I should post more often so that I don’t end up trying to summarize an intensely busy week in a post short enough not to bore you all to tears.

Let me quickly summarize the events of the past week:

Wednesday – Staging for 1st Community of Hope Leadership Retreat.  Phil tasked me with setting up the “hike”.  Realized I couldn’t prepare adequately without actually looking at possible trails, so grabbed a friend of mine (Brandon) and hustled up to Harrison Lake after work.

Thursday – Planned to make up for taking off yesterday by spending the evening with my wife, but then Harry called me with tickets to Game 1 of the Canucks’ 2nd Round!  “No” is not an option with Canucks playoff tickets.  Man do I owe my wife.

Friday – Leave for the leadership retreat.  Yay!  We have a 4×4 to get to the hiking trail!  Good drive up with Jason and Juan-Carlos.

Saturday – Challenging day, fascinating how God had been speaking to many of us about the same things before we even left.  Ron Helmer (Bread Garden Catering, Surrey) makes some serious gourmet vittles.  Not home until after bedtime.  Owe my wife even bigger.

Sunday – Church, then our “Discover Hope” Lunch.  Met 7 people interested in pursuing membership.  Then shopping for Awana, then Awana.  Cheryl has a stomach bug.  I still owe her big time.

Monday – Finally got some yard work done – cut the front lawn, raked, seeded ripped out moss patches, fertilized.  Made supper, and then Small Group Leader meeting.  That makes 5 nights in a row unavailable to Cheryl.

Of course, one more thing on the docket tonight to bring the total to 6.

What I learned this week:

• My wife is amazing and despite her discomfort with the growing twins (see sidebar), her heart is behind me.  I am so grateful for that.  She also told me this week when I mentioned I think I need some fulltime ministry experience this winter, that she will sacrifice again for me to be able to do a few hours each day after work at the church offices.  What a blessing she is!
• Our leadership team here has a huge heart for people which really helps when you are planting a church.  If you don’t have passion for the lost, you are going nowhere.  Plus, they are fun guys to be around.
• I am the best pool shark of the bunch!  Heh.  I dare you to dethrone me!
• God is so working.  What a blast to see it happen.
• I need to apologize to my oldest, Dylan.  I was hard on him last night about leaving tasks unfinished.

More later.  Next post will be about evangelism – God is opening some doors!

In visiting all these communities, we did repeatedly see some patterns.  Since the communities are all growing like gangbusters, we have definitely seen the truth of how new city planning leaves little room for churches.  When people say that the church is being marginalized, it truly is.  This was especially striking in Lethbridge but was evident everywhere – churches are being built on the fringes of cities, in the middle of farm areas.  Because city planners now make no room for them in the designs of new neighbourhoods.  New neighbourhoods are devoid of spiritual hubs, deliberately so.  It used to be that open lots would be left along the main thoroughfares because that was the lowest land value – no more.

The question then becomes, do you make an effort to focus on communities in older areas of town?  Two strikes against that – first, there are older churches there usually.  They may not be effective anymore (and that is a legitimate concern) but there is always hope for renewal.  Second, the people there have probably been in the community longer, have more connections and established social networks, which means making inroads is more difficult – more like a rural setting.

But, the new neighbourhoods – the ones in many cases still under construction – what about them?  They have nothing – no churches, perhaps except for Mormon churches – I think when an organization can just approach the city at the planning stage and say, “We have 3 million dollars and want a church in your new subdivision.”  Money makes it happen – but congregational church models like ours have to rely on building community first before building a building, which means by the time there are people there, the lots are all gone or increased in price because the neighbourhood has filled out.

The plus side about focusing on these new subdivisions is that there are few churches positioned to reach them, and the people there are generally newer to the community, have fewer social connections and are looking to build new relationships.  That makes them uniquely available to outreach efforts.

What occurred to us as we drove through a few of these was a mix of what Nathan Bryant told me when I visited him before Community of Hope launched, and what Philip has taught us about establishing a church culture.  Let me explain.

