In May of 2006 I was in the Spring quarter of grad school. I was taking Pentateuch w/ Dr. John Goldingay, Theology of Christian Community w/ Dr. Ray Anderson and doing a Directed Study in Narrative Theology w/ Dr. Ryan Bolger. I had just one more quarter to go and then I was going to graduate. As I thought about my future, I imagined heading in one of two directions. Either I would move back to Canton and re-establish myself in the community I had left behind and missed like crazy, or, if God didn’t direct that way, I would look for a pastoral position in either the Pacific NW or in the Northeastern part of the US – some place that was further along in terms of being a Post-Christian context.

I never thought I would wind up working for Fuller’s MAGL program. I didn’t even know we had an MAGL program, but the opportunity presented itself and it radically altered my life. This will come into sharper focus below, but suffice it to say here, the model of theological education espoused by the MAGL and the relationships I made internally have had a tremendous impact on the contours of my life through to today.

I worked with the MAGL program for most of 2007 and then various circumstances combined to lead me back to Canton. As I tried to discern a future related to engaging the missional church conversation in the Midwest, I connected with Dave Fitch for the first time and visited Life on the Vine. I was giving serious consideration to simply moving to Chicago just to be a part of LOV as the first church I had been exposed to that I felt like was actually expressing missional theology in its communal life, rhythms, and practices.

I never thought I would get a call from a young church in Memphis, TN asking me to consider taking a position down there.  And I certainly never thought that despite my best efforts to dismiss it, that God would actually lead me to embrace the opportunity.

I had a good experience at Living Hope.  I loved the staff, enjoyed connecting and working with young adults, and made some life-long friends.  I moved into mid-town, close to the part of the city where it seemed like some people from the church would think about relocating to, and anticipated a long future of investing the future of the newer church community that was seeking to embrace a missional identity and a heart for the city of Memphis.

I never thought that I would reconnect (let alone marry!) with Amy Garrington, who had been a student in one of the MAGL cohorts that I was responsible for.  (See, told you that MAGL job was a big deal!)  But, as she was contemplating leaving Pasadena for a position at International Teams near Chicago, that’s exactly what happened.  We’ve been married for about a year and a half, have a baby on the way this June, and love where we live.  Amy and I both have some family that lives in the Chicagoland area, but…

I never thought my brother would leave NYC and join us here in Chicago!

There’s probably a bunch more “I never thought’s” that I could list out, but these are probably among the most significant of the last five years.  They serve as both a humble reminder and constant encouragement that when you’re more focused on listening and responding to what God is saying and doing than on ensuring the fulfillment of your own ideas and plans, life-changing surprises await you.

I simply can’t wait for the next series of, things I never thought!

Related posts:

1. Things I never thought
2. Ten Things You Should Not Expect From Missional Churches
3. Beautiful Things

Life on the Vine is a church community that I nearly moved just to be a part of about a year and a half ago before I accepted the invitation to pastor young adults at Living Hope in Memphis and Sunday was my first opportunity to attend a worship gathering with Amy.  It may have been one of the most meaningful worship gatherings I have ever been a part of.

Once a month the community gathers an hour before their regular meeting for a corporate time of celebrating the Lord’s Supper.  People gathered in the lobby area to meet and catch up.  An order of service was personally handed to each person as we were asked to prepare ourselves before entering the sanctuary.  Upon entering, each person recited, “He is risen” to one of the pastors who was handing out matches for each person to light a candle on their way in symbolizing the presence of Christ.  The service was a combination of prayer, silence, Scripture reading, and reflection.  Finally, we served communion to one another, offering the elements in a communal fashion as opposed to taking them individually.

There was a little bit of time inbetween the communion service and the regular worship gathering to meet some people.

What was most striking about the gathering of the LOV community was how intentional and theological all the elements of the gathering were.  Here were some of the most meaningful elements of the worship gathering.

