J.R. Briggs
Attempting to behold the miracle long enough without falling asleep
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Archive of "Church" Category
Remembering the poor
On Tuesday morning several dudes got together for breakfast (as we do every Tuesday morning) to talk about what it means to be a free man. We’ve been discussing and working our way through the book of Galatians, the manifesto of freedom. (This is open to any dude who wants to join us. If you are interested, email me and I’ll give you more information).
We’re in chapter two. In verse 10 Paul says this:
"All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I [Paul] was eager to do."
We had a great discussion about poverty and our role with the poor and how as Christians, for the most part, we really suck at doing our part (including me).
After I got home Megan asked me to print off several copies of a document so she had created so that she could distribute them throughout our neighborhood. A few others from our launch team are creating similar fliers and getting their neighborhoods involved.
Here’s the wording of the flier she created.AREA FOOD CUPBOARDS RUNNING LOW
You may have noticed the article in The [Lansdale] Reporter on Monday October 13, 2008 about the need for donations at food pantries in Lansdale:
“Food cupboards in the area are bare and the scarcity of items for the needy is becoming a serious situation. Community Housing Services, on Broad Street in Lansdale, has slim pickings… Manna on Main Street in Lansdale had its food cupboard almost wiped out on one recent day when 27 families stopped in for help.”
Please help in any way you can by taking donations directly to Manna on Main [the main food pantry and soup kitchen in Lansdale] or Community Housing Services [a non-profit organization that works with women and children who are victims of domestic violence and abuse]. CHS also helps those in need of baby products, diapers, wipes, formula, etc.
You are welcome to drop any items off on our front porch and we’ll be happy to deliver your donations.
We understand this is a difficult time for many of us, but if each of us can give just a grocery bag full of food CHS and Manna on Main will be in much better shape to help the people who come through their doors.
Thank you for partnering with us to help those in need in our community,
J.R. and Megan Briggs
Ironically, a friend emailed me a few days ago about her desire to do this very thing in her neighborhood in Lansdale, too.
If you live in the region would you consider picking up an extra bag (or more) of groceries for Manna and CHS? You can drop it off at our house or at these agencies directly.
Or, better yet, create your own flier and getting your neighbors involved in this as well!
The M word…
It seems its hard to talk about church these days without someone using the "m word": missional.
And unfortunately there is a lot of confusion about what it actually means.
There are churches that use that word every weekend and never give one ounce of evidence that they actually are and yet other churches who are extremely missional never use the word in any of their language.
In the words of Tim Conder, will the real missional church please stand up?Here’s a wonderfully comprehensive and clear website explaining what a missional church thinks, believes and does.
Relevant or Relatable?
We had a fantastic weekend with the launch team in Annapolis.
My brain is full of thoughts and new ideas. We spent the weekend packing our suitcase full of stuff…it will probably take next weeks to unpack it all – it was fabulous.One thought that I’ve been rolling around in my head much of today…
On Saturday Chris Backert, director of Ecclesia, was teaching on Paul’s famous speech at Mars Hill (no, not Grand Rapids or Seattle…the original one) found in Acts 17.
He mentioned that when we speak of context, maybe a better word to consider using instead of relevance is relatability.
I like that. A lot.Some might argue that its just semantics, but I think there’s something to what Chris is saying.
Maybe I have some baggage with the word relevant because I immediately think of cool, hip, trying to keep up with the culture (i.e. crassly put, culture comes up with something cool and Christians should work hard to imitate it but make sure Jesus is somewhere in the message). When I hear relevant I think of culture first and gospel message second. I dunno…maybe I have a skewed understand of relevance in the church.But relatability…that’s something different. It makes me think of connectibility.
When I hear the question, "How do we make the gospel relevant?" to me it sounds like we need to manipulate the message somehow in order to be cool, to fit in. I’m not really interested in answering that question. But when I hear the question, "How do we make the gospel relatable?" I find a question of humble searching, of trying to understand the context and the culture and make the Story of God and Man accessible, in everyday language to the people and their rhythms, values, lifestyles and concerns. And this is a question every Christian should be asking every day.