Nathan when I was visiting, was living out an experiment he said he found in a book called “The Connecting Church” by Randy Frazee (on my wishlist, by the way).  His premise is that if you have one planting family move into an unchurched neibourhood, their efforts will not yeild much fruit because there is an element of outsider in play.  They are the “religious folks” and are “different” so they are discounted and ignored.  Yet, if more than one family moves in at the same time, to the same local area, then they can form a network and begin to reach their neighbours as a team.  Now, there are more than one family working together to reach their neighbours, and they aren’t “odd” there are others too, and they can’t be set aside.   Also more touches relationally lead to more opportunities.  So there is that.

What Philip taught us about Community of Hope is that the core team is important because it forms the “culture”of the church.  In other churches, they try to move towards the type of structure we have, but it is met with resistance.  For example, small groups are rarely more than an afterthought, only participated in by a small percentage of the congregation.  Sharing meals together is a rarity in most churches in my experience, but in Community of Hope it happens every week.  When our core team forms a culture, then people coming in accept that culture as normal and integrate.

How do these two ideas synthesize?  Well, what if our core team are some of the first people into a new development?  What if our houses are some of the first ones on the street?  What if we adopt the idea of being the unofficial “welcoming committee” in our neighbourhood?  Every new arrival is self-evident – the house is built.  We don’t have to guess about when someone new is moving in.  We can serve them, helping get settled.  We can invite them to barbeques, invite their kids over while the parents get things in order, begin to create a culture of community and relationship right there on our street!  People might find it odd, but if that is what they get from several families as they arrive, then it must be accepted as the “norm” in this neighbourhood.  As others come, they do the same to them – and so on.  It is like transforming your community, except there wasn’t anything there to begin with so it is in fact easier.  And as these relationships grow and bloom, doors open to sharing the Gospel.

One objection to this strategy could be, “but new homes are expensive!”  Ah, but that is if you are thinking about doing this in Surrey!  It is different out here!  My cousins moved to Calgary about 8 or 9 years ago.  They told me that they were havin a house built for them.  I thought, “Man!  My cousin’s job must pay really well!”  They told me that in fact it was cheaper to buy land and build than it was to buy on the resale market!  Of course that was a while ago, but we took a boo at a couple of show homes, and that still seems to be the case.  A typical mid-scale development in Spruce Grove was priced around $350k, including lot, taxes in.  That’s a 1800 square foot house, not including another 700 square feet in the basement (which they will build out to suit for a bit more or you can do it yourself).  Other communities are even cheaper.  Given the markets and the slowness of the oilpatch right now, I almost expect to see more comedowns in price, making it even more affordable.

Having said all this, I am just putting this out there as an idea.  We don’t know who’s coming with us yet, or what their financial picture will look like.  There are lots more to discuss, but it’s a different idea, and one that sounds like it could be effective.

Matt Sweetman was challenged by Ed Stetzer’s words cautioning about the creation of a new way of doing church rather than actually reaching new people with the Gospel.  I’ve wrestled with this from the first, when we came onboard with Community of Hope to help launch this new church plant.  How much should we be prioritizing and seeking Christians to join us in this enterprise?  How much should we be focusing on straight out evangelism, and where is the balance with discipleship?  When have we turned too inwards to reach out?  These tensions are the bane of all churches – part of the problem with North America’s churches in general has come from answering these questions incorrectly, or refusing to even ask these questions.

On the ground, there is a recognition that to start something you need something.  Life does not come from nothing – it comes from a seed.  A church plant needs a core – a seed to synthesize and reproduce.  When Philip and Beth came to Surrey to begin Community of Hope, they had no seed – they needed a seed.  They recognized that it is hard for people to visualize the community that was to come unless there already was a microcosm visible that they could use and model.  Our first core group was that model.  But it needed to be bigger.  But let me step back for a second.

