Benefit Concert

On Friday night Veritas had the privilege of hosting a benefit concert to raise money for a safe house and after care program for those who have been trafficked domestically. All the funds went to North Start Initiative, a non-profit here in Lancaster County that is fighting Human Trafficking and an organization that Veritas is looking at getting more involved with. Here is a copy of a news release about the event: A fundraiser will be held Friday for an organization working to create a safe house for human trafficking victims.

North Star Initiative has a house under lease, but co-founder Jen Sensenig estimated it needs at least $250,000 in renovations.

The group is targeting a late 2013 opening.

Human trafficking can include women forced to work in the sex industry or in other jobs for little or no pay, said Sensenig, 40, of Paradise.

She envisions the house serving a half-dozen young victims of domestic human trafficking.

It would provide shelter, counseling and life-skills training to help reintegrate them into society.

Millersville University junior and musician Christina Berg is behind the fundraiser. She did a benefit concert and auction for Tim Bradley, a North Star Initiative co-founder.

Bradley went on a four-month mission trip earlier this year to trafficking centers in Southeast Asia and Atlanta.

Bradley will discuss his experience at the fundraiser scheduled from 7 to 10 p.m. Friday at The Community Room on Prince, above the Prince Street Cafe, 19 N. Prince St.

The event will include musicians, a dance performance and refreshments.

Admission is by donation.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/459108_Benefit-for-victims-of-trafficking-set-for-Friday.html#ixzz1YP7x6bzE

So after it was all said and done we probably had close to 75 people come to the event and where able to raise over 800 dollars for North Star. It was definitely a realization of our dream as Veritas and our reason for renting the Community Room. We are excited about future possibilities of using the Community Room for events that connect two of our passions: art and justice issues. In fact the next benefit concert we will be doing is November 18 with Matt Haller, a student at F&M whose music, CD's and concerts go to benefit the Boys and Girls Club of Tuscaloosa, AL that was destroyed in a tornado in April.

Continue to dream about further means of using the arts and music to bless, serve and raise money for various justice issues in our world. Any ideas, would love to hear them.

Planting Missionary Churches Part 3

So the last 2 posts that I have written have focused on Planting Missionary Churches and specifically looking at the text in Acts 17:16-34 where Paul goes to Athens and shares the good news of Jesus on Mars Hill. The first post related to a back story that happened 500 years before Paul came to Athens which opened up the text in a new way for me. The second post was about Paul's missionary strategy in Athens. Today I will share about missionary strategy that we can apply from Acts 17 into our context here in the US. And I'll share a little bit about the way that I am seeking to live this missionary strategy out in Lancaster, PA while planting Veritas, a missional/missionary church plant. 1. The first thing that we had noticed in the Acts 17 text is that Paul when coming to Athens went to the Synagogue and reasoned with the Jews and God-fearing Greeks. He started with a place of openness, or with low hanging fruit. As a missionary in the west probably the first place we could start with is people who are dechurched and not the unchurched. People who are also going through significant life change, be it new college students, new parents, someone who just experienced loss of some type or with people who are struggling. I think of those who have been recently affected with flooding in our area and how a missionary and a missionary community can come alongside these families and help them clean, dispose of, rebuild, and just be a blessing.

2. The second thing we noticed is that Paul also went into the marketplace as well as the synagogue and then was invited to go and share the good news at the Areopagus. We need to spend more time outside the "church" building relationships, networking, and serving others. I was at a meeting this morning about 1st Friday in downtown Lancaster and a lot was said negatively about those who proselytize (handing out tracts, yelling, using a bullhorn). Or I think about people who go onto college campuses with their agenda and not just to be a blessing to students and the community. I went to the meeting to see how we as Veritas can be a blessing to the community and not force our way in, but be invited into the conversations that are happening on a city level. This is also one of the reasons that I spend much of my time in coffeehouses doing my work is to be out and among people and seek to develop relationships with people.

3. The third thing in the text that I noticed is that before Paul said anything, he observed the culture by walking around. So often Christians just go into a situation and open their mouths before listening with their eyes and ears. One thing that I want to try to do more often is to prayer walk both in the city and also around the F&M Campus where several of our Veritas community are students. JR Briggs has a series of great posts about prayer walking called "Creative ways to pray with your feet" which can be found on his blog (http://www.jrbriggs.com/)

4. Lastly Paul uses the poets of the culture in which he is sharing and not the OT. When he was in the synagogue, he used the OT to share but when he was on Mars Hill he used 2 Poets from the Athenian Culture and ones that were authoritative in the lives of his listeners. Who are our poets? Who are the people that people in our culture give authority to? I believe, especially in the younger generations, it is the musicians and filmmakers who are making and sharing theology and we need to listen to and walk and keep up on what is happening in pop culture. This is why when we gather we try to have some pop culture as part of our worship gathering, be it a movie clip, pop music playing when people are hanging out, or actually having a pop song played by our musicians during our gathering time.

These are some of the missionary strategies that I've gotten from Paul's missionary strategy in Athens and on Mars Hill. Maybe you found some other strategies in this text that I missed. Would love to hear your insights on this text, Paul's missionary strategy, and how these guide how we go about being missionaries in our culture.

