Back Inside

Yesterday we attended a brick and mortar church. A few weeks ago I hinted this was coming. We chose a church where we already knew some people. We have also heard good things about this church. Of course, every coin has two sides, so we've heard some other things about it as well. Not bad things per se, just some things that others were dissatisfied with. Having been a pastor, I don't let those things bother me. Besides, we have to experience it for ourselves. We even previewed a couple of the pastor's sermons online.

It was a great Sunday. First, the boys didn't give us any fuss. They don't like to have their routines messed with and moving church back outside the house and inside the traditional church model falls into that category. But, they had plenty of warning, plus they knew some kids there already AND I believe that deep down in their hearts they feel it is the best thing also.

Second, it was wonderful to be part of corporate worship again. There is nothing like singing songs of praises with other Christians. This part is especially important for my wife. The toughest part as a former pastor came during the sermon. Of all the duties I performed as a pastor, delivering the sermon was my favorite. It is a special privilege to bring forth and break the Word for God's people. Despite those initial pangs of bygone experiences, the pastor did an excellent job of guiding us through the Word so that we might receive the message God had for us.

We've not decided on this as our new church home - it was only our first Sunday. We'll check it out several more times and get involved with other aspects of community life there. In the meantime, we'll praying and following wherever God leads.

The Nature of (a faith) Community

On my other blog, I've posted some thoughts on what it takes to make a community. As of late that has been a very serious question for me in the context of this time being spent outside the brick and mortar church. During our family worship time this morning, I was very honest with my family about my struggle. I'm fairly confident we are not doing what we are supposed to be doing. That could be attributed to at least two possibilities. One, God may desire, command even, that we be part of a local church, i.e. the brick and mortar manifestation of the body of Christ. Two, our "failure" may be due to the fact that our fellowship consists only of our four immediate family members. My only desire is to do what is best for my family. At this point, I'm believing that rejoining a local body of believers in the traditional church is the correct course.

Two weeks ago I was very excited about the possibility of staying our current course. I was pumped up by the promise of other families joining us for the study of God's word and real life application of it as we lived that which we learned, as we became incarnational entities of God's love, resembling and having the effects of the early body of believers in the book of Acts. Two weeks later, it's still just us four. If I'm not going to do any better at inviting others in, I need to go somewhere that is.

Everyone likes to look back at the "good ol' days" of the Church when this kind of thing happened. People who are strongly opposed to the idea of the brick and mortar church use various passages from Acts and partial understandings of early Church history to justify their viewpoint. However, when you look at the passage hyperlinked above, it is hard to ignore this key phrase -"Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts."

Two weeks ago I was encouraged by what I perceived to be a revelation of the Holy Spirit. On Sunday mornings, our family is doing a very indepth study of the Gospel of John. I'm doing my best to keep it at level my sons can understand but then challenging enough for my wife and I. One of the themes that keeps coming up in this study is the removal of barriers between us and God - physical, spiritual, religious, social, economic, etc. Now, I could have been reading my own ideas into these, but I don't think that's the case. As these ideas kept popping up in our study, I said to myself, "God wants me to stay this course for the people for whom the brick and mortar church is a barrier." But I am missing the fellowship and the community of that type of church.

Tonight I came across a quote on another blog about the nature of reading the Bible (see point #2 there). I agree with that statement. I think it is dangerous to read the Word alone and draw your own conclusions without any outside conversation. I have said before that a committee of one is easy to convince.

So why am I arguing both sides of this issue, and more from the side that is completely opposite from what I'm currently doing? Because I am being bluntly honest. Because I want to be truly faithful. Where will I end up? I don't know for sure, but if I were a betting man, I'd say my family will begin church shopping real soon.

What's this got to do with the nature of community? Everything. We've got to find some people with a shared world view and a shared faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior to do life with. That's what community is all about.

Thoughts from Michael Phelps

I don't know about you, but I'm glad the Olympics are over. It was fun and exciting to watch. But after a while you get tired of them. Luckily they only come around every two years.

In reflecting back on those two weeks, it appears that Andy Warhol's statement about fame has been proven. Michael Phelps was the big story with is eight gold medal performances. It's still a great accomplishment and will probably stand for quite a while, maybe forever. The media has moved on however and so has the water cooler conversation.

Despite being out of the limelight, Phelps' performance has much to teach us about living faithfully to God. Three of his eight gold medals were in team events. If not for the incredible swim of his teammate Jason Lezak in the 4X100M relay, Phelps' total would have been only seven.

I'm learning a lot about teamwork. As a middle school teacher, teaming among teachers is the norm. All the math teachers in our grade level plan together, schedule together, etc. We even have integration teams that link several disciplines as we work together to teach our non-academic core classes together. Ideas, suggestions, support and help freely flow from one person to another. I consider myself one of the most fortunate people in the world to be part of the school team known as Clayton Middle School.

The idea of teamwork is beginning to permeate most of my life. I have organized all my students into teams. I told them it was because in real life, you never work alone. They were to also use the teams for peer support. Some of the responsibility for each student's individual success will depend on the help of his or her team.

I coach the school's volleyball the team. Final cuts were Thursday. At the first practice on Friday I told them they were only a squad right now. Their goal was to learn to play as a team. We began making strides toward that goal by the end of practice yesterday.

In the religious world, we call teams "community". On this faith journey outside the walls of the brick and mortar church, the need for a team is ever apparent. Living faithfully cannot be done alone. Life has normalized for us after a difficult six months. I'm amazed at the people God has placed in my path. I haven't built a team yet, but I know one is coming. More than gold medals await as result.

