He-brews 20:21 - Not Just a Scripture Joke

Our hub (Forge Chicago) and our missional expression (The Center at Itasca) is in the middle of a small Chicago suburb. Our community would be considered middle-to-upper-middle class, primarily Caucasian, with good schools and a government structure you might say is stuck in 1950. We memorialize four historic church denominations and two Asian congregations, but with less than 15% of the population in attendance. The average Itascan considers the community a modern day “Mayberry.” 

Unfortunately, like most communities, every Mayberry town is having to confront a world in flux. A world of corporate profits, higher than expected living costs and the challenges of diversity. It shouldn’t have surprised anyone when the corporate coffee behemoth moved from the center square to another community because they could get their approved drive thru. However, it sent shock waves through our little town. 

The next two years of Covid19 were filled with emails to Starbucks corporate. A Mayoral message blaming the company for not being a good corporate citizen. There were local editorials about Starbucks as the only place in town to gather and connect. The hurt was so deep there was even a “Save our Starbucks” march that created a community buzz similar to that of the “Save Ferris” campaign in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day off. 

So what could we, The Center at Itasca, do? As we looked and listened, we saw some unspoken needs of our community:

• To connect.

• To have a place to gather.

• To stop on the way to the train station (their primary way to the City of Chicago for work)

• To go after school to hang out and do homework.

We began with prayer. We invited our hub friends to visit us from Colorado and help us understand what we might be getting into if we opened a coffee shop. We brought in a contractor to look at our facility and provide estimates. We spoke with our local officials. We entertained a small local group from a attractional church to possibly run the coffee shop. For a number of reason, the plans for an inside café space in our center never materialized. But then, a local restaurateur spoke of a revitalization effort for the downtown area. In that discussion, a food truck park came up. We had done a Forge America gathering a year or two earlier in Texas and the concept of food trucks was used as a metaphor for the church on mission. Well, why not real food trucks, or a coffee truck?! A little investigation led to a commitment to purchase two food trailers that resemble French bread trucks. The smaller version would be donated to The Center and a larger one would stay with a local restaurant to seed the idea. We would submit grant paperwork for the coffee equipment and receive $10,000 dollars to equip the coffee truck. 

God is so faithful when he brews an idea. Just as the equipment arrived, one of our non-profit partners stepped up. They would run The CENTER CUP as a donation only entity. We give away coffee, tea and hot cocoa to anyone who comes up to the window. Any donations would go to fund our local partner’s recovery house. 

The stories of impact on the people who have wandered up are so inspiring. The people who ask, “How much?” and when told, “its free, like grace,” walks away dazed. Or the story of a woman who, after being told The Center donates all the profits to another local non-profit, tells us that it's the best coffee she has ever had. Then there’s the older locales who gather around 9:30am to discuss the local state of the economy, religion, and politics.

Our tagline says it all, “We pour unity into the community.”

Recently, The Center Cup treated the community to 500 cups of hot chocolate/coffee and 300 bags of goodies on Halloween. The impact of which can best be summed up by one mother’s response, “I wish the community had more places like this. You guys are always doing something for the community. Thanks for all you do.” Needless to say, joining God on mission in this way has brought much of our community together. Our hearts, and our coffee cups are full. 

- Bob Butler, Forge Chicago,
www.communitycenter.life/forge-chicago

Enjoying With No Agenda

As I've been engaging with the Forge content I've been inspired to be more engaged in organic relationships with the folks God has placed in my life.  Recently I realized I was growing in relationship with a friend to whom I've felt called over the last few years.  Feeling as though I was following God’s lead, I reached out to him to talk more about his faith journey -- he was involved in ministry in the past, but has since taken a step back from active Christian faith. 

After I had prompted him to talk about where he was with God, I asked about getting together again.  He said, "I don't want this to be about me."  That caught me off-guard.  I realized that I had been interacting with him without bringing myself into the equation.  I was more focused on trying to get him to make some faith move or progress in some sort of growth I had outlined in my head than I was in simply being a good friend to him.

The next time we hung out was at our local brewery.  As I was driving to meet him, I was thinking about how to hang out without making it about his journey.  I realized that it had been a long time since I had hung out with someone without an agenda.  I realized I had maybe forgotten (or never learned?!) how just to be friends with someone.  I had forgotten how to be with people just to enjoy them.  We had a great time that night, and that revelation has shifted how I approach the people that God brings into my life.

Since then I've developed a few new relationships with neighbors, and I feel free not to identify an objective for them or for our relationship, but just to know them so that I can enjoy who they are.  I'm finding I enjoy their quirks more, I see the good in them more quickly, and I feel as though I'm better positioned to be a picture of the Gospel in their lives.

Slowly and Then All At Once

I moved to NYC to serve as a ministry intern at a local church right after I graduated from college a year ago. I moved from the Bible Belt to Manhattan, and I found a job as a hostess at a restaurant in Times Square to help supplement the cost of living. To say that I was rocked by culture shock would be an understatement. I didn't know how to engage with my co-workers, who were SO different from me and everyone I'd ever known. I felt out of place and sought employment elsewhere, but with no such luck. That fall, my church decided to take a group of us through the Forge Residency program. During those few months, God challenged my thought patterns and subconscious beliefs about people. Slowly, and then all at once, my paradigms were shifting. 

I started seeing myself as a missionary sent to my restaurant. So I started listening and observing better in an effort to get to know the culture of the place and the stories of those around me. After listening to the Holy Spirit, I began putting a quote and question of the night at the host stand to build connection and community in the workplace. I've had to walk into spaces that are uncomfortable for me - like the clubs and bars - because that's where my friends are. In those spaces, God has opened the door to have honest conversations about faith and spirituality, and why my values are the way they are. There's a new sense of community and honesty in our conversations. I am continuously humbled that the Lord would use a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white girl from Kansas in the heart of the Theater District. 

I think that's how God works in us - slowly and then all at once. When we start the hard work of shifting paradigms or learning new things, it feels like a lot of time and effort is going into it. Chipping away at our harmful thought patterns/beliefs about "those people" feels too weighty - like we'll never be able to break away from them. But the more we allow the Holy Spirit to do His job of transforming us, the "all at once" happens. Thank God we are not the ones who transform ourselves. 

- Brooklyn Colburn, Forge New York

A Wakeup Call

At the beginning of this year, our Associate Pastor, Bob England, and myself, participated in the initial cohort of Forge Motown. Our church, Warren Road Church, is in the midst of a turnaround and we are entering the building culture phase of that. At the end of 2018, our Lead Team was in the process of discerning some longer-term vision, and it was around that time that I received an invitation to be a part of Forge Motown.

I resonated with the language of that invitation, as well as what I initially saw on the Forge America website. Pastor Bob and I signed up for the cohort. We joined the cohort with the intent to bring back some quality content to our church that would help us move forward on mission with Jesus. While that did happen, we both were personally challenged to live a missional lifestyle in our own lives. It was a wakeup call for both of us.

It didn’t take long to realize that Forge really resonated with our hearts and the vision that the Lord was making clearer to us for Warren Road Church. We were then approached about the idea of WRC partnering with Forge. It almost seemed like a no-brainer.

Warren Road Church, like many churches, has relied on the attractional model of church throughout our history. Our church averages 75 people in Sunday worship—1/4 of the people we did 20 years ago, and yet we were still trying to be attractional. This often led to frustration and a feeling of defeat.