Relevance or relatability: which are we after?
I think Chris is on to something.Ecclesia Regional Missional Church Planting Retreat
Tomorrow the Renew launch team leaves for Annapolis, MD to spend the weekend together. We’re heading to an Ecclesia Network sponsored retreat to come together to learn, listen and hang out with three other church plants in the mid-Atlantic region.
Chris Backert, Ecclesia director, saw that there are four Ecclesia churches starting around the same time in early to mid 2009 and began wondering if maybe these four churches and their launch teams should spend time together around the idea of planting missional churches a joint-effort retreat before we have officially launched. After a few months of planning, we’re excited to come together this weekend.
The pastors of these missional church plants will be presenting to the large group, but then we will have breakout sessions led by other seasoned Ecclesia pastors from around the country. Todd, Gary, Brent, and J.R. Woodward are just a few of friends who will be there to teach and learn with us. I can’t wait to introduce to our launch team. I’m excited to teach – but more importantly, learn – with these four launch teams and their pastors.
It should be a great weekend to bond more as a launch team (and I hear Annapolis is a pretty sweet city), to mingle with other launch teams/missional church plants within Ecclesia and to learn about how to be more effective in missional incarnational living in our context.
I’m pumped!
Renew: “When are you starting?”
It seems that every few days I get this question: When are you starting Renew?
The short answer is: we already have.
But the answer is a little more involved that that.Over the summer, we prayed diligently and met with many people who felt a similar call to the vision of Renew.
In June, we had informational meetings at our house. We communicated the vision, prayed together, answered questions and explained that we were putting together a launch team for this new faith community. I shared that the launch team would be the backbone of our leadership and the team would help determine and shape together what Renew will look like.
We communicated un-apologetically the high level of involvement to which the launch team would be held accountable. These commitments are grace-filled, but would involve servanthood and sacrifice from the very beginning. For a few months after these informational meetings we sat down with each person and talked about motivations, expectations, commitment levels and availability to serve. In those conversations we determined together if we felt this to be a good fit for them on the team.
In August we began meeting officially as a launch team and have been meeting weekly since then.
We’ve made the decision that for the next several months we will meet with just our launch team on Sunday mornings in order to pray, prepare, share our stories and our lives with one another, learn what "church" really could mean (as well as unlearn some cultural understandings of what "church" is), begin fleshing out the gospel right now in our context in smaller, less official, more informal ways (especially Monday through Saturday) and discern what kind of faith community God’s spirit desires for us to become. The truth is there is way too much to do…so the best thing we can think of to do right now is to slow the process down. It’s freeing and take the pressure off when we slow things down and just "be" together.It’s funny how people have misunderstood this. There are some fun rumors swirling out there, too. A few people who have heard such false rumors have said: "So, I hear you are interviewing people and deciding if you will allow them to attend your church or not? Isn’t that a bit legalistic and judgmental? It sounds like you guys are a cult."
I said that if we did that, it certainly would be judgmental of us, but that’s not what we’re doing. (And we’re not making human sacrifices over an open fire at our meetings either if anybody was wondering!) We’re simply wanting to know who is with us fully and building on that team from there. We’re not trying to build a church where you’re only allowed in if you have the secret handshake or dress with the right color shirt. We’re carefully seeing how God has brought to us so we can pray and plan and discuss and discern together before we go public. When I explain this to individuals they always respond by saying that they think this is the right move.
All this to say, we’re intentionally slowing things down for now. Church planters will tell you that the development of a new church start is similar to a fetus developing in the womb. The development of a fetus takes a full nine months before birth. Usually nine months is a good time frame for a church to develop from conception to birth as well. And it seems that is about the time frame we believe we need to be on before we publically launch. We feel the urgency to start – the need is great! – but we also need to exercise discipline to move in the unforced rhythms of grace of this new God-driven vision.