I (almost) did it!

Today I did the hardest thing I've ever done since becoming a pencil pushing desk jockey after graduating from college. I took the Physical Agility Test as part of the application process to become a firefighter for the city of Raleigh. I've been kinda training for this test over the last couple of months. I went in today not really believing I would pass. But, I almost did it. The obstacle course did me in. After the second lap, I was spent and had nothing left to give. Insufficient upper body strength left my arms a pair of wet noodles after exiting the tunnel on the second lap.

But I am not ashamed. Despite being disappointed at not passing the test, I know I gave my best and tried my hardest. Even though I was intimidated by all the former football players, younger men and women, and others in much better shape than I, I was greatly encouraged by everyone there. Everyone cheered for everyone else. One guy in particular was going around congratulating everyone. When I came out the tunnel and had to stop, he even offered to go thru the course with me to get me through one last time.

Honestly, I do not think I would have done as well as I did on the rest of the test if not for the feeling of instant community that was present. I met guys who were taking this test for the fifth time! Being a firefighter was a dream they were not ready to give up. And they provided some of the best encouragement. Each one told me to give it another shot in January.

This is what it should be like on a faith journey. It is one of perseverance. It should be one of community. It should be one of a persevering, encouraging community. We need to realize that we succeed AND fail together. So many times the faith community is guilty of shooting the wounded in the name of discipleship. Consequences are necessary but so are restoring functions. After the community has handed down the consequences, it should whatever possible to help that person be restored to whatever level he has fallen from. As I left the training center today, the Chief only spoke words of encouragement.

Despite "failing" I feel good. Despite being unemployed STILL, I feel good. On second thought, maybe I did do it.

Growing Community

Our circle of people who are followers of Christ but not part of a brick and mortar church is growing. We connected with and spent some get-to-know-you time yesterday with a family of SEVEN kids! They've been attenders of a brick and mortar church before but have discovered that "home church" (for lack of a better word) has been much more fulfilling for their lives.

When we got home last night, I began to process what was happening in our lives through the community lens. In other words, judging our current situation on the basis of whether we are really doing life together with other folks on a faith journey. I believe we are. Last night was not a formal accountability meeting by any means. But, as I watched the interaction of the parents with six of their seven kids, not to mention the interactions of the six kids, I felt compelled to alter parts of my life. Neither of the parents sat down with me and said, "Here's a change you need to make in your life . . ." Their example did it and it wasn't a planned action on their part.

As our circle grows both in number and in closeness, there will come a time when somebody may actually lovingly confront us about something. We will do the same for them I'm sure. It's all about relationships and that's a natural extension of the Core. What happened last night on a very surface level can happen on a deep level. As relationships grow and deepen, their effects grow and deepen.

As the circle begins to include people who are not on a faith journey, the spiritual effects will begin to show. Someone once said that Christianity is more caught than taught. I agree. That's how it happened for me. It's how it has happened for a lot of people I know. It's all part of growing community.

A Kindred Spirit

Tonight we had a cookout with my youngest son's assistant baseball coach. I have been an "unofficial" assistant all season because I've been at every practice & game and I said "Yes" everytime the coaches asked me to help. It's amazing how our families are on parallel paths. Never in any of my conversations with the other coaches (or parents) did I mention I was a pastor. None of the others ever mentioned their vocations either. We were just there for the kids.

Well, there was always something about Coach Sonny that made me feel like this dude was a follower of Christ in the "I want him (Christ) to be part of my life in every possible way" way. One evening before a game he just happened to mention having been a pastor, but looking for another way to do church. When I said, "Me too," and began explaining the current stage of our journey his eyes bugged out. He called his wife on his cell phone just to say, "I'm standing here with Matt Guthrie and guess what he just said? . . . " It turns out our stories are very similar. He too is looking to get away from the brick and mortar church.

Tonight we just got together to share our stories, some food and some good times. When the evening was done, we agreed to do "church" together, whatever that means. We'll study the Bible together, encourage one another, maybe even find a way to serve someone in need around us together. It's just one more example of how we both feel God is leading our families on this path. It will be interesting to see how this goes.

Day 1 - The End

Day 1 of posting my journey has ended. Not much happened but a lot of questions filled my mind. The most important question dealt with how to be part of a faith community if we are not part of a church. If you read my other blog, you know that being part of a faith community and journeying with others for mutual support and accountability are big deals to me. If I'm going to avoid the brick and mortar church, where will I get that?

It's especially important to me because it's important to my family, especially my wife. She voiced her concerns and desires for community outside our family. She misses the whole idea of Sunday School and catching up with other people, greeting everyone before and after the Sunday morning worship service. Plus we need to make sure our boys get outside social contact because we homeschool.

These seem like death rays to the notion of living faithfully without being part of the regular Sunday morning church thing. Perhaps selfishly on my part, I'm rather excited about facing this challenge head on. In thinking about it today, I realized just how intentional it will require me to be if I am to live in community. I cannot depend on the organizational structures like Sunday School, Sunday morning worship, and other church functions that facilitate gathering together. I'm excited because people get to relate to me as a normal person again, not as a pastor, or as someone called me this weekend, "The Preacher".

I'm looking forward to building new relationships on a different basis now. I'm looking forward to being missional in my faith as I still do the work of spreading the Gospel. I think it's going to be a great year.