From High Brow Pirate to Hometown Pastor

This Sunday started with a very special gifting to some special people.  Back in July, Jessica, Dana, and Fuzzy were baptized.  Well, this week they were presented with proper baptism certificates and gifts.  The gists were small leather versions of The Message version of the New Testament.  After that we had our worship/sharing period.  We went around the room and each shared a piece of ourselves with each other.  It was a time of sharing and laughter and all around good time.  Amy saw someone outside picking up recyclable trash and went outside to bring him a donut and asked him if he wanted to come to church and he came in.  He was a nice young man named Doug and he seemed to enjoy himself.  

We went into a discussion about prayer and why we do it and it was a really good discussion and there were raw and honest emotions and tears.  From there we had our time of prayer and reflection and candle lighting and then we had our period of announcements and then a most lovely communion.  

We did decide that next week is going to be a Thanksgiving leftover potluck communion Sunday, but we also decided to do some discussion about future services at the juice bar.  So off to the juice bar we go.  Almost everyone who attended service went to the juice bar.  We pulled tables together, placed our orders, shared some laughs, and enjoyed life.  After a bit I pulled it in a bit and we started into the meat of the conversation.  

The first thing we discussed was an interest by everyone about sin and Satan.  What is sin, how did it get here, who is Satan, how does that work…etc.  So two weeks from now we will be discussing sin and satan.  From there we are going to take each week and discuss the seven deadly sins week after week.  That’s right…Wrath, Avarice, Sloth, etc etc etc.  Some people even discussed how much fun it would be to dress up like each sin that will be discussed that week.  

As the conversations got deeper we found the areas they wanted to discuss even more specifically.  The devil…what is his relation to God and what is his relation to us and how do those interactions work?  With the seven deadly sins, there were two that seemed to spark the most conversation.  Pride and lust.  With pride there seems to be a concern as to where the line between healthy self esteem and arrogance lay.  With Lust there is also a similar concern.  We are attracted to people and in many cases that attraction is how babies get into the world and babies are overall good things…so when is the sweet love making love and when is it lust and how does that all work.  Essentially…where is the line between healthy attraction and lust?

Then we got to the parts about the mechanics of service.  The simple stuff was simple.  Everyone loves the candles, everyone loves the communion.  There does seem to be more comfort made for those who are not ready to light a candle or take the bread and juice.  I have thoughts on that, but I will discuss that on another post.  In worship, some weeks we will do music and in other weeks we will do what we did this week…go around the room and share something spiritual and from God.  We will not do both at the same time.  Our next service will have music done by Krystal and Amy.  

Finally we hit a tricky point.  Alyssa pointed out her desire for there to be more interaction.  I agree with her.  Others said they would like it to be as it was this week where I yap and then there is q&a and perspective time.  Dana asked me what I wanted and I said both.  So here is what we are going to do for now.  When I speak, if someone has a concern or a question burning in them over something I just said, they can signal that they would like to say or ask something and I will let them do it.  Then, after the sermon/discussion, we will have q&a.  We all agreed that would be a good place to go and know this will be a process to find the sweet spot in the discussion and we will meet at the juice bar most Sunday afternoons and review and reflect on where we are going, how that week went, and where we want to go.  

It was lovely and it was wonderful and it was marvelous.  I love these people with every fiber of my being and I think we did not have church…we WERE the church.  This was a first magnificent step into a wonderful direction.   

I’m not really sure how to describe what has happened this last week as the community takes control and ownership of LifeBridge.  We now have had two meetings on that ownership.  The first one was at my home on Thursday and the last one was a scant few hours ago at a juice bar in Lockport. 

At the first one we had Dana and Puma and Kris and a short visit from David. This was actually three meetings in one.  The first one was between Dana and I.  I am organizationally challenged and it is not like we have a budget for fancy things like church office assistants or anything and Dana was kind enough to volunteer.  So we had a pre meeting about my organizational weak spots and the areas I need help in.  That meeting went VERY well.  Then, David and Dana and I had a discussion about the topics for the nect few YASO’s and what we will do for the YASO Christmas Formal.  For those keeping track at home, the next YASO topics will be about Family Decompression, Holiday Stress, Christmas Formal, Christmas Family Decompression, and then Reflections of the last year and hopes for the next year.  The Christmas party will have dance music, pizza, soda, punch, eggnog, cookies, brownies, and dollar store secret santa.