To communicate our unity as a body and the communal nature of gathering, we sat in concentric circles, thus able to face one another rather staring at the back of peoples heads.  As opposed to people, the candles symbolizing the presence of Christ as well as the communion elements were intentionally placed at the center.  When people spoke, it was always from a side.

We were joined by all the children for the beginning of the service and when they were dismissed/blessed to their time together, not by a pastor, but by the entire community, they in turn blessed us in ours.

Scripture was read by both men and women, young and old from the four “corners” of the circle – surrounding us with the Word of God.

A weekly part of the gatherings at LOV is someone sharing a “story of wonder.”  A story of something God is doing in the life of a member or members of the community.

David Fitch offered the message for the morning.  Because the community gathers together at the same time, and because they understand the formational purpose of the gathered church, he was better able to bring the text for the morning into a direct intersection with the life of the community.

Prayers were offered at different times in the service and we were invited to personalize them out loud with our own thoughts and longings as the Spirit led.

The musicians stood in a corner of the room so as to help people devote their full attention to the words we were singing.  Songs were placed strategically within different elements of the service to serve either as preparation or response to something.

Perhaps the most meaningful part of the gathering came at the end.  As we sang a final song of joy and celebration, some children, a few with disabilities, spontaneously began to dance in a circle around the candles and communion elements at the center of the room.  They led as a few adults joined in with them. Truly beautiful.

I can’t even begin to tell you about all the various artistic elements that enhanced the space we met in or the service we participated in.  Really, the whole thing was like living art, not the sort that can only be enjoyed by overtly artistic people (hello?!), but the sort that connects with the creative part of God’s image in which we’re made.

The fact that Life on the Vine embraces a more participatory form of gathering as a community really contributes to their identification as a missional church community and after finishing up another year as a pastor on staff at a church, I am really looking forward to rediscovering my identity as a “normal” part of a church community.

Related posts:

1. I Love Listening
2. Missional Preaching Part 1: Preaching as a Communal Activity
3. Preaching in the Missional Church

It was an ineviatble question (well, for most people anyway) and one we were anxious to hear from God on in the context of community.  We prayed a ton, talked a lot, asked those we respect for wisdom and advice, and in the end, felt like we had our answer, Chicago.

This was a really, really hard decision for both of us.  Neither of us had a good reason to leave the places we were.  I have been in Memphis for just a year, Amy in Chicago since October.  Both of us liked where we were living, our jobs, the people around us, and the opportunities God was giving us to serve.  We kept hoping something might happen that would essentially make the decision for us, but that never really came about.

So, Amy was in Memphis this past weekend and was with me when I shared the news with the body of Living Hope.  This was very hard to do, but brought with it a sense of relief as we begin to make plans for the future together.

I am in Chicago as I write this – we brought all my stuff up here this past Monday and have been busy looking for an apartment since then.  I have no leads on jobs as of yet, but I’m actually kind of excited for the search (networking and connections always welcome!)

Amy and I are off to Davenport, IA (her hometown and the location of our wedding) for Easter weekend to see her family and do some wedding planning and then it’s back to Memphis for me to enjoy the remainder of April with good friends and the Families on Mission Seminar that we have been planning for the end of the month.  I will be in Chicago full-time as of May 1.

So the really big question, do the Bears, Bulls, Cubs/White Sox have what it takes to make me a true Chicago convert?!

Related posts:

1. A Year in Chicago
2. Free 3DM Workshop on Discipleship & Mission Coming to Chicago

I am really at a loss for how to summarize the trip.  It featured stops in Lagos, Nigeria, Nairobi, Kenya, and Dakar, Senegal.  We got to go on safari and see all sorts of beautiful African wildlife.  We attended a crusade, visited slums, drove through a market (which, by the way, was meant to be walked through), visited with local pastors, enjoyed local cuisine, helped to run a summer camp, and entered into relationship with an incredible bunch of orphans.

