As Jess and I were headed back from the great Midwest, where I had the opportunity to learn from many great churches, pastors, and leaders, I got a text about a "Missional Community" training happening back in Fort Worth! Hugh Halter and Matt Smay's book, The Tangible Kingdom, has helped us shape The City Church's vision, and while Hugh and I have gotten to email a little, I was sad to miss him in person. Matthew Hudson, along with other "City folk" Steve and Joe, joined the Life Stage 1 staff at Christ Chapel for a great workshop led by Hugh. Matt writes...One of the books that has been influential in our planning for The City Church is The Tangible Kingdom by Hugh Halter, a pastor/leader in Denver, CO. I got the blessing of being able to attend a session with Hugh this week and spend some quality time “picking his brain” on how they have handled their shaping their community in Denver. The cool part about this is that I literally finished reading his book two days earlier. The most impactful thing I got from the book and my time with Hugh was the shift in paradigm for "evangelism" he purports.
"Belonging enables Believing" versus "Believing enables Belonging."
In a traditional church setting, most times a person attends, but feels awkward – until they become a believer – and then they can really plug in. In other words, you must believe before you can belong. One of the values of The City Church is this concept of "Belonging enables Believing." This means building Villages that welcome anyone – no matter what their current spiritual state. It’s the posture of Jesus to meet people where they are versus making people meet you on your terms. He demonstrated this many times in the New Testament when He purposefully spent time with non-followers and people with a “past” or “baggage”.
The City Church will be a place where you can be involved, engaged and belong – even if you are not a believer, no matter what you are struggling with, no matter your sin. Hugh shared an interesting story about one of the exercises he does with pastors in the classes he teaches. He breaks them into 2 groups and has 1 group list all the things a non-believer struggles with. Then the other group lists all the things believers struggle with. After they have finished, they compare lists – and you guessed it – they are the SAME!
Too many times people feel their story is unique; so unique that they cannot fit in anywhere. We put so much pressure on ourselves to be “Christians” and live the right way that we forget the scriptures. "For ALL have sinned." It’s that simple. The City Church will not be a perfect community. We will make mistakes. We will laugh. We will cry. But most importantly, we will be an Incarnational Community, where all are welcome and where belonging and relationships and love enable believing. A people, whose emphasis is on relationships and not churchiness. A family, where real people get to be real people. And real people get to see what Christ looks like in the real world. Our desire is build a tangible kingdom that the people of Fort Worth can experience with fervor and passion.
I thank Matt, Steve, and Joe for taking the time to attend; many thanks to Joey Turner and staff for allowing them to jump in too! And I highly encourage The Tangible Kingdom to anyone considering involvement in The City Church - you'll see shadows of its influence throughout our structure!
0 comments:
Post a Comment