Emergence

I am so excited that we are launching Missional Communities this semester!

This marks the beginning of a shift in our posture as a church from "mostly inward" focus to much more "leaning outward" in our actions. For sure we have been thinking and talking about "outward" for a while. Certainly we have had a fair number of people - either individually or as small bands of the like-minded - reaching out and serving all along. But it's so great that now, as a collective community of faith, our deeds are coming more into line with our words. And this is, God willing, just the beginning of a great new phase of our lives together as emergence!

I will be leading one of the new groups this semester: Serve the City Mission Trip to Brussels, Belgium. I am super excited about the opportunity that lies ahead!

The goal of the group is to explore deeply how to live out the Gospel of Jesus practically and with impact in our everyday lives. We will be working through The Tangible Kingdom Primer by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay. It is a highly application-oriented journey through the book of James. I met Hugh last summer and he has a ton of great ideas and a big heart to reach people for Jesus. He's also good friends with one of our emergence supported missionary families Phil and Laina Graf. (Hugh's the guy with Phil's Harley!)

In addition to working through the Tangible Kingdom, the group will be preparing to travel to Brussels, Belgium for their annual "Serve the City" event. This is a large 10 day event where hundreds of volunteers from all over the world converge on the city to bless and serve it in the name of Jesus. Serving in that way helps the needy, helps support local churches in Belgium, and provides great opportunities to share Jesus with those who don't know Him.

The basic idea is for all these volunteers to hugely expand the footprint of the local church, The Well, for a week or two so that connections can be made and relationships formed between the local church and her surrounding community. After the volunteers have left, the relationships remain and the local church can invest time and resources into further developing them for the Kingdom.

In 2008 I went to Serve the City Amsterdam - with my 9 year old daughter - as well as another chapel friend. We had an awesome experience. Actually, it was a life-changing experience! If a 9 year old girl can do it, so can you! In fact this year my entire family - including my 7 year old girl - will be traveling to Brussels too!

So far the plan is to meet every other Wednesday evening in the Wayne area. We'll probably have our first meeting in Panera Bread on rt. 23 and see where it goes from there. The travel to Brussels will be July 2 -13, 2010. More info to come. or watch for it here!

Hope to see you soon!