We probably won’t launch Renew with our "official" open-to-the-public Sunday service until – at least - early 2009. And even that date we are uncertain of. As we believe God has called us to be a mission-driven faith communion, we desire to see Spirit-driven benchmarks of our DNA being embedded and fleshed out in smaller informal ways throughout our weeks before we have a "service" on a Sunday.
Many have said, "Why wait? If the momentum is here, capitalize!" Well, we probably could do that, but we feel that would be a bit short-sighted. We believe that right now Renew is "wet cement." This is a significant time to intentionally embed the DNA into what we are doing because we desire for Renew to start – and continue – to be healthy many years down the road. It helps us put down deeper roots. It also helps us to focus on the non-Sunday morning elements of being Christ’s Body, which is a good thing. We also need to unlearn some things about what it means to be the Body, and that will take some time. And, by slowing the momentum down it probably helps to keep people from making a reactionary decision to join us because they think we are the next "cool, hip church" to hit town, which we don’t want to be. It certainly is a balance, one where we need to be very disciplined. We need to have what John Ortberg calls "restful urgency."
Some of those smaller informal ways of engagement, involvement and connection have already started, as the lauch team has already begun asking questions of the community, listening to the needs and serving Lansdale and its people. We’ve connected – and will continue to connect – with people and organizations like Manna on Main, Community Housing, the police department, the Boys and Girls Club and others. Some of these places we’ve already started serving.
We will be starting more smaller opportunities to be involved in Renew this fall. We truly believe that we can cultivate healthy expressions of the kingdom, not by growing bigger, but by intentionally becoming smaller.
We will be starting house churches, smaller missional Jesus communities connected to Renew, this fall. These house churches will be a signifcant portion of what we do, meeting throughout the week and are open to everyone – those not on the launch team, and not just for those who are followers of Jesus. In fact, we have one rule: no perfect people allowed. When these are up and rolling and then when we decide to have a Sunday open-to-the-public service it will simply be an extension of what our mission already is, rather than a Sunday event that everything else revolves around. Again, the goal is that we undertand the Way of Jesus as a lifestyle we live out daily and not an event, location or service we show up at once a week. This is different for many people and will take time to develop.
House churches will be for anyone desiring and yearning for life-giving connection with God and others in smaller, safer, more intimate settings. We feel this is important to start house churches first before starting a Sunday service. If our house churches can be cultivated over the next several months and they become healthy enough to honor Jesus, be honest and broken with one another, serve others, have a heart for the lost and begin to multiply – all this before a Sunday service – then we will be on track. We’re extremely enthusiatic about these house churches starting and feel that the long-term approach is the wisest thing to do right now. (If you’re interested in knowing more about house churches or want to be a part of Renew through these house churches contact me via email).
As you can see, we’ve already started, but in smaller, less formal expressions – and not in a public Sunday service-type way yet. We’ll get there – and that is important – but not yet for us right now. We’re attempting to take the long-term approach. We invite you to pray for us in these significant months of praying and planning, serving and discerning what God’s Spirit desires for Renew.
THANK YOU!
I want to say a special thank you to all of you who have – or currently are – prayerfully and financially supporting my family and the Renew vision. We have people supporting us significantly and some supporting us $10 a month.
Individuals. Families. Churches.
Donors in Lansdale. People several states away. People across the country. Even donors in England and Australia. Thank you!We’re grateful for your generosity and humbled that you are enthusiastically supporting the vision of this new faith community – to see people come to know Jesus.
We are thanking God today for your role in our lives and how the vision is being lived out by your generosity.
The language of pastor and congregration
Pastor, speaker and author Eugene Peterson has been a mentor to me for the past six years. Eugene and I have had a pen pal relationship, exchanging letters every few weeks as I ask him questions about life, God, faith, ministry and church. Each letter back from him is like Christmas morning. They are true gifts, very precious to me. He has shaped my understanding of true pastoral ministry and leadership like nobody else and I am humbled to be able to call him a friend and mentor.
