I spent the evening last night holding an exciting conversation with Trey, a friend and partner with me in an LTG. For several months, he and I have been growing closer as friends, and last night Katrina and I shared with him our dream to see a vibrant family of Jesus in close reach to every person in Abilene. Trey caught the vision immediately, and began brainstorming what an indigenous faith community might look like in a living room in Abilene, Texas. Below are just a few ideas floating through my head as I sort through yesterday’s conversation.

Could, in just a year or two, we plant a church in this city, see leadership develop, connect them with other churches in the city, then pull out and let locals lead? That is the burning question on my mind right now.

I’m also thinking theologically; every church begins first with a group of people. This group of people waits for God to give them purpose and mission, and then they are sent out to a specific field. Do ordinary Christians, empowered by the Holy Spirit have the capacity to plant a church? I have to believe they do.

One of the crazy things that Trey brought up as we were talking last night was the fact that Abilene, as aware of the Christian-faith as it is, could not support a city-wide turning to Jesus - something that many churches regularly pray for. If you counted the seats, pews and chairs in every church building, they would fall WAY short in accepting such a wide-spread acceptance of Jesus. Our buildings would not hold them, and our leadership structures could not keep them; they would float into a church and back out again once they realized they were not noticed and needed. But imagine a church movement that was able to house every church inside a living room, park, or coffeeshop! The seating capacity, the leadership structure, and the retention of new converts would be infinite!

Starting a new church in your own home is fine and dandy, but why start one there? Why not start right out where you hope it ends up - the harvest field? Jesus seems to talk in Luke 10 and Matthew 10 about finding the right person, then sticking with them, allowing the community of faith to grow around their leadership - not yours. I like that idea…now can we be bold enough to do it?

Finally, I kept hearing our conversation revolve around the concept of week long, life long church. Rather than the common perception that church is an event, see it instead as the community life that happens week long. Counting heads in attendance is now a non-issue, what counts is meaningful relationships that don’t just put up with each other for one hour a week, but find time to “break bread daily”. I long for a church like this…

Each Monday morning during the school semester, I meet with a few other guys to pray and plan and prepare for ministry in our local context: Abilene, Texas. As far as I can see, none of us will be in Abilene forever; we are planning to find and train disciples of Jesus Christ all across the continent. Good people to be around, for sure.

We usually meet at Kent Smith’s house, but this morning the weather was particularly pleasant so we left to do some prayer walking. This is something I’m not too familiar with, but it came with ease. We trudged up a dirt hill and climbed around in the brush for about a half mile until we arrived - the highest point in Abilene. From there we could look out and see the entire city. It is from that point we began to pray for our city; praying to see you workers touching lives of the lost all across the city from neighborhood to neighborhood.

It reminded me of Jesus and his disciples looking out over Jersusalem and weeping over the city. When was the last time I wept for the souls of a whole city? What would it be like to be that passionate about the souls of so many people? What will it take to see that passion stir up in the hearts of those who are joining us today in the journey of following Christ?

I found out a few days ago that eating any normal banana we buy at the grocery store is not the same one we would have tasted if we were shopping 50 years ago, (and not just because it hadn’t been grown yet, smart alecks!). Since farmers are coating their fruit in pesticides and growth hormones, and picking their crops well before they are ripe; the fruit looses its God-given nutrients. It looks like a normal banana, but in fact, to get the same nutrients found in a natural, “home grown” banana, we would have to eat FOURTEEN typical grocery-store bananas! That’s unreal!

No wonder we are overweight (we eat more to adjust for the poor quality of what is inside of us). No wonder we are searching for something more in life (can the pitiful selection of foods we eat actually persuade our spiritual hunger?). We view efficiency and quanity over natural growth and quality. God knows that all good things will take time. With farmers picking fruit before harvest time, our culture’s instant gratification now affects the very fruits of the earth!

Do we sterilize and dillute the “fruit” in our lives? Jesus equates human “fruit” with the outward actions as related to the inner soul of a person. Our fruit becomes healthier as we learn to rely on nothing more than the sun, the rain, and the seed. What are the pesticides in our life? What are the healthiest sources to receive nutrients?

