my journey to where i'm at right now

since school has been out, things have been pretty crazy. i’ve been out of town a lot, and i moved into a house with five other guys. but the thing that has been the craziest is this church that we started. let me tell you a little bit of the story…

i have known for a while that i wanted to be a pastor, but just over the past year, god has been giving me more direction with that. especially over the break, i began to feel more and more of a call toward church planting. so, by God's blessing i was able to go up to seattle in march for the Acts 29 Bootcamp (church planting conference). being up there gave me more of an affirmation on my call toward this, and talking with other church planters was one of the coolest things to do. in my mind i was thinking that planting a church would be a long way down the road. during a Q and A session with some of the planters, one person asked, "what is your advice for a person who wants to plant a church, but doesn't think they will be planting for a few years?" that was me, and i listened intently as they advised me to get plugged into a healthy church and intern there for a bit. so, once i got back, i began attending an Acts29 church in monmouth (which has been awesome). my plan was just to get involved and learn from the pastor over the coure of a couple years...

after the conference, i just continued to try and follow Jesus and reach out to the people at Corban and in Salem. i remember many a conversation that i would have with one of my brothers in the dorm, jesse, that ended with him saying, "man, we should just start a church..." i continued to think that we couldn't do this for a few years.

then, through addie i heard that some people that went to college outside of salem but would be coming back for the summer were frustrated with the fact that they only had about three months to try and get plugged into a church in town...and by that time, they would have to leave. so, i just heard little whispers from sam, addie, and juli about starting something this summer.

the more i thought of this, the more i realized that i would try and do this in the summer even if we didn't call it "church." i have been wrestling with the question of what makes a church a church for some time now, and one of the things that i am convinced of is that church is full of people who have this purposeful relationship. what sets apart a church service from chapel at corban? or a prayer night? there are several things, but i think one of the biggest ones is the relational factor.

thinking about this as well as reading in the bible about how the church really did live in community convinced me that even if we weren't going to call it a church or whatever, i would still be trying to do something similar.

after talking with God, some pastors, and many friends i decided that we should just give it a try - try living out this deep community on mission to salem this summer. my conviction from the beginning was that i wanted for us to do something - not to just sit and talk about Jesus, but to really be Jesus to salem...meeting needs, seeing people's lives transformed by the gospel, and living by faith. so, one day i was sitting there thinking about some stuff and i wrote a date down on the calendar, invited some friends, and began to think about the vision for this thing.

as i thought and prayed about the vision for our church, the words just came to me. literally i was praying for a bit, and then i picked up my pen and wrote this out:

Reconciliation is a missional community sharing, showing and living out the gospel.


i feel like this vision was given to me from God. and the further we get into this thing, the more i see the evidence of the grace of God and his work in creating this.

last thursday night, we kicked things off with an amazing group of 13 people sitting in our living room. as i was in the act of explaining the vision and answering people's questions, the weight of everything began to hit me. we are actually starting a church...what am i doing? i'm 19 years old. this is not how they said to do it at the conference. and now we are almost a week and a half into it. already so much has happened. 

i don't feel at all equipped to lead this. i don't know what i'm doing. i wake up in the morning and just know that i need to pray and read my bible...i need God's wisdom to lead this. i don't feel old enough. i don't feel experienced enough. we don't have any money. we don't have a building. we don't have a church backing us. not very many people even know about this...

but we're going for it. 

we're trying to live this thing out. see, for too long i have been too timid to challenge the norm. i haven't been willing to question things, and instead i have decided to comfortably sit and do things as everyone says they should be done. yet, when i look at the bible, i see church as so much different than we seem to do it...they loved each other so deeply that people couldn't help but want to join in. their lives were transformed by the gospel, and they gave everything they had for it. service, evangelism, giving, etc. wasn't an obligation that the pastor's guilted people into - it was something that they wanted to do because they were so overwhelmed by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. people didn't go to church - they were the church...and they gathered together for celebration and encouragement on a weekly basis. and...people were coming to know Jesus all the time. 

this is some of what i see in the bible, and i want that. i want to live in a community that sacrificially serves each other and that reaches out to the lost together. i want to be surrounded by people that are head over heels in love with Jesus and excited to obey him- not just apathetic. i want to really live in the freedom and joy that is inherent in the gospel.

