or even more worship services. He died so that the world [you, me and the person you hate] would be reunited with the one who loves and discover for themselves their need to love him back. And it’s this love relationship that begins a transformation in us that we can’t do ourselves. And that transformation within us that spurs on a transformation in others. In the end, Jesus died for you and me.

Which means that we’re the goal… we’re the destination… we’re the reason Jesus bore our shame and guilt so that we would live and live freely, fully and purposefully. You see, goals are never expendable. They’re your goals. You don’t give those up. But the means by which you get them are expendable… you use the ones that work and ditch the ones that don’t.

When the entity of church becomes the goal, the people are expendable. But if people are the goal, the entity of the church [methods/structure] is expendable. It becomes about developing people and just finding the means to get there. It’s not building the church and finding the people to get there.

Now we can go 100 ways with this from here on out… questions come up like, “Is it wrong to build buildings?” or “Why do we always veer towards putting out a product?” or “Why is this post so darn long?”

But we’ll go with one short example…

We do a Sunday worship thing once a month. That requires another post all together I know. But in anycase, lately I have had some of my leaders take turns doing the corporate teaching time. They learn how to prepare, listen for the Holy Spirit, practice their public speaking and learn how to shepherd people from that vantage point. It’s overall been very good. No outright heresy as of yet. They’ve all had very powerful things to say… and have helped people understand Jesus better. It’s not perfect and they have plenty of room to grow… but they’re doing great. I’m proud of them.

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A quote from comedian John Cleese from Monty Python fame :

“I think that the real religion is about the understanding that if we can only still our egos for a few seconds, we might have a chance of experiencing something that is divine in nature. But in order to do that, we have to slice away at our egos and try to get them down to a manageable size, and then still work some practiced light meditation. So real religion is about reducing our egos, whereas all the churches are interested in is egotistical activities, like getting as many members and raising as much money and becoming as important and high-profile and influential as possible. All of which are egotistical attitudes. So how can you have an egotistical organization trying to teach a non-egotistical ideal? It makes no sense, unless you regard religion as crowd control. What I think most organized religion—simply crowd control.”

I rarely do a lot of ranting via the blog – and God has slowly worked down a lot of bitterness in me. So this is not so much a rant against the church, but an acknowledgment that the world sees the disconnect between the message and the method [medium]. We think we can use whatever means to communicate the Gospel… as long as it goes out. But our method is contradicting our message and everyone knows it.

It’s in line with what John says in his Gospel that the Word was God… the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us [1:1,14]. Jesus wasn’t just communicating a message – he was the message. He embodied the message – how he lived, who he was, his identity, his purpose, his being was as much the message as the words that came out of his mouth.

We need to recognize how our method is contradicting our message… and begin to repent and reform.

There are these houses right next to the place that we rent for our monthly worship gatherings. They are boarding houses that cater to mentally impaired adults that fall between the systemic cracks. Not dysfunctional enough to be hospitalized. Not functional enough to be integrated in society.

We’ve been next door to the houses for almost 4 years and have gotten to know a lot of the people. It hasn’t been easy… their range of ailments span widely… schizophrenia, depression, bi-polar, brain damage, psd, prolonged drug/alcohol abuse, etc. – everyone is on some more form of medication. And it hasn’t been easy to connect or love them. The truth is that I think we’re getting over the dirtiness… the smell… the ingrained suburban value that the reason you work hard is to avoid people like this… and getting over taking the easy route of just giving money and withholding the human touch.

I think the biggest struggle for our community when it comes to connecting with our neighbors is being open to integrating our lives with theirs. They aren’t charity cases… they aren’t projects for us to complete. They are people and they like everyone else are dying for someone to acknowledge that their existence in this world matters. That they aren’t alone… that someone cares.

There’s two people named Snappy and Mona. They are good friends and likely 15-20 years apart in age. And they’ve been faithfully coming to our worship times for the past few years… with no one to remind them that it’s on the 3rd Sunday. In this realm they are far more committed than some of our more “functional” people.

Snappy asked me last Sunday, “When are we going to go out to lunch? I owe you lunch!” We did lunch once before and had burritos and he was bent on going back to the same place. It’s got good memories apparently. We go and Snappy asks me politely whether Mona can come and we head over to Super Tacqueria for lengua burritos. That particular day was really packed… I was meeting with several disciple groups, doing some training and preparing for pre-marital counseling. Lots of “work” that day.