Eugene and I have talked often about Renew and what it means to be a Jesus community and what it means for me to pastor of a counter-cultural, hope-filled Jesus community. I have thought often that I would love for Eugene to be with us and speak to us, challenging and encouraging us with sage advice as to what he would want us to know, to do, as we start this faith community. Since he can’t come and physically be with us in person I wondered if we could have the next best thing.
So I wrote him and asked if he would do us a favor: would he write a letter addressed, not to me, but to our entire launch team, giving us advice and encouraging us. I asked the question, “What would you want to say to a group of committed followers of Jesus who were starting a new faith community?”
And he answered.Two weeks ago I read that letter to our team. It was such an honor to read these words from such a wise pastor, who has shepherded, taught, prayed and led others in the ways of Jesus much longer than I have been alive. As I read it out loud I was overwhelmed and got choked up, aware of what a gift this letter is and will continue to be for our faith community.
Here is an excerpt from the letter:
“…I have a strong conviction that one of the primary responsibilities of the pastors is to use language that is appropriate to living the gospel relationally on the ground, locally, in place with the people you are living and working with… The most conspicuous ways in which the gospel is communicated is by preaching (kerygma) and teaching (didache). They are essential. But pastor and congregation train one another in using a much more relational and personal, informal and unstudied language as we work wit people primarily not to proclaim or teach them about God but ot get it into their everyday, around the house, around the workplace lives. I call this language paracletic (from Paraclete, the Holy Spirit). It gets its content from preaching and teaching, but it gets its tone and syntax from this local and relational setting and encounter. This is the language of conversation – not telling people the truth of God and not explaining the things of God, but letting those languages be translated into the vernacular of our ordinary lives when we are not preaching and not teaching. Which is the way we use language most of the time and most naturally.
And the only way you can do that is with people whose names you know and whose stories you know. This is what is unique about the pastoral vocation. And this is the great opportunity of a newly developing church. You can preach from the pulpit and teach from the lectern but when you walk into the church parking lot or stand in the checkout line at Wal-Mart you are using the language of the Word made Flesh in the places where people spend most of their time, where you spend most of your time.
And now you are forming a congregation where that conversational gospel is possible. I am so glad for you.”
Renew: leadership accountability
Many have asked about Renew’s leadership accountability.
It’s a very important question, one we don’t mind answering, especially since we are a non-denominational faith community.First, legally, because we are a 501(c)3 non-profit organization in the state of Pennsylvania we are required to have a Board of Directors. (And we have some great board members, by the way). These people are my boss. They have the right to hire, fire me, set my salary, etc. They hold me accountable.
Secondly, spiritually, we are in the process of thinking, planning and praying through what biblical eldership looks like. We will be selecting and commission leaders and shepherds to fulfill a biblical role and function as elder. We are excited about this.
Thirdly, relationally, though Renew is a non-denominational church we felt the need to have outside accountability. We believed it would be important to voluntarily submit ourselves to a gospel-minded, missional church planting leadership network to speak honestly into our lives. During that time, we were approached by Chris Backert, the director of the Ecclesia Network, a small but terrific missional church planting network based out of Richmond, VA. He asked if I would consider Renew being involved with Ecclesia. In May I headed to Richmond to participate in a personal assessment process as well as a week-long church planter’s boot camp training week. I (J.R.) and we (Renew) received a “thumbs up” after that week and were officially invited to join Ecclesia as an officially participating church.
Ecclesia does not function as a denomination, but as a network. While everyone in the network is evangelical in its theology, Ecclesia does not intend to be a doctrinal network, but a philosophically missional network in orientation.