We also wrapped up the second meeting by agreeing to have a newsletter.  The newsletter will be for YASO and LifeBridge and be done at the end of the month.  Though the newsletter will have upcoming events, the main focus will be individual reflections of the last month.  

After this pre meetings were done, Kris and Puma arrived and we started into the meeting about Sunday Worship time.  It was very casual and loose and fun.  It was life and energy and vibrancy.  From all of that goodness we got something done.  There would be no music that week, that portion of worship would be dedicated to intimate sharing about life.  It was decided there needed to be a greater seperation between the candle lighting prayer time and communion because they felt the candle time is precious and it gets lost in communion.   The came time for what topic to choose.  This one was very emotional as some…well…almost everyone expressed frustration over prayers.  What’s the point?  If God is gonna do what he is gonna do, why pray? So now we had out topic.  There was also a side bar.  Kris wanted the ability to vet my sermons and view my notes so those will now be made available online.  Everyone left and it was a good time had by all.

That led to this Sunday.  This Sunday we had a good service and in the next entry I will discuss what happened at worship service and the meeting at the juice bar later.  Sorry to leave you all in suspense, but I need to take a walk and maybe make dinner or something.  

So here we are as a community a year later.  Almost none of the core that we started with are there save two people, but what we do have is more lovely and amazing than I can begin to describe to you.  After service I asked everyone to stick around so we could talk about the direction of LifeBridge.  I told them it was optional.  Well, after communion was done and service ended, not one person left.

I told them a few confessions.  I started by telling them how happy I am that YASO and B&L are communities that have a genuine sense of ownership by the community.  I told them that I have wanted the same thing out of LifeBridge, but instead of letting the community take ownership, I always tried things from my ideas to foster an environment of community without ever really involving them in the discussion.  I also admitted I am horrible administrator on the little details and needed help.  I further admitted that while focusing so much energy on YASO, I’ve allowed LB to sit on the backburner.  Everyone was very receptive to my opening up.  We then discussed an idea I had to start first steps in real community involvement.  My suggestion, based on Solomon’s Porch in Minnesota, was to have whoever wanted to come on Tuesday’s to come to my house and help plan…as a community…the next Sunday.  Sermon topic, music, worship experience, etc.  They liked the core of the idea, but felt it would be better to do it at a juice bar in Lockport that has wifi and a meeting room right after service.  Most of the people in our group are younger and live in town while I live the next town over so this mkes transportantion more accessable for more people to be involved.  They also said that they wanted it to be fun and loose.  Yeah, they know things need to be done, but they do not want it to feel committee driven and so forth.  So we are taking our first steps into a community driven worship service.  I cannot wait to tell you how it goes.  Since I was not prepared to spend Sunday afternoon with everyone, this Tuesday some people are coming to my house and next sunday will be our first Sunday planning gathering.  

In other news, I got a volunteer to be my help in the weakness of organization and we also will be discussing our most core values as a community and how to ensure that everything we do and say and print and show on the web reflects that. 

Updates to come, but this weekend was a very good weekend indeed.

As I share my personal experiences about the planting process I am not suggesting that I am angry about my experiences nor am I casting judgments on those who helped us plant.  As critical as I am of current planting trends, I am not even saying that they are wrong.  What I am saying is that the core concepts of planting is the most important thing and that the methods of the bricks and mortar are less essential in their mechanisms.  The paths and directions that I wanted to take and had to fight for are not THE way to do it, but A way to do it that is just as valid in my humble opinion as the conventional ways.  End of the day, planting coaches need to be flexible and allow for differing external visions and expressions of church community as opposed to firmly creating and multiplying clones of your own experiences and visions.

If the core beliefs about Jesus, the Gospel, Mission, and Incarnational living are solid and the planter has a honest grasp of these things, then the expression of church community and the founding of that church community can, and should be allowed to differ.  

What was in my heart was to reach the dissillusioned and the ones with many hurts and demands put on them by the church.  The methods I felt compelled to use were wonderful for the "seekers" and the "unchurched" and for a plant where the planter is called to reach those people that is fine.  But when you are reaching the disillusioned and the burned, a different toolbox is needed.  I know of a pastor in Boystown in Chicago who reaches to the GLBT community and his expression and invitations are different than mine and the methods I was asked to use.  There is a church starting on the strip in Vegas trying to reach prostitutes and addicted gamblers…again, different methods.  What of the church trying to reach the homeless community…snazzy music and four color flyers may intimidate them.  It is the same gospel, but there are different expressions of reaching people and loving them and one size does not and cannot be expected to fit all.