Planting Missionary Churches Part 2

So on Monday I talked about listening to a podcast from Chris Backert given at a Ecclesia church planting gathering called Planting Missionary Churches and what stood out to me, especially in relation to the text in Acts 17 when Paul goes to Mars Hill in Athens and I also gave a historical back story that happened 500 years before Paul's trip to Athens. I want to take this post and look at the same text and draw out some of Paul's missionary strategy for how he shared the gospel at Mars Hill. Then in my next post on Planting Missionary Churches I want to draw out some steps for planting a missionary church in our world, or you could call it our missionary strategy in the west.

So here is the text again from Acts 17:16-34:

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” At that, Paul left the Council. Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.

So what is Paul's missionary strategy while in Athens? Here is what I believe made up his missionary strategy.

1. The first thing you notice is that when he arrives in Athens is that he goes to the Synagogue and reasons with the Jews and God-fearing Greeks. He starts in the place where there would be some common "language" (so to speak) and where there would probably be what is called "Low Hanging Fruit".

2. While he reasoned in the synagogue day by day with the Jews and God-fearing Greeks, he also went into the marketplace where he would rub shoulders with those who had a different worldview than those he would encounter in the synagogue. And while there he met some philosophers who took me with them to the meeting at the Areopagus. He didn't go straight away and force himself into the meeting at the Areopagus where the center of learning, philosophy, and culture was taking place. He went based on an invitation to go and present his message of Jesus and the resurrection.

3. Paul walks around Athens and looks at their objects of worship. He learns about their culture by what they worship. He doesn't just go to Athens and begins to speak to people. He uses his eyes and ears first before his mouth and tongue. He does his cultural exegesis, his cultural research on what makes people in Athens tick.

4. He uses whatever is authoritative in the lives of his listeners. In the synagogue I am sure that when he was reasoning with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks he used the Old Testament scriptures. When he was in the Areopagus I'm sure he didn't start out by quoting the Old Testament because they weren't authoritative in the lives of his hearers. Instead he used the poets of their culture. In verse 28 we read, "‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’" The first quote- For in him we live and move and have our being is from the Cretan poet Epimenides and the other quote, "We are his offspring." is from the Cilician poet Aratus. In fact this isn't the only place where Paul quotes Greek poets (see 1 Corinthians 15:33 and Titus 1:12).

My next post will be taking the four things that I mention above and applying it to our western culture. Our postmodern, post-Christendom culture. And how we go about following Paul's missionary strategy and how we come up with a missionary strategy that also works in our world today. And I'll also share some thoughts on how I am going about this as we are continuing to plant Veritas, a Missional or Missionary Church in Lancaster, as well as how Veritas is seeking to go about this as a missional/missionary community.

Planting Missionary Churches

Yesterday I was out mowing the lawn and while mowing the lawn I always listen to my iPod. Sometimes I listen to music and sometimes I listen to various podcasts, most of them dealing with church planting. Yesterday I started out listening to some music and then started listening to a podcast from the Ecclesia Church planting gathering from the other year. I was listening to Chris Backert talk about Planting Missionary Churches, which has been a very helpful podcast for me. (Audio from that session the 2011 conference that I attended can be found here... http://ecclesia.343mp3.com/2011/Aggelos/2%20-%20Planting%20Missionary%20Churches%20-%20Chris%20Backert.mp3"

Over the next few days I want to share some thoughts from this podcast, what stood out to me, what is helpful to me, and some concrete steps that I plan to take because of this very helpful podcast and session by my friend Chris Backert.

One of the first thing that struck me was a back story to the story of Paul in Athens found in Acts 16:16-34. Acts 17 is one of my favorite bible texts as I love the way Paul interacts with the Athenian Culture. I find that we can learn a great deal about how we need to go into our culture with the gospel based on how Paul went to Athens. I'll share a few thoughts on what Paul did in Athens and how we can go into our culture in my next blog post.

The back story that opened up Acts 17 for me is the story of someone who came to Athens 500 years before Paul came to Athens. Here is the back story along with the story of Paul in Athens.

Sometime in the Sixth Century B.C. a man named Nicias stood before the Athenian council on Mars Hill. He reported back from a trip that he had just taken to the Pithian Oracle, a desperate trip because Athens had been plagued with disease for some time. Nicias reported: "Our city is under a curse. The priest has revealed that a certain god is punishing us for the heinous crimes of our former king." And even as he spoke, the dirges from thousands of people rose up from the city behind him, lamenting the dying there below.

One council member spoke up and said, "What god could this be? We've offered atoning sacrifices to every god. I can't imagine what other god there could be."

Nicias replied, "I don't know either, nor did the priest at the oracle know." With his words a cold wind swept through the marble columns as if to affirm the terror settling on all their hearts. Nicias continued, "We must send a ship to Crete to fetch a man named Epimenides. The oracle assures me that he will know how to appease this god."

And so after much debate, the humbled council agreed to seek the help of this foreigner. Very soon, in the time it took to sail from Athens to Crete and back, Epimenides Inisious stepped off the ship in the town of Piraeus, the harbor town. He and his traveling party began to walk up the road to Athens, and as they journeyed, signs of the plague surrounded them. Rather than being surprised or shocked by the travesties of an epidemic, Epimenides was surprised by something else. He said, "Never before have I seen so many gods. In fact, it's probably easier to find a god here than a man."

At that Nicias laughed and replied, "Yes, but for the life of me, I can't figure out who this other god could be. We worship every possible god we can imagine."

