Over 2 years ago I mentioned the first meeting of a few local pastors – Steve McCoy, Jamie Page, Scott Eaton and I. We became friends and began meeting monthly. We did this for a while but eventually life and busyness got the better of us and we slipped out of the habit of meeting. We re-established this practice today and brought in a new friend, Ryan Huguley. I am blessed to have godly leaders at Redeemer with whom I get to serve, and I am blessed to be friends with these pastors of other churches in the Chicagoland area. Here are some cameraphone shots and some of what we talked about.
Jamie's new business card is so awesome you actually hear "boom" when he pulls one out.
Jamie is making a lot of connections as he shares the gospel in DeKalb where he’s planting The Church in DeKalb. So we spent some time talking with him about his habits, fruit and frustrations in this area. Good stuff and encouraging to us all. We’re all working on “doing the work of an evangelist.”
Ryan is a sharp guy planting Redemption Bible Church. He's got Rob Bell's glasses, not his theology.
We wound up talking through the issue of how to lead believers into meaningful church “membership,” and what classes and expectations should look like. This is something we’re all developing, testing, or tweaking in one way or another. Ryan and Jamie are working out core group development, commitment, etc. I am leading our first membership class (Redeemer Orientation) this Saturday. Post is forthcoming.
Steve is leading his church through a restart (now Doxa Fellowship) and no longer has time to shave.
We laughed a lot, worked through practical/theological issues, and learned from one another. It’s encouraging to hear what God is doing in each others lives, families and churches. We are very different guys going through different stages of life, family and leadership, but we share a common faith and real friendship.
Scott's church is bigger than all of ours combined. AND he's got that cleft in his chin. *Jealous*
So we had two restarts represented, two new plants, and one established church that has found new health through theological and practical reform. We’ve already set the date for the next gathering, and are looking forward to sharpening each other. 2009 is an exciting year. God is doing so much in so many churches, I love that we can get together and share it all.
Yeah buddy, this is what happens when you make faces at the camera. Now everyone has to see it.
I am the Lead Pastor of Redeemer Fellowship; husband to Jen; Dad to Katherine, Elias, Madeline, and Kilian. If you're in town you can probably find me in the local coffee house or running through the neighborhoods.
{ 11 comments }
I’m still frustrated that Jamie has such a great business card. Jealous.
Well, at least he didn’t steal your “Parchment” font.
All the business card talk is reminding me of that scene from American Beauty. “That’s bone. And the lettering is something called Cillian Rail”.
I’d love to hear more about what Jamie is doing to make connections in the community – that is an area I’m really trying to grow in…
Love that scene Bill. We encouraged Jamie to share his encounters in a blog, even one a week. That would be encouraging to a lot of us.
Joe,
This is very encouraging to hear. As we talked about earlier, this is what gospel-networking is all about (contrary to the business meetings of Baptist associations). Love the dynamic of established churches, restarts, and new churches. So much can be learned by sharing experiences, challenges, and ways God is leading to bring reform and renewal to His church. May these meetings prove to be fruitful in both your individual lives and churches as well.
Scott Eaton bought me dinner one night in a pub in Wheaton. The last think I remember before the please arrived was Scott on the table singing “When Irish Eyes….”
awesome card bro. i think the shockwave just reached us over here.
Gang:
Thanks for the props on the business card.
As far as making connections in the community I’d say this is pretty much what I try to do.
1. See your city as a mission field. This means shifting our view of Starbucks as a place to buy coffee and begin seeing it as a place to begin and continue spiritual relationships and conversations. I encourage my people, as well, to “adopt” a local business as their mission field for a month and then begin doing as much business, or spending “intentional” time there.
2. Pray for opportunities and open doors for conversation of any kind, ultimately (even over the next few weeks) for spiritual conversation. I don’t do this in a general sense, or at the end of my day. I do it while I’m sitting in my car, or driving to a place just before I walk in.
3. Be intentional. 90% of the time you’ve got to take the initiative. Make a connection to something their wearing, reading, listening to, part of a conversation your hearing them talk about, then, gracefully, invite yourself into it. People don’t usually mind, especially in coffee shops (though don’t get stuck in the coffee shop rut of evangelism – you need people in your churches who go to bars too…see the whole city). Then just make natural dialogue. Get to know their name. Eventually invite them to have coffee or lunch with you. I do this by explaining that I’m a Pastor trying to learn more about my city wanting to hear peoples’ stories and learning what they think about things. Eventually spiritual conversation is going to take place, even if it takes a few weeks, when it does engage them with the Gospel (or at least a part of it).
The other 10% of the time I find people coming to me (mostly because I have a really unique computer). When they do take advantage of it – see it as an opportunity for building relationships and working towards spiritual conversation.
The other MaJoR part of being intentional is that you MUST get out of your “safe places” (office, study, the public place where everyone already knows you). I set a goal to meet 5 people per day by name and have coffee with 3 each week (which is mostly people I’ve met previous weeks). You can’t do this unless you go to new places and Facebook or Twitter people don’t count! Ha!
An example of this working practically, which I shared with the guys yesterday is a girl I met at a local coffee shop. A few weeks ago she was discussing some new movies with some friends, I invited myself into their conversation, asked them, “oh, have you seen this?” We chatted, she ended up recommending a movie for us, which we eventually watched. After watching the movie she recommended we talked about it the next time we were both at the coffee shop. As we talked she mentioned that she was about to leave the city and take a “gypsy” tour of the West explaining that her “spirit” was calling her out that way, and since she’s been living in her car the last three months she had nothing to lose. That’s were I entered in with the Gospel and talking about spiritual journeys. It took about a month, and what started out as a chat about movie reviews ended up with encouraging her that even though everything she’s attached herself to has fled her that the God of the Bible persues those He loves and fled heaven to live, die, be buried, and resurrected for them. Good stuff!
As for a blog…yeah, I want to do that. I would love to share what God is doing in DeKalb.
I’m pretty sure that Steve wore that shirt (weekly) way back when he lived in Lexington. Does that say “Giant Bicycles?”
Yes, but if you squint when you look at it you can make it say something better.
The cleft in the chin photo comment made me laugh out loud.
Comments on this entry are closed.