As the semester draws to a close, I’ve started getting antsy.  Katrina and I have been working on finding a place to live, I’ve been raising support and looking for any side jobs that sound feasible, and my papers for the semester just keep looming closer and closer.  I’m hoping to have most of the Paper Beast tamed by the weekend.

It’s really tough to know what to share on here, and what not to - I guess I’m having a “mid-blog crisis”.   I want people to be in the know of what’s going down in the Willis world, just like we want to know what’s going on with our friends.  But it feels like so much of my life is in transition (will that ever really stop?) and much of it would be inappropriate to share half-baked online.  In any case, here’s what’s on the up and up on our side of the universe:

I’ve quit my job at the steakhouse here in town.  The money wasn’t covering the bills, and my hours there were getting to be too much to try to juggle with everything else we’re here in Abilene to do.  Support raising has been pretty good so far.  We’re trying to work through how all that works.  More on that maybe later.

Trina is working full time as an artist.  She’s freakin’ awesome too.  Check her website out here.  By the way, she’s turned her blog into an art blog, but since she’s got some super sweet thoughts to share with everyone, she’s now co-authoring this blog with me!  Finally!  A good writer on Godgrown.net!  Welcome her to the fam!

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Hey, by the way - a totally sweet idea coming from a Denver simple church network.  Since Barna’s Simplechurch.com doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of life, the movement is going all Bill McKibben on the internet by staying “local”.  This map is a picture of where the communities of faith are meeting throughout Denver - and how to get in touch with them.  Pretty nifty.   Think I might do that with JFN.

Recently there was a series of articles published in the Christian Chronicle on church planting within Churches of Christ. (here here and here) Since I have roots that go pretty deep within that heritage, I read each of them, and was really encouraged to see that while church planting is becoming more recognized in the fellowship - even if its far from being a renewal…Churches of Christ are still way behind the population’s growth curve - seen in the figure below.

Still - there is cause for hope. Churches of Christ (and across denominational lines) are beginning to add “church planting” to their vocabulary - and all sorts of things are beginning to happen. For a denomination that grew out of a heritage that pushed “the priesthood of all believers” and strong evangelistic impulse, (to speak nothing of the church planting movement in the 1830-60’s that the Churches of Christ, Christian Church and Disciples of Christ were born from), church planting is certainly in our DNA.

What remains fascinating to me is the multiplicity of expressions of what church planting looks like for Church of Christ related church planters. When “order of worship” was what split the growing Stone-Campbell Movement in 1860’s and again in 1906 (of which Churches of Christ were born), it amazes me that church planters are so willing to break out of the mold. And I mean MOLD.

The past week at ACU’s Lectureship has been really encouraging to me. I spent a good portion of the sessions with church planters, listening to presentations and sharing stories. Networking and conversation filled the room as we heard the dreams of those who had traveled across the country to Abilene, TX in order to tell them. Passion and excitement were in their eyes. Could they really be that excited about planting more churches of Christ? (little “c”)

The fact is - this is DNA from our heritage’s past that has become reactivated as we boldly move into a new understanding of church. Simple worship, lay leadership, evangelistic impulse, and autonomous governance have always been core factors to a movement that had its beginnings in the backwoods of Kentucky and spread like wildfire across the US. Now that the Stone-Campbell dynamic “movement” has become a rigid “monument”, it is refreshing for many of its adherents to hear stories of others in their fellowship who are pioneering once again. Below is just a few of the people I’m in connection with in Church of Christ circles who are engaged in church planting:

Chadd Schroeder - educated at Sunset School of Preaching and ACU, Chadd has worked as a career missionary in Mexico. He has planted several churches of different types and models, but is focused on training Mexicans to become local leaders who can plant authentically Mexican models of churches, in taquerias, bars, and homes.

Ben Cheek, Jared Looney, and “Metro Soul” - connected in the Northeast from the Bronx to Jersey City, live in the world’s most diverse city, and are developing a organic network of churches and communities that is becoming just as diverse as their city. Their focus on discipleship and missional leadership is pioneering a vision of church planting for many others.