You can, as a pioneering church planter, seek to start that core using new converts.  You could bring people to Jesus, lead them to salvation, then disciple them to the point where they are good models of the type of Christian you want your church to be filled with.  It takes much time and energy for this to happen.  But looking around inside and outside of churches, I think the pragmatic has to recognize that even though the Reformation sought to do away with the Augustinian idea of the invisible church – a church of true believers within the larger church which may or may not include the saved – it is nonetheless still true right up until today.  Even Jesus said that not everyone who cries, “Lord, Lord” will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

The longer I serve in church the more I realize that there is more to this walk than the simple saved/unsaved dichotomy.  There is also the whole scale of sanctification that people work through as they work out their salvation with fear and trembling.  To characterize, there are mountains of people, in solid, evangelical churches, who feel no need to pursue instruction – to continue their discipleship and deepen their walk with God, outside the occasional shopping trip to the Christian Bookstore and the purchase of “Your Best Life Now” or “The Purpose Driven Live” which will then collect dust on their bookshelf whilst they read one of  Barack Obama’s biographies or the latest sequel to “Twilight“.  There are still more who are content to simply come on Sunday, listen to the sermon, sing a couple of songs, and go home and watch the football game sunday afternoon without any conception of the importance of service, in the sense of the one they claim to follow, who “came not be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many“.  These people, too, need a church plant to revitalize, activate, and engage in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Who are these people?  They are legion.  And they are wasting space in our churches – swelling the numbers and making leaders feel like successes, when in fact they are presiding over the dead.  The church is to be a light in this world, not a weekend social club, or at best a religious Elks community service club.  When people aren’t discipled properly, they think a stunted, dwarfed faith is complete and healthy and that is just sad.  I fully agree that the church is there to proclaim the Gospel to the lost, but the Great Commission says to make disciples, and if there are people who have a knowledge of Christ, and may even claim to be saved, but are not exhibiting the fruits of the Spirit, are living as the world does, and do not follow Jesus with more than lip service, then they need our church plant too.

So a church plant must seek to share the gospel with the lost AND teach his disciples to die to themselves and follow Jesus.  A withered, weak vine will produce few fruit, but a strong, healthy, vibrant vine will produce abundantly.  Keeping a vineyard is not just about planting seeds, it is about pruning, watering, harvesting, and protecting the living vines that grow as well as the new sprouts you seek to start.

That is what I think has been happening largely at our church plant.  Initially we found ourselves meeting many people who you might call nominal Christians.  We ourselves, the core team, was in many ways nominal.  We were stunted and immature.  We have spent a lot of time and resources in maturing and growing in health.  When we were unhealthy and stunted, we produced little fruit.  But as we mature, we will produce more and more.  That is why I expect great things at our church this year.

I am excited, because when we go to plant our own church, we hope to take a cutting from a healthy vineyard.  We pray that we ourselves are part of that cutting.  Starting a new church with a healthy, vibrant core should allow us to start quicker and reach more people for Jesus sooner than even Community of Hope has – not because we are better, but because we will benefit from all the nurturing and all the nourishment that Community of Hope is providing us now.  That too is very exciting.

Today I preached my second ever sermon.  It was entitled, “Faith That Saved A King” and it focused on the story of Daniel and the Lion’s Den.  It is actually part of a series of messages focusing on the book of Daniel.  I got to do this one while Philip was away in Mississauga, participating in the 10th anniversary of Grace Brethren Canada (and Grace Community Church).

The second time was definitely the best.  I made some goofs in the first one and managed to straighten them up in the second time through.  I enjoyed giving the message because I feel like it accomplished two objectives – first it stayed on target, driving home the theme “God is King”, and relied primarily on the text of Daniel.  But second, I was able to draw out a message about missional living.  I talked a lot about what faith is, how it is built, and what effect it can have on the people around you when it is lived publicly, “in the open”.  It was a message seeded by my own tendency to keep my faith to myself, and also in dealing with some of my Christian co-workers, who felt the same.  I wanted to encourage people to live openly as Christians, so that God may be glorified even amongst those who do not know him.  I really feel strongly that you can’t argue someone into faith in God, but when God works in your life and people find out about it, they are faced with a choice – either try to explain away Gods’ work as coincidence, or reckon with the God that loves them, that they have ignored, shunned, or hated.  It is a choice that you cannot set up for them.  It must come to them.  And it comes when you live out your faith in front of them.

If you would like to give the message a listen please feel free.  I have made it available as a podcast below.  Please feel free to offer constructive criticism in the comments – I am still very much aware I have lots to learn in terms of presenting a message.

