I moved here specifically to start a church.

I moved to “The Drive” specifically because of what I had heard and what I had seen in my visits to this neighbourhood. The people in this area appeared to have a lot more social awareness and care for the community. Since our plan was always to point God out to people we met (as opposed to bring God to them) I thought what a great chance to join in with these people and work together. And perhaps, in some mysterious way, start a church in the process.

But I learned something about myself along the way.

I learned that I wasn’t as socially aware as I thought myself to be. My false self was the most socially active person you had ever met and was very caring for others in all ways possible. Of course my real self never lived up to that expectation.

Sure I did a few things here and there, but my real self could never live up to the hype my false self created. I kind of picture it like someone meeting someone else for the first time after learning about them exclusively from their facebook profile.

I could go off on a tangent and give you all examples of how the perception of Commercial Drive was pretty false as well, but i’ll keep this post personal for now.

If I was to do it over again, I would have done a lot more work on myself. More work figuring out who I truly was and not assume I was the person I posted on my facebook profile. And I would have done that work before I moved here and chose a place to start a church. I think I actually chose the place the represented my ideal self and not who I actually was. (Not that you can’t go to a place with people different from you, but I thought they were the same and they weren’t, hence my dilemma). Even now as my wife and I dream about a business we might want to start one day, I am happy I have begun to do the work on myself. I have begun to see who I really am and know myself.

If you really looked deep into yourself, do you truly know the difference between who you think you are and who you really are?

I am starting to get there…

…and its painful.

But there are some choices after that day that I sometimes do.

I wonder what University would have been like if I didn’t spend most of my time running a Christian Ministry. And then I wonder where I would be in life if I didn’t go to Seminary for another 3 years. And now I look back and think about a life that didn’t involve 5 years of starting and pastoring a church.

That is about 8 years of full-time commitment to Christian work and another chunk of free time devoted in University.

Sometimes I wonder if I wasted my time. Sometimes I regret it. Sometimes I wonder whether it was worth it.

Seems like a lot of time to devote to something that ultimately I think has almost entirely lost its purpose and in many cases, usefulness… not Christianity, but the work part.

I used to be a pastor in this city. I was the pastor of a church I started in a city in which I really knew no one before moving here.

This creates a dilemma…

…most of the friends I made were a part of the church.

Not sure if I am making sense, but I find it hard now to transition back…

…back to friends and not “people I am pastoring.” I am sure they would say they don’t see the issue, but I struggle with it at times.

I feel like I am living in a beautiful city with no friends.

I think this is a dilemma many pastors/ church planters have but do not admit it due to the worry that they might offend someone.

This is only a thought… but it feels real.

Sometimes I think moving to a new city will solve this problem. (no offense)

I am not sure this is a good reason to move.

Mike and Mary Anne finish the job on time but forget to create a way out. The amount of time it would take to get out would put them over time so in essence they failed. All seems to be for not, especially when you think that they will probably never get a job again, when the town comes up with the idea to use the steam shovel as the new furnace in the town hall and allow Mike Mulligan to be the new janitor of the town hall. A sort of evolution, I guess, into a new role and purpose.

I feel much in the same way as Mike. I felt like at one point I was in a role that was relevant and I could really stretch my wings, but somewhere along the line there was no more need of the steam shovels and I could either die slowly, or re-invent myself. Today I feel like I have re-invented myself, even if what I am becoming is not clear yet. But I now ponder that former role I had and wonder its relevance today. I am not sure which metaphor to use here, but we will always need holes; perhaps the way to dig them will continually change and evolve but I am not too sure I know what the new shovel will look like.

But what I am sure is that I still haven’t seen it.

Not sure where I am going with this thought, so I will try to be brief and concise. (okay maybe just concise)

Recently, I received a number of emails (a sort of spam I suppose), inviting me to new church/ christian events/ church plants and the sort and something shocked me about all of these emails/ facebook invites and so on. Nothing has changed since I first arrived here 5 years ago! All of the invites are exactly the same as they were then, with the names and dates changed. To be honest it depressed me. All had the same focus, theology and purpose. I suddenly realized how slow christians progress in this world, and how slow we are to learn from what we’ve done.