Renew’s involvement as an Ecclesia Network church includes the following areas of accountability:
-Officially, every few years we agree to have a complete audit done of Renew (in areas such as finances, relationships, health, mission, leadership etc)
-Financially, we commit to giving at least 10% of the Renew annual budget towards kingdom-minded missional expressions locally, regionally, nationally and/or globally.
-Relationally, as a Ecclesia network church planting pastor I am required to connect face-to-face or voice-to-voice with at least one other Ecclesia pastor once a week. (This can be for mutual encouragement, prayer, talk about best practices, ask about advice, etc. The purpose is to make sure that no church planter in the network feels isolated or alone and feels the support of other like-minded missional church planters around the country.We are excited about this healthy grace-filled level of accountability and support.
The author of Hebrews writes that we are to “spur one another one toward love and good deeds” and to “encourage one another, as long as it is called Today.” I’m grateful for this spurring on, encouraging accountability and find it be extremely healthy for us as we move forward.
A Muslim, A Hindu and a Church Planter walk out of a bar…
Earlier I blogged about some exciting and fascinating ways in which we were seeing evidence of God at work through the start of Renew. I wrote about it here, here and here.
He continues to show up.But there has been a slightly different turn of events.
It seems now that the church planter needs to walk out of the bar.
We have thoroughly enjoyed our time renting the facilities at Third and Walnut.
However, a new state law, which takes full effect on Thursday, has made things difficult for us.On September 11 the Pennsylvania Clean Indoor Air Act officially begins. The Act itself is a good law intended to protect the citizens of the commonwealth of PA. The Clean Indoor Air Act prohibits all smoking in public buildings in the entire state. (Several other states have enacted this law.)
However, certain establishments – especially drinking establishments – can qualify for and receive an exception and allow smoking in their facility. Third and Walnut Bar has received an exception and will allow smoking. However, in order to receive the exception Third and Walnut, and other establishments receiving the exception, must agree to never allow anyone under the age of 18 into the building at any time. Seeing that we have almost twenty children under the age of 18 on our launch team this has posed a problem for us.
For the past several days we’ve been on the phone with state senators, employees of the Tobacco Prevention Council and directors of the Department of Health attempting to explain our unique situation and to see if there is any way the law is interpreted in our favor due to our situation. They looked at our case, asked questions, spent time discussing the implications and interpretation of the law and were sympathetic to our situation. But when all was said and done, we received an official "no" from lawmakers.
I’ve wondered this week: How could such a good law actually be so bad? It seemed like the perfect place for us to meet in…why did this happen?
On Sunday I explained this to the Renew Launch Team, saying that we had done everything we could do to stay in our current location. Even the bar owner told us that he wished we could stay. But as great as the location is and as much as we loved it, we needed to look elsewhere. (We did say that we didn’t want our identity to be wrapped up in being "the bar church" so maybe this is a good thing in the long run anyway, I don’t know…)
Sure, we’re disappointed, but we also know how God has been showing himself faithful, how he has been guiding us and directing us through this entire process – and He’s not done with us yet.
There are some positives from this experience:
I told our launch team this is a teachable moment for us, a chance to allow the Holy Spirit to teach us, remind us and reinforce in that church is not a place, but a gathering of God’s people with the promise of God’s presence (wow, that’s a lot of P’s in that last sentence).
I taught this weekend on the idea of the Tabernacle mindset of church versus the Temple mindset of church.
We began by looking at Exodus 13-14 – how God’s people were given a gift of a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud that guided them through the wilderness and across the Red Sea. God’s presence was guiding and directing them day and night, despite their lack of a place of permanence.
His presence among them was enough.We then looked at Exodus 25 and 26 – God’s specific instructions given to the Israelites for the tabernacle’s construction. The tabernacle (simply meaning "dwelling place") was a temporary tent where God’s presence would rest. God’s people experienced God among them in the midst of a temporary tent as they traveled around the desert. No matter where they went, God was among them.