I had been dreaming about visiting Africa for a number of years and I’m already anxious to return.  The landscape, both cultural and spiritual, is something I long to further understand.  The marks of Western colonialism are painfully obvious and though I was overjoyed to hear one pastor speak openly against it (he preached a message about faithfulness being the mark of true success – a message I implored him to share with his bothers and sisters in the US), the prosperity gospel is sadly entrenched amongst African Christians.

I loved getting to travel and serve alongside the other guys on the team.  I could go on for a long time about the great stuff I saw out of them, not to mention stories of all the various Africans I got to know while we were there.  But I think I will leave anything further to these pictures (which I have tried my best to add helpful descriptions to) and any specific questions you might have.  I hope to share more pictures and links as others on the team post them.

Here’s some more from John.

Related posts:

1. A Year in Chicago
2. Kenya
3. Hello Africa

At the end of October one of the small groups at Living Hope, comprised mainly of young adults, hosted a picnic at a local park as a way for other young adults to make some connections.  It was a really fun afternoon consisting of game playing, chili eating, and much conversing.

The event was significant for at least two main reasons.  First, it was a great example of the people of the church (as opposed to merely church staff) taking responsibility and initiative for ministering to others.  Second, the event succeeded in a number of these new young adults committing to meet for a number of weeks to discuss issues of life and faith as well as to pray with and for one another with a view toward connecting to a more permanent small group.

I was really excited about the event and look forward to helping people and groups host lots more stuff like this in the future.  Here’s a little slide show of great pictures that Brian took.

Related posts:

1. A Gathering of Young Adults
2. Welcome to Memphis
3. Loving My Worlds… and Wanting Them to Collide

Our church community is spending three months wrestling in and through the Psalms.  It is our hope that this time would be much more than a simple sermon series, but a season of spiritual formation for us as a community.  As part of that desire, we have created a blog and various people are posting entries in an effort to stimulate discussion.  So, whether you are a Living Hoper or another friend, hop on over there, check out the first couple of posts and share your thoughts.  Here is my recent submission…

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1. Truth Be Told, I am Scared to Death to Live in the Suburbs

The first church I served at as a pastor was very large.  We had all sorts of programs and services for people to choose from.  We invested a great deal of time and energy as a staff in trying to figure out the best ways, times, and methods to get people involved in church activities.  One of the things we were constantly wrestling with was how to have the necessary volunteers to pull everything off.  No area of ministry struggled more for consistent and dedicated volunteers than our children’s ministry.  My good friend Cyd, our children’s pastor, would ask the staff every single week to please talk to others about serving in the children’s ministry.  It was an area of constant need and an utterly shameful reality which screamed of just how far off course we were in living out God’s dream for his people.

In retrospect, I am able to see that this need was a direct result of the skewed understanding we had of what it meant to be the church.  We approached the church as though it were a volunteer organization.  Basically, our mentality was, “People have busy lives already, we need to do what we can to make it easy for them to participate in church activities and be careful not to ask too much – lest they leave.”  But the church is not a volunteer organization – the church is a family, a community invited by God to embody God’s good news of the Kingdom to the world around us.  This makes all the difference in the world in terms of the way we approach how we live, worship, and share life together.

Children are God’s gift, not only to parents, but to the community of the church.  In the context of this community, it’s not that we need volunteers to care for kids.  Rather, it’s that part of the identity of this new community is a mutual concern for each other, including a vested interest in the care for each other’s children.  In a culture so thoroughly individualistic, where we are led to believe that it is ultimately to ourselves that we are accountable and responsible, the church stands as a contrast.  In the community called church, we find our true identity not in ourselves, but in our relationship to others.

For Living Hope, our desire to be a missional church community means that we are seeking to live out a peculiar existence; an existence in which the needs of others come before our own and the care of children is seen as a communal, not private, affair.

Practically speaking, here’s what this might mean and look like.  Each Sunday morning people gather to worship – some gather at 9:00, others at 10:45.  During these times, children who can’t or don’t participate in the corporate worship gathering, meet in age specific groups.  This is our divine opportunity to experience what it means for the church to be different – to reject the dominant consumer culture.  This is our opportunity to invest a little bit of time with the children of our community – to show mutual (and opposed to individual) concern and accountability.  It’s not about volunteerism; it’s about Kingdom community.