In my case (to summarize), door hangers do not earn trust or open the opportunity to earn trust, the music does not have to be perfect (sometimes there is no music), and a conventional core would have been detrimental.  Further, in this first year the community helped form what we are as opposed to us forcing hopes and dreams into it.  Now, almost a year later, we are prepared to invite others to join our community now that we know what we are inviting them to.  

I do hope this better explains my frustration.  It is not with the methods themselves, it is that there needs to be room and allowances for trailblazers and callings that have different external expressions.  Counter culture sometimes means being counter to the conventional methods within the church and if we want to survive in this emerging post modern world, we have to become flexible to these alternative visions and expressions of community.

Ah marketing and models.  In my planting efforts I was having so much fun going into diners and bars and bowling alleys and street corners (literally) and getting to know people and talk to them about Jesus and LifeBridge and what church is not and what it could be and what they wanted it to be.  Then I was made (I suspect unintentionally) to feel compelled to design flyers, gather volunteers, and "canvass the neighborhood" with these four color door hangers.  I was told that this would define who in my core group meant business and who didn’t.  This would show who was willing to work for this and who was not.  So not only was it marketing, but it was some kinda weird test of dedication for my new friends.  My new friends were, like me, walking into bars and bowling alleys and diners and street corners and having the time of their lives meeting people one on one and talking about life.  When I told them about the door hanger plan, they looked at me and could not understand the logic.  I related with them and told them that this was not my idea and when they asked if it was okay if they did not take part in this because it felt commercial, I told them they did not have to. 

I went and passed out the flyers and felt dirty the whole time.  I was conflicted and this was the opposite of what was in my heart.  I was told that behind every door was a story and that story had hearts and needs and I was asked if I wanted to know that story?  Hell yes!  But I get to know that story when I meet them, not when they look at a four color graphic with a clever slogon that looks no different than any other church marketing ploy.  Not one person came in from those flyers and if any of you are reading this, I am so sorry.  I hope you at least recycled the blank side for notepaper or something.  

That same day was the day that I found out that music was not only about worship, but it was also about marketing.  See, this was a scant few weeks prior to the first service and I did not have all my ducks in a row to the satisfaction of my mentor for worship music.  I was fine with it because I knew the community that was forming and the direction we were heading.  But I was told, and I quote, "Do not underestimate the power of awkward music to drive people away from your church.  The last planter underestimated the music and he failed.  Your pulling the trigger here and you are not taking this seriously."  Oh, I WAS taking it seriously.  As far as our music, a year later I will tell you that it is okay and decent from a technical standpoint, but everyone there likes it and it is ours.  Sometimes *gasp* we do not have music.  This last week, my singer got sick and could not make rehearsal and then on Saturday, my guitarist got sick.  So we did not have any music and we still worshipped God without song, but with sincere hearts and NOT ONE PERSON MINDED!

So what do you do different?  This first year was based mostly on word of mouth only.  Our numbers started strong, around April many people left as more and more youth came in with messy lives and tripp pants and our numbers now are less than what they were that first week.  Our money is almost non existant.  What do we have?  We know who we are and what we are and we can now know WHAT we are inviting people to becuase we have an identity as opposed to a rpepackaged plan.  We will use some stickers, we will use you tube videos, we will use tools, but we will use them honestly and without "zing" and wow factors.  We will be simple and honest and the power to spread the invitation still happens on the road because someone has to hand someone a sticker, give a link, and talk about it.  But we waited a year before we even considered a sign.