Epimenides returned, "Well, maybe that's your problem." The next morning Epimenides stood before the council on Mars Hill, along with a flock of choice, hungry sheep that he had requested the night before. As the foreigner stood there in front of the council, hundreds and hundreds of Athenians gathered there desperately looking on and hoping for some glimmer of truth, some hope of relief.

Epimenides addressed the council: "I'm going to offer a sacrifice based on three assumptions. The first one is that there's a god out there and we don't know his name. But, he's somehow connected to our plague. The second assumption is this -that if we invoke the help of this god, he is great enough and good enough that he will come to our aid."

At that one of the young men in the crowd yelled out, "How can we invoke the name of a god when we don't even know his name?"

Epimenides replied, "That's my third assumption: that this god is so great and so good that if we call upon his name, he will smile on our ignorance as long as we acknowledge that ignorance before him."

And so they all looked to the sky and Epimenides cried out, "Unknown God, look down upon this city. Forgive this city. Deliver this city. And now, if you would choose the sheep that You desire, if You would cause them to lie down upon the grass, we'll sacrifice them to You." With that they released the hungry sheep to wander around the grassy hill. Miraculously, several of the sheep began to lie down rather than graze with the rest of the flock. Artisans immediately began to mark the spot and collect the sheep for a sacrifice. Epimenides instructed them to build an altar on the spot and inscribe it to Agnos Theo, the Unknown God. They did as he instructed and sacrificed the sacred sheep.

That very day, the plague began to lift; within a week, the people of Athens were well again. Naturally, they glorified and worshipped this unknown God, leaving flowers and garlands on the newly built altar. But after a time, they began to forget. They made a statue in honor of Epimenides and put it in the city. Eventually, however, they forgot about him as well. The Athenians gradually slipped back into the worship of their old gods. The altar to the Unknown God fell into disrepair and finally into ruins. However, one day two of the city elders were walking among those ruins when one of them stopped and tore away a bit of moss to reveal the words Agnos Theo. He said to the other elder, "Demis, remember this? Remember what happened so long ago when we were just young men?"

Demis answered, "Of course! How could I forget? I was the one who cried out 'How can we offer a sacrifice to a god when we don't even know his name?'" His friend replied, "Don't think me sacrilegious, but if this god would somehow reveal himself, I imagine that we could do away with all these other gods."

Demis thought for a moment and said, "Yes, maybe so. But how will we remember? How will the people of our city remember that this god is not a foreign god to us, but one who has visited our city and saved us from the horrible plague?"

Shortly thereafter, the two men resolved to go before the city council and pass a motion that would preserve and maintain the uncovered altar to the Unknown God for all posterity.{1}

Half a millennium passed until another foreigner with a spiritual mission stepped foot in Piraeus. Not a Cretan but a Jew, Paul found himself, like Epimenides, much more amazed at all the idols than at the sites of Athens. We read about his encounter in Acts 17:16-34. It seems Paul had not planned on going to Athens but because he ran into some trouble in Berea (they ran him out of town), he fled on a ship and ended up waiting in Athens for his friends Silas and Timothy.

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace everyday with those who chanced to be there. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also met him there. Some said, "What would this babbler say?" Others said, "He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities." They said this because he preaches Jesus and this resurrection. And they took hold of him and brought him to the Areopagus [Mars Hill], saying, "May we know what this new teaching is which you present to us? For you bring some strange things to our ears and we wish to know therefore what these things mean." (Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.)

So Paul standing in the middle of the Areopagus said, "Men of Athens! I perceive that in every way you are a very religious people. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: To An Unknown God. What therefore you worship as unknown this I proclaim to you that the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man. Nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything since he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything. And he made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their habitation; that they should seek God in the hope that they might feel after him and find him, yet he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and we move and we have our being. As even some of your poets have said, 'For we are indeed his offspring.' Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold or silver or stone -a representation by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed. And of this he has given assurance to all men raising him from the dead." (Acts 17:16-31)

I'll post some thoughts later this week about Paul's missionary strategy in Athens and what we can learn about what our missionary strategy should be like here in the 21st century based on Acts 17.

The Community Room on Prince

For the past 4 months (since May) we have been renting the Community Room on Prince as the primary lease holders and also subletting it to other communities and individuals. Over the last 4 months we have used the space primarily for missional and cultural engagement. We have held 4 1st Friday Art Shows and will hold our 5th this coming Friday. We have held 2 Poetry Nights and 2 Coffeehouse/Open Mic Nights on Music Friday (which is 3rd Fridays in Downtown Lancaster). I am also very excited about our next Music Friday event which is a Benefit Concert to raise awareness and funds to provide a safe house for women getting out of the Human Trafficking industry. (More details about the event can be found here.....

The last art show we had the art of Salina Almanzar, a Lancaster resident and F&M Student and that evening was great. Her artwork was amazing but she shared with others about the art show and we probably had at least 100 people over the course of the night check out her work, engage with her, and talked with us as well. She definitely got what we wanted to do for emerging artists, that being provide the space for artists to display their work and the artist then promotes the show. I am hoping this coming Friday night's show is attended as well as the last one.

