Blog

Here is an update from our fellow Acts 29 church; A Church Called Mystery about the relief efforts in Joplin:

Our friends at the Verge Network recently created this video profile of our family from Soma Communities in Tacoma, WA and it’s definitely worth passing on. It’s this kind of heart that has led, in part to Soma Communities having such an impact on our Church of the Cross family:

Jared and Michelle discuss their journey of learning to live as missionaries in everyday life:

Do you remember the song “Deep and Wide?”

Deep and wide

Deep and wide

There’s a fountain flowing deep and wide

Deep and wide is a sentiment that we think a lot about at Church of the Cross. We want to be “wide” in the sense that we want to continually reach out to love and serve our neighbors. We want to expand the Kingdom of Jesus, we want to be welcoming and we want to grow. We want to have impact for God. We want to see the Gospel change our city from within. We want to go “wide” into the surrounding culture.

But we also want to be “deep” in the sense that we plumb the depths of the Gospel, continually challenging ourselves to grow in relationship with Jesus and one another. We do not shy away from difficult truths and we consider them together

If we go wide without going deep, well, you guessed it, we’d be shallow. But, if we go deep without going wide, we become insulated. The challenge, it seems is to be both deep and wide.

This evening we’re having a Fourth of July Hullabaloo. When I sent out the e-mail invitations, I said that it would be “at the building where we meet.” We meet get together as a church family every Sunday morning and we call it “Gathered Worship.” Though we catch ourselves slipping back into old ways of talking, we intentionally try to steer clear of saying things like we are “going to church.” Church is not something we do, it is not somewhere we go, it is our family.

Because Jesus reconciles us to the Father, we are no longer God’s enemies but heirs and believers are our brothers and sisters. This isn’t an ideal to be aimed for (though we do often fall short of living this way), it is a truth about who we already are because of Jesus. When we invite people to our home, we don’t say “would you like to come to family.” Those words just don’t work together in that way.

But we have come to view “church” simply as what happens in a specific building during a specified time. It is removed from daily life and as long as we can check it off our list of things to do for the week, we feel like our contract with God is OK.

But God says that the world will know that we are disciples of Jesus because of our love for one another (John 13:35), Paul says that we are supposed to think of others as more significant than ourselves (Philippians 2:3) and that we are to bear each other’s burdens (Galatians 6:1-2). This type of life won’t be possible until we stop thinking of church simply as something we do but as who we are as the children of God. We are called to share life with fellow believers, opening our homes and resources so that others might know the love of God that has reconciled us, not only to God but to others.

Sometimes it seems awkward to try and change the way we talk about church, but that’s not nearly as awkward as trying to change the way we live it. We at Church of the Cross are no longer content with superficial, once-a-week relationships. Yes, life together can be messy, but, as Bonhoeffer says in Life Together: “how inexhaustible are the riches that open up for those who by God’s will are privileged to live in the daily fellowship with other Christians.”

When was the last time you thought of the presence of other Christians as a privilege? Why don’t we think/live that way? What would have to change for our perspective to change?

Though we are still a very young church, we’ve gone far enough in the journey to have some hindsight. Looking back at how we planted Church of the Cross, I think I would have done it differently. By no means am I complaining about where we’re at as a church family. I’m just saying that I think I would now do things differently. In fact, when we plant a church, we will do things differently.

We started with a corporate, gathered worship very early on in our growth process. To put it in different terms, we “led” with a Sunday morning gathering. From this, we developed Missional Communities, which we later renamed Community Groups. If we could put it into a picture, it might look something like this:

In many ways, in hindsight, I feel like we put up a church “structure” (not necessarily a building) and then felt like we had to “fill it,” to keep it going because that is what “churches” are supposed to do. I am by no means downplaying gathered worship, but after learning and preaching through the book of Acts, I’m not so sure I would do it the same way again.

Tim Keller has said that we should “plant the Gospel” and let church grow out of that. As we have moved to a more missional community structure (even though we no longer call them that,) I wish we had begun with our Community Groups, focused on getting ourselves to live in community on Mission and then let a corporate, gathered worship flower out of that. If the church’s primary task is making disciples,then I think we must ask where that happens best. I’m not saying that discipleship cannot or does not happen in Gathered Worship settings, but, when you’re together for an hour-and-a-half a week versus living life in community on mission throughout the week, which do you think will have more influence?

All of that to say that, if we had it to do over again, I think we would have “led” with our Community Groups. We define our Community Groups this way:

A Community Group is a family of learning, serving missionaries striving to live ordinary life together with Gospel intentionality.

