jason evans

I've had a few beautiful yet often tragic conversations with wonderful folks trying to do grassroots kingdom stuff across our region lately. This is something I haven't been able to do much of recently due to my job hunt and caring for my kids over the summer. When I do get to talk with people that are either just getting to know a missional faith community (newbies) or attempting to start one (starters), I always share a few tips that I keep stored in the back of my head. Mostly, they are lessons learned from making terrible mistakes. Others, are simply observations after having attempted to start these kinds of communities for going on 8 years now. But in the last of these conversations I had this week, my friend Sue told me that I should share some of this online. Because I deeply respect Sue and her husband, Hyun, I'm taking her direction to heart. So, here's a few tips:

For the newbies:
- Don't be a tourist. Coming one time and never coming back never gives you a clear idea of what that community is like. I always tell people, that you've got to come to consecutive meetings for at least a month to actually get a feel for what a community is really like. I don't very much consider judgments, critiques or assessments made by people who come only once (aka tourists) and then think they have a valuable opinion on our community. It's not about a meeting. It's about building a life together. It takes a while to get into that since there is so much going unsaid that happens within the rhythm of a missional community.

- You won't fit. We've been told that being a part of the Church is about affinity. Nope. If I wanted to be a part of a church where I "fit," ... well, I probably wouldn't be in a church... or it would be me, Dan So, Matt Reece over at Urban Abbey, and maybe Matt Casper (but he's an atheist, so he doesn't count–sorry Matt). It's not about fitting. If it weren't for the common faith, values and ideals that we have built together in our community, I'd probably never have met most of the people that I now consider some of my best friends. It's often those that we "fit" the least with that we learn the most from.

For the starters:
- Keep your job/Get a job. Don't plan on this thing ever paying you. Even if your community is the most healthy and vibrant community (which doesn't mean "successful" or "growing" by most Christian publishing terms) it may not be able to support you. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't be transparent with your financial needs, shortcomings, etc. with your community. Be honest with them. Together, the community may come up with a way to help out. At one point, almost half of our faith community was unemployed, so that was, and never has been, an option for us. Nor do we want it to be. Just know that success doesn't mean you get a job out of this. You may have plans to get support from your denomination. If they have money, great. Know that it'll only last for somewhere between 1 to 5 years. (With the exception of a few denominations, most cannot afford to support church planting much longer. And certainly aren't going to get excited about supporting a community that doesn't have significant numerical growth or feed significant amounts of money back into their system.) That said, if you're gifting, abilities and training are really geared towards pastoral leadership, than start putting together a plan for employment. Go work for an established church and let this be your side project. Or get trained as a chaplain, spiritual director, teacher, professor, community organizer ... whatever. For many of us, leaving professional ministry is like cutting off a limb. I've seen too many of us go into deep depression due to the loss of identity and outlet for a gifts and abilities. Find an outlet, hopefully one that pays. You'll need it. If you are employed-or made available to your community via your spouses income or something else, know that you are envied by many of us but not loathed. You're fortunate and we'd love to be in your shoes. Just thank God for it but there's no need to feel guilty about it.

- Plans aren't all that. It's funny to see denominational leaders get so turned on by glossy, full color church planting plans. Don't be intimidated by this. Especially when it is a proposal by someone that doesn't even yet live in the community they are planting in. It takes a minimum of 3 years to even know what your role in a neighborhood is gonna be. In fact, it's been 5 years for us and I feel as though we're now just getting the picture. And it always evolves and changes. So, don't get too stressed out over proposals and plans. Most important thing is being in the neighborhood and learning to listen to those in the community. You'll begin to get a nose for what God is already up to in that community. Go participate in those things and you'll begin to discover the goals, mission, vision and plans God has in store for your faith community.

Well, the kids are running circles around me. Time to go for now. Would love your feedback.

What tips would you add?

I've been thinking about a few things since the CMA conference last weekend. They all stem from a conversation I had in the hallway with Wolfgang Simson. While I enjoyed being there this weekend, I think there are many ramifications of doing church "organically" that are not being addressed in meetings such as the one we were at this weekend.

a more just church
First, meeting in such a way as so many simple/house/organic/missional/whatever churches do, can be a strong move towards more a just (as in "justice") church simply by it's egalitarian approach to practices and rituals–removing the classism, sexism and racism that has so often existed in so many Christian traditions. As I talked with people in the halls I noticed that this is at least an instinctive reason for why many leaders turn this direction. For women leaders and wives, this seems even more of a conscious reason. It's one thing to go out and "do justice" but if your practices and mannerisms in your meetings evoke injustices for those with a less prominent voice are we accomplishing much? Remember, Jesus broke most social boundaries by involving women, the poor, diseased, unorthodox and uneducated in conversations, meals and practices. There's loads of potential for communities meeting in this model to return to this.

a more sustainable church
Another reason why the "organic" model is potentially more just is because of the approach to resources. We talked about this in the workshop that Brad Fieldhouse, Scott Wilson and I led entitled, "Transformation of a City". The low overhead necessary for faith communities such as these allows them to make their collective resources more available to where the greatest need is in a neighborhood. As well, I would think that the ecological footprint of a network of faith communities meeting in homes would be less in comparison to a typical congregation of the same number of members [I don't know for certain-someone should do some research on this]. So, these communities are potentially more sustainable economically and ecologically. I spoke about this at more length awhile back.