Then we looked at Leviticus 23:33-44 – the festival that God commanded the Israelites to celebrate: Sukkoth (or the Festival of Tabernacles, or booths). An experiential God had his people reenact this wandering experience of their ancestors for one week every year to be reminded that God was with them in the midst of the uncertainty and the transition. Location changed, but God and His character never did. What a great thing to do: a once a year spiritual camp out that lasted one week to remind them of God’s provision!
Then we looked at the Temple and its construction in 1 Kings 6 under King Solomon. It took him seven years to build a permanent, centralized location for people to come worship God.
Several years later Jesus shows up on the scene. John 1 says "The word became flesh and dwelt among us." The word "dwelt" is best translated "tabernacled among us." I love how the Message says it: "The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood."
In John 14 Jesus promises a friend, a comforter, that will be with them always: the Holy Spirit.
And then the book of Acts, the start of the church of Jesus.
In chapter 1 they are told not to leave Jerusalem, but to stay there and wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 2 we read about Pentecost – the Holy Spirit shows up in a dramatic way.
How does it show up? With fire over their heads.
What would the Jews be thinking of when they saw fire above their heads?
That their ancestors had been given guidance be fire of their heads in Exodus. That this mobile, experiential, compassionate God desired to guide them with certainty by his presence into the uncertain future.The Church stays in Jerusalem until in Acts 7 Stephen is killed. Acts 8:1 says, "On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria…"
It was hardship that drove them out to other places around the country and the spread of the gospel was enhanced.
Ch 8: Philip goes to Samaria
Saul converts.
Ch 9: Peter travels to Lydda and then Joppa.
Ch 11: the church starts in Antioch.
Barnabas goes to Tarsus to look for Saul and brings him to Antioch.The mobile Holy Spirit guided them to new and exciting places without permanent locations but with permanent presence – and the gospel spread.
All this happened because God’s spirit decideed that the movement of His people and the spread of the great Story of God and Man would be a movement of mobility. And the spark that allowed the spread of the gospel was hardship – the death of one of their own brothers for the sake of the gospel! Without that they would have stayed in their little Jerusalem club, content as they saw God do some amazing things.
It has been said before on this blog that ekklesia, the Greek word in our Bible used for "church" was never used to describe a physical edifice. It was always in reference to the gathering of the redeemed, renewed, called-out people of God who attempt to pay attention to God and His character and then respond appropriately. (This reminds me of a picture my South African pastor-friend Tom Smith took of a church meeting in Mozambique…I love this picture of church).
We can teach until we are blue in the face that we don’t go to church. We are the Church. But until we experience a lack of permanence in our location as a church – like we are right now – I am not sure we can ever truly understand it and let it get into our bloodstream. This is where we learn that we are the people of God with fire above our heads, having the Spirit guide us on Sundays…and every day throughout the week. And the good news is that our launch team is learning a lot! I am really proud of our launch team: committed, flexible, understanding, prayerful and faithful to the vision God has called us to.The challenge for us right now (in addition to attempting to find a place to meet this Sunday!) is that we have a choice to make: are we going to be a Temple mindset faith community, believing that we "go" to church and have the unspoken mindset that we "do church" only in a building or are we going to have a Tabernacle mentality where we realize that we as God’s people have the promise of His presence wherever we go?
In the meantime, we are making a lot of calls to different locations for availability to meet in a short notice. (Pray for us this week, if you think about it!) In fact, if you have any ideas or know of a place that allow us to meet regularly in the Lansdale area email me.
Despite the disappointment – and the stress of being without a location for this weekend – we feel a strange sense of anticipation (excitement?) about what God has in store for Renew in the future. Originally, when we had agreed to rent a facility (a school where I am still enrolled as a student) we were informed a few days before we started renting that we could no longer meet there. As a result, God provided a storefront room for us to meet in the first week for our team. Then, He provided a bar for us to meet in for the past five weeks.
What will he provide for us next? We wait in anticipation to see what will happen and its exciting.
I can almost see a visible flame above my head right now as I type this…
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