Its hard to believe it, but we just completed year one of The Renew Community. Last summer, our launch team members signed a Team Covenant and began traveling down the road of this crazy God-experiment when we held our first meeting a year ago this week. This past Saturday night we had a cookout to officially end our time together as a launch team. It’s hard to believe its already been a year…
Last week I looked over my notes from that first meeting together. We were a bunch of strangers (though many have agreed that it feels like family now) who had no idea what we’re doing. Everything seemed uncertain. We hardly knew each other. And yet people were certain that God had called them to this unique vision of Renew. We took the “slow burn” approach to Renew. We chose not to sprint the marathon and proceed at a pace that wouldn’t burn us out in the long run. (Anytime you place relationships over tasks things take longer than expected). But because the concept of church means that people are priorities we believed the slow burn approach was the right one. And it served to be true.
What a difference a year can make! The tears, the stories, the celebration, the laughter, the honesty, the grace extended, the relational spaces, the attempts to try something new and different, the discussions centered around the Scriptures, the honest and heart-felt prayers, the relational interaction and the direction and structure needed to see this faith community mature and grow. We’ve shared a lot over the past 12 months.
In many ways, things are what we thought…and in many ways, it has been extremely different from what we anticipated. Last summer we anticipated gathering a small group of people (maybe a dozen) committing to be on the launch team meeting in our living room to pray, process and plan slowly while we were on our faces asking God “What kind of faith community do you want us to be?” Little did we know that we would have sold our house by the end of last summer (hence no living room to meet in) and have a launch team of 50 adults and 18 kids (of which no living room would be big enough to meet).
House churches have developed, missional spaces have been birthed, relationships have been cultivated, our identity has begun to be formed.
Looking back, I’m more encouraged than I thought I would be. I’m more excited about what’s ahead as we look to Year Two. I’m wiser (I think) after a year of experience of what works and what doesn’t. But I’m just as nervous/scared as I was when we started! In a sense, I hope I never lose that nervous/scared feeling because its always forcing me to my knees.
And I’m healing. I’ve healed a lot in the past year from wounds of the past…but I still have a long way to go in the healing process. I’m a work in progress. I’ve wondered if our “slow burn” approach might also have been providential, as it was extremely healthy for my own soul to rest, in order to receive a sort of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and be brought back to life. (I was much more wounded than I realized at the time).
I am so thankful for our launch team – a group of crazy, committed people who agreed to step out into strategic uncertainty in order to pursue this vision of seeing skeptics and dreams have a place to connect – and join with God’s mission to see the area renewed. The launch team sacrificed a lot: their preferences, their certainty, their security, their finances, their understanding of what “church” means, their relational boundaries and their efforts to serve in ways they never thought possible. The team agreed to meet at odd places (a storefront, a bar, a park, a youth facility and a catering/banquet hall) and at odd times - and be led by one odd leader. In spite of this fact, not once did I hear people complain about the conditions or the facilities or the sacrifices we were asking them to make. They’ve done the heavy lifting that’s involved in the crucial first 12 months of a church plant – up front, behind the scenes and everything in between – and helped shape and form the ethos of who we are. What a team of people. Thank you, launch team. Renew wouldn’t be the same if you weren’t a part of it. Even saying thank you seems so trite and superficial because of all they’ve sacrificed in the past year.
As the launch team officially ends their involvement it doesn’t mean Renew is slowing down. No, it means we’re experiencing change – good, healthy change – that asks of us to accelerate through the turn. Sure, with how close we’ve become we’re going to go through various feelings of grief with what we have to let go of as a team as rhythms and relational spaces won’t be what they were. But as hard as transition and change can be, we’re so excited about the future. It’s a graduation, not a funeral. We anticipate so much in Year Two as we’ve grown and matured. But there is much more growth and maturity that needs to take place.
God’s faithfulness was evident in Year One of Renew’s existence and I anticipate God to show us His incredible faithfulness even more in Year Two.
Sola Deo Gloria.