Pastor Bob, myself, and our Lead Team began to sense that something needed to change. And the paradigm shift of moving from an attractional model to a missional model began to make sense, as Pastor Bob and I were able to bring back what we were learning to our Lead Team.

So this summer, we officially became a partner church with Forge. Since then, we have been receiving coaching from Mark VanValin. Together we brainstormed how to incorporate the Forge curriculum into the life of our church to help us begin to make this massive paradigm shift from attractional to missional.

We decided to start big rather than small, and invited our entire church to be a part of Forge in our initial cohort (Fall 2019-Spring 2020). Our format involved using our existing Life Group structure, paired with some churchwide teaching. We tried to model our structure based off of our Cohort, which involved larger group sessions, and smaller group coaching sessions.

So once a month, we gather all of our life groups together on a Sunday night, to go through a Forge session collectively. After some teaching we break off into our Life Groups for discussion, support and prayer. Our Life Groups then meet one other time a month to go through a session together.

We have several Life Group leaders who are super excited to be leading their groups through Forge. A few of them have been living out some of the Forge concepts even before they knew that what they were doing is missional living. They are excited to receive the training, and to help others discover the joy of a missional lifestyle.

We are now almost 2 months into Forge at WRC. We have at least 30 people participating in our Forge Life Groups. We are praying for the Holy Spirit to do a deep heart work within our church. We know that the paradigm shift from attractional to missional is not an easy jump for many people. But we believe that the Holy Spirit will awaken us to our contexts as individuals and as a church.

We are now beginning to brainstorm and plan for what years 2 and 3 of our partnership may look like for us, which is leading us to pray about a bigger vision for our church to become a hub for micro-churches that are birthed as individuals and/or Life Groups engage their contexts. We have a long way to go, a lot of planning, a lot of conversations, a lot of prayer, and a huge reliance on the Spirit. But we are excited to see what the Lord will do in the years ahead, and even in this first year of WRC’s partnership with Forge.

- Andy Bentz, Warren Road Church, Westland, MI

Forge 2019 Year In Review

Leaving the Building

It was July. People were in summer mode. The protestant exodus had taken its toll on our new church. So we decided to shake it up. We gave everyone two weeks notice. We told them to come to the building a half hour early (10:30am), make sure everyone had on walking shoes and bring wagons or strollers for the kids. We told them we were leaving the building for an adventure and a picnic after.

It was a hot one. I never would have thought more than half our normal attendees would come. At 10:30, we made a few teams and handed every family, or makeshift family (team) a local street map with a few streets highlighted. We announced our first neighborhood scavenger hunt. We gave each group the scavenger list of items with associated point values. The items collected and any other donations would be given to the local food pantry.

We also appealed to the competitors in the group by building up the idea of fabulous prizes awaiting the winners. The look on the introverts was priceless. They were especially troubled when we announced the twist to the game. The point values could double for every house that would answer 3 of our 6 survey questions. The questions were simple:

1. What is the greatest part of living in the community?

2. What is the greatest need in the community?

3. Where do they find out about what’s happening in the community?

4. Do they know of anybody or are they currently in need of any assistance?

5. Had they heard of the Itasca outreach team and their community services?

In less than 2 hours, the God moments were inspiring:

• The introverts and their kids were running up to the front doors and ringing the bell.

• The older folks sitting in the air conditioned hall began praying for safety and provision.

• The older man requested we send a young man to come by to cut his lawn and it happened.

• The neighbor of the retiree, who was assaulted a year earlier in a home evasion, offering to go to the door with one of our tribe to make sure she knew of the help being offered.

• The conversations with other neighborhood Christians who loved what we were doing to reach out.

• A person was given a bag of groceries just collected because they didn’t have anything in the cupboard.

• The prayer for the person who answered the door but was struggling.

• The autistic daughter of one of our core members sarcastically telling an elderly man, he might be happier if he helped someone in need.

• The positive reactions on the faces as everyone returned for lunch. The group all looked like they had jumped out of their first plane or ran their first marathon.

• Finally, the realization our community needs more kids activities as well as family friendly places to gather for relationship.

I wish I could say hundreds flocked to the church or that there was a public profession of faith on a doorstep. I can’t. We didn’t even collect a lot of donations (25 bags of canned goods). However, it did produce a change in our tribe, their kids and the community's perception of The Center in Itasca.

It’s been 18 months since we started this new tribe. We have focused on our ability to be missionaries in and to this community. The Holy Spirit birthed a second RENEW group, a third Forge Domestic missionary group, A STEM lab for the neighborhood, a Monday night community meal, a meditation group, three different types of recovery groups, a serving team for the food pantry and this fall, a mom's toddler motor group.

Leaving the building changes everything!

- Bob Butler, Forge Chicago (www.forgechicago.org)

The Church Of Tomorrow

You will receive power and you will be my witnesses. That’s what the resurrected Jesus said would happen after he ascended back to the Father and sent the Holy Spirit. A verified Instagram account, state-of-the-art sound and lighting, and a celebrity pastor are not substitutes for the Spirit, power, and witness. The church need not look outside of itself for the solutions to an ever-complicated post-everything world. We’ve already been given all that we need to see the kingdom come in our cities, counties, and communities. The question is, how will the transformative power and witness that accompany the Spirit be released through God’s people tomorrow?

I live in a place where tomorrow has already arrived. And I can tell you from experience, what is working today (however one might define “working”) will not work tomorrow. As a strategy, attracting a large group of people to one room, one day a week (or multiple medium-sized rooms) to hear about Jesus, is over. I don’t mean that people no longer attend church on Sunday morning or Sunday evening. But a great gathering is not an effective long-term strategy for kingdom-growth. While everyone else seems to be doubling down and polishing up on what has worked, in the church I lead, I’m trying to sort out what will work.

I have been living in this tension for quite some time. I have a sense that the future of the church and its mission looks more like what happened just after the ascension than it does just after the reformation. I know I’m not alone in this thinking. Drawing from the Christian tradition, it’s been the work and writings of missionaries that I’ve found most helpful. Missionaries don’t assume anything. They listen. They learn. They go. How do we train the men and women who constitute Trinity Grace Church Westside to live as missionaries? That question is the synthesis of all my worrying, praying, and thinking has come down to. That’s when I discovered Forge America and began to learn about how they are working to mobilize the people of God to participate in the everyday mission of God.

In the Fall of 2018, we launched our first Forge Missionary Residency with the hope that the architect, physician, business executive, stage designer, furniture maker, sound engineer, educator, homemaker would, along with other participants, gain clarity around the why, what, and how of living as witnesses in the power of the Spirit. The kingdom-effectiveness of the future of the church isn’t about when we are gathered. It’s about when we are scattered to the offices, clinics, conference rooms, theaters, shops, studios, classrooms, and homes to which we have been sent.

The Forge Residency accomplished three things for us that we have struggled to do on our own. First, Forge helped our residents gain a high level of clarity regarding their call to live as the sent people of God. Second, the residency helped deconstruct old ways of understanding, freeing our people to imagine new and fresh ways of participating with Jesus in his mission to renew all things. Third, each participant was equipped to practically and tangibly bear witness to the reign of Jesus every day.