It's been great having the space and we have been holding off having our worship gatherings in the space over the last 4 months for a few reasons. One, there was another community that was meeting there on Sunday morning and we wanted to let them us the space. Two we wanted to make sure that we remember the reason behind having this space is primarily for missional engagement and not for ourselves. But now we have decided to begin meeting there for worship. The other community is meeting there on the 1st Sunday in the AM, the 2nd and 4th in the PM, and not at all on the 3rd Sunday. So we can do some missional engagement and service projects on the 1st Sunday of every month, and then hold our regular gatherings on the 2nd-4th Sundays of the month.

In fact we held our 1st Worship Gathering there this past Sunday and had a great turnout with some new faces, some returning College students from Franklin and Marshall (which is only a few blocks away), and some great musical worship and discussion on Jesus moving into the neighborhood and how we can incarnate Jesus into our neighborhoods, work, school, and various networks that we are a part of. I'm really excited about the next few months of Veritas and hopefully what will be a season of growth both in our Gathered times and in our Scattered Times. And I am excited about what God is up to in our community and how we can use the Community Room to bless people, serve people, and missionally engage with the community each month through art, music, and a host of other possibilities.

Veritas in the News

The video above is from a newscast from July 15 talking about our last Poets' Loft. Pretty cool "publicity" for our missional community.

Radical Together: Unleashing the People of God for the Purpose of God

The other week I received the book "Radical Together: Unleashing the People of God for the Purpose of God" by David Platt, which is the follow up book to "Radical". His question that led to writing this book was "How can we in the church best unleash the people of God in the Spirit of God with the Word of God for the glory of God." He then spends the rest of the book wrestling with how a community of followers of Jesus (and not just individuals) live out a radical Jesus life together.

He organizes the book around six ideas that he believes (in his words) are foundational for Christians who desire to be a part of churches that are unleashing people in the world with the gospel. The six ideas are:

1. One of the worst enemies of Christians can be good things in the church. 2. The gospel that saves us from works saves us to work. 3. The Word does the work. 4. Building the right church depends on using all the wrong people. 5. We are living- and longing- for the end of the world. 6. We are selfless followers of a self-centered God.

Overall I appreciated the book and it gave me some concrete thoughts and things to apply within Veritas, albeit on a much smaller scale that the authors church. (For instance, really getting serious about tithing our giving each week to some missions/ministries outside ourselves like Living Water International or Blood Water Mission or North Star Initiative or Heads Up both here in Lancaster.)

Some quotes that stood out to me include:

"Are you and I personally willing to put everything in our lives on the table for Christ to determine what needs to stay and what needs to go?"

"The Gospel is the reason for radical living"

(Love this prayer) "Lord, let me make a difference for you that is utterly disproportionate to who I am."

"What if growing the church was never intended to depend on creating a good performance with all the right people on the stage?"

"Make disciples who will make disciples who will make disciples, and together multiply this gospel to all peoples."

"What if each of us were actually making disciples who were making disciples who were making disciples?"

"We are exhorted to see ourselves as missionaries in our cities, and we are encouraged to engage our cultures with the gospel." (The quote goes on to say that you need to be more than just living out the kingdom locally but also seeking to live out the kingdom globally as well.)

And lastly... "We said to God, 'Wherever you want us to go, whatever you want us to do, however you want us to live, we give our lives and our family for you to spend in making the gospel and your glory known to the ends of the earth, particularly among those who have never heard the gospel." A prayer that my wife and I need to be praying together and separately.

One last thing is that there is a study guide in the back of the book for groups that might want to use the book as a small group resource or a call that might want to use it for a sermon series type small group. This might come in handy for future discussions within Veritas.

Just so you know.... “I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review”

On the Verge: a journey into the apostolic future of the church

The other week I received a copy of "On the Verge" by Alan Hirsch and Dave Ferguson from the Speakeasy blog program that I am a part of. I received the book so that I could read it and then blog my thoughts regarding the book. I was excited to read the book because it had formed and given structure to the framework of the Exponential Conference back in April that my wife and I went to in Orlando, Florida. As I began to leaf through it, I realized a few things. First, it is a rather thick book with a lot of information in it. Secondly, I realized that this book will be one that I need to chew on, reflect on, and probably reread a few times to really allow it to sink into my thoughts, practices, and into the way we are doinging and being church together. And Lastly, I realized that probably the thing that could help me most in reading the book was others to read it with and then talk about how to put the various insights into practice. (I know of 2 others within the COB who are reading the book right now).

Hirsch and Ferguson (I so wanted to write Hirsch and Frost as I am so used to doing) divide the book into 4 main parts that make up the "Model for Apostolic Movement" and then spend significant time unpacking the 4 main points. The 4 parts of the model for apostolic movement are:

1. Imagine. "We will begin with the importance of missional imagination in helping us rethink what we mean by ecclesia, and move on to imagining new possibilities." 2. Shift. "This second section forms the paradigm-shifting heart of the book. Here we describe how churches can activate apostolic movement vision and philosophy at the heart of the church." 3. Innovate. "We then look into the dynamics of genuine innovation (as opposed to simple creativity) without which we are doomed to simply repeat what we already know." 4. Move. "In the final section, we explore what it takes to practically generate and maintain actual movement, or this movementum, throughout the church and become a Verge church."

