Godgrown

Updates from February, 2011 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

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  Mark 1:14 pm on February 9, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Momentum Is a Result of Healthy Rhythms 

  All this week we’ve been looking at the MACRO Layer of Christian community – “the congregation,” “the network,” “the region”…

  This is the layer in which it all comes together – where real impact and change become visible!  Whereas a dozen folks that make up a house church (MESO) might bring hope and life to a few neighbors, a dozen or so house churches might just see a revolution of love spill out across the streets of their city!

  Think of the MACRO Layer as the momentum or the chain reaction that comes AS A RESULT of the health of the smaller layers.  When you have healthy rhythms, you’ll get momentum!  Think of a car — the rhythm of the pistons…those tiny tubes of metal…going up and down over and over…it eventually creates a power that propels a giant machine down the road!  The same is true for a church – the smaller rhythms of spiritual health…that is what moves a MACRO forward!

  You’ll never have a healthy MACRO unless everyone involved are a part of healthy one-on-one MICRO relationships, unless each person has a flourishing personal (MONO) relationship with their God.

  So often, Christian leaders pour all of their energy into making the MACRO Layer great -

  …the average church worship service in America takes almost 120 hours a week to pull off!

  (That’s 3 full time staff positions plus dozens of volunteers pouring incredible amounts of money and energy into a 2 hour gathering…EVERY week!)  Exhausting!  We think that if we can just preach the right sermon, or sing the right song…we’ll have an army ready to change the world.

  But this is about as effective as trying to push toothpaste back into the tube.

  It has to flow from the inside, out.

  Imagine if a church, a spiritually nurturing system, poured disproportionate energy into the layers.  The smaller the Layer of Christian community, the more energy leaders invested into it. Start with the MONO Layer – put all your energy into giving folks access to quality tools, resources, and more that develop their prayer life – their life of service and mission… imagine what would happen if you gave more energy to the MICRO Layer (one-on-one friendships, marriages, etc), imagine putting more focus on your small groups than on your Sunday gatherings!

  My bet is that if you did this, your MACRO gatherings would explode with health…

  This works at a personal level too…

  If you are a Christian, or if you are still trying to figure out what you think about Jesus, consider starting at the MONO Layer – put all your energy into discovering the loving God who created you. Then link up with one other person you can trust — and both of you together connect with a tribe of 6-12 other people who are on journey with you.  Then open your eyes to the ever expanding network of Christ-centered relationships you’ll see all across town.  Rely on them, contribute to them.  Let them become your extended family of faith.  That is the MACRO Layer!

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  Sign up for MACRO!

  If you are a part of a small group, house church, or congregation; if you are ready to grow spiritually –  Godgrown is releasing MACRO March 1st – sign up and invite others in your community to learn alongside you!

  
   

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  Mark 9:17 am on February 5, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  A Congregation of Tribes 

  In most congregations in the West today, there is an implicit notion that the gathering is made up of a collection of individuals.  This almost sounds preposterous to say – “Mark, what ELSE would it be?”  Keep reading to find out.

  Think about it for a moment – all of our sermons, worship songs, liturgy, and more -

  …either focus on the MONO (each attendee’s personal relationship with the Divine), with songs like “I love you Lord” and sermons focused on personal spiritual formation.

  …or the MACRO (the congregation as a whole), with reading Scripture aloud, observing the sacraments as one body, and a preacher addressing the whole congregation monolithically.

  The focus of the leaders of most congregations is two-fold – grow people up in the LORD, and grow the congregation as a whole.

  But what if we saw our gatherings as a congregation of tribes?  As a meetup of smaller communities?  How might that change the priorities of the meeting?

  • It would foster a sense of belonging among folks who might otherwise feel just like a “face in the crowd.”
  • The possibility to of “break-out” sessions to discuss the sermon’s topic might be a regular congregational practice.
  • Accountability to live out the topic of the sermon would be easy to do through a small group who has committed to one another.
  • The congregation would begin to feel like a “extended family reunion” – and the real meat-and-potatoes of church life would begin to emerge at the family level – at the level of the small group/house church.
  • The modern notion of “self” as an isolated individual would transform into a healthy, dynamic notion of “me and we together.”
  • Sermons could focus not just on the individual, but each house church present – the assumption and context under which most of the New Testament was written!

  This is just a list to get your mind working.  What might it look like if we stopped seeing the congregation as a random gathering of individuals, and starting seeing it as a meeting together of tribes – ready to display the multifaceted beauty of God in the world?

  
   
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  Mark 8:27 am on February 1, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  The Raw Materials of Diversity 

  I am a part of a house church, which is a part of a network of house churches.  This organic relationship between individual/family/tribe is essential for spiritual survival in this postmodern world. Let me explain.

  Last Sunday our little network of house churches (the Underground Church Network) met for worship and fellowship in the basement of a family’s home.  We chatted and enjoyed some appetizers, we met new faces and reconnected with familiar ones.  We prayed, we listened, we read Scripture, we sang.  It was a full montage of spiritual ascent and a beautiful mosaic of an extended family of faith.

  So many churches, regardless of their size or model, don’t have much interest for linking arms with other communities.  ’Why do we need to play nice with others in the sandbox when we’re barely treading water on our own?’  Exactly.

  I was watching another great Nova science and nature documentary a few nights back – and something struck a chord when the narrator said,

  “We need bio-diversity precisely because change is constant and frankly we need the raw materials of diversity to help life adapt to that change.”

  That’s it.  While you are an amazing deposit of beautiful characteristics and traits flowing from a seemingly limitless strand of DNA, your amino acids have their limits.  If everyone had your characteristics, though I’m sure we’d survive for awhile, we simply couldn’t handle an outbreak that specifically broke through your immune defenses.  Not to mention the beauty in diversity we’d lose!

  In our worship, in how we hear from God – if it always sounds just like we like it, who are we really worshiping? To defend against the viruses of the Evil One – we need the “ecclesio-diversity” of a extended network of faith – a family of families that love and trust each other and know how desperately we need to hear God speak through the other.

  Life is constantly in flux – change is the only constant.  If you only rely on yourself and your own particular pathway to God, you may always be happy, but you’ll never be satisfied.  God wants to speak to you through the network – through the MACRO.  Engage the full Body of Christ, discover your own blind spots, and listen to the LORD in fresh ways!