Of course the ways in which we ought to show mutual concern and accountability run far deeper than this Sunday morning opportunity.  There are implications for our small group times, for sharing meals, for sharing resources, for taking vacations, for involvement in extracurricular activities, and so on, but there is something unique about the significance of caring for the children of our church community during those times that we are gathered corporately.

Related posts:

1. Toward a Missional Vision of Theological Education: Community Rootedness
2. Missional Community in a Capitalistic Society
3. Community, Seminary and the Church

Once upon a time there was a small group of friends that began to grow.  Over time that group has become three (probably soon to be more).  On Wednesday, those groups got together for an evening of sharing stories and praying with one another.

For several hours people talked about what God has been doing in their life, what challenges they are facing, what some of their hopes and dreams for the future are, and prayed with and for one another.  I shared in this time from 2 points of view.  First and foremost, I am a part of one of these groups and I was overjoyed to count myself among these people who are trying to follow God in their lives.  Secondly, I am a pastor on staff with the church community all these friends are a part of.  It is really this 2nd perspective that I want to comment on briefly.

Most of my undergraduate education, internships, and church experience has taught me that the paid pastors/professionals are charged with the task of developing vision for a church community and then laboring to help those who comprise the body get on board.  Ugh.  This is a methodology I have been happy to wave bye-bye to.  Instead, I would rather spend my time listening to peoples hearts and stories as we, together, try to get a handle on what God is doing and saying in our midst.  This is intrinsic to how I have come to understand what it means to be a truly missional church community.  It drastically changes how we go about being the body of Christ and I am all for it.  Here’s to the journey my friends – allelon!

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1. The People of God and Prophets: A Love-Hate Relationship
2. Does God Love Child Molestors?
3. This is Why I Love Stanley Hauerwas

I hear people talk quite frequently about the “dangers of the city” and how unsafe certain parts of town are.  But if I were being honest, I would tell you that I am far more scared to live in the suburbs than I am to live virtually anywhere else.

By design, suburbs are places of isolation, disconnection, and compartmentalization.  Their very existence is predicated on cultural values of materialism, consumerism , and individualism.  All of this makes it much harder (not impossible mind you) to follow the way of Jesus – a way of simplicity and interconnectedness with those on the margins of society.

I bring this up because I will very soon need to decide on a more permanent place to live.  I have been looking in mid-town which is more urban, racially mixed, threatened by crime and violence, accessible to pedestrians, affordable, and artistic.  All of this most naturally appeals to me.

But, I have also been looking in the Germantown/Collierville area which is suburban, predominantly white, relatively free of crime and violence, necessitates a car to go anywhere, more expensive, and culturally bland.

Complicating these basic dynamics are factors such as these…

– most of the folks at Living Hope are suburban people thus I feel I should live among them

– I am a young adult pastor and mid-town is more attractive to young adults

– we gave bought land and are discussing the potential of building a gathering place on it even further east from urban Memphis in Piperton

– the idea of our church planting or having more of a presence in urban Memphis is something we are discussing

– currently, the people I am aiming to really share life with live predominantly in suburban Memphis

– it maybe the case that more of our folks would head toward mid-town if a few more folks blazed that trail

… and I could probably list more.  I have been basically paralyzed by this decision of where to live and why.  Maybe I can just rest in the fact that no matter what, I am looking to rent and not buy, which ties me down probably for a year at the most. On top of this, where ever I wind up, I am seeking to be there with the express purpose of taking Jesus’ command to love my neighbors literally and seriously.  So, whether in mid-town or the burbs, I am sure there will be folks who are hurting and in need, and I find some solace in the primacy of this calling.

So there ya have it – with all the transparency I can muster, the suburbs scare me.  I would much rather live in a place where I could be shot or robbed than in a place that has the potential to chip away at my soul and spiritual sensibilities every so slowly and subtlety.  I welcome your thoughts.

