Summary of Sunday Jan 3 gathering
After a warm up time where each person present shared one highlight from the Christmas holiday and one hope for the new year, Mitch led us into some worship together. Dan then shared from Hebrews 10:19-25, reflecting on the “call to persevere” and develop a gathering of Jesus’ followers known for their love and care and responsibility for one another. We then moved into a discussion about this key question: Why are we church planting in SE Portland? Here are the results of that opening conversation: People shared personal motivations, which to a great extent had to do with a desire to a) create opportunities for nonChristian friends and neighbors to have a communal, non-churchy, interface with the gospel; and, b) to grow a church that can be freeing and prophetic to existing Christian friends and churches that our core team has connections with. Dan noted that there seem to be few churches in Portland making any significant dent in reaching nonXtn Portland (most churches are made up of Christians who have transferred from another church or disgruntled Christians returning to church). Some shared that church planting has been on their heart for a long time (e.g. the Omans), and so it’s natural to want to join a team doing this. All seemed to express a common desire to see a church emerge that expresses a heart for the SE. In addition to the above reasons, I (Dan) suggest these other practical and strategic reasons that suggest church planting in the SE in 2010 is good and right to do: Strategic/practical reasons:
· Allows us to create a living laboratory for embedding missional DNA, particularly in new disciples, but also in Christians who’ve never been discipled as missionaries.
· There is a need for more diversity in local churches, theologically, empowering women, etc.
· A new church allows us to develop a shared leadership ethos, while experimenting with CA’s ideas on missional-incarnational church planting.
· We now have a team on the ground who is in sync with CA and that can tie into CA’s bigger picture, community and a wider apostolic movement. The big question is how strongly do we sense that Jesus is inviting us to do this in the SE at this time? His invitation is the most important reason to church plant together. May we find greater and greater confirmation in His leadership toward forming a new church.
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