What To Do…..

We’re trying to decide what direction we should go at this point.  Our core group is meeting here at our house and the youth group is building.  Things are moving along basically well.  A request has come up to go ahead and start a worship gathering here in Portland before we ever go to Tinseltown in Corpus.  This is one of those times that you really want to know where God is moving within the ministry that you are a part of.  On one hand we have always said that Tinseltown would be our launching point.  On the other hand there is alot of interest in what we are doing right here in Portland.  There’s not alot in Corpus (probably because of the size of the town.)  We know that things will kick in after we start up there, but should we go ahead and start something here totally out of our plans??

If we do we will probably start the Portland worship gathering by the end of July and might move the Tinseltown launch back to accommodate.  That goes totally against what my original plan was, but it’s not my plan……you know?  Sometimes you do need to adjust mid stream.  The great thing is that so many people here are considering becoming a part of this ministry.

Wish I had a direct line to God for answers on stuff like this…..

UPDATE!!!!!

Man, I’ve been way too busy!!!  We just got back from pre-teen camp last week and haven’t stopped since!  I really need to be a little more committed to the blog, don’t I???

Anyway, just to update everyone on what’s happening:

• We’re planning on starting a public gathering in July here in Portland.  The interest in NETChurch has been so high in this area that we really feel we need to make moves where God is leading us.  We’re not sure what this will become at this point.  We are still supposed to be starting a gathering at Tinseltown in September.  Not sure what God’s doing here, but we’re ready to do whatever needs to be done.  More info to come….
• Our youth gathering is gaining speed.  We have around 25-30 students that attend regularly on Wednesday nights.  Things are going strong even through the summer time.  Pretty cool!!!  Check out the new youth website at www.netchurch.tv/theNET to get new info on what’s happening and to get the updated events calendar.
• Lynn Floyd has come on board with us as a 3rd pastor/teacher.  Lynn was the founding pastor of New Community Church here in Portland and has alot of great teaching to share with us.  Lynn will be working some as our Video Teacher for our gatherings.

We’re also planning some new Vision Casting and Ministry Building dinners for this next month.  Stay tuned for more info on those.

Time is moving fast and so are we.  NETChurch is becoming a true body of questioning and seeking people who want to know the one and true God.  It’s great to be a part of what’s happening here.  I hope you will, too.

No Membership Required

Church membership.  It’s a topic that gets so many people riled up.  One side says you have to be a member of a church or there’s no commitment to the ministry.  The other side says you don’t need membership and no one’s going to make me "join" your church. 

I was reading this article at http://www.floridabaptistwitness.com/4389.article on the need for more stringent guidelines before allowing someone to join your church.  Basically they are saying that it’s too easy to become a member and that probably half of the members of churches today aren’t actually Christians.  As we sit here wondering about the whole membership thing and what NETChurch should have I start to wonder one thing:  What is it that we are expecting people to become members of?  Our church or the Christian belief?  Are we so drunk with the expectations of larger numbers that we are willing to allow people to walk right past the cross and into our "secret club" so that we have a large church?  I’m not advocating a membership policy at all.  I’m advocating a spiritual renewal of the church policy!

I tend to look at all of our concerns about membership and the requirements that we have for people to become a part of our church, our need to have another Class 101 so that people are all together in our belief (or at least like the belief of our particular local church), and our want to make people part of the club that we lose the big picture.  Some of the churches that I have ministered in actually made people members of the church if they got baptized there.  They didn’t ask.  You just became a  member of the church because you were baptized.  I’m wondering how much emphasis we are putting on being a part of "this" church compared to the concern over being a part of "His church".  I don’t think that the question is "How many people that are members of the church are Christians".  I think the question should be "Why is it that we aren’t doing anything to help people become Christians"!  If there are that many members of churches that don’t even know Him then we aren’t doing the first job right: ie helping people walk towards Christ.

As churches grow larger and larger and the numbers become more important so that the next big pastor’s book deal looks better I hope that we remember one thing:  Christ didn’t ask us to make Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, or whatever denominational/non denom affiliation you want to attach. 