But as I was sitting in the sun with Snappy and Mona, two people who may never quite fit into the “brilliant” church structure that I’ve created, I was reminded that I was eating with two of my friends. They enjoyed my company and I enjoyed theirs. They didn’t need anything from me other than me. And I couldn’t expect anything from them other than just them. And I realized that that was enough. They remind me that it’s not always about “getting it done”. They remind me that there’s a human level to everything that gets missed when we’re always functioning on the business side of life. I’m reminded that Jesus doesn’t love me any more and Jesus does love them any less. And that the Gospel makes more sense when we have friends who are physically poor and we can recognize our common inability/desperation/incompetence in life.

Every time Snappy is in my car… he leaves a “residue” on my seat. I really don’t care to guess what it is and it kinda smells. But hey, we’re friends and friends can clean up after each other and look forward to the next burrito date.

“Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: ‘What does his voice sound like? What games does he like best? Does he collect butterflies?’. They ask: ‘How old is he? How many brothers does he have? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?’ Only then do they think they know him.”
The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I talk to a lot of people about our community and the churchier people always ask about numbers. And then ask very little after that. It’s always a race to get more in the door… and not a look at what “more” really is. Many a prophet [Leonard Sweet, Reggie McNeal, etc] have talked about changing the metrics of church and church planting… “measuring” the important things that reflect transformation not accumulation.

I had to explain to my boss what was getting me excited lately… things that reflect the right kind of growth. Lisa and Serg have been in our community for a long time and have been leading a house church for quite some time. They were good and faithful leaders, but have struggled at times and were surely learning on the job [that's intentional]. But over the course of the last few years, they along with myself have realized that they have a discernable passion for high school students. And as I began to notice it more I wondered, “Why the heck are they leading a group full of their peers. It ought to be high school kids!”

Lisa and Serg helped at a youth retreat recently discovering yet again that the passion in them for students wasn’t arbitrary, but certainly God-planted. So when Lisa returned she prayed how she might move out among her students to bring Jesus to them. Through prayer, she was led to 5 students – 2 of whom do not know Jesus. She asked all 5 students if they wanted to meet up to study the Bible together and all of them gave a resounding ‘yes’. They’ll start it up at McDonald’s this Saturday.

During the retreat Serg had a great connection with one student and made a very tangible impact in his life. The student returned back to school and after a week, told Lisa and Serg that he had 3 classmates who didn’t know Jesus but were interested in learning more. And he asked them what he was supposed to do now and Serg is now discipling this student to continue to bring the Gospel to his classmates.

I realize that I can’t count any of these people as “members” of Haven. And I don’t want to. It doesn’t work all to well with the traditional metrics of church planting. And the truth is that Lisa and Serg likely needed to grow in certain areas of their lives before they were able to get to this point. It’s hard to “measure” their growth over the course of the last few years… numbers don’t reflect that either. But it’s their growth as lovers and followers of Jesus that precipitated God placing them in the right place with the right heart to begin transformational movement among people that they have true passion for. Either way… numbers don’t reflect that.

I have had to wrestle away the importance of numbers in my own spirit. Wrestle away my need to base my value/significance on the numbers. And relearn what it means to see the important things… about people and about community. And begin to live it even when my spirit screams otherwise.

I realize that my little church planting experiment has done more for me than any one else… but I’m glad some of what I’m learning is rubbing off on the people who are coming along for the ride.

I might as well just feed David Watson stuff into this blog and then call it a day. I was asked by a few of my ardent subscribers [2?] to write more on leadership and everytime I read Watson’s blog on leadership it just encapsulates exactly what I’d want to say. So why not just copy it?

The big thrust is this – management over leadership. As I reflect on reading many leadership books, listening to countless diatribes on leadership, I find that most of them have to do with managing. Managing resources and people to get the objectified yet “spiritualized” goal of either church planting or church growth.

And I realize the questions that divides the two is this: are we developing people or developing the organization? And I haven’t found many who’s heart is to truly develop people at the expense of the organization. Because the truth is that there will be plenty of moments where we must choose one over the other. They are not one in the same. But that already begs a lot of different questions that this posting wasn’t meant for in the first place.

Another way of communicating this:

Manager –>> Uses People [incl. other Resources] –>> Develop/Build Churches

OR

Leader –>> Uses Churches [Structure/Money/Vision] –>> Develop/Build People

Is the goal church or people? That’s a big difference. David Watson fleshes this out more… I’ve had a few people read this and immediately realize that they’ve been managers and not leaders all along. Take a read:

What Makes a Great Leader?

