Twenty-one short days before The City Church's first Village begins meeting [details here; RSVP here], we had the second chance of the summer to gather folks together for a Vision Dinner. Round two brought over 40 people together as we ate ginormous burgers, hung out with other folks who are interested, curious, intrigued, or committed to The City Church, cast vision, answered questions, and while I'm biased, I think it was a pretty good time. Our friend Joe snapped this pic of the vision-casting:
The format was essentially the same as the First Vision Dinner [recap here], with many good questions as we consider together what it means to build a church community who's on mission for the glory of God and the good of Fort Worth. The presentation I gave was different than the first Vision Dinner, however, and I think another month of wrapping my mind around what we're doing allowed it to be more clear and concise. We recorded it, and I hope to make the audio available within the next couple days - if you want to hear our vision, and even if you came to the first Vision Dinner, I would ask that you check it out to get to know our heartbeat and DNA.
Until we get the audio up, however, I don't want to be "that guy" who dangles something out there without allowing you to reach it, so here's a quick overview of what was said:
The Mission of The City Church
Since man's first sin and God's righteous punishment, God has been on a mission to restore mankind to himself (Gen 3:21). Not long into biblical history, God started accomplishing this through a community of people, namely Israel (Exo 19:5-6). While Israel faltered in this, God the Father sent God the Son to continue his mission (John 1:14), and before Jesus returned to heaven, he established a new community, the church, who existed for the same mission (Matt 28:18-20; Acts 1:8; 1Pet 2:9, which echoes of Exo 19:5-6). Thus, the church is called to be a community on mission, seeking the redemption of the people around us.
So as we build The City Church, we are one church, existing as communities on mission, for the glory of God and the good of Fort Worth.
To say it another way, the result of the Gospel (the clear call of God which restores us to Godself through Christ) is threefold: we are called to God, to grow in knowledge and love and to worship; we are called to community, to exhort, rebuke, love, etc. each other; and we are called to mission, to live as missionaries both locally and globally. These three "circles" below are the full result of the Gospel-centered life; corporately and individually, they must be our three-fold goal.
Living Out the Mission
So while all three areas are interrelated, the life of The City Church will primarily occur in Villages, communities meeting throughout Fort Worth to live as the church did in Acts 2:42-47 (eating together, intentionally talking about both life and God, praying for each other and meeting each others' needs); there's the corporate "community" aspect. Our first Village begins Sunday, Sept 13 [details/RSVP info above], and will move to various nights and times beginning in January.
Once a month through the fall, and increasing in 2010, we'll bring all the Villages together for All-Church Gatherings - not the primary focus of the church, but a gathering of the church, where we will celebrate: celebrate God through songs, prayers, responses, and creeds; celebrate Scripture through preaching; celebrate Christ through communion; celebrate what God is doing in our city and our church through sharing and testimony. We will grow together; we will worship together; we will celebrate!
And because the current American church culture falls shortest in fulfilling the "mission" circle above, we're intentionally carving it into our DNA: as much as we will worship together several times a month through All-Church Gatherings, so will we also take one of every four or five weekends and worship in a forgotten manner found in Scripture (James 1:27; Amos 4-5), though "caring for the widows and orphans" of our generation: loving our neighbors, serving our city, and carrying out mission in intentional ways, as a reminder of the missional lives we're called to live 24/7.
Finally, we said that as much as we're pursuing this corporately, this only works if each of us living this out individually: we're asking folks to check how you're doing in each of those three areas? Which aspect of your life has the gospel not yet changed? Where are you out of balance? Because only when we're one, unified body, will we be as strong as we possibly can be.
Next Steps
I'll close this recap the same way we closed our time together last night, with some next steps:
Calendar stuff (email me if you want a digital version of our Fall '09 handout/calendar):
- This Sunday, Aug 30: Cookout/hang out at Ben & Jess's (6pm-whenever; details / RSVP)
- Wednesday, Sept 9: Worship & Prayer for our city (7pm; details soon @ www.fwcitychurch.org)
- Sunday, Sept 13: Our first Village begins (5:30-7:30pm; details / RSVP)
- Prayer: for our leadership, families, vision, and for our city/mission field
- Involvement/help spreading the word: holler if you want specific ways
- Financial support: only one month into fund-raising, we're nearly half-way to our Fall '09 goal of $40,000! We're thrilled with that, but still need your help [giving info here]
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