I’ve been tinkering around with Google Earth lately…what an awesome program! It has been especially fun for me as I’m spending more time this summer thinking about how North America is on the precipice of moving deeper and deeper into more authentic expressions of the Christian faith.

Over on my sidebar of this blog, I have written one of the goals that has been central to what I am to be about: I want to see a vibrant family of Jesus in close proximity geographically and culturally, of every single person in North America. So many of the established, “legacy” churches (which is exactly what they are for many of us, since that is our legacy) reach out only to a select number of people, leaving millions on this continent without a vibrant, healthy expression of Jesus anywhere close to the lost. Within organic church conversations, a central principle is that of keeping only the essentials, in order for the “church” to take on many strange, new forms. Always new wineskins, for the ever-new wine.

But how will we know if these “vibrant families of Jesus” are in close reach? How will we know which neighborhoods to pray for? There’s probably lots of ways to do it, but for a small group in Abilene, we are looking carefully at our city’s ethnographic and geographic fingerprints. Programs like Google Earth, are helpful, but we are also setting out on foot, meeting new people who are very different from your standard issue church-goer. (Finally!)

Who are the different people groups in this city? In other cities? What makes them tick? What are their hopes, dreams, and deepest fears? What is their “God-language”? If we’re serious about raising up a family of Jesus in close proximity to every people group in the nation, and eventually the whole world, we can’t just sit back and hope it happens. We have to begin to examine the harvest field!

There are many others in many other cities doing similar things as we are. Not connected through anything more than their connection to Christ, these brothers and sisters are praying that the lost of this world come to Christ, and are discipled by Him. Among others, DAWN is one great resource and has given me words to form a lot of the hopes and dreams I’ve been having lately. They are a grassroots system for getting the word out about church planting and reaching the lost.

Simple, and organic churches are certainly not the only way to reach the lost world, but they are making a significant impact in places like China, India, Africa and now in Latin America (there called “Base Ecclesial Communities”). God is knocking at the door of the West, ready to unleash a new/ancient power: his very people as the multi-ethnic church.

Last 5 posts by Mark

• Chicago Spiritual Map: Hyde Park - August 28th, 2008
• Off the Blogger Bench - August 27th, 2008

This entry was posted on Friday, June 23rd, 2006 at 4:14 pm and is filed under DAWN, Evangelism, Organic Church, Purpose, Saturation Church Planting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.