Last night both the current MRNA (Missionary Residency of North America of which I am blessed to be a part of,) and the previous year’s students got together for dinner and a time of prayer. It was great to just hear what is going on in the lives and hearts of other MRNA students like Miller Talbot and Steve Holt who are interested and practicing organic church planting here in Abilene. I respect both of these men a great deal and last night was a confirmation of that respect.

Towards the end of the evening, Steve told us that after a year and a half, their house church was at its end. You could hear that this was difficult for him to say, and all of us were hushed into silence as he told us about how painful it was for him to come to the end of his time in Abilene and not see a thriving faith community. It was while Steve was still speaking that Miller interrupted: “Why are you apologizing? You have nothing to be sorry for!”

Kent added, “Tell us some of the stories of the people who at one time were a part of your simple church.” Steve went into a long list of names, all of which had been touched by the gospel, and shortly after all had moved away. I watched as Steve’s eyes got wider, telling us how three individuals from his small group had moved to other cities, and had in their own way started a new community of faith, or a prayer group, or a small house church. One dies, three are born!

I think about cells. Their lifecycle is to grow to maturity, then multiply and die. I’ve been told that every seven months, we are completely new people biologically, because every day billions of cells are reproducing, and dying. Death is a part of life - they are not opposites, they are partners. Death is just a stage everything must go through, including churches. It is the fate of many large churches to continue to eek out an existence well after the life that was present at their birth has left them.

I hope to see a lot of churches die in my lifetime. That may seem strange, but it is actually a byproduct of my real desire - that the Holy Spirit would sustain a congregation, and nothing else; not programs or “ministries” or structures that suck the life from the people. If the Holy Spirit is not what is holding up a faith community, then I’ll pray that they dis ban and look for life elsewhere. Now how’s that for church growth???

Thank you Miller and Steve and Kent and others who were such a blessing to my wife and I last night. May God continue to bring us the life we so desperately are searching for.

Just got back from the Pre-MAC (Preliminary Missionary assessment Center), where a group of about 12 graduate students who are preparing for life in missions gathered with about 12 graduate missions professors to discuss life on the field.

I spent most of my time there this weekend really reflecting on what it means to be “called” by God into mission. I wanted to know, “How is one called by God?” and when we are called, how can we be sure it is of God, and not ourselves? I asked myself, “Do I feel called to be God’s child?” I have experienced the joy of God’s salvation, I have participated in receiving God’s Holy Spirit - yes, I feel as if God has called me to be his child.

If so, then I am sent; called out into a community with every child of God (the word for “church” in Greek means “the called-out ones”). Just as Jesus was sent by God, so I am sent by him, (John 17:18). It is not possible to be a part of God’s called-out church and not be called. God is a missionary God who sends, and everyone blessed to be his child is then called to go and bless others - sent on a mission from God.

It was Ananias, a human, who first revealed God’s great plans for the apostle Paul. It wasn’t on the dramatic scene on the road to Damascus that he was given his call to ministry - that was simply where Jesus claimed Paul as his own, and gave him the next steps to meet Ananias in nearby Damascus to learn more and be baptized. Seventeen years after this, he went back to the city where he felt most comfortable - the place where he was sure his old Jewish friends would be ready to receive the Gospel. But things didn’t work out! Paul receives a vision from Jesus that he is not to stay in Jerusalem, (they weren’t going to receive his message anyway,) but that he was to be sent on a mission to preach to the nations of the world! It took seventeen years from the time Paul was called-out as God’s child before he was called to mission as a missionary to the peoples of the earth!

I’ve only been a Christian for 11 years; I’m content to live in the tension, waiting on the Lord to call me out to a specific place and people group. After a weekend of purposely looking at mission strategies and taking personality tests, I feel more comfortable than ever sitting back and listening for God to take action. I will follow wherever he leads me. The specifics I trust will be revealed to me when the time comes; when I take the first steps in faith.