During my planting internship I learned about this wild Messiah who did not play by the rules of society.  He was so counter culture that the religious elite conspired with governmental forces to kill him.  He spent his time with unsavory people and loved them without condition.  He spoke against not only the norms of government and society, but also the norms of religious thought.  This was revolution and love and messiness and poetry and wonder.  Some of my best and most formative thoughts on Jesus came in a condensed time of nine months that I will be eternally grateful for.  But then came the disconnect.  In following this wild messiah and making disciples that follow in his yoke of beautiful chaos was reduced to formulas and tests and other things that did not compute.  It reminded me of Bible College.  They (Bible College) taught me Hermeneutics-the science of interpreting the Bible.  They gave me the tools to read and interpret and understand for myself.  But when my questions got too uncomfortable or challenged assumptions they held dear, I was being misguided and somehow in error.  I used the tools too well for my own good.  Now here I am, given the gift of a wild messiah with a revolutionary message and call and as I try to walk in His yoke with the very tools of understanding given to me, I was told to ignore it temporarily for pragmatic purposes. 

This whole process of having a core was very troubling to me.  Jesus surrounded himself by the "not good enoughs" and they went out to reach the marginalized and the hurting and the ignored and the honest questioning people who were also "not good enoughs".  How could I reach out to the people who Jesus reached out to with a bunch of people who had the same ingrained bad habits I did and were as out of touch with the world as I was?  To have some of my bad habits broken, I had to go through a personal little "deprogramming" session that took many months and happened one on one.  It just seemed to make more sense to me to strike out with a bunch of people who were in the margins and fed up with churches and say,"hey! let’s chase after the kingdom together!"  So that is exactly what I did.  My planter support group was not offering me core volunteers and yet I had to find them.  So I got them from bars and blogs and bowling alleys and was very careful (though honest) about what I said about my "core".  My core also had some seasoned vets of the faith who are very good people with genuine hearts.  But ya know what?  None of those people are here anymore.  There was not enough offered for them and they needed to be "fed" and they went on to places that could better offer them what they were looking for.  I bear them no ill will and knew from day one that this was not what they were ready for and what they needed.  I tried to tell them what we were chasing as honestly as I could.  

Over the last year since our "launch", the true core I knew was out there developed.  Most of the pre start faces are seen no more and a new batch of people have emerged.  They are honest, raw, rough around the edges, and are beautiful.  They have taken early steps into discipleship and mission without knowing the words for it and they are trying to get others to walk in this journey with them without knowing the subculture and the Christian folkways and mores.  They do not have money, they do not have power, most of them are under 25, and their lives are messy…but they know what is important and they get the core aspects of this journey (the kingdom of God, mission, and the great commission to name a few) more than most Christians I know who have been in the individualistically based faith subculture for years and years.  

As opposed to having a seasoned core that would then decide what others needed and and formulating an offering for them, we spent this year letting the wheat and the chaff sift itself out and becoming a community with a small group of people who know what they identity IS as opposed to what we hope it to be.  They are now ready to invite others into this journey with them.   I went to the beach and asked some people to drop their net and take a journey with me as opposed to the synagogue.  The beaches and the bars and the streets are where we find the people of the beatitudes, also known as the salt of the earth. 

I think that anyone who has read this blog a few times can guess that I am not too hip on the takeover of business in the church.  I think this is especially prevalent in the church planting racket.  We have developed management training, marketing arks, business strategies and whole bunch of other stuff based on corporate America.  As I have said many a time, if imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, then the church is proving itself to be very enamored by corporate America.  Hell, we kiss corporate America’s ass and have made marketing and strategic planning our idols.  The funny part is, our current economy, the recent Wall Street Crash, the housing crisis, and the over ten percent unemployment figures should tell us that the emporor of consumerism and business strategy has no clothes.  But here we are, using a failed tools, tests, and methods and assigning God to them. 

Though my first beef is not closely related to business strategy, it is related.  In starting churches it is standard practice to have a core group.  As an emerging missional guy, this is a hard one to swallow.  The need for "mature" christians to sit in a room and plot and plan how we are going to bring in and attract real people who are outside the church.  The problem is, that the "converted" know how to reach the other "converted" and you often end up with consumer Christians looking for the latest music, kids programs, and other stuff that does not matter.  Well, it does not matter to those outside the church, but it matters for the consumer Christian.  The problem is that you end up being beholden to these people and you end up performing so much maintenance to keep them happy that you never really do get to fulfilling the mission.  Let me give you an example.  I was once talking to a planter who was getting ready to start a church in a city with needs.  This city has two sides to it.  One side is affluent and the other side is poor.  He claims to be missional, and when he talks about the city’s needs he always talks about the poor side.  So, I asked him, why start on the affluent side when the need is on the poor side?  He said he would leverage the affluence of the rich side to one day make a greater impact on the side with immediate need.  Do you kind of see my problem?  How many years will this take and how many people will he have to appease while people lose homes, live in fear of violence and street gangs, and suffer abuse and marginalization?  What of the needs of the wealthy side?  Rich people have hurts too.  He will spend so much time administering to them with his sensitive and caring nature that he will only have token efforts to the hurting that serve mainly to make the wealthy feel good.  It is backwards…people like Shane Claiborn and  Mother Teresa just go to where the need they claim to have a heart for and do it with what little you have and let God guide the way. 