The space between where we are and where we are headed should be filled with conversation, preparation, and imagination about the kind of church that will effectively take the good news of Jesus and his kingdom into the future. I’m grateful for the invaluable contribution Forge America has made toward helping our church break free from what has been and fully embrace the tomorrow we are already living in.

Derek Worthington, Pastor

Trinity Grace Church Westside

New York, New York

My Church Has A Swimming Pool

In the attractional church world, “bling” matters. And most often our “religious bling” comes in the form of bigger and better church buildings fully equipped with the latest and greatest creature comforts: movie seating, HD video screens, cutting edge audio, coffee shops, indoor playgrounds, climbing walls…and yes even swimming pools! No joke, I served at a church with a full fitness center including an indoor junior olympic size swimming pool.

And before I sound too pious, I must confess in my earlier years I have led the charge helping churches expand and relocate and take on millions of dollars of debt all in the name of competing with the world (and truthfully more often other churches) for a marketshare of the religiously curious.

No longer!

The swimming pool that I hang out at these days is the community swimming pool in my town home neighborhood. On any given summer day (and yes, even on Sundays) the pool is an active place, breaming with life and conversation. This is where we are doing church at these days. Sounds a little sacrilegious to some I am sure. And before you go and write me off as one having spent too much time in the sun, YES we do still gather for worship with other believers.

In another life I was the pastor tasked with the “connections” ministry of our church. This meant staffing teams of volunteers to greet the churched and unchurched alike who attended. I found this to be one of the most rewarding parts of my ministry. I love meeting new people, hearing their stories, and occasionally being the one to accompany them as they take next steps on their spiritual journeys. But here is where the rub comes in…what you find today is that less and less people are choosing to attend church (even with our bigger and better buildings). One poll showed that only 18% of people receiving an invite to attend a church accept that invitation. That means 82% do not.

Jesus was and is the friend of the 82% (and the 18% as well) but you get my point. What about us? To my religious friends, where do we spend our time, who do we hang out with, could it be said of us, as it was of Jesus that we are the friends of the publicans and sinners?

My church has a swimming pool and it just so happens it’s in my very own neighborhood. God is continuing to give us new friendships and spiritual conversations as we focus our time and attention on the 82%. Why not jump in, the waters fine!

- Jim Mustain, Forge Dallas

Journey Towards Working Together

I’ve been on this journey as part of the Forge Tribe for about 5 years now. We’ve been through several residencies with individuals, but what we thought was success we soon discovered that it was more of a temporary fantasy. As we began to look at running another residency, the idea of partnering closely with churches began to feel like something that we were being called towards.

Two local churches were almost immediately interested in the concept of the partnership. We have also begun to discover new relationships with potential partners and rekindle old relationships with churches or other ministries that are also interested in a partnership model.

Going back into the systematic church was odd at best. One of the churches has been resistant to working with “outsiders” and the idea that we were living in a post-Christian world was met with “Nonsense, all my friends are Christian.” Having to explain that that kind of thinking is actually the problem was an interesting task. But we found that there were people who were actually interested in learning about the Imago Dei and how the idea of a “sent and sending” God actually manifests itself in us as the Missio Dei.

The other partner church was more receptive, with at least one person having recently become a Christian. They are showing signs of real transformation. We are also seeing that this group is reaching into groups of people around them and engaging a more diverse population. This group also has a wider range of occupations, everything from local government officials, financial advisors, warehouse workers, etc.

As we’ve been connecting with these churches, we’ve also been bringing these churches together. We meet often with leaders at both churches and Hub leadership on a regular basis, which helps us to stay in sync and learn from each other.

One of the future partnerships that we are excited about is a campus ministry club that works in public high schools. The group is called First Priority and they are active in 22 local churches, working with youth ministers and 17 local high schools. The local directors of First Priority were past residents, so they are very familiar with Forge. We are focused on creating a sort of mini-Residency built around BELLS and discussing how we could conduct that as part of First Priority in their high schools. As part of that we are also planning to conduct an introduction session to BELLS and Forge for the 22 churches that are already working with First Priority.  

For us, working together with churches and ministries is a stronger and healthier model. It seems to have greater visibility to future potential residents. In the past it felt like we were either recruiting or training individuals, and it always felt watered down. With church partnerships there is more weight, it seems more sustainable; as one residency begins, there are more potential residents waiting for the next class to begin. We also have a visibility to greater numbers of potential partnerships through an organization like First Priority. We have an opportunity to get in front of 22 churches and introduce them to Forge and see where things go from there. Without partnerships it may have taken years to gain an invitation to speak with these 22 churches and a lot of networking. As a Forge Hub we are excited to develop our current and potential partnerships and we see an opportunity to have a real impact in our community.

- Dave Scott, Forge St. Louis

Pancakes on the Porch

Inspiration for mission comes in many forms: books, blogs, conferences and even sermons, but sometimes the greatest inspiration comes from simple organic stories born from the desire to be human and love your neighbor

This is the case with Kevin and Lydia Andrews of Colorado Springs, community members of Pulpit Rock Church, a Forge partner church through our Colorado Springs hub. They had the desire to get to know their neighbors on a first name basis, deeper than just a common “hello” passing on neighborhood walks. Asking themselves the best path to drawing their neighbors together, they resorted to pancake batter and their own front porch, something everyone is drawn to on a Saturday morning!

For the past two years, they have opened up their front porch as a pancake restaurant to their neighborhood, free to anyone who will take the risk and meet their neighbors. By setting up a griddle, some tables and chairs, and passing out flyers around the neighborhood, they have become the gathering place once a month during the warmer, summer Colorado months. One Saturday morning per month, neighbors start meandering down the side-walked streets towards the Andrews downtown home, often carrying their own secret recipes of side dishes and toppings for pancakes. While everyone eats really well, what happens around that griddle is magical. Community has been built, lives are shared, are trust is built to love each other and walk through life together.  

One neighbor shared me, without prompting, at a visit to their gathering, “When Kevin and Lydia moved in, they just became the place where everyone wanted to be.” This is a testament to presence of place that we talk about so much in Forge. To be intentional in the place God has already sent us and placed us. By surveying their surroundings and simply taking a step, they are now a light on the blocks of homes around them, often being able to listen and be a taste of the Kingdom in hard life situations. This is the missional lifestyle, not strategic, but present and authentic. This kind of attitude God can do amazing things with.

What is it that would bring your neighborhood together? When you look at the place you’ve been sent, what could you simply be present and authentic with that God might use in big ways to give a scene of the Kingdom to come?

For a heartwarming look at this story, you can watch a video produced by Forge Colorado Springs here. Be inspired, but even more, take a step. It may only take pancakes and your front porch!

- Rowland Smith, Forge Colorado Springs

Can One Family Change A Neighborhood

 My wife and I got involved with Forge about three years ago.  We had recently moved from an isolated place on a highway to a cul-de-sac in town.  We were super stoked to have neighbors again, and we wanted to be intentional about sharing and showing Jesus to our new neighborhood.  

At the same time we were becoming fast friends with a family who were already amazing examples of this in their own neighborhood.  They invited us to explore Forge with them.  We were excited to learn more about what is means to be missionaries to our neighborhood.

Through some of the curriculum and training provided by Forge and our local church, we started developing tools that have helped shape our mission in our cul-de-sac.  We learned to map out our neighborhood, which in turn helped us to get to know more neighbors.  We were also able to process with like-minded missionaries about what was working, what wasn’t working, and steal missional ideas from each other.  The conversations that have come from our Forge network have been absolutely empowering and instrumental in our development in living as sent people.