This has made me approach entering back into ministry a lot more slowly. I don’t want to jump back in and keep doing the same old stuff over and over again. (And in my opinion it’s that “stuff” that has lead to much of our impotence over the past year). Again, this thought is incomplete, but I am hoping to work it out with everyone this Sunday as we engage and try to address our real needs in community and not our made up fake ones.

I guess what I am saying is that there is a huge disconnect between who we think we are and who we actually are. And this false living is what keeps our churches from progressing. We keep doing the same stuff because no one is being honest (or perhaps they can’t) about what they really need. Therefore all that changes (over 5 years) is the model and none of the heart stuff. And seriously who would blame ABC church, especially when their “people” tell them they still need Worship music, Preaching and more information concerning apologetics.

But it’s my guess they (I) don’t really need this.

But they think they (I) do.

Or rather, they (I) believe they (I) do.

Please people, let us be honest with ourselves and try to be more self aware. If you say that preaching is really important to your life and you haven’t listened to a sermon, read a book on the topic or attended a church, then you’re lying to yourself.

If you think worship music is the key to your growth and haven’t gone to a worship event, listened to worship music or “again’ attended a church that provides this, then you are lying to yourself.

And I am pretty sure I can repeat these statements for a number of items… including “care for the poor,” homelessness, diseases, physical fitness, healthy eating, any outreach, or generous giving of finances.

And just so you know, it’s not my job to convince you that you do believe these things and should do them. You need to realize that you don’t believe them, so that you can build it back in a healthy way and start to realize what it means to truly believe something.

All I can do is journey with you. We can struggle together. Be honest together. And support each other as we remove all our beliefs in order to truly believe again.

Most of you know that my sabbatical was a little different than most religious sabbaticals in that I kept working full-time in my “other” job, and I was actually around the community a lot. But perhaps the most powerful gift I received was the gift I gave myself to not add more pressure to myself to “do” and spent more time learning how to “be.”

It begun with week long retreat in Arizona at the Mens Rites of Passage and ended with a good authentic conversation with the Cooper’s in my kitchen after a fun Halloween night with the kids. And in between there was some test writing, working in Victoria, Holiday (x2) in the Okanagan and the announcement that we are having another baby to add to the Martin clan and to keep Jude occupied (due March 2, 2010).

A couple things I learned from my experience as it relates to my role as a pastor/ church planter at the open house:

1. I still have a passion to lead. I missed my role, and know that in some way, shape or form I will need to continue to lead.

2. I have some good friends in Vancouver and I am beginning to enjoy the city more. When your life is dictated by moving to a specific city for a job (in my case start the open house), you can begin to resent the city because of your own issues. By having space from that role and through investigating some alternatives I realize that I do like Vancouver a lot more than I thought, and I realized there are some good people out here who are critical in my development as a person.

3. I have a new passion for spirituality and open inquiry. This is still being developed, but it’s a good thing.

4. I am not interested in church structures. I am not very interested in spending a lot of time researching/ blogging / talking about them. BUT I am very interested in vehicles of communication. I believe the new church structure will be passages of communication, not structure… again more to develop on this as well.

5. I need a flexible community around me. This connects to #4 in a few ways, but basically I need people that are willing to grow and change with the times and not always say “remember when.” As it is said a lot these days, “It is what it is,” let’s move forward and try new things. Going back is not negative in itself, but when it comes out of discouraged or fearful heart, it is not helpful in a flexible/ agile community.

6. On a practical level, religious language is confusing and not very helpful to those not in religious circles. By not being in a religious setting, but still receiving emails, reading blogs and getting tweets from some religious friends I became much more aware of this.

So there are some of my thoughts and discoveries over the past 6 months. Looking forward to connecting with many of you this Sunday.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Something has happened to me over the years. I have learned a lot about myself, my motivation and my direction. But today I am a little stuck. I am in new territory. I have come through some larger issues, understandings and realizations only to find myself on the other side not knowing what’s next.