Phil McCollum - ministering to the poorest of the poor in East Hollywood (the side that no one talks about). Because he believes that Jesus “had friends in low places” he and his family have moved into the neighborhood, and are living with love for the people of that area.

Kester Smith - planted an emergent church in the alternative communities in Austin, TX. They experience true life together and offer real conversations among skeptics and seekers. Kester works on the edgy Sixth St at Book People, a sweet bookshop and a gathering place of ideas and people of all walks of life. The church they planted is Immanuel Fellowship, and I can’t think of a better name.

Steve and Chrissy Holt - are living incarnationally among people groups in Boston, MA. They have been praying about developing an intentional Christian community (see also, The New Monasticism) and living out practices of peace and restoration among the people in their lives.

Dillon Ross - having recently graduated from Harding University, Dillon has begun working with Chicago District Evangelistic Association to plant simple churches in the Chicago area.

Greg Scott - The Blessing Place network is planting simple churches in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, Greg and his wife Sam work intentionally with native Americans (she lived on a reservation with Rich Mullins!)

Benny and Niki Nowell - work with the homeless youth and basically bless the socks off anyone that comes in their path. They provide a summer experience called “Sabbath” for urban kids, and offer mentoring love and God’s Shalom to many of the brokenhearted in Denver, CO.

Miller Talbot - is preparing the soil of Abilene, TX and the working poor with prayer and incarnational love. His “church plant” looks more like a garden, and his “mission work” looks more like digging a hole in the ground…to find water for a dry and weary land. Check out his imaginative vision here.

There are LOTS of church planting teams in formation, among which my wife and I are a part. To just get a glimpse at some of them, check out here, here and here.

Of course, this is only a slice of the pie. These are friends of mine that are (at different levels) connected to my religious heritage within Churches of Christ. I am proud to be in the family of Christ with them, and look forward to seeing how our paths cross in the future.

This morning we leave for Austin, TX!  Just like last year, it has become a pretty cool tradition in MRNA to head down to the Austin area for the last half of Spring Break to enjoy some rock climbing, good food, the SXSW Music Festival, and meet up with a whole host of teams and individuals working as missionaries and leaders in one of the world’s most diverse mission fields.

I’m so glad that Trina is going down with me - I honestly can’t emphasize that enough.  Her support and enjoyment of this journey we are on together is sometimes the only thing that keeps me going.  Her creativity and insight is so pervasive (again, many kudos to her for the new design of this blog) that I wonder where I might be in my ministry and life without her!  That is why I’m so glad she’s coming along.  Her instincts for a simple, organic life in the kingdom will be encouraged and reaffirmed as she talks with national leaders and vision casters - the real apostles of our day.  Thank you Father for this gift.

I’m already anticipating the return from A-town to A-town (ahem, Austin to Abilene) to give you the 4-1-1 on what happened, who we met, and how Father showed up!

Chicago has more and more tables these days.

While reading the latest exposé from ABC News (a great read by the way) on organic churches multiplying around the country, I noticed that Randy Frazee, a pastor at Willow Creek Community Church has been finding new ways to make their 20,000 strong membership feel as if each member can participate and contribute in healthy ways. Boy, I would not want that job!

But Frazee seems to be taking a page from the house church movement sweeping across America and running with it. He has constructed “Neighborhood Life” a sprawling neighborhood ministry made available to anyone who can ring a doorbell or make a phone call. This is how Frazee plans to lead “an effort to restructure the church’s small group programs toward more holistic church experiences centered in homes“. Apparently, these are stand-alone churches of their own right, and yet they have an indirect connection with Willow Creek Church through the 21 area pastors who oversee the groups and provide occasional guidance.