Here’s a link to the sermon, in mp3 format.  It’s 40 minutes long, so the dl is about 46 megs.

This is going to sound completely self-centred, but given what I know about myself, and my own struggles with confidence, last night’s one-year anniversary at Community of Hope was incredibly special and meaningful to me for a number of reasons.  Let me tell you about it.

• We had our Awana leadership walkthrough before the Vision meeting.  I had almost the entire staff out there, including the new team members who have been signing up to work with us!  So I took everyone on a guided tour through all the spaces, and then let the teams look at them and discuss setups and how they can move forward.  Just being in such a leadership position was something that I never could envision myself doing, but there I was.
• I was approached by someone completely unexpected to wash my feet.  A young man, Colin, who play electric guitar on worship team, approached me.  As far as I knew the extent of our relationship was the church and the fact that I tried to recruit him into Awana leadership, but he turned me down.  When we got to work, he told me that he deeply admired me because of my attitude at church.  He said whenever he came to church in a miserable mood, he would see me circulating, or doing something, or talking to someone with a big grin on my face.  That, or he’d hear me laugh somewhere – I’ve got a pretty loud laugh.  It was enough to break him out of whatever funk he’d be in, and say to himself, “If he can do it, so can I.”  But he didn’t stop with just me.  After we finished, Pastor Phil had kind of an open time for people to “out” men who had affected them or served them, and Colin stood up and told everyone what he just told me!  I was quite taken by the honour he showed me, as it seemed to unexpected and genuine.
• Once that time of kind of “public outings” we called it was finished, a man who recently joined our church, Ed, approached me privately.  I have seen such a willingness to stretch himself in the service of God in him, as he has joined Awana as a leader.  He’s needed rides to get to various events for Awana, and I have picked him up more times than not.  He just told me to my face how much he appreciated that about me, and how glad he is that he is coming to our church.  Then he gave me a hug.
• Later, after the dinner, Pastor Phil asked people to come up and share how they had changed.  Of course, I had to spoil things and come up and take a quick pot-shot at him (heh, “I learned, if Phil can plant a church, ANYONE can plant a church!”  laughter ensued…) but what really caused me excitement was watching my wife stand up and say some really important things to everyone about God’s work in our church.  She is so good in front of people!  Incredible even.  What a gift God has given me for a partner in life and ministry!
• Finally, during our table communion time, I found myself waiting for someone else to pray over the elements and distribute them.  Nobody was doing it so I finally stepped in.  But then, once we were done, Sue from the table behind us tapped on my shoulder and said, “Nobody at our table knows how to pray over the bread and grape juice!”  She wanted me to pray for them.  I went over there and prayed with them, and felt strongly at that moment how much of a leader I have become here at Community of Hope.

Without even realizing it, God has been positioning me.  He’s brought me to where I am, almost unrecognized, to show me a picture of what I could be and will be if I only let him lead me there.  I am really blown away by how far he has brought me.  I never thought for a second last night was what was in store for me – I was just looking forward to the food (I LOOOVE potlucks!)

Phil said in his opening devotional that he had planned to do some commissioning of leaders last night.  Things went a little longer than he wanted, so he never got to it, but this morning, I defnitely feel like God did some commissioning regardless of how much we had time for.  Last night made me intensely aware that God is doing something with me, and he is doing it a whole lot faster and in ways that I may not even be noticing.

Then again, this isn’t the first time he’s done this to me.  You’d think I’d start to expect it after a while.

This week Community of Hope has 12 missionaries up for a week to help us with our summer push – the “Campaign of Kindness”.  We have a fully staffed park program running in one of the major parks in our area, and we also have four or five teams who went out last night to other parks, giving out water and cookies to thirsty Surreyites and Deltans.

Last night was the first night.  Cheryl and I were paired up with Philip, and we hit five parks.  Two of them had beer league slowpitch games going on, which was interesting.  The first lady to explain this to us almost seemed to stumble over the word “beer” – as if it was some sort of embarrassment.  We had baby with us so many of the ladies not playing fawned over Dannan’s baby blues.  Babies are wonderful icebreakers.

