Group Shot

Originally uploaded by urbanplanter

Thanks to everyone for the great time at the retreat this weekend.

I’m looking forward to our first “public” gathering October 4th.

And, yes, the new location is still yet to be announced, but we’re close.

Last night we canceled our gathering as a church.

We canceled it in order to help a young girl move in a new home.

Notice I didn’t say that we canceled church. Church happened, that’s for sure. It happened in two locations, in the rain, with strong arms, a moving truck, and cleaning supplies. I find this community of mine attractive to be around. Nobody bailed when I shared at our gathering (potluck) portion that I felt we should help this girl. All helped out.

Lot’s of changes are coming down the pipe. But something happens when we gather. It is important to make the gathering important. Not because “going to church” is the end, but because something mysterious happens when we gather to worship and celebrate Jesus. Sometimes seeing Jesus in a community move a young girl into a new home is a glimpse of that mystery.

Sometimes I have conversations with people in our community that the one-on-one times and pub nights are still church for them. And to some degree I hear what they are saying. But there is something powerful about the church gathering and then acting together, with purpose.

We gathered together assuming one set of practices and ended up taking part in a bunch of others. May our church never lose our sense of adventure and service.

My buddy Joel passed this book on to me a week or so ago and with all the hype around it I decided to put down a couple other books I had been reading and jump into this one.

Basically this book is about a man named Mack who has undergone a few tragedies in his life and in a visit to one of his former tragedies he meets God (as the trinity) in a shack. He spends a weekend with them working through the pain in his life, and all the while is very real about the situation, doubting throughout the time that he is actually there.

I want to say that I did enjoy this book a lot. I found myself really connecting with the characters in an emotional way. This book is written well for Christian fiction, which has not always been the case with a lot of Christian fiction I have read. The main theme that I enjoyed throughout the whole book and one that Joel brought to life in some of the conversation at toh, was that Jesus was the perfect example of what it means to live in perfect relationship with God and that Jesus’ life is actually someones life that we can identify with and choose to pursue. That in some mysterious way we can actually have all that Jesus had and that we can do “greater things” than Him. I finished this book and in good spirits and would recommended it.

On the other side there were a few rants (I felt) from the author on how church is and run, near the end of the book. I felt actually that this could have been avoided because the story was more about this man’s healing and not about how the church in America is run. But other than that I enjoyed the book and although we still need more and better written christian fiction (that not necessarily is under the category Christian), that teaches us about God I would give this one out to a friend.

Hey everyone, more and more details are shaping up for the open house this October. We are slowly working toward a new space to meet, and Project 51 is coming on strong. We look forward to hanging out this Sunday at the usual location @ 6pm for potluck and a discussion around P51.

In light of P51 I wanted to make known to you a conference that is coming up this October. It’s called The Church and Affordable Housing Conference and it’s running October 17 & 18, 2008 put on by the Shalom Seekers. I went a couple years ago and it was awesome. I highly recommended it if you can make it out.

The costs are as follows:

$60 Regular (September 1- October 10)
$70 Late/Onsite(October 10- October 18)
$25 Student and Senior (aged 60+)

In fact, because I am not sure if I can go and I would really like a representative from the open house at the conference the church is willing to support 2 people to go together from the open house to be our advocates. This to me is P51 at work. So let me know if you want to go and I will get you set up.

The Church and Affordable Housing Conference

I picked up Alan Hirsch’s book in January and really enjoyed it. And then something happened (well I got a job) and it took a back seat. I guess my reading overall has taken a backseat (but hey I am still at 17 this year). But I really enjoyed this book. Hirsch does a great job of being very brainy and breaking down the thought process behind becoming a more incarnational church planting movement. This guy has a lot of very great thoughts and I have been making some mad notes that I hope to explore again later. Much of what he wrote in the organic systems chapter I found very helpful for our churches current transition.

I will give this a CP rating of 4.5/5 for any church planter who is going to engage an urban setting and would like a great handbook to help through the intial stages of the church planting process. I have been at it just under 3 years and I think this book could have really helped me in the initial stages.

My only critiques are two things. 1) Hirsch has to be the worst illustrator in the world. No he didn’t draw cartoons, but he might as well have because I found his illustrations quite hilarious as he attempted to make points through graphs and diagrams (no offense Alan, but I laughed out loud). 2) Sometimes (and I mean very rarely) Alan got a little too smart. I have been reading this stuff for many years and loved all his thoughts but I think the new church planter might find it a little over the top.

At the end of the day Alan is real, honest and brilliant. Read this book and while your at it, read this review by my bud Nick at symbiosis who has many other very insightful things to say.