In some ways, this kind of partnership between house churches and a megachurch is a wonderful example of how the two models can work together. The Tables’ vision for multiple pastor system spread over focused neighborhoods also gives us a glimpse into one kind of emerging leadership structure that is blossoming out of this new way of “doing church.” And people are responding. In fact, in the year and a half since this program has begun, there are already about 7,000 who attend an extension of this ministry throughout Chicagoland.

But there are a few major flaws as I read deeper into Frazee’s vision for Neighborhood Life and the “Tables” (house churches) that are being introduced. First, this is for Willowpeople, by Willowpeople. Willow Creek members can go to The Willow Neighborhood Life website and sign up to “Host a Table”. Once approved by the higher-ups, are then contacted by other church members who have noticed their presence on the Willow website and connect there. Sounds okay, right? …But when do we ever meet our own neighbors? When do we bump into lost people? This is a system designed to keep our garage doors closed and our backyard fences erected. When we have to “apply for community” on the internet, we are too afraid of each other.
Second, it is a monthly event, hosted by Willow Creek leaders focused on Willow Creek materials. What can a group of strangers do once a month? What sort of discipleship occurs in a two hour block once a month?! The curriculum for the evening’s conversation is given to approved Willowcreek leadership to be followed and completed each time they meet…

::I can already tell people are excited::

…in the end this comes down to keeping this Neighborhood “Life” firmly in the grips of Willowcreek, rather than in the hands of the people who chose to gather together that night.

Maybe this is just the first stage of something much bigger; maybe this is a good way to ease into learning to become the Church God has called his Bride to be.

Then again, maybe its like Martin Luther King’s fear of the northern white brothers who thought that the current compromise was good enough.

I am still thinking through all this. I want to commend Randy Frazee for working so diligently at dragging people off the pews and into the intimate setting of people’s homes. But is he doing them a disservice if he never gives them a vision that they are truly and fully capable of starting a new church with their neighbors down the street without Big-Brother-Willow-Creek’s consent? Will these Table groups forever have to fill-in-the-blanks of some workbook when all they want to do is hear what Jesus has been saying to each of them? My prayer is that of the 7,000 people involved, a few will catch a whiff of what God is doing worldwide:

He is giving the Church back to his people.

Wow! What a world wind tour we’ve just returned from! That’s probably going down as record for the all-time longest Christmas travels this family has ever made! We went up to Chicago, down to Indy, up to St. Paul and back to Chicago all in a week and a half! Below is a report on the God-sightings on our trip:

Thursday 12/21 - We leave Texas! The biggest step is always the hardest, and most important! It was fun trying to pack as much as we could into one tiny little suitcase. Good memories with Katrina there. Once we got on the road however, we got to talking about the strange relationship America has with the words “authenticity” and “efficiency”. It’s almost as if these two words are the oaths we swear by, and yet to have one you must inevitably sacrifice the other. I’ll probably write more on this topic in the posts to come.

Thursday evening we flew out of DFW airport and made it safely into Chicago around 12:30am. We were completely exhausted (we had made it out of travel easier that the folks in Denver to be sure!) and stumbled towards a cab. We were staying at the Super 8 near O’Hare (never again) and basically zonked out the moment we hit the pillows.

Friday 12/22 - was a full day of TRAVELING THE CTA (Chicago Transit Authority), we hopped on the El (Elevated Train) and made it to Hyde Park, our first destination in the city. Hyde Park is an interesting neighborhood just south of the Loop, in that it holds an orb of luxury and intellectualism (the University of Chicago) amidst extreme poverty and crime. I was surprised to find out that the drug dealers and the police have a sort of “agreement” in that the police will not arrest people for doing or dealing drugs as long as it is within certain sectors in a neighborhood. So we spent a little time at U of Chicago and then hitched a ride up Lake Shore Drive (my favorite street in Chicago, for the view!) up to Evanston, one of the more northern neighborhoods and oldest “suburb” in Chicago. It holds Northwestern University, Katrina’s other graduate school interest. We had fun exploring all the shops and cafes Evanston had to offer, all the while keeping each other close on a cold and blustery day!

