Vanguard Revisited - Vision, Values and CAKE!

We had another house full of students from Vanguard College here last night - what an awesome group of people! It was a totally different experience from the first group (not that the first group wasn't awesome - they were fantastic too!). The team was at the end of their challenging week in Vancouver and we were all a little on the tired side. Low key. Laid back. Hopefully not too dull. At least the cake Wanda brought made it worthwhile - WOW WAS IT GOOD!

Interesting discussion though - at least I thought so. We shared our story about why we are here, why cities are so important to God, about the incredible need for more churches in Vancouver, our dream of a community of faith in our neighborhood where people can find a safe place to take a fresh step on their spiritual journey and explore what it means to be a follower of Jesus, and our impression that the best way to accomplish this may be what we are beginning to call "the living room church".

I almost hate talking about our vision and values because we are so early in the process that we honestly don't know what we're doing or how we are going to do it yet. We are trying to be very intentional about not photocopying someone else's ministry model. (Wolfgang Simpson calls it importing other people's spiritual success-stories and instead he challenges us to search for the ways which God has ordained for us to put into practice in our time and place - what we feel He has revealed to us.) Sometimes the "creative tension" is agonizing!

But we do have some thoughts that are in the process of development. Our values are certainly not original, but I can honestly say that we haven't stolen them from anyone. They have come out of literal years of heart-searching, God-wrestling, and lifestyle-struggling. We own them, or are in the process of paying a big price to own them! I refuse to live the lie of "aspirational values", and if what I say next isn't in process in my life, please get in my face and let me know!

It's been interesting that as we have struggled to articulate the stirring in our hearts we have stumbled on others on the same journey. We' have been surprised and comforted that many, many others are echoing the same notions - mostly people associated with the 'emerging church'. We are not the only whacko out there!

So, with the caveat of understanding that we are in process and that we are being context specific to the North False Creek area of downtown Vancouver, here goes...

Holistic Christianity - It's about being the church, not going to church. Living church, not doing church. Christianity as life, not a series of meetings. Basically it's about stepping out of the "church culture" bubble and being a part of the real world. (Maybe that's not an issue for you, but for me it has been an intense, personal journey! It has become an experiment about living my calling from God in the community, rather than a church focused ministry position. What would this look like for you?)

Intentionally inclusive community - God is already at work in the world, and I want to join Him there. An individual's spiritual journey begins long before conversion to Christ and I yearn to get in on the conversation before they get up the nerve to "go to church". (Frankly, I don't see most of the people who live in my building ever "going to church". What are we really after - conversion to church, or conversion to Christ? But I digress...) If I can be their friend - not with an agenda of getting them to "go to church", but just truly be a friend... And if they hang around me and my faith family and BELONG to us and we to them , maybe eventually they will discover that they BELIEVE with us, and then they can continue to BECOME what God desires them to become... The spiritual trajectory / direction of someone's life is more important than our perception of their distance or closeness to Christ (especially if it is defined by their involvement in church). Do we really believe that someone can be "far" from God? Not if you believe that God is not far from them!

Participatory Leadership - Church were the body of Christ leads and ministers to each other. Simply put, the deemphasizing of professionalized ministry. Simpson talks about the 3 reformations of church history: a) the theological reformation (Luther's justification by faith), b) the spiritual reformation (the pietistic / holiness movement that birthed the Pentecostal movement that has encouraged us to know and experience God personally), c) the structural reformation. Actually, I don't think the third one has really hit yet, but the unprofessional-izing of the church has started. Hopefully the clergy / laity divide will be destroyed. This is not to say that there is no place for leadership in the church; it's just that in our culture context I believe this leadership needs to be more relational and participatory, rather than positional and hierarchical. (This has huge impact on the way we function as a church, but I'll save that for another time.)

Incarnational Ministry - We expect the primary calling of Christians to be expressed in the community, rather than inside the church. Someone has said that the quickest way to church the unchurched may be to unchurch the churched. Frost and Hirsch talk about the 'attractional' model of ministry that the western church has adopted, which ends up being an extractional model of ministry that actually pulls those involved in the church out of their community and any relational context they have with those not 'in' the church.

Community - Living life together. Relationship, relationship, relationship! Taking seriously the 'one-another's' in scripture. Living room church provides a great context for this because it's hard to get lost in the crowd when there are only 9 people there!

The grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit - Without God we are nothing. It's his church and his call. We are dependent. Totally. To paraphrase an old song, if anything good happens out of this, if from Jesus.