Hirsch also spends significant time walking through what he calls mDNA (or missional DNA) which is needed if we are to be a missional movement. These six elements of mDNA are: 1. Jesus is Lord. 2. Disciple Making. 3. Apostolic environment 4. Missional-incarnational impulse. 5. Organic systems. 6. Communitas

Probably the thing that has stuck out the most to me, and has stayed with me the longest is the idea of the 60:40. The 60:40 is the percentages of people involved or open to the church as it stands now. The authors put it this way, "It is our opinion, and that of the Future Travelers group, that the prevailing, contemporary church-growth approach to church will have significant cultural appeal- marketability, if you will- to about 40 percent of the American population." Which, for all you math majors out there, leaves 60% who are not part of, involved with, or even open to the church as it stands now. How do we connect the church with those 60 percent? That is the question that continues to swim around in my head, and the chapters dealing with Imagining and Innovating have, and I believe, will come in handy as Veritas moves into the future.

The only "negative" (and it is a small negative) that I have with the book revolves around a quote found near the end of the book. In a part of the book labeled "8 Movement Rules" they list 8 rules for missional movements. The 2nd rules is "The Small Rules." And here is what they say about the Small Rules, "Jesus started this apostolic movement with a single small group. Jesus used the parable of leaven to show how small things can make a big impact. He also referred to the smallest of seeds as having massive potential for earthshaking results. In Church 3.0 Neil Cole champions the power of small things: 'Why is small so big? Small does not cost a lot. Small is easy to reproduce. Small is easily changed and exchanged. Small is mobile. Small is harder to stop. Small is intimate. Small is simple. Small infiltrates easier. Small is something people think they can do. Big doesn't do any of these things. We can change the world more quickly by becoming much smaller.' Big can be good, but in a movement, the small rules!" So why do i quote the entire section? Because I believe the others believe this with all their heart, but then throughout the entire book when it comes to telling stories of churches who are making the missional shift, they only tell the big church stories. There is no little missional community of 30 people slowly impacting the community around them one person at a time. There is no stories about small churches turning outward and blessing their communities. No every church that is listed in the back of the book are rather large churches, ranging from 700 people to 12,000 people. For someone like me, who has a small missional community, who sometimes feels like a dreadful failure, it wasn't a great way to end the book.

With that being said, I still believe there is much to be learned, mined, and put into practice in this book. I will continue to ruminate on it. I will hope to read this book in a community setting with other leaders in order to be able to put things in perspective and to give insights on how and what to put into place in my context. Thanks again to the Speakeasy blog program for the honor of reading and blogging about this book.

I Pledge Allegiance....

With the fourth of July coming up next week my thoughts have been turning more and more to the relation between the church and the state. I have been having several conversations with various people about the role of the church and the role of the state. I've been thinking about how many people in the "Church in America" have bowed the knee to the God of nationalism. I recently found some interesting news pieces regarding people and schools refusing to sing the national anthem or say the pledge of allegiance....here are some of those links..http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/07/national-anthem-banned-at-mennonite-colleges-sporting-events-sparking-outcry/ and http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/26/my-faith-why-i-dont-sing-the-star-spangled-banner/ Now before I go any further I do want to say that I am glad that I live in America where I am free to practice my faith in the way that I choose, and that others have the right to practice their faith or beliefs or even no religious faith at all. I am glad that we have the rights that we do and I wouldn't change that for the world. I'm glad that i was born here. But that doesn't mean that I have to agree with everything that the government does. I also have problems with the National Anthem and the militaristic language within the song, and I'm not sure that I would even be comfortable saying the Pledge of Allegiance due to the fact that my allegiance isn't with my country but first and foremost with Jesus and the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God takes precedence over the Kingdom of the world, the empire, and by definition, the United States.

I had a conversation with someone the other day about their churches practice in regards to the American Flag and Patriotic songs during worship services. He said he had long time members say that the American flag has to be on the stage (in their contemporary worship space). I am okay with having the American Flag in a church building, as long as that flag is also standing beside the flags of other countries like Iraq, Palestine, China, etc.. But I'm not okay with singing patriotic songs during a worship service. I don't believe patriotic and nationalistic songs have any place in the worshipping community because when we gather we gather with the church universal. With brothers and sisters from other countries, other languages, and from places which our government considers our enemies. But these believers from other lands are not my enemies, they are my brothers and sisters in the Lord, and that takes precedence over what my country says about them.

I want my life to reflect the King and his Kingdom more than the empire of the United States. I want my allegiance to be with Jesus, the liberating King who has come to free us from sin, death, and destruction and redeem us for his glory. Solders did die so that I could live in a free land....but Jesus died so that I could be totally free, which sacrifice means more?

I guess in closing and to sum it up, I can say it better than with the lyrics to the song "A King and a Kingdom" by Derek Webb...

who's your brother, who's your sister you just walked passed him i think you missed her as we're all migrating to the place where our father lives 'cause we married in to a family of immigrants

my first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man my first allegiance is not to democracy or blood it's to a king & a kingdom

there are two great lies that i’ve heard: “the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die” and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him

but nothing unifies like a common enemy and we’ve got one, sure as hell but he may be living in your house he may be raising up your kids he may be sleeping with your wife oh no, he may not look like you think

I will pledge allegiance to a King and his Kingdom. How bout you? Who or what are you pledging your allegiance to?