Now, I realized I strayed, but I just thought of an analogy with my problem of the core group stuff. Imagine Jesus, instead of grabbing his motley crew of fishermen, women, tax collectors, and so forth to change the world and start this movement, he had gone with the core group principle.  He would have to take some mature Jews who know the law…so….maybe a core group of Pharisees and Sadducees.  They would all then sit in regularly scheduled meetings and discuss rationally how they are going to reach the hookers, the centurions, the lepers, and all the rest of the people that they have proved themselves to be painfully out of touch with.  They would also need to work on fund raising, financial viabilities, find some space to rent, and create an awareness marketing campaign.  Then, and only then, would they be ready for a first service and invite everyone-who already does not trust them-to come and see this wonderful new event.

Now that we are almost a year old and it is evident that I have nothing to lose since no one is offering us anything and we are bastard children not getting child support, I may as well discuss openly what I think is a different, and valid way to try things. What I am about to suggest in my next entry is not a better way per se, but it is a different way.  When you hear me speak against different mindsets, please understand that I am not speaking AGAINST anyone or trying to vilify, I am trying to grow out of that.  I am expressing some frustration that I never had the opportunity to be openly different and instead had to test the waters and strike out on my own in what has proved to be a very lonely journey.  Mostly, I am expressing facts as seen through the lense of my existence.  Try not to hold it against me.  There will be a part two to this coming along shortly, I just did not want to make this entry too long. 

YASO is one of those exciting things I have not been talking about, but I should have been.  It pretty much found it’s humble birth at the beginning of the new year.  It was an idea that has been rumbling around in my head and heart since I started volunteering at Coffeehouse.  For those of you who are new to the blog, ***Background Alert***Coffeehouse is a youth out reach I volunteer at.  The point of Coffeehouse is to give kids a chance to have fun on a Friday night without drugs, sex, beer or danger.  It is a different theme every week.  One Friday it is karaoke, the next dance night, the next open mic, then local band concert night.    We meet on the same space they do and the space (and coffeehouse) are owned by the First Congregational Church of Lockport.***End Background Alert***  The idea was to simply dig deeper into the lives of these teens and young adults and get them to talk and get them to act.  I have told a few people in leadership at the Coffeehouse that I think there is a lot more to these "kids" than meets the eye.  Something that we can learn a lesson from and grow from and the community could be enriched by.  Some agreed and the Coffeehouse actually used to intermingle some ministry into the formula, but nothing in the coffeehouse really changed.  Now, understand, I am NOT slamming coffeehouse.  Their mission is fulfilled every week when kids come.  The kids have something to do of Fridays in a safe environment. 

I thought about it and prayed about it and wrestled with it and I finally told some of the younger people in my circle about the core of my idea and asked them to give it a name, a symbol, and then we  invite some of the coffeehouse kids to sit in a room while I pitch the vision and let them tell me what they do and do not like.  It needs to be theirs and they need to help me form it.  The name was chosen by Dana who decreed it YASO (to speak out and it is also an acronym for Young Adults Speaking Out). The first meeting was a chilly Friday night in January. 

The first part was the Thursday night meeting with some of the youg adult volunteers who wanted to help. This one was fun but it gave us as leaders and volunteers a chance to get to the core of things. The fun part was I was surrounded my a group of people who were just as irreverent as I am. We compared this vision to Fight Club and Vegas and Avenue Q and Jesus all rolled up together.

On a serious vein we talked about the hindrances some may be having about coming. It came down to two things…trust and knowing that this is not coffeehouse. The trust thing comes in time. Coffeehouse is for fun, but the kids feel the rules are too restrictive to allow them to be themselves, they perceive there to be an inner circle, and there is a double standard and trust there has been violated by others. The irony here is that the Coffeehouse has been my bridge to their trust and it was also the thing I had to distance myself from in 24 hours. But we also needed to make sure we did it in a positive way as opposed to a negative fashion because to discourage them from cofffeehouse would be wrong.