Getting to know our neighbors and engage in the community of the cul-de-sac started slow, and if I’m being completely honest, it was super frustrating at times.  After what seemed like forever, we finally started making deeper relationships.  We were becoming an intrical part of the community, and in some areas we were creating community where there was none before.  We have developed varying levels of relationships with our neighbors from intensely deep to shallow and superficial.  At times we have become shoulders to cry on for some neighbors, ears to listen to for others, and in one instance we have become lifelong best friends.

We really connected with the family that lived directly across the cul-de-sac from us.  They have kids our age, both wives have been hairstylists, and us husbands bonded over sports and the love of good beer. As we grew closer as friends, the conversations we had when walking to our local bar, or sitting in their hot tub grew deeper.  It was clear at the beginning that the husband had some major issues with Jesus and Christianity.  For a year and a half, he and I would have fantastic talks about Jesus and what it means to be His follower.  I’ve never seen the Holy Spirit so obviously at work in someone's life before.  He and the Spirit were wrestling big time, and I (for the most part) just watched in wonder at the changes in his heart.  Just last Easter, I had the amazing privilege of baptizing my neighbor and best friend.  I now look to him for inspiration as his passion for Jesus is contagious.  He and his whole family are pivotal members of our community and local church.  

Our neighbors are now joining in on the mission to our neighborhood.  We are now partners on mission.  Forge is dedicated to discipling local missionaries who hopefully will also start discipling local missionaries someday.  Forge has tools to train, lessons to teach, but what they also offer is cohort/community that spurs one another on to living as a people sent like Jesus, and by Jesus.  

- Jeff Heidrick, Albany, OR

From Stages to Streets

Every year I try to plan allotted time for reflection and evaluation. Something powerful happens when we take time to dwell with our joys, regrets, and accomplishments - only then look forward to days, weeks, and years to come.

I’ve always been one to cherish this simple exercise. As an Enneagram Type 3 who is always pushing forward, driving performance, and trying to be the best I can be, this fits in my wheelhouse pretty well. Yet, this year, I almost avoided giving myself the space to look back.

Why? Well, simply put, I knew that for the first time in my life I didn’t have many clear answers.

A little over six months ago my family and I left the traditional church paradigm to start a new church/faith community in the Boston area. It was a pretty dramatic life change. I’d worked in the megachurch world for nearly a decade and excelled there. I’ve had the opportunity to preach in front of thousands of people on an ongoing basis, lead large-budget ministry programs, and help launch new church campuses. In other words, in the eyes of those in professional ministry, I had a sweet gig.

I also had some potential offers to be the lead minister at other megachurches. Yet, for a myriad of reasons we felt led to not pursue those opportunities, to leave a church we loved, and move to a place where we literally knew no one (except our team).

If all of those things weren’t difficult enough, our team decided to start this new work in an unorthodox way. Well, maybe not unorthodox, but definitely on the less traveled path of being church planting missionaries. The less “churchy” way of saying that is — instead of spending our time looking for worship venues, planning gatherings, and putting together a launch team to help us facilitate new programs, we simply moved into our new community trying to immerse ourselves in the daily rhythms of life. Our goal is to major in relationships and let those we encounter drive our future practices. In fact, we ask ourselves on a weekly basis in reflection — “What is good news for the people in our city?” and, “What does a church look like as an agent of this good news?” Due to living in such a vastly unchurched area, the answers don’t always lead us in the places I’m familiar with, including exploring social entrepreneurship and even different ways to organize as a church.

Now, I tell you this not to make a jab at those doing it differently than us (in fact, I’m so thankful for where I’ve done ministry and the many other planters I meet going about things with more popular methods). Instead, I tell you this to make space for this admission: it has been an awkward transition.

For the first time in my ministry career, I don't have an office. I don’t have programs to point to for perceived success. I have no congregation, which means I’m not spending my time writing sermons and delivering them. My days are now filled with walking and biking my neighborhood, frequenting the same places to build relationships, helping serve the poor, being a good neighbor, practicing hospitality, and starting our church one living room or coffee shop meeting at a time.

Needless to say, I’ve floundered and fumbled my way through this process. While I have a deep conviction about the “why” behind what we’re doing, it hasn’t stopped me from feeling like a foreigner in a totally strange land of ministry. Yes, awkward and sometimes frustrating.

Yet, when I finally stopped myself this last week to assess this season, I saw that more had happened that I even realized. There were things that won’t show up on any scorecard or be part of any metrics, but God has been doing something real in this uncomfortable ministry shift.

//Pace//

Easily the most difficult but rewarding part of this transition has been setting a new normal pace in my life. Like most in ministry, my life has often operated at a frenetic pace, running from person to person and thing to thing. Our culture celebrates high-speed lifestyles and subsequently sees exhaustion as a badge of honor. Ministry is no different.

God doesn’t do his best work in or through us like this, though. It’s only when we learn to slow down and recognize what God is doing in us, around us, and in our communities that are we starting to move into our “sweet spot.” Jesus’ words to Martha ring loudly here (Luke 10:42) —“but few things are needed — or indeed only one.”

More importantly, how can we be ambassadors of God’s kingdom when our lives are full of the same level of busyness, tiredness, and stresses as everyone else? What makes us distinct or unique if that’s the case? As my friend and Forge coach Ryan Hairston recently said, “Our methods should match the message we’re declaring.” He’s onto something. Jesus stated, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” What if we lived that out? What if ministry involved being practitioners in slowing down and finding rest? What if more Christians (and ministers for that matter) looked like Mary in Luke 10 and not Martha? What if Christians were the most rested, most unhurried people in our society?

I’m living with those questions every day. And while I won’t begin to act as if I’ve mastered a new pace, I’m beginning to practice a ministry slow down. The result? I’m praying more. I’m lingering more. I’m listening more. I’m Sabbathing more. Best of all — the new pace has helped me detach my self-worth and identity from the ministry work I do.

So while I can’t point to tons of tangible evidence for what such a shift has accomplished, I know what I feel in my soul. I know the new awareness I have of God’s presence in me and others. I don’t plan on going back.

//Presence//

 The newfound pace has led me to another shift in ministry — presence. As I hinted at above, slowing down actually creates the space for an awareness of God’s activity. I’ve come to see this not as margin in my life away from ministry, but instead the holistic foundation for ministry. When I slow down and see God’s presence and working in my life, the lives of others, and in my neighborhood, I actually know where I should be present.

This shift is comparable to what I once read Eugene Peterson say about the transition that happens when we read prose compared to poetry. According to him, it’s a transition away from looking for new information, meaning, and applications from the author, to simply experiencing what the writer is trying to get us to notice and participate in. It’s the difference between going to school versus walking in the woods — two activities that we mentally shift quite easily from information retention to involvement while engaging in. The same exact thing happens when we jump into poetry. Peterson states:

“The poet forces you to do something that is very important…slow down. You can’t speed read a poem. You need to shift out of your normal asphalt-driving-to-work-being-productive mentality. You need to be submissive to a reality you didn’t make. You have to read the poem three times before you start getting the hang of it. It means you aren’t in control of it.”