Each Community Group is centered around a tangible, clearly-communicated mission with the end-goal of making disciples and we strive for them to be the heart of everything we do at Church of the Cross. In other words, they are the context in which we live together as community on mission. If we had it to do over, we would have led with these, flowing into a corporate worship, instead of the other way around. It might look something like this:

This diagram might require a little more explanation. Notice that in the first image, each of the circles is marked with a solid line. In most churches that adopt this approach, both Gathered Worship and Small Groups are specifically for believers. They are somewhat closed. But in the second diagram, our Community Groups and Gathered Worship are delineated by dashes. Those who do not yet believe in Jesus are welcome. Somewhere within, there is the “closed” circle of disciples, because, let’s be honest, some people are Christians and some are not.

In the second diagram, it is quite possible, and perhaps even expected that the Community Groups will grow faster than the Gathered Worship. Instead of inviting someone “to church,” we invite them into a communal life. This is not the same as “lifestyle evangelism” in which we simply hope that people will ask why we live differently, because we are intentionally turning everything back to Jesus, but the point of “success” or “failure” is not butts in the seats on a Sunday morning, but disciples.

I have come to wonder why it is that many of our church plant models “lead” with Sunday morning instead of with life on mission together. I wonder if it’s because life on mission together is not really all that natural to us. Sunday morning is easier to quantify, easier to track, but shouldn’t Sunday morning be a “gathering,” a celebration of what Jesus has been doing in and through us throughout the week?

There is certainly much more to be said on this, but I just wanted to share some of the things I’ve been thinking through.

Community Groups are the heart of who we are and what we do at Church of the Cross. We gather on Sunday mornings to worship, to be refreshed, reminded, edified, built up and then we scatter throughout the week to live in community on mission. We have said it before, but, even though on paper we only “do” two things: Sunday morning Gathered Worship and Community Groups, we actually ask much more of you than some churches who might fill your schedule with something every day of the week. We ask our family members to re0rient their entire lives around the Gospel; to begin living everyday life with gospel intentionality and Community Groups are the primary context for this to happen.

The Community Groups are made up of three spheres, “Communion,” “Community” and “Mission.” We first say this diagram in Hugh Halter and Matt Smay’s book The Tangible Kingdom, and it made a lot of sense to us. Halter and Smay define “communion” as our connection with God; worship, both personal and corporate. Community is life together and mission is being focused outward, on others. Our Community Groups aim to be the intersection of all three, the “sweet spot.” It is when all three of these spheres intersect, that Halter and Smay say the kingdom becomes “tangible” for people.

Many Christians groups seem to do well in two of the three, but, neglect any third sphere and you have something entirely different. For example, neglect “communion” leaving “mission and “community, and you have a social-service project. You might be doing “good,” but it is not Gopsel-good. Leave out “mission” for “communion” and “community” and you might have a good worship service. Forget “community” from “mission” and “community” and you might have a short-term missions trip, but you don’t hit the sweet spot, it’s not everyday life with Gospel intentionality.

Community Groups are meant to be a context in which we can aim for the intersection of each sphere, where communion, community and mission so inform our lives that the kingdom becomes tangible. This means that they are not just small-group bible studies. They are that, but they are more. They are not just social gatherings. They are that, but they are more. They are not just service projects. They are that, but they are more. Community Groups at Church of the Cross are small families of learning, serving missionaries where we learn to live everyday life with Gospel intentionality.

We don’t always succeed at this, but then again, life together is often messy. We’ve become convinced that when we look at community life in Scripture, there is more there than many of us have experienced. We want the kingdom to be tangible. We want you to learn to live in the sweet spot.

This past Sunday, during Gathered Worship, we had a bit of a mishap and it was entirely my fault. Right before the sermon, I muted the musicians on the soundboard. I was preoccupied when it was time to un-mute said musicians, so no one else knew to do so. Because of this, Shawn had to put his guitar down, run to the soundboard from the stage, unmute everyone, run back up, pick up his guitar and then resume the closing songs.

I know that we had at least one visitor who was a bit troubled by this. I know because he let us know. But we were not troubled by this and, if you are a part of Church of the Cross, you shouldn’t be either. You see, Sunday morning is not a performance. It is not a production. It is worship. That’s why we call it Gathered Worship.