I had a great chat with another church planter friend yesterday, who more than anything else, allowed me to vocalize some of my current thoughts and stresses. It was in this time that I realized that I am officially in unchartered territory and the reason for this is that I no longer have a unifying idea of why I have done this in the first place. You see I have realized that my reason for starting this church in the first place was a “reaction” of sorts. It was a chance to start something originally canadian, and although that still may be true, the truth is I didn’t know what authentically canadian was due in part to a lack of examples and so I instead (perhaps unknowingly) decided to create something “anti” what I knew and struggled against.

I was never vicious, or blatantly against any one style, but instead found motivation from being different. And now I see all the methods, styles, types of churches, groups, gatherings very differently. I find goodness in them all, I find God in all of them and I am not sure if I know now what I am “for” after for so long being sure of what I was against. But today I am quite free from critique, but the funny thing is, this freedom has put me in a peculiar place.

In this video from CTV’s Steven Brunt he suggests that being sure of what we against as a national identity is changing.

And maybe Shane Koyczan said it best in his Opening Ceremony Poem…

“we are choices.”

And perhaps that is where I need to start;

…all over again.

I am about halfway through the book and really enjoying it. I totally recommend it as a helpful book if you are going through a time of questioning the church and your faith.

Anna looked at me and in a frustrated way shared that this commercial appeared to be demeaning to women and who would buy this product? After some thought I shared that with all the marketing out there and our ability to turn off (in our minds) the commercials that “yell” at us that most companies have turned to advertising to niche groups and not to the masses and perhaps this commercial, as degrading as it was to you, was probably perfect for someone else (mainly one in that world of stay at home, make your house perfect type of lifestyle). Of course for us, spending our money on fabric softener isn’t exactly something we want to use our disposable income on, but for someone else it might be the best thing since sliced bread. That’s when it hit me that these commercials and maybe most commercials are not for me, they are for someone else competing for products in a totally different market.

I was thinking of this in light of the church and marketing and how personally I have beeen adverse to doing any sort of marketing/ awareness of our little church community. But I realized it is because most church marketing that I have seen has been to the “church” folk. People who buy fabric softener, so to speak. But there is a total group of people out there (which include the people in the open house and our friends in the neighbourhood) that would totally block out that sort of ad, because it is obviously not for them.

So I guess what I am saying is that I think a type of “new marketing” needs to take place in our faith communities that make up a minority and have their own niche. A marketing that makes people aware of faith groups that are welcoming, non-de-script in their structure, but are active in their community, participating and transforming their communities with good works.

To be honest I haven’t seen any “church” ads in the mail of late and for all I know they may have changed their “tactic,” but the truth is our model and message (Sunday gatherings for example) is an advertisement to the fullest. So how do we celebrate the good of what our churches are doing, to connect and welcome others to participate with us, without labeling the “message” as not for them or irrelevant, because whatever clever, outward message you advertise on the outside with be thwarted if it is nothing like what you are about on the inside.

So with this I am now seeing the connect. The outside and the inside need to connect if you wish to draw people in and get them excited about what you are doing. People who buy Bounce probably have a similar culture in their homes as other Bounce buyers, but how many people do you know that have different values and a different home buy Bounce and then realize that even though the advertisement was clever it really doesn’t fit with they way they run their household? I’m guessing these people never buy it again.

In and amongst this rambling and I am requesting something. Those that are familiar with the open house and what we are currently involved in, I am asking you to send me your thoughts on what a new wave of marketing might look like in a community like ours. Not just the message, but the method as well. I would like to work on some ideas toward a campaign that allows us to be true to who we are and want to be, but be able to reach out into our neighbourhood and welcome some of those that share values and want to better their neighbourhood with us. This will involve both an analysis of what we currently “do” and who we want to “become.” The mediums (like our Sunday night meal, book studies and outreaches) for sharing that hope will be critical in the process.

So share your ideas here, or email me at kyle AT theopenhouse.ca

I’m excited for your ideas.

I hear his words of participation and transformation!