Related posts:

1. 10 Ideas for Living Missionally in the Suburbs
2. What the Suburbs Have in Common with Hell
3. A Place to Lay My Head

As a prelude to that though, I wanted to point to a message Gib offered to the Living Hope community this past Sunday when I was away, “Riches in Poverty.”  Probably my favorite line, “Every time currency changes hands, I am making a spiritual decision.”  How different our lives would be, how different our very understanding on what it means to be a gospel people if we embraced and lived out this Kingdom truth!

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Young adults fall into 3 general categories: singles, young married couples, and young married couples with kids. I have been fortunate enough to be embraced by communities of all three types and yesterday was a microcosm of those worlds for me.

Yesterday morning I socialized mainly with my house group, which is comprised exclusively of pre-kid, married couples. We collaborated to help one of those couples move and then I spent the afternoon with one of the married guys, Zach, checking out various neighborhoods and properties as we think towards the possibility of intentional community (post on that forthcoming!).

Then, I had dinner with a slew of my friends who are married w/ small kids. We were celebrating Clay’s graduation as a Doctor of Physical Therapy. This is a great time for me – getting to see how parents deal with kid stuff, trying to love on them myself, and embracing the mess that simply must be embraced if sanity is to remain.

Finally, last night I spent with a bunch of my single friends. People were really just hanging out and talking. We played a game my friends from Ohio lay claim to, “… and a bottle of wine,” and it was a great time.

Each of these groups is of course incredibly unique and I treasure my time with all of these folks in accordance with that uniqueness. I am thinking more and more about how to help others discover the joy of sharing life with those in various stages of it, but in the meantime, boy am I thrilled that it’s something God has orchestrated for me. It’s just good for my soul.

Related posts:

1. A Gathering of Young Adults
2. Doing and Sharing Life Together
3. Welcome to Memphis

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This past Sunday I had my first opportunity to address the Living Hope community. I must have had a thousand different thoughts on what to share. Ultimately, I really wanted to share some of my story and highlight something that I found relevant for where we’re at as a community of faith.

What I decided on was the way in which God used grad school to change me from someone who placed their faith primarily in a system of belief, to someone who tried to practice faith as a way of life and to put my trust in God as one who could never be contained or exhausted by my ideas or beliefs.

We looked at the Exodus story and the way in which even after being rescued and redeemed by God, the people of Israel wanted to relate to God from a distance, wanted to avoid the fear and unknown of continuing to follow God, and opted to worship a idol created by their own hands rather than worship the living God by living in the way he had directed them.

These were all reactions I was tempted to embrace during some of the tumultuous times of grad school and more importantly, reactions which I often fear the average church in the United States facilitates.  To be a church which refuses to allow for a two-tiered model of discipleship (leaders and the rest of us), which constantly asks, “what’s the next fearful and risky adventure God is calling us into,” and is more concerned with passing on a way of life than a system of belief, doesn’t exactly lend itself to our individualistic, consumer-driven, instant-gratification-seeking, culture.  Yet, this exactly the sort of future I hope for our community.

Over and above merely having the opportunity to share my story and what was on my heart and mind, I also enjoyed being able to invite some friends to participate in the service along with me.  Liz led a responsive reading, and Mike and Zach led the congregation into the Exodus story, by reading Scripture.  I shared an excellent quote from Martin Luther King Jr. that my friend Eric reminded me of, and offered our community some questions to stew on as we concluded.

Anywho, it was a great time.  Thanks Living Hope for being awesome.

Related posts:

1. Life on the Vine
2. The MAGL Life
3. Doing and Sharing Life Together

Listen to this song, it’s awesome.

I hurt my knee last week and it is bad enough that it’s preventing me from running and playing sports, basically making me miserable.

Even though I missed out on being with some of the most important people in my life,

I had a great weekend with some of my newest friends. Most importantly, I am pleased to announce that at 29 years of age I am still a back flipping fool!