Church as Movie Trailer

The other day I was working out at Planet Fitness and while riding the stationary bike I was watching and listening to a video of Michael Frost at Dallas Theological Seminary. In the video Frost was talking about an idea that really struck a chord with me. He likened the role of church and each Christ follower as being a trailer to a movie. He said Imagine that the Kingdom coming in its fullest is the greatest blockbuster of all time, than what we get to do is point to the "movie" with our lives. We become the trailer that points to a great reality. He said that when you go to the theater and they play previews you watch people after each one lean over to the person they are with and say, "That looks good. Do you want to see that one?" Our lives (both as individuals and as a community) need to be lived in such a way (being people of love, peace, grace, mercy, justice, compassion, etc..) that people will want to see the movie of the Kingdom coming in its fullness.

Here is a video that I found of Frost talking about the Church as Movie Trailer...

Revise Us Again: Living from a Renewed Christian Script

The other week I receive the book Revise Us Again by Frank Viola from Speak Easy (a blogging for books program). It took me a while to get through it do to all my recent travels (Orlando for church planters conference, Richmond, VA for another conference, and Orlando for Disney). The authors intent on writing this book is spelled out on the back jacket. It says, "Viola believes we need to revisit and revise what it means to live the Christian life." He then lays out 10 areas which are vital to our life in Christ. These ten are, Revising our Awareness of the Divine, Revising Christian Code language, Revising the Holy Spirit's Ministry, Revising Christenese, Revising the Lord's Voice, Revising our Spiritual Expectations, Revising our attitudes, Revising our Chief Pursuit, Revising our message, and Revising our semantics.

Whether it was the way that I read the book (throughout a month chopped up in little time pieces) or something else, I just couldn't seem to get into this book and was trying to figure out what Viola was hoping to accomplish with this book. It's not that I didn't like the book or get something out of it. It just seemed to me to be disjointed (though again it could be from the way that I read it...a bit disjointed myself).

I would say the best chapter in my opinion was Revising our Awareness of the Divine. The quote that resonated with me (especially since I had just got done being at Disney which took most of my time and energy) was, "The Lord is always with you. But you can go about your busy day and never once acknowledge or think about Him. You can set your mind on earthly things and never once be conscious of the Lord who indwells you. On the contrary, by setting your mind and heart upon Him, you become actively conscious of his presence." I realized that much of my vacation I was living like the former part of the quote and not the latter. This quote has helped me realize that I need to be actively conscious of His presence. (Maybe I need to reread Brother Lawerence's Practicing the Presence of God).

A few other quotes that stood out to me include:

"Our Lord reveals His will to and through a local community of believers when they are seeking to lay hold of His mind together."

"The goal of the gospel is not to get you out of hell and into heaven, but to get God out of heaven and into you so that He may be displayed visibly and glorified in His creation"- This is probably the best quote of the entire book and probably worth the price of the book itself.

"God is always present in the life of a believer- whether one actively feels His presence or not."

"Every church tradition, movement and denomination has a valid contribution to make to the body of Christ."

I might have to go back in the future and reread this book and see if I feel different about it. I probably need to read it in one setting or as close to one sitting as possible and maybe it will feel less disjointed to me. But whatever the case, I still enjoyed reading it, got some nuggets out of it, and thank Speak Easy for giving me the opportunity to review the book.

Poetry and Art Slam

The above pictures were taken last night at our first Poetry and Art Slam using our new Space in downtown Lancaster. It was a great night with around 30-35 people attending. Now while that number isn't that high, what is really cool is that around 75% of those that attended last night weren't from our community. It was definitely a good night and we'll be holding more Poetry and Art Slams in the future.

God has his fingerprints all over his Creation- including us.

About a month or so ago I received the book "SoulPrint:  Discovering your divine destiny" by Mark Batterson.   As a member of Blogging for Books, I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.  Batterson wants his readers to realize that, according to the description on the back of the book, that "there never has been and never will be anyone like you.  But that isn't a testament to you.  It's a testament to the God who created you."  The way that Batterson does this is to explore the life of David and how we found God's soulprint (the God-given distinction that makes each of us unlike anyone else) for his life and how exploring the life of David finding his soulprint helps us find, identify and live out our soulprint.

Batterson uses 5 scenes from the life of David to expand upon various issues related to a persons soulprint.  The 5 scenes are:

1.  Holy Confidence- This chapter deals with the David's encounter with Goliath.  It deals with the fact that David wasn't even a soldier in the army and was only on the battle field to bring his brothers some food.  He was at a disadvantage for several reasons including size, qualifications, and vocation (a shepherd not a fighter).  But David had one thing that his brother's and the rest of the Israelite army didn't have...a Holy Confidence and trust in God that God would deliver Goliath into his hands.  David realized that all his past experiences (killing a lion and a bear) led him to that point in his life and to that moment when he stepped out onto the battlefield to face Goliath.  Several quotes from this chapter stood out to me including:

"I tell every church planter that I meet that the first five years don't count, because God has to grow the leader before He can grow whatever it is that person is leading.  Don't worry about church growth.  If you're growing personally, church growth will take care of itself."

"Your dream seems like a mirage that remains the same distance away no matter how fast or how far you pursue it.  You know you have a destiny to fulfill, but the elapsed time causes you to second-guess yourself." (Feels like he was speaking right to me about how I feel about Veritas sometimes...)

"It starts with little opportunities and small victories."

