the time has come.... and gone.

Looking back over this past month, things have been hectic to say the least. When you first start talking about launching a new church (or any major undertaking for that matter) there are countless twists, turns, surprises, and joys that you encounter. And all this work is done and prayed through and thought about until you get to a pinnacle, a crux of the issue. And then it's gone.

We have experienced this at Riverbend. We have done (most of) everything we needed to do to launch a new community of faith in the Lehigh Valley. We didn't want to stop at just one launch day, so we made a launch month to celebrate and kick off this adventure. And now that time has come and gone and we are at a very new point. We have transitioned our "Advance" Team to a "Leadership" Team, we have made the jump from preparing monthly gatherings to going weekly, and we have even doubled the number of community group studies. But what we find now, is that our reliance on God to maintain us and support us has grown exponentially. Much of what took us a year and a half of labor to prepare for now has to be done in a week. We have to now transition our roles to not only setting direction and systems, but to training leaders to minister to those that God brings through our lives. We have to make sure we are who God created Riverbend to be.

Our launch on September 13th was a huge pinnacle for us, and God richly blessed that occasion. But what I am realizing now is that God, even through the messiness of life, is daily giving me opportunities to rely on Him for these challenges and moments. I am growing increasingly certain that the harder I try in my own effort, the harder the problem seems. God has given us the blessing of being a part of HIS work, He has not given me the assignment of doing it for Him. As I write this I am struck with the feeling that I may have been looking for MY time to come, and all the work I was doing to make that happen. Jesus, may my time be gone, and your time come.

Check out what God is doing at www.riverbendonline.org

Numb3rs.

Yea, there is a TV show by that name. I have to admit I've never seen it. My understanding is that it is a crime mystery show that uses math and numbers to solve whatever the crime is on that show. I'm not really sure how one makes a show about that, but actuaries around the country are probably really excited.

Numbers can say a lot and I think that, when used correctly, they can help to at least identify problems that need to be worked on. This is true, even in the church. I ran across this interesting article from the Gallup organization (http://www.gallup.com/poll/117382/Church-Going-Among-Catholics-Slides-Tie-Protestants.aspx). In the article, it discusses how individuals who consider themselves "Christian" regularly attend church. The fascinating statistic is not that Catholics are now on par with Protestant Christians in their weekly church attendance, but rather, how on average, only 45% of all Christians say they attended church within the last week.

Now, statistics can say a lot of different things, and these numbers may be variable based on the time of year, area of the country (http://www.gallup.com/poll/122075/Religious-Identity-States-Differ-Widely.aspx), and age (only 38% of Protestant and 30% of Catholics in their 20's have attended church in the past week) of the sample, but I don't believe any of these variables hit the root of the issue. Church is losing its draw and attendance because we, as the Church, have lost sight of what Church is. For many of us, church is something we go to on Sunday's to hear a message, sing some songs, give our money, and maybe get some coffee. For others, church is the place that makes us get up early on the weekend, or miss the big game. It's something that we do on one or maybe two days of the week. We can check it off our list, put it on our schedule, and if we can't make it for a while, that's OK because our faith is personal. This idea is also unbiblical.

When we look at idea of the Church in the New Testament, it is vibrant and alive. It is a community of individuals where life is shared and individuals are urged on in the faith. Jesus did not say, "go into all the world and put on good shows and give good speeches about me." He said that we are to "go and make disciples", to help bring people into relationship with Him. This idea of community runs rampant throughout the Bible. Paul even says, "don't give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing." Church then turns into something we are, as a collective group. Really, without a community of other believers, our faith is lacking at best, and non-existent at worst.

Now the Church has not always been all that it should be, and some people have very good reasons as to why they don't go to Church. Abuse, scandals, bad doctrine, hypocrisy; there is no such thing as the perfect church. But truly living in a community of faith means that we don't go into it thinking about "what can this church do for me?" but rather, we enter into a partnership to help others seek and honor God according to the scriptures and to be helped in that process. We come together to fight against our spiritual enemies, for our world, our marriages, our faith, our communities. Our culture has lost a vital ally when the Church becomes something we do rather than something we are.

This is the great part of being involved in a new church start up. We don't have to work through the years of tradition and bad habits that have brought many churches to the point of irrelevance. Instead, we can focus our efforts on being a community where Jesus is exalted above all else and we can partner with one another to live out God's passions in the Lehigh Valley and around the world. You can check out how we are (trying) to do this at www.riverbendonline.org

i still haven't found what i'm looking for.