BUT...
But, there is one thing that seems necessary to talk about that we aren't talking about in order to go further down the path of being more deliberate about justice and sustainability in our communities: Money!

For the most part, it seems that many community leaders do not know what to do about finances in their communities. Here's several things that seemed to come up last weekend:

• How do I make living? It seems that a lot of people are asking, "Do I still get paid to do this? If so, why? What's my 'job description' now?" But not many are answering this well. I remember this came up at the Off The Map conference in 2006 during a panel discussion with Brian McLaren, Jim Henderson and George Barna. Barna gave a terrible answer that made me cringe, encouraging young people to still attend theological schools... Wow, that's useful. Thanks. Here's your door prize. Some people-like me-will still get theological degrees, yes, but that doesn't really help us in trying to reinterpret vocation in a post-Christendom context. But the truth is that this isn't an option for those with limited income usually. McLaren and Henderson didn't really respond, which was probably wise since I would assume they didn't have a good response. "I don't know," is okay until we have a better answer. I think the best response to this that I've heard so far has come from Wolfgang Simson though you may not agree with everything he says (you can order his lecture on finances here).

• How should a faith community use its resources (ie. money)? It seemed apparent in conversations following our workshop that many people have no idea how to start connecting to needs in their surrounding community. It does require a different type of skills than are not typically taught in church environments. Brad's organization, Kingdom Causes, might be helpful for some to connect with. Another So. Cal. resource would be the School for Urban Ministry. They have a class on community organizing that is superb. I would assume that CCDA would be a good resource as well. Outside the Christian community there are a ton of resources out there too.

• Money gets in the way of discipleship. Discipleship while possibly deeper and more holistic in this context has one common, major road block in the west whether in the 'burbs or in the city: consumerism. How do we break this? It seemed to me that some people were trying to say, "I don't want to be an anti-capitalist but the good life is getting in the way of discipleship." Yep. We gotta address this. Again, Wolfgang's lecture might be useful. (Just remember, he's German-he doesn't intend to agree with everyone or make them feel good) David Fitch's, The Great Giveaway, addresses this. Phil Kenneson's Life on the Vine, addresses this as well. I'm working with my friend Lee from Jubilee Economics Ministry on making something available on this subject. There's a lot of stuff out there, you've just got to look for it. This conviction is why I love Adbusters and the community around it. There is a level of creativity in addressing this that Christian community hasn't really attained yet.
  

the supernatural
The last thing that seemed to come up, time and again, was the miraculous. In fact, the conference had a few workshops on the matter. I don't know if we'll be able to get a way from this topic for awhile. With the interest in issues of justice and mercy amidst the Church we continue to read passages that allude to the supernatural occurring around justice. I quite honestly have no answers to this. My heritage hasn't really equipped me with much to work with on this subject beside plugging our ears, shutting our eyes and pretending it doesn't exist.

I know this is a scary subject for many. I don't get it either. But there are voices emerging that are blending traditions and appreciate the shifts we have seen in our culture. Bob Eckblad and Paul Alexander are blending justice with the supernatural. Blogger David Schlaginhaufen has been talking about contextualizing supernatural language in Switzerland for some time (Another Swiss, Daniel Hari gave out a handbook at the CMA event that is interesting so far-I've only read a few pages). And of course, John Wimber didn't do so bad a job of talking about this practically. Outside of the anglo community, I'm certain there are a lot of wiser voices to address this subject matter. Often it seems, this is only a weird subject for whitey.

I think that in post-colonial, post-Christendom contexts the growing majority are indifferent to the Church at best. In this case, I wonder if anything short of the supernatural will change people's mind about the existence of a Creator that is involved in creation. Matt even attested to this in our session... Just thinking out loud here.

Kevin, Josh and I are sitting in the afternoon session, listening to Neil Cole talk about the "5-fold Gifts" or "APETS". It's been fun so far. Matt and I talked this morning with mostly good responses. Only a few people walked out on us! (seriously)

There hasn't been a lot of talk yet about economics. Either from the perspective of battling consumerism or fundraising (Wolfgang Simson led a great workshop on this last time). But this seems to come up in a lot of the hallway conversations. Why don't we like to talk about this from the front? Probably 'cause no one has answers yet. What do you think?

Kind of last minute information, but I will be at the Organic Church Movements conference in Ontario, CA next week. I'm looking forward to hanging out with K. Rains and the other great people that will be there. Matt Casper and I will be doing a main session together on Saturday. I will also be a part of a city transformation panel workshop on Sunday morning as well. If you can make it please come!

Oh, and the family and I will be in LA this Friday for the SUM graduation.