At the second ball game, one woman exclaimed, “Only God would do something like this!”  Kind of cool.  Another one said the cookies “answered the prayers” of their children who were bored watching the game.  Kind of funny, we never really made a big deal that we were from a church, but somehow they knew.

A big God thing happened at the last park.  Philip had been taking his girls to swimming lessons the last few months and had connected with a lady there who grew up in the area, but moved away and has just returned.  She hadn’t been to church in ten years.  It just so happened that she was in this final park with her kids, and we had a good time of reconnecting with them!  What were the odds?  Who needs odds when God has an appointment for you?

Tonight we will be doing some kind of car wash, but it remains unclear where it will happen as there are a couple of last minute details Philip is working out.  But we’re looking forward to serving up another dose of kindness to unsuspecting Canadians tonight!

On another note, I continue to be amazed with Cheryl’s giftings.  She is much better at initiating and being friendly to strangers than I am.  Probably something to do with her acting and stage background (or maybe her gift is why she is good at acting and performing?!?)  I was stumbling over my words and feeling like an idiot, and she was making it happen.  Watching her in action gives me so much more confidence in our calling.

It occurred to me the first post I did on how we got here, I didn’t really get into much detail about how we leaped from a short term missions trip to Rwanda to where we are right now.  The real impetus came in the fall of 2006.

We heard there was a church planting couple hanging out with our church.  At the time we were attending Cedar Grove Baptist Church, a church of 1200-1400 people in North Surrey.  It’s easy to get lost in a big church like that, but I saw them around once or twice in the halls and at general meetings and such.  It seemed like every time I looked at the guy, Phil, he was looking at me and grinning.  I was thinking, “Who’s this guy grinning at me?” I finally decided that God, or something, wanted me to talk to him.

One sunny day in August, I caught up to him at the bike racks (seriously!)  I was just curious at that stage about what their plan was to plant a church.  I had no idea how one goes about planting a church at that stage.  He invited me out to their core team small group.  At that time, it consisted of themselves and two other couples.

I went home and asked Cheryl if she’d like to come.  She was fine with me going, but “I am NOT interested in planting a church!” (more…)

Shane was a boy from the Edmonton area, just moved to the coast to follow his roots and keep a promise to God that he would take Bible College for a year.  He liked the outdoors, but also computers.  He joked before he left Alberta behind that he was “going to the coast to meet his wife”.  It turned out it wasn’t a joke.

Cheryl was a girl who grew up on the coast.  She’d been an award-winning vocalist as a child, and had been to film production school.  Her family had run a BBS so she too was a computer person.  She had grown up helping her mother with special needs foster children in their home.

We met on the internet in October, 1997.  By Christmas we were engaged.

In the summer of 1998, we got married.  She thought she was going to be a nurse.  He thought he would work in Forestry.

In 2000, we had our first child, while she was in her 3rd year of University.  He decided to change careers to computers.

In 2003 we went to Mexico.  We both realized we never wanted to vacation on the backs of 3rd world poverty.

In 2004 He nearly quit his job, but realized that God was teaching him something.  He decided to stick it out.

In 2005 we decided to go on another trip, but this time to do something to serve God while we enjoyed someplace warm.  We didn’t leave until 2006 – to Rwanda.  We didn’t realize it, but that changed everything.

Upon returning from Rwanda, we met a couple of church planters.  We ignored them until the fall, when Shane met with them for the first time.  He tried to get Cheryl interested, but she said no.  Two months later, out of the blue, Cheryl asked to meet them too.  We joined their nascent planting core and began our education of what a church plant is.  In 2007 that core grew to forty by the end of summer.  Community of Hope launched September 9, 2007.

By early 2007, we recognized that God wanted more from us than floating along wherever life takes us.  We decided to aim our lives for something – planting a church of our own in five years.  We are now on that journey – walking with an open hand, waiting for God to take the lead.

God has lots of work ahead of us to prepare us for this.  We have skills and gifts, but no experience.  But that too will be brought to us with time.  Join us on our journey.  Subscribe to the blog via RSS or via email updates (see sidebar).  Encourage us along the way in the comments.  But most of all, if you feel God calling, use us to begin your journey.  We will add resources and information as we find it to help those who come after us.

God bless you on your journey.