 I think hearing God works very similarly. Ironically, the Bible is over 60% poetry, so there are plenty of parallels to how we listen to God in our everyday lives. That is, that He is telling a cosmic, universal story. That story requires a slowdown, one in which we are invited into seeing where and how that story is unfolding all around us. As we do, His Spirit draws us into participating in a reality we hadn’t bothered noticing before.

Now, as I’m learning all the time, where and to what He is pulling me into looks a lot different than what I expect. It is seemingly mundane. It often involves people I’m uncomfortable around and in serving in ways that rarely look glamorous. Yet, the story I see unfolding in these places is so wonderful that I can’t help but want to set aside the clean lines of ministry in which I was present before.

//Praxis//

Pace and presence lead to praxis. The first two things I’ve described lay the groundwork for real participation.

In fact, the very definition of praxis is “practice over theory.” Unfortunately, the latter is where most of us live our spiritual lives. The pace we operate in our lives leaves zero room for implementation, and even if it did, we’re so distracted we aren’t quite sure where God is moving or where to partner with Him anyway. I would know!

Yet, when we finally slow down and find where He’s moving and working, we discover it is much simpler to put our faith into practice.

While most of us are looking for some grand, spiritually intoxicating high or are convinced that we just need some more theological information to get over the hump, the reality is that following Jesus is less complicated than that. It’s nothing more than partnering with Him habitually in the everyday stuff of life. That’s it. I love the way Tish Harrison Warren states it:

“I like big ideas. I can get drunk on talk of justification, ecclesiology, pneumatology, Christology, and eschatology. But these big ideas are bourne out — lived, believed, and enfleshed — in the small moments of our day, in the places, seasons, homes and communities that compose our lives.”

In The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard actually says something similar. That we must see the “circumstances we constantly find ourselves in as the place of God’s kingdom and blessing.” He goes on to say more explicitly, “God has yet to bless anyone except where they actually are.” Formation starts in partnering with God in the everyday.

Without overtly churchy or religious activity dominating my schedule these days, which often masks my major weaknesses in following the way of Jesus, I’ve had to discover the meaningfulness of the prosaic in the day-to-day. In fact, from my daily walks, to the interactions with neighbors, to the conversations with my wife, to laughs with my daughter, to serving the marginalized, to connections at the local coffee house, to tears over dinner with friends, I cherish seeing God work in the smallest of ways. Because of this, I have a new liturgy of my everyday life where I’ve restructured my life to see the sacred in the routine of the ordinary. There’s no more theory in this, but instead a pursuit of faith in the grittiness of the unremarkable.

The hesitancy to look back was real. Have I accomplished enough this year? What will our supporters and funders think? What do I have to show for the time here?

Yet, what I found was that God’s best work this year was in me. I was stripped of the things that operated as a veneer and stumbled my way into the kind of spiritual formation and followership of Jesus that should have been there all along. In short, I went from the stage to the street, from being a pastor to being a person. Through the awkwardness of it all, I started to find the kind of life I want to invite others in to. There’s no metric attached to that, but I cannot fathom anything more prolific.

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Drew Thurman and his wife Breanna are church planters in Boston, MA. Over the last several months he and his wife alongside their team have partnered with Forge America to receive coaching and training.

The Unlikely Ways of Jesus

When I think of missional expression in our context, unlikely is the first word that comes to mind. Maryville is a small, working class, college community. It’s a town smack in the middle of the “bible belt” in extreme northwest Missouri.  I’m not saying missional expression is something that is unlikely to happen, I’m saying, where we’ve seen traction and headway, is from the unlikeliest of places.

I have the privilege as part of C3 Maryville, to guide groups of people through a Forge residency program, training people what it looks like to be a missionary in our local context and helping navigate the waters of Kingdom life.  I would like to share some of our story, in hopes you’ll be encouraged.

Unlikely Resistance

Our first training residency was limited to church leaders and their immediate families. I believed that would be the best place to start in order to see missional expressions become a reality. If anyone would get this, it would be church staff, members of the church board, and small group leaders.

I was wrong. We were bogged down. We were muddled in details and discussions, questions and concerns, issues and disagreements. It was good, ideas were shared and many explored the ideas of missional expressions for the first time. The response to actually “doing” something, was where the hangup seemed to take place.

I often wondered why Jesus chose the most unlikely of people to be in his inner circle. He surrounded himself with a less than ideal group of people with which to hand over his mission and his Kingdom. They weren’t bad people, just unlikely to be chosen by anyone else. They weren’t leaders, they weren’t influencers, they weren’t people with titles or prestige, they were just people.

But they were people, who when Jesus said, “‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him.” - Matthew 4:19-22

The first disciples were a group of people who “didn’t know better” when Jesus said follow me.  They were people who immediately dropped what they were doing and followed Jesus. I am beginning to wonder if the most important lesson we could ever possibly learn, is following Jesus into mission, starts with a heart of obedience. Not with excuses, discussions, questions, or concerns. Obedience.

Unlikeliest of Leaders

Our second training residency is with people who are not leaders in the traditional sense of the word. Delmond, Dylan, and Alisha all work “normal” blue collar jobs, and live similar lives to the average busy families in our community. But they are listening to, responding to, and being obedient to Jesus together.

The folks in this training residency have relationships with a group of people from the Autumn House. The Autumn House is an “income-restricted” apartment complex in our town.  Alisha works in nursing, and knows many of the people there well.  She has made relationships with several of the residents, and her husband Delmond, their friend Dylan, and their kids have connected with the people there too.

The Spirit led these three “unlikely leaders” to do something for the residents of the Autumn House. They were presented with an opportunity to host a meal in the common area of the apartment building, so they made preparations, they made food, they did a great deal of leg work to make this meal happen.  They were ready to serve.

Unlikely Mission

Delmond, Dylan, and Alisha believed they were just going to provide a meal for some residents of the Autumn House. Through conversation though, they noticed that many, if not most of the residents were adopting pets from the local rescue shelter. They asked specific and strategic questions and discerned that the reason these people were adopting pets, was because they were desperately lonely.  The residents had nobody that would come and share life with them. They were experiencing the broken reality of loneliness.

A group of us went to the Autumn House believing there was a group of people there who needed a meal, but what they were desperate for, what God sent us there for, was to allow the Kingdom to break through in small ways.  We were there to be someone to talk to, we were sent there to be someone for these residents to share their hearts with, we were sent there to someone to be with them. To be vulnerable and honest, we walked into the Autumn House full of pride, believing we knew what we were doing. God sent us to the Autumn House for a specific reason, and because of Delmond, Dylan and Alisha’s unlikely leadership, we all immediately dropped what we were doing and followed Jesus into mission, where he was already at work.

We as a community have taken seriously Brad Brisco’s “4 D’s of Missional Engagement”, especially after the obvious wake up call that was provided through this experience. We together aim to “Discover” what God is doing in our community, look for the “thin places” where the Kingdom is waiting to burst through. We then collectively “Discern” what part God wants us to play in joining Him on His mission. We seek to understand how we are to participate, we ask God to show us, we ask the Spirit to lead us deeper into mission. We have also made the commitment to “Do”. When we sense the Spirit nudging us, we go. We don’t make excuses, we don’t ask for signs, we don’t question each other’s motives, we just go. Finally, we gather back together and we “Debrief”. We want to be sure we are doing things in the most effective way, with the most productive results. We have learned to embrace our position in the Kingdom. We are fine with knowing that when God is glorified, it’s usually through the “unlikely”. 