2.  Lifesymbols- This chapter deals with the result of David's Holy Confidence..the death of Goliath.  Batterson's theorizes that the stone that hit Goliath in the head became a lifesymbol for David and that he kept it as a remembrance of God's deliverance.  Scriptures also state that David took the Giants armor which weighed 125 pound, 15 ounces into his tent and it traveled with him wherever he went.  Why?  As a giant reminder or lifesymbol of God who can fell Giants.  Batterson also asks us what our Lifesymbols are, those things that we have kept that are from defining moments in our lives. Here are some quotes from this chapter that spoke to me:

"And that is one of the jobs of parents.  They manage their children's memories by the stories they tell, the keepsakes they save, and the pictures they take."

"Preimaginging is imagining the future before it happens.  Postimagining, for holy or unholy reasons, is reimagining the past after it happens."

"God has gifted us with three kinds of sight:  hindsight, insight, and foresight.  That three-dimensional ability to look backward, look inward, and look forward is part of the image of god that sets us apart from the rest of creation."

3. The Crags of the Wild Goats- This is the story of David cutting the corner off of Saul's robe while Saul is relieving himself in a cave.  David's men thought it was an opportunity to take Saul down and assume the kingship.  But an opportunity isn't an opportunity if you have to compromise your integrity.  This chapter is all about integrity.  Who you are when no one is watching.  There is alot in this chapter that struck me and related to my life in the midst of planting Veritas.  Here are just a few quotes...

"It was less about building His church and more about building my ego.  It was less about His reputation and more about mine.  Truth be told, I cared more about the numbers than the people."

"The goal is not accomplishing the dream that God has given you.  The dream is the secondary issue.  The primary issue is who you become in the process.  We fixate on what and when and where.  God's primary concern is always who.  And He won't get you where He wants you to go until you become who He wants you to be."

"Sometimes you have to die to the dream God has given you so that God can resurrect the dream in its glorified form.  And by glorified form, I simply mean pursuing the dream for God's glory.  When you stop living for selfish purposes, the pressure comes off.   And that's when your destiny comes into focus."

"Maybe it's time to quit taking the credit so you can quit taking the blame.  Maybe it's time to quit proving yourself to people and start proving yourself to God.  Maybe it's time to quit building monuments to self and start building altars to God."

4.  Altar Ego- This chapter deals with the story of David dancing before the ark of the Lord as it came into Jerusalem.  The story is told that he disrobed and danced with all his might in worship.  Unfortunately his wife Michal wasn't happy about that.  She didn't think that was fitting for a king, but David cared more about worshipping God with all his might, than what others thought of him.  His identity was securing based on God and not on what others thought of him, or anything else.  This chapter, to me, strikes me where I live.  So often I base my identity and security and self esteem in what others think of me, or how I perceive they think of me, than in what God thinks of me.  Or I base my identity on how Veritas is doing or how I perceive it to be.  (usually based not on discipleship, mission, etc.. but on who shows up on Sunday morning).  Here are some quotes that stood out to me...

"Is your identity based on what you can do for Christ, or is it based on what Christ has done for you?"

"They never take risks.  So they forfeit opportunity."

"Comfort impedes spiritual growth. ....My job is not just to comfort the afflicted.  My job is to afflict the comfortable."

5.  The Devil's Workshop- This is probably the best known chapter in David's life...his indiscretion with Bathsheba.  Idle hands is the devils' playground...and David's hands and eyes were idle and not doing what he should have been doing.  He was supposed to be off at war, but instead he was wondering around his rooftop and spying on Bathsheba as she bathed.  David was bored and boredom is the seedbed of sin.  The thing that struck me the most is this quote related not only to David but also to us, "And the cure for sin is a vision from God.  If you are consumed with a God-sized vision, you have less time or energy left over to sin."

Here are some other quotes that struck me...

"Laying down my identity as a Pastor helped me see myself for myself."

"The glory of God, said Saint Irenaeus, is a person fully alive."

I would say overall that this book helped me to look deep inside to my soulprint, to see where I've substituted my soulprint and tried to live someone else's print, and how all too often my identity is wrapped up in what I do and not in whose I am.  All too often it's about what I can do for God and not what he has done for me.  I can't say it better than this..."The best form of worship is becoming the best version of who God has created you to be.  Worship is more than a lifestyle.  Worship is life."  May we all live out our soulprint that God has imprinted on our lives and soul.

Possible New Space for Veritas and the Veritas Arts Collective

The two pictures above are pictures of the Community Room on Prince in downtown Lancaster right on Prince Street (above Prince Street Cafe).  Veritas has used this space back when we were a ministry of Hempfield COB as well as for our last 2 Music and Art Fundraising Nights.  Last month I became aware that the Primary Lease Holder was leaving and that the owner of the building was looking for someone to pick up the Primary Lease of the space.  Well we have been looking for a 24/7 for about a year to hold various missional and cultural engagement dreams as well as future worship gatherings and have been coming up with nothing (too much money to renovate, one didn't want us to go to the borough, too small, etc...).  For a few weeks another community was possibly interested in the space as the primary lease holder and I found out a week or so ago that they were no longer interested in being the primary lease holders.  So now our community is currently praying and discerning together whether we should go ahead and become the primary lease holders of this space .

We have sat down together as a community and talked about various ideas for missional and cultural engagement using this space.  We have thought about using it on 1st Fridays as an Art Gallery, 3rd Fridays as a Music Venue, a place for a "school of the arts" (music lessons, art lessons, dance lessons, etc..), place for ESL classes, Toddler Story time, partnering with various Non-profits, various events like a Reel Spirituality Night, or a Doubt Night, eventually holding our Public Worship gatherings there, and also subleasing it out to various communities and individuals as a means of paying for the space.  (If we promote it well it's quite possible that we could break even and not spend any of our own money for rent, or even make some money.)