He asked us to make disciples.

Celtic Ministry

I was reading this on a newsletter that I get every now and then.  It really sums up what church has become and where we need to go:

Because of its geographical distance, Ireland was out of the loop of the first round of major evangelization by the church. When it was evangelized by Saint Patrick, it operated underneath the radar of Roman control. Thus, its breed of Christianity grew up independently of much of the rest of the church. It was, to use modern missions terminology, an indigenous church.

Depending on who you listen to, Ireland was thoroughly Christianized between one and three generations–incredibly rapid growth by anyone’s standards. Thus, it become a great model for us to study.

Here is an excerpt from George Hunter’s excellent book, The Celtic Way of Evangelism that spells out the Celtic strategy for doubling groups contrasted with the Roman way:

"Bluntly stated, the Roman model for reaching people is: 1) Present the Christian message; 2) Invite them to decide to believe in Christ and become Christians and 3) If they decide positively, welcome them into the church and its fellowship. The Roman model seems very logical to us because most American evangelicals are scripted by it! We explain the gospel, they accept Christ, we welcome them into the church! Presentation, Decision, Assimilation. What could be more logical than that?

The Celtic model for reaching people works like this: 1) You first establish community with people, or bring them into the fellowship of your community of faith. 2) Within fellowship, you engage in conversation, ministry, prayer, and worship. 3) In time, as they discover that they now believe, you invite them to commit. "

Hunter then summarizes the two approaches with the following chart:

Roman Model	Celtic Model
Presentation	Fellowship
Decision	Ministry and Conversations
Fellowship	Belief, Invitation to Commitment

Now, if we can just get the rest of the world to understand it!

The Brotherhood of Hmmmm

I was at a class today learning more about working with small groups.  I’m always looking to find out something new.  The class was taught by a man close to my father’s age with alot of the same mannerisms.  Alot of his teaching was worded in ways that it specifically related to people his age.  Alot of the little quips and sayings were things I’ve heard for years from a multitude of preachers.  There was alot of "christianeze" being spoken there today.  I’m not cutting that down.  He was working with a room of people who have been in church for a long time.  It was very comfortable, to say the least.

At one point the teacher recited John 3:16 (He’s a former baptist minister.  This scripture was going to be used in every session no matter what….) He launches into "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son….." and in three different places of the room I hear peoples voices going "Hmmmmmmm".  This suddenly struck me as odd.  Looking at the people in the room I noticed that probably 70 % of them were over the age of 60.  Later in the teaching he said one of his well known quoted sayings and I hear the same "Hmmmmmm"s coming from around the room (with a few well placed "Amen"s).  The same happened latter when he said "I believe that eternal life is for everyone.  It’s just deciding what your address is going to be!"   Suddenly……..Hmmmmmmm.

Have you ever noticed that we have some built in responses and quirks that we have picked up from being in church?  Most of the things he was saying were things that I know if I have heard them before that THESE people have heard them THOUSANDS of times.  And yet, because it was said by a preacher we are designed to respond with a thoughtful and passionate "Hmmmmmmm".  Weird.  It’s like Pavlov’s dog waiting for the bell to ring.  We sit in the congregation waiting for the moment that the pastor says something thought provoking and yet over stated and we need to respond.  Like God doesn’t know if we heard it or not.  The interesting thing is that it tells me that people want their church experience to be interactive.  We want to be part of the conversation, not just listening.  The problem is that we are trained to respond to things that aren’t some great revelation.  They’re just something that teacher probably uses all the time that gets a great "Hmmmmmm" response.

Wouldn’t it be cool to be in a church service where somebody said something and someone sitting out there jumped up and said "Dude!  I’ve never thought about that before!  That’s so cool!  That just cleared up so much for me!"   A little distracting, maybe, but at least it would be an honest response to a revelation.

My hope is that the Brotherhood of Hmmmmmm can be replaced someday.  Maybe we’ll have the Brotherhood of "Dude"!

Hee-hee……………..