In honor of the new U2 album that came out this week, I plagiarized their famous song for my title. But truthfully, it's an interesting concept. Being involved in a new church start up (http://www.riverbendonline.org/), I have had the great opportunity to be a part of God's desire to see his people come together and live out his passions. It is a humbling experience. But one of the things that we always seek to guard against is transplanting Christians vs. building a new community of believers.

Our generation is one where everything is customizable. I think about all the things I have customized to me. Myspace, Facebook, Playlists, my Google Homepage, and a whole bunch of other things. This isn't necessarily bad, being that we are all individuals and we each have strengths, passions, desires and preferences. The problem comes with our societies/generation's drive for focusing on ourselves. When that is our focus, we can have a tough time coming to any decision on choices we have in life.

I was reading a really good article on this concept as it relates to the church (http://www.relevantmagazine.com/columns/church-today/16112-church-shopping) and our ideas about our "perfect" church. There isn't one that is going to match each person exactly. But the point that this article makes is that our choices of churches should not necessarily be "what can this church do for me," but rather, "what ways can I connect into this community." There are times when it is right to leave a church community (lack of scriptural teaching, immorality, etc.) but more so, churches were designed for groups of people to serve and worship God together as a community. This is the basics of this concept, but we can't go deeper until we understand that basic premise.

As we continue to move forward with Riverbend, we pray that God will bring those he desires to be a part of this community. We may do things that are different than other churches, but this is not because we want to attract a niche market of Christians, its because sometimes the lost don't or won't understand the gospel in any other way. May we never be a church that is just "another option," may we be a church that God uses to reach those who still haven't found what they are (truly) looking for.

complexity part II.

A few weeks back when the economic stimulus package was being discussed, I had mentioned how complex economies, government, and social structures are. Yesterday, or the day before, I don't remember when exactly, I had another realization. Some might classify it as a panic attack, but I don't think so. If anything, it was one of those moments of anxiety when every part of your life seems to be crashing down and requiring something of you. Here in the Northeast, and probably around the rest of the US, we call that everyday life. I don't know exactly what I had to do or why I was so stressed about it. Perhaps it was seeing my mile long list of everything that I need to do with the house, work, Riverbend Community Church, Jonathan, Lindsey, seeing the needs of the yard, the neighborhood, the Lehigh Valley, the World and not knowing where to start, what to do next, or how to go about it.

At that moment, I just didn't want to do anything at all.

I think that is why we are told in the Bible to "Be still. And know that I am God." That is a very reassuring truth, with a very difficult practice. It's hard to be still, to not do anything, to stop thinking even for one minute. But we should. We are not told to be still because we shouldn't be productive, but rather because this is the way we stay sane, we keep our stress down, and even stay healthy. Our personal lives are more complex than they need to be, our work lives, our religion, even the gospel we make more complex than it actually is. Why? That I don't know. What I do know is that we need to find ways, as we live life together, to live simply, love genuinely, and act justly. We won't be able to start doing these things though, until we can "be still and know God." I should put that on my list of things to do.

what to do with passion.

I am really a big fan of John Eldredge and his writing. If you haven't read any of his works, you really should. He promotes our relationship with Christ, the battles of spiritual warfare, and how our passions and desires fit in to this faith we call Christianity. I got an update from his blog today and it truly resonated with what I believe some of my motives have been in launching Riverbend Community Church. Take a look at it here:

http://www.ransomedheartblog.com/john/2009/02/finding-church.html

I believe that what the church is lacking, at least in America, is a passion for life itself and all it has to offer. As Eldredge states, we are called to live life to the fullest, and you can't do that by supressing your passions. One of the precepts of Riverbend, is this thing called the New Covenant. Jesus talks about this in the gospels, but in essence, it is God giving us passions and desires that match His. But sometimes it feels as if the North American church is paralyzed by this idea of "passion" and "desire" of anything that isn't a praise song or Bible reading. I am glad that Riverbend is not one of these types of Churches. God has given us his Word, his edicts, his direction to help guide us, yes, but more so, to point us in a direction of knowing Him in relationship. That is the purpose of a church- to experience life (with all the passions God has given us) with others who are pursuing a relationship with the Maker of All. What's your purpose for Church?