Springs in a Food Desert

Out of our love for our neighborhood and a desire to see everyone in our community experience a deeper sense of wholeness in their lives, a collective of neighbors in Knoxville, TN, after years of dreaming and casting vision, have taken our first steps towards the cultivation of Burwell Gardens, a community & market garden in the North Knoxville neighborhood, Oakwood-Lincoln Park. We believe this garden can be a space where people are not only empowered to grow their own food, but are also able to initiate and deepen friendships with their neighbors, strengthening the overall relational fabric of our community. Additionally, we believe this can be a space where our neighbors’ souls are not only refreshed by the presence of beauty so readily visible in the garden, but their imaginations also are stirred as creativity is awakened in us all.

It is these beliefs, coupled with two sobering realities of the Oakwood-Lincoln Park neighborhood, which were the impetus for our garden initiative. First, portions of our neighborhood can be classified as a “food desert”, an area where it is difficult to access affordable fresh produce; and second, our zip code is only one of two in Knoxville where heart disease is the number one cause of death. So it in our attempt to “mind this gap,” between the way things are and the way we believe they were intended to be, we planted Burwell Gardens to provide opportunities for physical activity and make fresh produce easily and affordably accessible. In order to do this sustainably, we created a non-profit organization, Cultivate Wholeness, with the purpose of initiating and leveraging community development projects to help increase the physical, relational, and spiritual health of our neighborhood and surrounding area.

Cultivate Wholeness purchased a vacant and overgrown lot from the City of Knoxville and got to work. With funds raised through local crowd sourcing, we have built a dozen raised beds, constructed compost bins, created a fire pit, and planted berry bushes. We have hosted a number of community workdays and a successful Garden Grand Opening Party for the neighborhood where friends, family, immediate neighbors, and garden enthusiasts across the city all came together to celebrate. Tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, sunflowers, and more have been grown and the recent addition of a large “in-ground” garden plot bodes well for future harvests. But most importantly, relationships have already sprouted on both the personal neighbor to neighbor level as well as on an organizational partnership level. It is our hope and prayer that the Lord would pour out His Spirit like rain and shine His love as light over these relationships; bringing a fruitful harvest of wholeness for us all.

A neighbor who has lived in our area for over thirty years recently saw us out working in the garden and stopped to tell a story. She shared her excitement over Burwell Gardens as she reflected on her time in the neighborhood when she was just girl; remembering the backyard garden kept by the previous owner of the same plot of land we have now reclaimed for our initiative. She spoke of peach trees, flowers, tasty vegetables, and the presence of an underground spring just below the garden. So as we continue to strive to be faithfully present to our neighbors through this garden, it is our desire that as they encounter tasty veggies fed by a spring bubbling up from below, they may also encounter a foretaste of a life fed by a spring of living water. For as “Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks from the water that I will give will never be thirsty again. The water that I give will become in those who drink it a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life.”  John 4:13-14

For more information, go to: https://cultivatewholeness-burwellgardens.org

A Church Within A Church

In 2012, I sensed God calling me to leave the tenure and security of my life as a pastor in a growing American mega church and move to Brussels, Belgium to experience the cultural and secular landscape known as Post Christianity.  The more I explored the new beliefs and emerging paradigms of Western Europe, the more convinced I became that I was living in America’s cultural future.  Europe has rejected the truth of the biblical meta-narrative, the assumption that the institutional church is a cultural force for the common good, and the notion of divinely revealed ethic that is normative for all humanity.  The innate Christian worldview that dominated Europe for nearly two millennia has been replaced with a secular humanist philosophy that offers personal significance in life without the need for transcendent spirituality or a higher spiritual being.

Years later I returned to America determined to help the local church transform to be able to thrive in the culture that was headed our way.  Yet, when I accepted a calling as Lead Pastor at Ecclesia Hollywood, a church filled with artists and creatives embedded in the local entertainment industry, I discovered that future was already here in America’s urban coastal and cosmopolitan cities.  While some church planters can design and create new expressions of church ex nihilo to fit this new environment, I face the challenge of trying to re-imagine and renew an existing local church on the fly, much like the ship of Theseus, or face eventual extinction as an organization.

The biggest challenge I face is that the dominant assumptions and paradigms upon which we have built the American churches for years are producing followers of Jesus who are not currently equipped to thrive in this new environment. 

Most Christians have grown up in a culture where the primary strategy for disciple-making revolved around the Sunday service or the church’s staff led programs.  In those expressions of church the primary role of a member is to invite others into the programs and activities of the church and trust that the professional teaching, inspiring music, and excellent stage of life programs would attract the “newcomer” into the Jesus life.  Very little was asked of a disciple beyond generously supporting the church’s ministries with volunteer hours and financial resources and continuing to identify new leads that might join the club.

However in this new cultural milieu, the “invitation to church” is no longer a tool at our disposal.  For a millennial with no childhood experience with Christianity, attending a friend’s local church gathering is as much of a cross-cultural experience as a Christian joining a Muslim neighbor at his or her local Mosque.  The barrier for entry is simply to high to make it worth the risk.  The only way forward is for the church to reclaim our original DNA as a sent people and for each disciple of bear our responsibility to make disciples in this new mission field in which we find ourselves living.

Forge allows me to equip my church for this calling to be missionaries living out the Jesus life in the places they life work, and play; the exact places that Jesus has already sent them to join Him in his mission.  I lead an annual Forge Residency as a way of planting a church within a church, comprised of missional-minded disciples who are modeling this new life and helping me illustrate for the broader faith family the value of this ancient lifestyle.  We are redefining disciple-making as the responsibility of every disciple and not as the job of pastors or church programs.  Sundays are no longer the place you bring non Christians, rather they are for equipping us all as missionaries and celebrating our stories of how God is leading us and working through us in our missional spaces. 

-Jon Ritner, Forge Hollywood

Sent In Sickness And Health

Soon after moving from Connecticut to North Dallas in 2001, Jeri was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder when we were having our first annual checkup in our new home…welcome to Texas!  Her platelet production was way out of whack…over 1 1/2 million of these guys instead of the normal 100-400K most of us have floating around in us.  The oncologist called it Essential Thrombosis - a very rare blood disorder that they don’t know what causes it and there is no cure, but a med that would keep her platelets under control.  Our next 15 years as Texans had Jeri seeing Dr. Trillo every 6 months and receiving his Thumbs Up!  She was healthy and active in multiple sports, along with leading a children’s ministry at a growing church, and helping John create and lead a non-profit with a wonderful team of folks in our surrounding towns. 

A few years back (2015-16), Jeri started having pain in her abdomen area.  Tests showed that the ET had caused her bone marrow to start scaring and her stem cells had left and migrated thru her blood to her spleen.  The enlarged spleen was now the blood production organ as well as collecting the abnormal cells now being produced and rejected in her system.  Essential Thrombosis had become Myelofibrosis - another very rare condition.  Dr. T kept an eye on this progressing disorder and when the enlarging spleen was not responding to another med, he informed us this past winter, it was time to visit MDAnderson in Houston.  They had remedies and trials that other oncologists like him would not see for years.  Jeri continued to otherwise be in very good health; she insisted on beating me down black diamond slopes at Steamboat Springs this past winter again!