There are some challenges with the space.  Raising the money to furnish the space, Raising the funds to cover the first month's payment including the Security Deposit, no one currently in our Core Group currently lives in the city of Lancaster, and there is currently a group that is meeting there on Sunday mornings (not a challenge right now as we are still planning on meeting at my house until we grow our core group a little larger).

On Sunday we will be meeting for our Core Group Worship time and taking some time to pray, listen to God, and discern whether this is God's leading for our community.  I believe we probably won't find a better deal anywhere and especially one in which we might be actually able to make some money.  But please pray for us as we discern together the future of Veritas and using this space for the Kingdom of God and for missional and cultural engagement.

We are choking on our consumption of the American Dream

The Title of this post is taken from a T-Shirt that I was given at last year's Purple Door Arts and Music Festival by a guy running a business called Fake Life.  As I reflected on the book "Radical: Taking Back your faith from the American Dream" by David Platt, I couldn't help but think of the quote from Fake Life.  As a member of Blogging for Books, I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.  This book was definitely challenging, interesting, and a call for me to see where I have bought into the American Dream without thinking about it.

I would say, for the most part, this book challenged my faith and encouraged me to take a hard look at my life, my finances, my time, my commitment to Christ, and my commitment to justice in the world.  It wasn't an "easy" read meaning it challenged my assumptions, my lifestyle, and what kingdom I am truly living for.  I found myself wondering what my family and I might do to live a more radical, Kingdom of God focused life.  I thought back to many discussions that I have had over the last year and half, since launching Veritas, with my wife about the possibility of selling our house and moving into a smaller house, and possibly to the city of Lancaster.  What it has come down to for me is this quote found on page 45, "The question for us, then, is whether we trust in his power.  And the problem for us is that in our culture we are tempted at every turn to trust in our own power instead.  So the challenge for us is to live in such a way that we are radically dependent on and desperate for the power that only God can provide."

There are many great sections and quotes from this book.  And I wanted to share the ones that stood out to me the most.

"Our attempt to reduce this gospel to a shrink-wrapped presentation that persuades someone to say or pray the right things back to us no longer seems appropriate."

"Do we really believe he is worth abandoning everything for?  Do you and I really believe that Jesus is so good, so satisfying, and so rewarding that we will leave all we have and all we own and all we are in order to find our fullness in him?  Do you and I believe him enough to obey him and to follow him wherever he leads, even when the crowds in our culture- and maybe in our churches- turn the other way" (Ouch..this hurts.  God has been asking me lately if he is enough.  He asked me if he was more important than Veritas and whether or not it "failed" and lately, unfortunately I have been answering no, you aren't enough.  I've spent some time praying and confessing that and want to give everything, including Veritas, over to him to do what he wants with my life and the life and ministry of Veritas).

"And I want to be a part of a people who are risking it all for him.  For the sake of an increasingly marginalized and relatively ineffective church in our culture, I want to risk it all."

One of the things that struck me the most was his take on what makes a "successful" church today in the US.  He wonders if what we call successful is actually successful in the eyes of God.  He says this is what you need for a successful church, "Clearly, it doesn't require the power of God to draw a crowd in our culture.  A few key elements that we can manufacture will suffice.  First we need a good performance.  Next we need a place to hold the crowds that will come, so we gather all our resources to build a multimillion-dollar facility to house the performance.  Finally, once the crowds get there, we need to have something to keep them coming back. "

I also found his Radical Experiment at the end of the book helpful for applying what he wrote about in the rest of the book.

I could quote some more great quotes as there are many.  And for the most part I felt that this was a very helpful, encouraging, challenging book and I'm glad that I had the opportunity to read it.  There was only two things that I struggled with while reading the book.

First of all, I found that it seemed like Platt was missing or underemphasizing one  part of the Gospel Story and overemphasizing another part.  I believe there are 4 parts of this Grand Narrative.  The four parts are Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration.  I believe Platt underemphasized the Creation part of the narrative, each person in the world created in the Imago Dei, the Image of God and he overemphasized the Fall.  It seemed like, and maybe I'm wrong, that we are nothing but sinners (wondering if his neo-calvinist theology around Total depravity informed this point?).  I admit that I am a sinner, but I am also a saint, created in the Image of God to do good works, as the Scripture says.  For me, I believe, to know that I am created in the Image of God, makes me desire to be on mission and be the hands and feet of Christ, because I can truly reflect Jesus.  It's truly possible.

The other issue is related to the idea of social justice.  It seemed like, to me at least, that he was trying to convince people that social justice was in deed part of the gospel and it wasn't only about evangelism.  In fact he would say that Social Justice and Evangelism go hand and hand, the opposite sides of the same coin.  I totally agree with him, but I realize that maybe the "intended audience" was such that they only saw evangelism as the outgrowth of the gospel and not living out the kingdom by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the prisoner, and tending to the sick.

Other than those two issues, I still highly value the work that Platt has put forth and I'll be encouraging others that I know (in my core group, and others) to take some time to read and reflect on how they might live a more Radical, Kingdom of God faith and I'll also encourage everyone (myself included) to see if we are indeed choking on our consumption of the American Dream.