Then we talked about the order. Our proposal was chilling for about half an hour with pizza and pop, do the talk, end with my Christian perspective, then close and offer those who want to stay and talk or pray the opportunity. For this first one though…we just tell them all this and get their feedback.

Then we closed with discussion on how many pizzas to buy. I said ten, Dana said five….I bought 6.

The second part was the meeting itself. I ordered the pizzas, set up 2 tables, and then moved chairs around the tables. 3 of the young adults who offered to help showed up and one of them (Dana)  simply said, “this is not what I pictured.” So I told her to set it up however she wanted to, grabbed one of the other people with her and went to pick up the pizzas. When we came back, the large tables were gone and replaced with a big ol circle of chairs and some small card tables surrounding the circle. 7 PM hit and we had maybe 6 kids and I am cool….7:15 hits and we are more than 20. Twice during the evening we had to break out more chairs to expand the circle.

I opened up first telling them about me and my suffering abuse as a child and my perspective as a parent who does not hit. Some of the other adults shared as well. This was the first salvo. We cannot have them trust us if we do not show some vulnerability. We opened it up for discussion in the circle. They do not want to discuss porn…cool. They fear the day when trust gets broken. I told them that I cannot promise it would never get broken, but in the meantime, let’s build as strong a community as possible until that dark day comes so we can weather the storm. Then came the close at about 8:30 for this first one and not one person left until ten. There was laughter, misty eyes, and many other things. In essence there was sharing and bonding in a palatable honesty. No one has a crystal ball, but the beginning looks promising.

Third part. A troubled young man with a reputation walking up the path. I saw him in the distance and I thought…nah, couldn’t be him…then others looked and there was a silence. Some kids left and two remained to greet him in the parking lot. He was hugged and brought in to the room with me and a pastor buddy. I won’t disclose what was said in the room. But it was intimate, honest, and gut wrenching. The next day, his mother put him in an institution for rehab. She was there with his pastor and his friends to hold the hand of a young and angry and scared young man. 

Final part for this first installment.  The kids, while sitting in the circle that first night on the ninth of Jan told me that they not only wanted the help of YASO, but they wanted to be an integral part of the solution.  They wanted to not just have the over 30 crowd talk to the kids, but the under 30 crowd as well.  Them.  Peers talking to peers and changing each others lives with the simple act of listening, loving, and breaching the lonelyness that pervades all our lives and makes us feel isolated and disconnected.  When I asked how many really felt this way…16 raised their hands.  I was moved and I was touched and an idea was starting to take form and shape and be put into practice.  More to come.  

I struggled a bit with what to write next…soooooo…I stopped writing.  A little over a year ago it got in my head to start a church and I thought God may have put this idea there.  So this chronicled the good, bad, and ugly of how we got there with a few temper tantrums along the way that seemed to have provided mass entertainment. But then what?  After that first service I was in figuring it out mode.  So my writing was getting stale and my thoughts were overly pragmatic.  No, that is not true, my thoughts were very deep.  It’s just they were so deep that I had no idea how to get them out.  So all that would come out as I tried to write was xx people came today and tithed $xxx and they liked my sermon and the music was okay.  And while that is factual, it is not very helpful…..or interesting. 

Truth is, I started trying too hard.  I also found myself caught in traps that I was claiming to be raging against.  The worship area looked like a stage and I hit behind the security and comfort of a mic.  I used notes to refer from and did everything in three little points.  I worried too hard about the music being something people would sing along with.  I struggled with communion.  It became a miniaturized version of what most small evangelical church plants are.  In practice, I really had no idea WHAT I was doing and I had more seasoned pastors nodding and smiling as if I learned some life lesson and now I was one of them raging into the machine of conformity and claiming to talk about a rebel and radical Jesus while knowing inside I was blowing this.  But I was not merely blowing MY vision.  I was blowing the renewing that was given to me in my heart by God and confirmed by men and women of action in their faith who lived and wrote about this stuff.  Bonhoeffer, Assisi, Wright,  Theresa, Mandella, McLaren, and some guy named Jesus of Nazereth. 