To celebrate Valentines Day, we visited MDA for the first time.  Expecting to hear about other meds or trials available to care for her blood disorder, we heard the words leukemia and cancer for the first time.  Through many tests, it was determined that meds and other treatments were not going to help…it was time for a stem cell transplant.  This requires a donor of healthy stem cells. Best bet are siblings, but that didn’t pan out. Next was children that would only be a 50% match due to fathers contribution to their DNA.  Then there was the hope for an unrelated donor discoverable through be the match, some 29 million folks world wide.  In April we came back to MDA and Dr Popat came in and announced there was a match!  A 24 year old female from outside the US.

We had a month to get our plans in order before moving into our RV in Houston for 4 months.  We were ready and dealt with this new plan as we had the past 17+ years.  We trusted God with the details (He was pretty good at showing us that miracles were one of His best features!)  Our donor had to remain anonymous for 2 years; all we knew was her gender, age, and blood type (A+) so we nicknamed her AP.  AP was our only match, 1 in over 29 million and showed up in the past 30 days. God provided the miracle we needed.

Our first goal in Houston - get healthy.  But we also felt God was sending us to a new neighborhood as well.  Actually, we found He sent us to three. 

First: our RV park about 5 miles from MDA.  As we were setting up our rig the afternoon we arrived, Michelle was walking by and invited us to a gathering of other folks that were living in this park and dealing with cancer issues at MDA.  We had to pass that evening, but rarely missed the Fire Pit Gang (as we called it) on Tuesday and Thursday evenings for an hour or 2 (or more!).  We got to know Kevin and Michelle well - and Carla and Jamie, Lisa and Chris, Bob and Pat, Otis and Susan, Georgia and Gary - and many others.  Stories shared, tears shed, prayers prayed, love grown!  Relationships that cannot be imagined.  Some of these folks have died in recent weeks, some sent home in remission, others needing to stay for ongoing treatments.

Second: our long days at MDA Clinic for testing and waiting for next appointments; a lot of waiting/MDA time!  We met folks from around the Houston area and around the world.  Some became friends that we have stayed up with and others were one-time conversations that led to immediate caring for one another.

Third: one month in the MDA Hospital for chemo, followed by the stem cell transplant, followed by recovering strength enough to return to the RV for 2 more months of clinic visits.  During that month, Jeri and I would walk the halls (not an option!) 5 Laps = 1 mile.  The docs and nurses wanted you to be out of your bed and room for a walk several times a day.  Jeri clocked 3 - 5 miles most days. During those times, we met Solomon and his mother from Mexico City, he would not get out of bed and she asked us to pray for him.  He enjoyed our visits, but did not push himself much.  We also met Blake from Little Rock, another young man who got his transplant a couple weeks after Jeri.  There were many others.

Today, we are back in Houston for Jeri’s 8-week check-up since being released to go home to Prosper TX back in September.  Her prognosis was very good - always fun to have Dr P smiling the entire time he is meeting with us.  Earlier today, while waiting (again!) we ran into Solomon and his fiancé Jackie!  He was there for his weekly checkup.  He looked GREAT!  What a God-appointment!!  MDA is a Big Place!  His mom just text me this evening from Mexico City!  We told him that our friend Blake had been back in the hospital since Labor Day dealing with an infection that affects the success of his transplant.  We were going to see Blake later - they would too.  Blake and his dad were in the room.  Blake is very weak, but finally responding to treatment and beginning to eat solid foods.  As we were leaving, we saw Solomon and Jackie again.  We were to celebrate Michelle’s birthday tomorrow with a surprise lunch, but Kevin was readmitted this evening due to infection complications.

We thought we were sent to Houston for treatment and hopeful recovered health.  But we were sent here for so much more.  This place is filled with miracles and God appointments.  He is so present here.  We are so blessed to have had this experience.  The friends we have met are lifetime friends, ones we will know for eternity.  Please join us in praying for them…and for the hundreds of others we haven't met yet.

A Place for Practitioners

We are Joe and Sarah Caples. We live in Midtown Sacramento with our three sons, Kaleb, Levi, and Judah.

Before we found Forge, we felt like we were on our own in our desire to live incarnational lives in the neighborhood God had moved us into.

We knew that connecting with our neighbors on an authentically personal level was what was needed. And we were already seeing positive results. But, we didn't feel like we had much of a support system.

Most of our Christian friends didn't understand why we weren't in a church building as much anymore. Or why we weren't trying to bring our neighbors to church. We were starting to question whether or not we were on the right path.

Then we found Forge Sacramento. The conversations we had at our first gathering were enough to hook us. These people were trying to do the same things we were. And their stories gave us hope and encouragement.

As we built relationships with more people connected to Forge, we knew we had found the support system we needed to remain faithful to God's calling on our lives.

Because of the encouragement and support we have received from Forge, our impact in our city has increased tremendously.

Our neighbors know that we actually care about them, and many of them consider our family to be part of their families. Business owners and employees throughout Sacramento know who we are and what we believe, and they open up to us in powerful ways.

And people who do not yet know Jesus repeatedly tell us they are grateful for the relationships we have together, and they wish more Christians would engage in their community like we do.

When our time as residents came to an end, we wanted to do everything we could to help others who are discouraged like we had been.

The reason we stepped up to lead Forge Sacramento when there was a need for new leadership was for people in the same position we found ourselves in. To ensure there would always be a place for missional practitioners in need of encouragement and like-minded Christians in Sacramento.

Garden In A Desert

The garden is for me a place of memories.  My first memory of a garden was when I was a kid growing up on the outskirts of Cincinnati, OH.  I remember following in the footprints of my paternal grandfather as he tilled the garden by his home.  It was a challenge. A challenge of accuracy and distance as I would leap to step in his imprint in the fallow ground. I remember my maternal grandmother, who was 92, would love to come and watch me work in the garden. She was so frail, but I would put her in my car and carry her to a shaded area, so she could watch and advise me on the garden. In my adult years I would have a plot or raised beds to grow vegetables. Most of those vegetables I would give away to the senior members of our congregation. 

Today, the people of East Knoxville don’t have access to fresh fruit and vegetables...they live in a food desert. According to the USDA, food desert are: “parts of the country vapid of fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthful whole foods, usually found in impoverished areas. This is largely due to a lack of grocery stores, farmers’ markets, and healthy food providers.”  To qualify as a “low-access community,” at least 500 people and/or at least 33 percent of the census tract's population must reside more than one mile from a supermarket or large grocery store.  The closest grocery stores are two Kroger’s which are both roughly 2.6 miles away. 

In attempts to address the food desert in East Knoxville, the Eastside Sunday Market, the Tabernacle Community Garden, and the Gethsemane Project were developed.

The Eastside Sunday Market was the result of a collaboration of concerned citizens who also wanted to address the issue of food scarcity in East Knoxville.  The Market hosts local farmers and vendors to sell fresh fruits, vegetables, honey, soaps and handmade items.  Its hours of operation are Sundays from 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM.  The initial run from June – August, 2018 averaged attendance of 100 people. 

The Tabernacle Community Garden contains sixteen 10’X17’ plots that are manned by community and church members.  We have people who have never gardened before.  Youth groups who are being taught the benefits of gardening.  We have church members, Muslims, and unbelievers who are all working in the garden.  For me the garden reflects what the community and the Kingdom should look like.  We all come together, work in harmony, to make a beautiful and productive garden despite our differences. 