As I begin this new series on Leadership, I want to orient us towards a biblical understanding of leadership.  Most of us have spent a lifetime studying leadership.  We have read all the secular and religious leadership and management books we can get our hands on.  We have attended the conferences and seminars, and some of us have led conferences or seminars on leadership.  Many of us have degrees that include elements of management and/or leadership.  Our ministries are about developing leaders, and we are serious about our coaching and mentoring skills.

With all this information, why is it that there is a dearth of good leaders, much less, great leaders, in the in the world – whether we are looking at government, business, non-profits, or ministry.  Understand, I am not talking about management, I’m talking about leadership.   For many, there is little difference between management and leadership.  Both involve people.  Both are about reaching objectives. But the focus is very different.  Management requires some leadership skills, and leadership certainly requires some management skills.

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I hesitate to write those two words because those are specific to church people… and not just any church people, but church leaders describing organizational process. In anycase, if you fit into that category… then here’s an interesting article with Neil Cole and Ed Young, two leaders who sit on the opposite extreme of the missional/attractional spectrum.

The article says, “The contrasts between Young and Cole are striking: extrovert and introvert, megachurch and microchurch, centralized and decentralized. But what’s surprising is what these two leaders share in common.” When I read the interview… I can’t think of one thing that the two guys have in common. As a house church guy, I find Young’s answers ridiculous especially as they compare and contrast them in the interview. I’m not a big fan of blogging about church methodology, but thought this article was interesting.

Coming and Going
Two leaders. One mission. Two very different strategies.
a Leadership interview

Monday, November 24, 2008

Observing Neil Cole and Ed Young Jr. is a study in contrasts. The soft-spoken Cole quietly entered the vacant sanctuary where we were meeting. He lingered in the back for a while before anyone realized he had arrived. By contrast, Young burst into the room with a shout—every head turned. The sanctuary was immediately electrified.

Their contrasting personalities are paired with very different approaches to ministry. Ed Young Jr. is senior pastor of Fellowship Church, a seeker-driven congregation that began in Dallas in 1990. After surpassing 20,000 in weekly attendance, Fellowship Church is still growing with a highly structured multi-site model that uses video broadcasts of Young’s sermons. The megachurch now has four locations in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and recently launched its fifth campus in Miami, Florida.

Neil Cole is a pastor and the director of Church Multiplication Associates (CMA), a “growing family of organic church networks.” Cole advocates a decentralized, micro-church strategy to reach the growing number of people who will never be attracted to a worship service. CMA began in 1990, the same year as Young’s Fellowship Church. In that time, Cole’s network has launched hundreds of churches in homes and coffeeshops across forty states and thirty countries.

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I love this movie. This might be to offset Henri Nouwen, but I think it analogizes how many of us buy into a lie about ourselves and never really live to our full potential. We need to stop believing in the lie and boldly live out who we are… without sticking knives in our legs.

Photo courtesy of Z is for Zoe

So I spoke at a retreat a few months ago and shared on simple ways to love the people around us. I had shared how I brought a pie over to a neighbor and endured a long 4 seconds of silence. The kind where you look at each other and wonder whether someone had pressed pause so as to enjoy the awkward moment just a little bit longer. The awkwardness stemming maybe from the fact that rarely do people really do anything for anybody with no strings attached. But we ended up developing a friendship and it’s good to connect with more of my neighbors.

Well this one guy came up to me during the retreat and shared that he felt like God was telling him to buy a pizza for his neighbor. He said he never talks to his neighbors and they were the kind of people his momma wouldn’t even want him to be around – chain smoking, fully tattoo’d up, the look of trouble.

I saw him tonite at Warren’s show [Phonofield] and he told me that he followed through on what God was telling him to do. But instead of the pizza, he brought over a box of Marlboro’s. Unopened, still shrink wrapped. He wanted it to be as “natural” as possible. So he bought himself some smokes, mosied on over… started talking, pushed his tongue a little harder… and said something like, “I had an extra box of cigarettes… thought I’d give ‘em to ya.”

The neighbor looked at him a little funny but took them and said, “I normally smoke Marlboro lights.” My friend felt a little bad that he got the wrong ones, but nevertheless was glad that he followed through. A few days later he came out of his house ready to get into his car and he noticed that his car was wet. He looked around, saw his neighbor across the street. They came up to him and said, “We had extra soap and water from washing our cars so we washed your car too.” And now each morning his neighbor gives him a little peace sign as he drives off.

Before this whole thing he had no excuse, no natural connection… and every reason to stay across the street, mind his own business, hold on to the bit of fear that keeps 97% of us from crossing the street, taking risks, building bridges. I’ve been reminded often that we don’t always need to get it right… we need to get over ourselves and have a willingness to step out, and just follow Jesus simply.