so, our church (Reconciliation - taken from 2 Corinthians 5:18-21) is going to try to take God at his word and give this thing a try. i realize that we're not doing this right according to the world's standards or according to the christian community's standards - but i think that that is just the reason why God might use us to bring change to this city. the verse that has been playing over and over again in my mind is, "God uses the weak things of this world to shame the strong." our weakness is his strength. i believe that God can use some young, clumsy, bold lovers of Christ to magnify his name in the city of Salem. again, his strength perfected in our weakness.

so, we'll see what God does. its his story, and it is a privilege to be a part of what he's doing. 

vision for summer church

here's the mission statement for "Reconciliation"

Reconciliation is a missional community sharing, showing, and living out the gospel.

and an explanation...

Missional Community – Two elements to this thing. We are a community of redeemed people, which means so much. Community has been insightfully defined as the place where the person you least want to live always lives. Yancy says, “Anyone can form a club; it takes grace, shared vision, and hard work to form a community.” As the community of Christ, we love and serve one another sacrificially. Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples” (Jn. 13:34). This is the love that the people of God are called to – loving like Christ loved. This means that we lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters in the church – literally loving them as if they were our own family. This will be difficult, but I believe that by the Holy Spirit’s power, God can form a deep, loving, and authentic community of people in Reconciliation.
The second aspect of this – missional – is inherent both in the nature of the God and the nature of community. To be missional means that we view our context (where we live, play, work, etc.) from a missionary standpoint, embracing the Great Commission of Jesus and obeying his command to be sent into the world (Jn. 20:21). “God is a missionary God, and God’s primary missionary method is his covenant people,” writes Tim Chester. We see God reaching out as a missionary to humanity first through Israel – a community. Now, we see God reaching out through the church. And this is what Jesus said, as mentioned above – “By this [your love for one another, i.e. community] all men will know that you are my disciples.” The community God creates in the church is a missional community – it must be. Therefore, we don’t have community for community’s sake. We must share this community with others, and our focus has to be on carrying to message and love of God to all the places that we go.

Sharing – We share the gospel through proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ to those we come in contact with. This goes hand in hand with showing the gospel, but it is more important. If we really love those like Jesus did, we will be concerned with both their physical needs and their spiritual needs. Since spiritual needs are more important and last forever, sharing the gospel with those who don’t know Jesus is of utmost importance. Sharing the gospel means making disciples, not just converts. It is in obedience to the Great Commission Jesus gave just before he ascended to heaven – “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Mt. 28:18-20).

Showing – We show the gospel through our actions – how we serve and reach out to those in need. Not only does Jesus die for our sins, he also heals the sick and reaches out to the poor, providing for physical needs as well as spiritual. Over and over again God commands us in his Word to care for the poor, orphaned, widowed, needy, and helpless. Showing the gospel means bringing physical and tangible healing into places of brokenness. Reconciliation Church will seek to show the gospel to the city of Salem, making it so that the city and the neighborhood are improved because of the work we do.

Living out – We live out the gospel by growing in holiness – walking in our identity as redeemed children of God. Christ has died for us so that we might live for him and become conformed to his image. Therefore, the Reconciliation community will grow in obedience and live out a life marked by the gospel of Jesus. Instead of having to obey God out of compulsion because of religion, we get to obey God out of joy because of grace. We grow up in our spiritual walk to become conformed to the image of Christ, taking on the perfect characteristics of the Jesus that we follow.

The Gospel – Simply put, the gospel is Jesus Christ. Gospel literally means “good news,” and this is the entire theme of the Bible. At its most basic level, the gospel message is that though we as humans are enemies with God, God sent Jesus to die on our behalf. In Jesus’ death, he took upon himself all of our sin and he gave us his righteousness. We gave him our sin and failure; he gave us his righteousness and perfection. This is unmerited grace. Through Jesus, the way was opened for us to come to Jesus by grace through faith, and just as Jesus was resurrected, so we also have the hope that we will one day be resurrected to find ourselves united with Christ. This gospel, Jesus, is the motivation for why we live, the message we proclaim, and the means by which we can actually live out God’s commandments.