What does it take to transform a city in a way that those who are being transformed AND those who don't want to be transformed (or feel that they don't need transformation) all agree that the transformation is a good thing? Many churches aren't attempting city transformation at all. In fact, their transformation strategy is simply "for everyone to come to our church and agree with our leader, then we will all be changed." Others churches seem to think that transforming cities is all about changing laws and forming political action committees. And while those who are being changed by this see it as a good thing, those who aren't being changed are repulsed by the arrogance and the judgment that comes from these churches. These churches tend to focus their money and leadership energy on the programs of their church, building buildings for people to come to, and sheltering their kids from the "evils" of the world around them.
In the book of Acts 2:47 it is said of the first believers that they "enjoyed the favor of all the people." The first followers of Jesus, lived their lives in such a way that everyone around them (whether they agreed with them or not) thought that what they were doing was a good thing. At UCity - we are focused on transforming cities, neighborhoods and families... one person at a time. It is a community of transformation. We are a "fellowship" (a united group of people) seeking to serve the world around us in a manner that everyone can see our love.
I have read the book The Tangible Kingdom. In it the author talks about how he helps people who are used to going to other churches around get familiar with his church that is pursuing city transformation. I have quoted him and added to it. I like it.... a lot.
"I just want you to know that we're not a church, we're a mission to Harrisburg/Concord/University City. I don't feel any compulsion to feed you spiritually, but I will look after your spiritual formation. I believe you won't grow unless you live like Jesus lived and try to do what he did with people. This mission probably has nothing to offer you. However, I am interested in finding out if God brought you to us, and what your part in serving this city might be. And I am fully confident that if you open yourself up to imitating Jesus, you will begin opening your lives and your homes to those in need around you. As you do participate in this missional community, you will find friends surrounding you and a life that is true life."
Get ready for a focused city transformation... UCity.
Showing posts with label churches and their buildings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label churches and their buildings. Show all posts
4.29.2010
4.27.2009
ReJesus :: Penetrating Conversations - Missions
This post is in response to a group learning activity that we had during out Neighborhood Gathering on April 26. I said I would post responses to the penetrating questions we used here so you could know what I think. There are five questions and I will create a new post for each question.
Why are we so concerned about people in Ethiopia and Mexico when there are lots of people with needs right here in America?
First of all I will address the question and then I will address the real reason I think people ask it. As followers of Christ we, don’t get to pick and choose who we will serve and who we will not serve. We are “humanity's slave” which is actually our next mini-series in the ReJesus series. We are servants of everyone, everywhere. There is a blindness in the church planting / new church movement AND IT IS THE LACK OF FOREIGN MISSION ENGAGEMENT. Lord willing, we will never fall into this blindness. Most of the focus and money that comes into a new church is spent on the ministries of that church itself. This is especially true if that church is focusing on purchasing land and building buildings. The lead team at UCF is wrestling with what it looks like to love people around us as much as we love ourselves when it comes to finances at UCF. Currently we probably give/spend about $100,000 per year on our missional projects in Ethiopia and Mexico. The majority of this is outside our regular operating budget. We also provide one full time salary for a ministry leader in Ethiopia for every full time staff position we have at UCF through our regular operating budget.
In my history of leading ministries, I have seen a lot of models of engaging the world around us. I think Matthew 28:19-20 among many other verses in the Bible, lays out a strategy that involves local AND global engagement. Our strategy of investing in a few global areas over a long period of time has come about through much seeking, much experience and much prayer. Currently these areas are Ethiopia and Mexico. I realize there are needs everywhere around us in this country, but the scale of NEED reaches entirely different levels when you travel out of our country into places where people live on $1-3 a day, have no access to clean drinking water and little or no opportunity to hear the message of Jesus Christ. The bible continually urges us to serve those in need and we cannot confine that to just those “in our country.” And still the large majority of our focus is spent on reaching out to people right hear in our own city and our own neighborhood. We serve a weekly meal to our homeless friends and have for the last five years. We throw a neighborhood party for families called Movies in the Park and we have a staff that serves – children, middle school students, high school students and college students. When you think of it like this we do more for our own country than we do for other countries.