My friend Julia is one of the coolest people in the world. She’s an excellent writer, isn’t afraid to be honest with people, and was kind enough to be my conference wife in the Bahamas at Soularize. But all of that is eclipsed by her commitment to the reality of God’s Kingdom in the world. She is so committed to ending the the global trafficking of people for sex and slavery that she had the words “until the last lock breaks” tattooed on her forearm. Julia, the church could stand a few more men and women with your sort of heart.

I am definitely mourning the loss of a community where the sharing of life amongst people of diverse seasons of life was the norm. Note to Canton friends: Don’t forget that our experience is not that of most.

As someone whose mind is basically consumed with the idea of spiritual formation on the personal and corporate levels, I am really excited to have made the decision to seek out a spiritual director/counselor that I think might be an important piece in that process for me.

I have the opportunity to address the Living Hope community this Sunday. I am definitely excited for the opportunity to share some of my story and heart, but also nervous as someone who has only lived among these folks in this new place for 2 short months (not to mention the nervousness which always accompanies the prophetic element of my personality).

That being said, I have really enjoyed reengaging what it means to be a pastor in the context of a missional church community. Challenges around every bend, but I love the team I get to be a part of.

I really miss my house church and Anabaptist friends. There was a connection there on a deep level that I am yet to discover here in Memphis.

I have come to the conclusion that relationally speaking there is probably nothing more frustrating to me than trying to engage with people who can’t communicate deeply. I hate how little patience I often feel in this regard.

My friend Jason and his family are in the process of joining an Eastern Orthodox church and he has been blogging about it. As I was sharing my my friend Emily, another brilliant and articulate lady, the Eastern Orthodox church has a tremendous amount to offer in terms of its theology and ecclesiology, though few realize it.

OK, think that’s enough randomness for one evening.

Related posts:

1. Life on the Vine
2. 10 Ideas for Living Missionally in the Suburbs
3. Consuming Jesus

I grew weary of the term and idea of small groups years ago. In most of my experience, church based small groups served mainly to isolate people in affinity based relationships. Interestingly, small groups are a relatively new concept and practice for churches in the south. Most folks down here who have been part of church culture for any length of time are used to Sunday School.

In a church like Living Hope however, where everything we aim to do is designed to aid in the process of truly making disciples (those who actually look to Jesus’ life as a model for a way to live), there is perhaps more of a chance for small groups to really look and function differently than I have gotten used to. Loads of people that I have met have shared stories of the way in which their participation in a Living Hope small group has, for the first time in their lives, opened them up to the idea of truly doing and sharing their lives with others. More then this, for most of our small groups, finding ways to serve the body and the world around us is on the forefront of their minds and imaginations.

Within my first month or so of being here there was a certain group of folks that it seemed I was having the most conversations and doing the most stuff with. So, I decided that this probably ought to be my small group – the folks that I try with more intentionality to do and share life with as we think about how to bless others. It’s an awesome group full of more potential that anyone even realizes and I am thrilled to be a part of it. The group, except for myself, is all young married couples. Here’s what my friend Liz said about the group yesterday on her blog (she’s is pretty awesome photographer by the way)…

Tonight, we’re meeting with our small group… a group of AMAZING people who are consistently teaching us how to live in community and know God better. This group has become our family over the past few months and I cannot imagine my walk with God without them. Each person has taught me so much, and I am eager to learn more. Zach and I have a better marriage because of this group. My walk with God is better because of this group. Honestly, I don’t know how I managed to get through life before joining a small group. I haven’t posted too many pictures of them simply because I don’t want to freak them out with my obnoxious picture-taking, but tonight we’re getting together for a “game night.” I think it may be a good time to introduce them to my dark side. Hopefully, I’ll have pictures tomorrow.

She does have pictures, they are here. You should also check out Mandy’s blog.

Related posts:

1. Turning the Titanic While We Tidy Up the Rooms
2. I Love Listening
3. Life on the Vine