It’s Sunday morning and my wife is sleeping. My 4 mo. daughter, Angelina, and I are in the front room listening to Bebop Jazz. She is playing with her mobile while I drink my latte and reflect on how our faith community began.
(I’m playing with my daughter more than thinking though.)
Cheryl and I knew Tina through my good freind Steve. At the time, we were not close friends with Tina and her husband Jack.* We would drop by occasionally when Steve was around (Usually when they were having a party or something). They are a military family with four kids living the lifestyle of many Middle-Class Americans.
We always thought they were good honest people but we lived 98 miles away from Puyallup and that precluded anything but a passing intersection with their lives. We saw them about a dozen times in the course of three or four years.
That began to change when we moved about 1 mile from their house.
About a year after I graduated from Regent College we moved to Puyallup as we felt God leading us to plant an Emerging Church in that area. With no jobs, limited resources and only a casual acquaintance in the area we packed up our things and moved in Faith.
During our first 18 months I looked for work, made plans, wrote proposals for my denomination, talked with church planters and in the end started a faith community that was nothing like what I had planned.
It was a little over a year ago when Tina asked us to start our church in her home. The fact that she was drunk at the time made me a bit skeptical about her request. As the weeks passed, Tina asked us to start a home church in her home several more times.
When I asked her why she said, “I believe in God but find the church to be rather superficial b’sides Jack’s mom is a hard core bible thumper. He believes that you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.”
I nodded my head, “Being in community sure helps though.” I replied.
“That is why I want you to start your church here.” Tina said with a look of earnestness in her eyes. “You and Cheryl are just ‘real’. You guys don’t put on an act or think you are better than anybody else . . . you try to live what you believe. . . our family needs that. What do you say? Can we start next week?”
“I wonder if Jesus would have made her ask only once.” I thought to myself.
I looked Tina in the eye and said, “We sure can. I’m sorry id did not take you seriously before.”
The next week we began our little faith community. No kick-off celebrations . . .no plan. . . no community mailings. . . . no big push to get people to join. Just a few people looking to Get-to-know God better and share their lives.
The genesis of our fellowship was light-years away from the institutional approach to community formation that is popular in Evangelical circles today. Yet it is one that I feel God has His hand in.
At the time I was unsure how long this would last but I was ready for the adventure. I did not think it would last a month when we started out yet here we are a year later still meeting.
* Names Changed
(NOTE: This is the first post in a series on our community)
Praise the Lord!
It sounds as though the Lord was leading you in HIS UNEXPECTED ways...
May the Lord continue to lead and speak to you all...
Posted by: Phil Hoover | 21 May 2007 at 12:58 PM