The majority of the times I have heard this question, it comes mostly from a person who isn’t very engaged in serving people around the world or in this country. And honestly, the question comes off pretty empty to me. Conviction comes when we present needs and many people try to deflect this conviction by pointing out other needs that we aren’t doing something about. They present this as if to say, “If we were serving people in say Texas, THEN I would jump in and help!” The problem is when we do go to Texas (like we did this month) they don’t seem to jump in there either. If you have a passion for serving people we currently don’t serve and are willing to lead us to engage in new places, we are ready to listen and help you plan. Like I said, we are “humanity’s slave” and the more people we can serve the better. It takes a lot of persistence and tenacity to forge new works that consistently serve people around us but we are better when everyone is engaged. Jesus said something like, "the harvest is huge but the workers are few, so pray to God who controls the harvest to send more workers." Pray and then join the work.
Some people at UCF are currently working on a new idea to serve people all over the United States called U.S. I-27. Ask me about it.
Why are we so concerned about people in Ethiopia and Mexico when there are lots of people with needs right here in America?
First of all I will address the question and then I will address the real reason I think people ask it. As followers of Christ we, don’t get to pick and choose who we will serve and who we will not serve. We are “humanity's slave” which is actually our next mini-series in the ReJesus series. We are servants of everyone, everywhere. There is a blindness in the church planting / new church movement AND IT IS THE LACK OF FOREIGN MISSION ENGAGEMENT. Lord willing, we will never fall into this blindness. Most of the focus and money that comes into a new church is spent on the ministries of that church itself. This is especially true if that church is focusing on purchasing land and building buildings. The lead team at UCF is wrestling with what it looks like to love people around us as much as we love ourselves when it comes to finances at UCF. Currently we probably give/spend about $100,000 per year on our missional projects in Ethiopia and Mexico. The majority of this is outside our regular operating budget. We also provide one full time salary for a ministry leader in Ethiopia for every full time staff position we have at UCF through our regular operating budget.
In my history of leading ministries, I have seen a lot of models of engaging the world around us. I think Matthew 28:19-20 among many other verses in the Bible, lays out a strategy that involves local AND global engagement. Our strategy of investing in a few global areas over a long period of time has come about through much seeking, much experience and much prayer. Currently these areas are Ethiopia and Mexico. I realize there are needs everywhere around us in this country, but the scale of NEED reaches entirely different levels when you travel out of our country into places where people live on $1-3 a day, have no access to clean drinking water and little or no opportunity to hear the message of Jesus Christ. The bible continually urges us to serve those in need and we cannot confine that to just those “in our country.” And still the large majority of our focus is spent on reaching out to people right hear in our own city and our own neighborhood. We serve a weekly meal to our homeless friends and have for the last five years. We throw a neighborhood party for families called Movies in the Park and we have a staff that serves – children, middle school students, high school students and college students. When you think of it like this we do more for our own country than we do for other countries.
The majority of the times I have heard this question, it comes mostly from a person who isn’t very engaged in serving people around the world or in this country. And honestly, the question comes off pretty empty to me. Conviction comes when we present needs and many people try to deflect this conviction by pointing out other needs that we aren’t doing something about. They present this as if to say, “If we were serving people in say Texas, THEN I would jump in and help!” The problem is when we do go to Texas (like we did this month) they don’t seem to jump in there either. If you have a passion for serving people we currently don’t serve and are willing to lead us to engage in new places, we are ready to listen and help you plan. Like I said, we are “humanity’s slave” and the more people we can serve the better. It takes a lot of persistence and tenacity to forge new works that consistently serve people around us but we are better when everyone is engaged. Jesus said something like, "the harvest is huge but the workers are few, so pray to God who controls the harvest to send more workers." Pray and then join the work.
Some people at UCF are currently working on a new idea to serve people all over the United States called U.S. I-27. Ask me about it.