Saturday 12/23 - Friday night we spent in a home out in Plainfield, IL and the next morning had breakfast there with some leaders from a local simple church network called the Blessing Place. We had some great conversations about everything from life in the “organic” Kingdom of God, to how to raise leaders in this new (old) kind of church? We prayed over these new friends of ours and headed out for Indianapolis.

Sunday 12/24 - Sunday morning bright and early we headed to Southeastern Church of Christ in what would be our first time to “go to church” in several months. I had placed membership there as a senior in High School and my mom still attends there regularly. There are many people there that I love very dearly, and enjoyed seeing and talking with many of them that morning. Katrina and I held a presentation together on our dreams of mission in Chicago starting in 2008, and I think things went over fairly well. It was tough to give them all the details they wanted, simply because we are still figuring them all out. However, many came up afterwards with fire in their eyes and a smile on their lips as they said, “I share your dream.” It was so cool…

Monday…CHRISTMAS! - WOOHOO! Tons of time with the family! Tons of time to relax! Tons of FOOD! and unfortunately, NOT TONS of snow!

Tuesday, 12/26 and Wed 12/27 - After spending the morning with my family in Indy, we hopped in a car and drove up to St. Paul, MN to meet Katrina’s best friend Pam and her husband Billy. We spent most of the day on Wednesday hanging out at the Mall of America, which I was at first amazed at how huge it was, and then was quickly repulsed at the surge of materialism that ran through my veins (and through the veins of many others who were there). The consumerism was simply was too much for me - may the shock value of greed never wear off!
In any case, we had a wonderful time hanging out with two very wonderful people, and as we told them about our dreams for living in line with God’s story, their eyes lit up. We are praying for further conversation with them, and if God allows, them to join us someday!

Thursday, 12/28 - meant driving back to Chicago and dropping our stuff off at a hotel before heading out to town to celebrate our TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY! We chowed down to some delicious sushi, and walked the (now slightly warmer) streets, enjoying each other’s company. A great day to bond as a team (who also happen to be maddeningly in love).

Friday, 12/29 - We headed out to the Art Institute of Chicago and spent a good portion of the day there, enjoying the locals and some good art. Afterward we headed back to Hyde Park where we met up with Trevor, a minister at a local church who is working on a degree at U of Chicago. All throughout the trip Trina and I had been amazed at the incredible hospitality of those we had stayed with, or even met on the streets or buses (an Indian man tried to give us all his money to help us afford the train trip into town!), and Trevor and his wife Alana were no exception. They got us Chicago-style pizza *drool* and just let us shoot the breeze with them for an entire evening. We also bumped into Brandon and Amanda, who are former classmates of Trina’s, which was a bonus surprise! The whole night we talked about the obstacles of urban ministry in Chicago with some of brightest and most involved urban ministers I know.

Saturday 12/30 - Our last day in the City of Big Shoulders. We hung out awhile more with Trevor and Alana before hopping on the El up near Uptown, where we learned a couple hundred schizophrenics were let loose after Geraldo Rivera did an expose on some of the conditions of the asylums in the city and had them all shut down. Now they run loose! Thank Geraldo! We met up with a couple who moved to Chicago from Searcy, Arkansas (what a switch!). Dillon is from the Caribbean Islands and his wife Irene is from Russia. What a combo! They were a delight to talk to and what an interesting story they have to tell! They are working with a church planting resource organization called CDEA. I’d like to get in touch with them to learn more.

Before we knew it, we were flying out of O’Hare and back in Abilene. The trip went by too quickly, and of course even with such a long post there was SO much I had to leave out. We were fully “blessed by the best” (as a Chicago bus driver hollered back to us one afternoon), and are anxiously awaiting next steps with some of the new friends we met last week. It’s the beginning of a new journey!

Look at the Flickr bar near this post to see some of the pictures we took on our trip!