I am aware that many people stress the idea of “undistracting excellence” and, behind the scenes, it’s even a phrase that we use from time to time. This is the idea that you do everything so well that people don’t notice. They just take it for granted that everything runs smoothly. It is thought that this helps facilitate people’s encounter with God because you’re getting out of the way as much as possible. But everything doesn’t always run smoothly, and, if you’re dependent on some musicians on Sunday morning to facilitate your encounter with God, you’re probably not really worshiping in the first place.

While the notion behind this notion is well-intended, it can border on legalism and cause much unnecessary stress. When it’s up to us to make sure everything runs smoothly to make sure people “encounter God;” to make sure the transitions are right and the lights are on cue and there are no awkward silences; that’s a lot of pressure and somewhere in there is a line between facilitating worship and performance. Wanting everything to run smoothly is not in and of itself a bad thing.

But sometimes life is messy. But as family united by the Blood of Christ, we work through it, in His strength, together. And sometimes, things go wrong during Gathered Worship and that’s OK. If our largest corporate gathering is always slick and smooth, does it really reflect our life together? Is it possible that allowing room for mishaps might remind us that we are real people living real lives before a real God.

We have tried very hard to remind ourselves that we are family and that Gathered Worship is a family gathering. I know some families that get quite upset when family gatherings don’t “run smoothly” and I know others that are OK with some flexibility and work through it together when mishaps happen.

By no means does this mean that we don’t take worship seriously. We do. It is a weighty thing to come before the Living God. But it is not a production. Nor should it be a performance. We do not gather to entertain you or even to make sure that everything runs smoothly, according to schedule and without hitch. We gather to worship.

We even take subtle but intentional steps to weekly remind ourselves of this. For example, we do not use prayer as a “staging” time to get the musicians on or off the stage. If prayer is really approaching God, then it’s OK to allow a few seconds of awkward silence before or after prayer. It’s when you’re worried about performance or timing that those awkward silences are not acceptable. And we’re not worried about those things.

We have worked hard to begin creating a family environment. Far from distracting from that, I wonder if it’s possible that something like me forgetting to unmute the musicians might, in some small way, remind us of that? Family worshiping together is certainly not dependent on everything going smoothly.

In the second chapter of his first letter to the Corinthian Christians, Paul makes an audacious claim. He says that “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).

We often reference that verse here at Church of the Cross as something we try to live by. This verse haunts me as a pastor. It haunts me in a good way. I read Paul’s writings to the various churches and I hear the heart of a single-minded missionary and pastor. I am continually pointed back to the Person and Work of Jesus. Paul lived and worked and breathed in the shadow of the Cross.

As a new church, we are bombarded with tips for success from every side. What breaks my heart is just how few of these books, conferences, and e-mails prompt us to live in the Gospel, to marinate in it, to let it color every thought and action, to meditate on it, think on it, pray on it, preach it to ourselves and to one another, to filter everything through it. The Gospel is not just the ABC’s of the Christian life, it is the A-Z. We never outgrow the Gospel. It is not just about getting into heaven when we die but living transformed lives until then.

If the Gospel really is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16), then isn’t it sufficient to grow a church? Isn’t it sufficient to save sinners and grow believers? Is it possible that some churches aren’t growing because the Believers simply don’t think that their unbelieving friends would connect with the messages? The Gospel is for everyone.

Programs for everyone, new buildings and fancy facilities may put butts in the seat but they do not result in lasting change. Only the Gospel can do that. I’m not saying those things are wrong, just that it’s wrong to trust in them (Psalm 20:7). We desperately want to be a church that knows nothing but Christ and Him crucified. I desperately want us to be a church that lives in the Gospel. I hope you do too.

I’m reminded of the song “The Glories of Calvary” by Steve and Vicki Cook (here performed at Boyce College in Louisville, KY):

I recently read a piece about about a church giving a million dollar’s worth of stuff away on Easter Sunday. That’s hard to compete with. We won’t have any give-aways, we won’t have any light shows, no fireworks, just the risen King. And that’s more than enough.

Please pardon the cynicism, but it breaks my heart that Jesus, risen from the dead is no longer enough. We feel like we have to feed our consumerism to get people to come to church. There are just so many things wrong with this that it’s hard to know where to begin. The point is not to get people “to church,” but to be “the Church,” to bring people, through Jesus, into the family of God. While give-aways may serve as an illustration of the free gift of salvation, they are an inherently flawed medium. Remember, the medium is the message. And when you advertise that you’re giving away a car, people will show up. No matter how well-spoken you might be, people will be thinking about that car, and ultimately about themselves.

The risen King is enough for us. I hope it’s enough for you. Please join us in celebrating the event that changes everything.