Live, and live well...

           I had a great weekend!  Despite ushering me past the 35 year mark, this weekend showed me, once again, how much God loves us and how right it is for us to be here in Davenport.  It all started Friday as the majority of our team met at Karen and Warren Brooks’ home to discuss creative planning.  Going into the meeting, I knew certain things needed to be addressed before we could effectively discuss creative planning, but I was content to see how things played out… and play out they did.  The conversation ultimately led to issues of individual purpose and how to cope with the fact that whatever role we may have played in past churches, we must be willing and able to re-invent ourselves for the sake of the gospel in Four Corners.  This is very tough for many people on our team because past experiences allowed for niche-style ministry while church-planting calls for the niches and pigeon-holes to be abandoned.  Growth isn’t easy, and personal growth is often a painful process.  What made the evening so enjoyable for me was the sense of community that was had in the group.  We were very comfortable with each other, even while discussing a very uncomfortable and personal issue.  For those of you who intercede for us, please include this issue in your prayer time for The Roots Community.

            The next part of the great weekend was Saturday morning.  Jesse is the coach of his youngest son’s soccer team, so I took my kids to the game.  It was so much fun!  There’s nothing like watching 5 year-olds chase a soccer ball around the field, colliding with each other, sitting in the grass, and generally having fun being outside.  I was able to take a lot of pictures in my quest to become a bona fide photographer (you can see them all here: 

http://s130.photobucket.com/albums/p243/kslique/KobeElisSoccerGame10408/?albumview=grid ).

While I was enjoying the games and just simply being outside on a beautiful day, what struck me was the fact that this was the first time I had truly experienced any sense of community in this “community” we had moved to.  People had gathered together in one place for one unified purpose: to watch their kids play soccer.  It was very interesting.  It made me ponder what our response, as the church, should be to this.  There doesn’t seem to be many opportunities for people to connect with each other in our community.  We have the Pub, but that’s about it.  Even there you are able to disconnect from everyone around you.  How can we provide opportunities for the people in our community to actually commune with others?  How do we create points of “collision” where people who normally wouldn’t come in contact with each other collide in a good way?  This is a question I feel we need to effectively answer with “my” church plant… not theoretically, but realistically and practically.  Saturday night was another good night at “church” as we talked about networking.  Jesse was very pointed about the fact that this IS our job right now.  Despite what we may have done in the past, and what our skills/gifts are, we need to be about the business of making connections with our community (starting to see the trend here?).  It was good stuff.

            Sunday arrived with blurry-eyed acceptance of my 36 years of existence on this blue ball called Earth.  I have officially entered the early stages of middle-agedom.  Abi made me a birthday crown which I was instructed to wear all day… sorry, no pics.  Birthdays are usually pretty good, but they tend to be quite narcissistic (hence the crown).  What made this birthday so great was that I was treated to a surprise party.  I’ve never had a surprise party (that I can remember, at least).  Jesse and Chuck took me out to the movies and when we got back to the house I was greeted with a large group of people holding masks made from pictures of my face and yelling “Happy Birthday!”  It was awesome!  What was so great about it, though wasn’t that all these people had come to the house to celebrate my existence, it was that all these people had come together.  I stood in my kitchen and just soaked it all in.  Our new neighbors were chatting with people from Roots, Andrew was playing video games with his “church friends” and some kids from the neighborhood, and people were simply enjoying each other’s presence.  What a great gift!

            This weekend I was encouraged and challenged by the fact that my intuition was correct about this community.  In order to effectively insert and administer the gospel in the Four Corners region, we must intentionally create points of collision for our lives to intersect with the lives of those in our communities.  In the book of Jeremiah, chapter 29, we see God instructing the captive Israelites: 4 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”  He is telling them to become a part of the community; to live, and live well… to live lives of influence.  I believe this is what we are called to do as church planters more than to create another experience for people to choose to attend.  The name of our plant is The Roots Community.  Here’s what Jesse said about the name: In a community that is so transient and less than 10 years old, many find it difficult to connect and develop any sense of rooted-ness for themselves and their families.  The obvious reason most families are moving to this area is for a "better life", but often times that is simply economic in nature.  A "better life" without any sense of roots or community is not a better life in any way.  As The Roots Community we desire to transform this area with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As we launch a movement of church planting in this area we seek to establish roots in the physical and spiritual sense.  Transformation as a result of the gospel should impact our daily lives, thus giving us a "better life"... our ultimate "ROOTS" should be in the kingdom of God...where the Best Life is found.”  Isn’t this similar to Jeremiah 29?  Is it our job to create just another church experience, or is it to settle where we have been sent, establish roots, and influence the community from the inside out?

            Lord, thank You so much for a church family that loves me and my little family.  Thank you so much for sending us here… thank you for “exiling” us to a foreign land and foreign experience.  Please help us as we learn how to simply live and live well without having to be “professional Christians.”