Over a year of planning and praying and dreaming about movements only to find that the establishment still co opted my practice.  This was not the Jesus of the Gospels, this was the Jesus of the movies with the glazed look on his face, monotone voice, and feathered hair.  This was the Jesus of the WWJD brigade who have carefully stuffed God in a box and gave us permission to be Pharisees again.  I quote David Byrne when I cry out, "My God…what have I become?"  

So, in usual Pat Green fashion I sung the pendulum to the other extreme and had me a sermon where I essentially said, "Hey, ya know that ?  I can’t be that pastor guy you see in consumer church and here are some quotes from the purpose driven church book and why they suck."  Did you know flipping the bird verbally to the establishment who some people see value in does not warm people up to you as well as Jesus like behavior does (now Jesus did go after the system and the pharisees, but it was all in balance).  Insulting systems and establishments does not a movement make.  I am hearing Dan Kimball and Jay Bakker and others saying the same thing, but I did not listen for a spell.

Life seems to forever intertwine great beauty hidden in the midst of confusion.  Some of natures examples are pearls erupting from irritation, a yellow rose in the middle of a desert, and the giggle of a toddler in the middle of a hell called haiti who is too busy spinning in circles to know he is poor and destined for a life of pain and struggle. While I allowed vision to languish in the sea of pragmatic delight, birth was being given to something that would force me to dip deeper into the well of idealism and hope more than ever before.  A youth outreach with more beauty and God in it than anything I have ever seen in my life.  There are no books written that describe what is going on here, no formula, no nothing.  Yet, it is working better than anything I have ever seen in Christiandom.  I would like to say that I am an evil genius, but the truth is, I feel like I am just the guy who picks up the pizza and sets up chairs.  I am humbled, scared, and renewed and these moments of beauty have allowed me to put into practice what has been in my heart.  When you have a dream that is bigger than you, it can be intimidating, but when you start to live that dream and taste it, things start to click.

In a matter of weeks, stadium seating became a semi circle, microphone and a podium got replaced with a chair, notes are no longer needed, intimacy abounds.  As far as the music, I am being most literal when I say that Savage Garden and The Black Eyed Peas have become worship music that people sing along to.

In future entries (coming SOON, I promise), I am gonna tell you about a vision called YASO and the kids within it.

A little nugget for you.  6 years ago a 13 year old girl tried to get me to come to coffeehouse on ninth street.  4 years later I finally went and the road to ministry began. I tried to start a church in Bolingbrook and I ended up back in that building on ninth.  I tried to start a church for single moms and homeless people, and the kids on ninth cried out in the darkness.  Turns out it begins with them and it began with them.  

I should have posted this weeks ago.  Banks.  So yeah, we got a bank account so that way when people write checks we can deposit them. Shop around on this one.

I was naive enough to think I could just walk into the bank with he lion as the symbol.  Why did I choose that one?  Well, they have a location down the street from me, down the street from where we meet and down the street from my treasurer.  How convenient is that?

Well, we went in there with all our paperwork and an initial deposit of $500.  Ready to sign up.  The bank manager sat us down and gave us an option with 250 free transactions per month and oodles of goodies and low fees and then when we are about to sign up he looks at us and asks,"So are just a church group or a full church?"

"We are a church," I replied.

"Oh, we cannot give you this one."

"Why?"

"Um, we got a memo about churches."

"So what can I get?"

"Um….this model here." He then shows me one for larger companies that has no free transactions, and higher monthly fees.

"But can other 501c3’s that are incorporated use the other one you just spent ten minutes showing me?"

"Yeah"

"But how come churches cannot?"

"We got a memo.  Not really sure why."

"Ah, very well.  So assuming we wanted to get this account here and pay you to let us have an account here…what do we do next?"

"I will need your drivers license and social security cards and $10 from each of you so we can run a credit check.  For churches you need to have a credit rating from every signer of at least 580 to have an account."

"Huh?  Why is that?"

"We got a memo."

"May I see this magic memo you speak so often of?"

"No."

"Have a nice day, we are going somewhere else."

So, 2 banks later we ended up choosing a bank we were comfortable with and had a reasonable fee structure.  It all came down to fees and friendliness at that point.  At none of the other banks were there mysterious memos and strange requests.  We were treated as any other small not for profit.  Shop around before you walk into the bank.