8.02.2007
A church, a building, a family and lake langano
A church, a building, a family and lake langano
Often times I am asked, "why doesn't UCF have a building yet?" We are a church that is 6 years old and most new churches our age have already bought land (or maybe I should say are making payments on land) and are trying to rally their people to build a building. I sometimes get a little defensive when I am asked this question, but the ultimate answer is, "Up to this point, I simply have not been led by God to lead us into a land/building process." God has given me certain ideas about what we will build once he says "go for it." But for now, I will lead us to engage in what God has laid in front of us as a church. He has led us to engage in a specific region of Ethiopia called Lake Langano. He has called out Mike and Amy Rodgers to move their family there to invest their lives in the region. AND HE HAS CALLED US AS A CHURCH TO SEND THEM!
That is what this Sunday is about. It is a celebration of a family and a church following God's plan even though it might not make sense to people around and even though it is different than what most people and most churches are doing. I will lead us to follow God even when it goes against the flow of our culture.
I guess the question that this bring up in my mind is this, "why don't more people who go the churches engaging in land/building programs ask their pastors why they haven't sent any missionaries out yet?" I think it is a continual preoccupation with ourselves and building our own significance. People in churches really do believe that a building gives them credibility. I listened to a fund-raising DVD put together by a church a few hours from here where this statement was expressed. The church leader actually said that a building would give them more credibility with their community and how meeting in a school made them somehow inferior as a church. It made me want to vomit! But hey whatever you have to do to raise money right! For whatever reason our culture values buildings and why not? Man has worshipped buildings since Genesis 11. But then and now it has come at the expense of following God and whole-heartedly pursuing his mission. So maybe after this Sunday we can start a revolution in churches to the point that 5 or 10 years from now people will start evaluating churches by how many missionaries they have sent out rather than the buildings they have built.
I know some of you are saying churches can do both, right? Well maybe. Every pastor in a building program will tell you they want to do both, however when given the opportunity to support a missionary it never seems to be the right time. I don't know if God will ever lead us to a building, but it has been clear since Paul wrote Romans 10:5-15 that God has called us to send. So get ready UCF... Sunday is going to be AWESOME. And it is just the beginning!
love loud... live full... laugh hard... RISK OFTEN,
Often times I am asked, "why doesn't UCF have a building yet?" We are a church that is 6 years old and most new churches our age have already bought land (or maybe I should say are making payments on land) and are trying to rally their people to build a building. I sometimes get a little defensive when I am asked this question, but the ultimate answer is, "Up to this point, I simply have not been led by God to lead us into a land/building process." God has given me certain ideas about what we will build once he says "go for it." But for now, I will lead us to engage in what God has laid in front of us as a church. He has led us to engage in a specific region of Ethiopia called Lake Langano. He has called out Mike and Amy Rodgers to move their family there to invest their lives in the region. AND HE HAS CALLED US AS A CHURCH TO SEND THEM!
That is what this Sunday is about. It is a celebration of a family and a church following God's plan even though it might not make sense to people around and even though it is different than what most people and most churches are doing. I will lead us to follow God even when it goes against the flow of our culture.I guess the question that this bring up in my mind is this, "why don't more people who go the churches engaging in land/building programs ask their pastors why they haven't sent any missionaries out yet?" I think it is a continual preoccupation with ourselves and building our own significance. People in churches really do believe that a building gives them credibility. I listened to a fund-raising DVD put together by a church a few hours from here where this statement was expressed. The church leader actually said that a building would give them more credibility with their community and how meeting in a school made them somehow inferior as a church. It made me want to vomit! But hey whatever you have to do to raise money right! For whatever reason our culture values buildings and why not? Man has worshipped buildings since Genesis 11. But then and now it has come at the expense of following God and whole-heartedly pursuing his mission. So maybe after this Sunday we can start a revolution in churches to the point that 5 or 10 years from now people will start evaluating churches by how many missionaries they have sent out rather than the buildings they have built.
I know some of you are saying churches can do both, right? Well maybe. Every pastor in a building program will tell you they want to do both, however when given the opportunity to support a missionary it never seems to be the right time. I don't know if God will ever lead us to a building, but it has been clear since Paul wrote Romans 10:5-15 that God has called us to send. So get ready UCF... Sunday is going to be AWESOME. And it is just the beginning!
love loud... live full... laugh hard... RISK OFTEN,
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