The garden is fenced in and we use the fence as a trellis.  We call it the gleaning fence.  The Jewish practice of leaving the corners of the field unharvested for the poor is the motivation.  All the vegetables on the fence are free to the public.  Tomatoes, okra, peppers, beans, zucchini, and squash are daily harvested and placed in baskets for those passing by.  I soon learned that people are coming by daily to get some from fresh vegetables. 

The Tabernacle Community Garden has grown to a larger venture, the Gethsemane Project. The Gethsemane Project was birthed from this desire to combat the food desert and to have access to healthier food choices in East Knoxville.  This would be accomplished through utilizing church and community properties to be used for gardening.  Presently we have 4 additional congregations who will have Community Gardens on their property; Bethel AME, Logan Temple AME Zion, Payne Ave. Baptist, College Hill Seventh Day Adventist who have joined this movement as well as Stop-N-Go, a corner store. 

The garden for me has been an experience in developing community.  I have met more people in the few months of working the garden then the 10 years I sat in my office.  The garden is on church property but not connected to it.  Between the church and the garden are 2 homes.  I was embarrassed when I went out recruiting for persons to take plots and realized I had never met my neighbors. 

The garden has become my place of peace.  “I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses” is my theme song.  I get up early and wait for a glimpse of sunshine to begin piddling in the dirt.  It’s my time of reflection and motivation for the day. 

When asked by a friend how much the garden cost I told him, “the field was plowed for free, the tillers were donated, people gave us seeds and plants, a farm gave us tools, friends donated a wheel barrow, picnic table and tomato stakes.”  “So,” he responded, “when you invested in the community, the community invested in you?”  I said, “Amen” 

It’s All About the Space: The How in Missional Living

When I became a believer it dawned on me that the more I believe, the more I must also follow. As I read more about this Jesus guy, I became intrigued by the life that He led simply by going to people and loving them well and unconditionally. That was over 22 years ago. To this day, I find myself following this "Jesus guy" into the mission He has called me to in my community of Middletown, Ohio.

There's no wrong way to love your community right where they are. But there are some things that I have noticed that always work and have yet to fail me:

1. Be slow to speak and quick to listen. 

“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (James 1:19)

When I realized that I wanted to walk with Jesus every day, I knew that I needed to listen first. After all, He is the ultimate missionary. I let his Holy Spirit that lives in me lead. That means I need to be still enough to hear the direction He is sending me. Sure enough, the places He has sent me have been challenging.... But they also bring me peace each step. It's important that we listen and not claim that we are the expert.

Six years ago, as I was driving and praying, I found myself at a park in my city. I had never been there before and found on a swing at 8:30 at night a little boy. I wasn't familiar with the park, but I was familiar with the neighborhood and it wasn't exactly the safest area for him to be alone. I prayed that he got home safe.

The next morning when I got up, I felt God tugging at me and a sense of urgency to go back to that park. There he was swinging again. I started a conversation and found out that his mom was a single mom that worked 12-hour days just to make ends meet. It was in that moment I realized God was answering a prayer of mine. I had prayed, "Lord, what is my call and what is my purpose?" In that moment, I knew I was to be a resource to this family.

Six years later I have a much bigger presence at the park. Just last fall, we had our very first Fall Fest, a child-imagined outdoor festival, in the middle of a park that was otherwise forgotten. There had to be at least 600 to 700 people that showed up. We take field trips and we celebrate birthdays. We serve hundreds, if not thousands, of kids and we lead many into a relationship with Jesus.

It all started with being slow to speak and quick to listen. God wants to direct our steps. If we are so busy that we can't even hear him...we need to be slow down and intentionally listen for His leading.

2. Die to yourself daily. 

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

The adventure of mission has nothing to do with ourselves and what outcomes we want. The adventure of mission has everything to do with where God is leading and us following in faith. This means that "doing Mission" cannot be a check off list item done every quarter. It is allowing God to run your day.

Six years ago, after walking through a difficult time in my life I heard God whisper, "Ladies need to understand that I love them deeply." From that whisper Ladies Night Out was born.  What started out as twelve women and has grown to serve 220 women this past January.

Ladies Night Out is an evening where women can come together under one roof. They get an evening gown fitted to them, their hair and makeup done for free, and then they get to sit and have a three-course meal served by men in our community. We also share the gospel from stage with a different theme each year. This past year we talked about love, what it is and what it is not.

During the past two years we launched community groups. The community groups are small groups that meet on a regular basis and go deeper. These act as a conduit to launch those that otherwise wouldn't go to church to actually going to church. It's incredibly beautiful to watch.

This year our first men's small group has blossomed from Ladies Night Out. They meet twice a month, and are thinking about their involvement in our community and how to impact it as men. We had a seventeen year old get shot and killed in our community and this group of men not only went over and prayed in the neighborhood, they are now in conversations about how to bringing more of a positive male influence in that area of town. 

The mission of Ladies Night Out came from following God’s call daily even through a personally difficult season.

3. Find where God is already at work and join him. 

“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.” (1 Corinthians 3:6-9)

I mean let's keep it real, God is a way better God then we will ever be. He is the author of it all. So often to bring souls to God, we forget that God is already living in them. They just don't know it yet. In The Tangible Kingdom, Hugh Halter and Matt Smay write that people need to feel like they belong before they believe. I believe this to be true.

Early on in my time in Middletown I would pass by a house with a huge grill. It intrigued me because the grill took up almost the entire porch. Every time I drove by I didn't see anybody. I told myself once I saw somebody there, I would stop and ask why they have such a big grill.

Finally, I had the opportunity when a man was standing out cleaning it and looked like he was preparing it to be used. I pulled into the driveway and asked him, "I've driven past your house multiple times and I chuckle every time I see that grill on your porch. Is your family really that big that you need that big of a grill? Do you have a business or something?" His response not only got me really excited but has inspired me. He began to tell me that once a week he grills for the entire neighborhood and they can bring side items if they wanted to share with their neighbors. It is very much a place where God is obvious. It is mission already happening. 

I asked him what other things they could use to encourage the neighborhood to continue these weekly meals. He asked me why I would want to help with that and I said, "Because it's a beautiful thing to see community being community. Communities need to come alongside that and encourage it and resource it as much as possible." Long story short, I was able to use ministry connections I had to connect resources to this man and they have yet to go without meat for that grill.

4. Love BIG but have zero hidden agenda. 

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

This number is really that simple.

5. Find fertile ground. 

“Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.” (Isaiah 58:12)

60% of the population will never step foot inside a church or church ground. With the rising percentage of millennials leaving church, none of us should be surprised by the next tip. Having events in your church and inviting the community rarely works. You might get people there for an event, but getting them to come back on a regular Sunday rarely happens. Don't take it personal and reference back to number 2. Often. Don’t be afraid to go and break ground or build what was otherwise forgotten. 

6. Go to where the people go.

That means parks, coffee shops, bars, and yes, even your front porch or yard. In Middletown, this means that we go to our parks.

In 2014, I got a wild hair and was inspired as I read about another community that did an outdoor movie night. It dawned on me that this would be a great way to engage the churches in the city and influence all who lived here with one weekly event. I also know the people that I do life with can't afford a whole lot, so it needed to be free. In order to have the resources to make it free, I needed to sell that concept to the church and the city. Not just one church, but all the churches.

After joining forces with a friend’s organization, we approached the city and they thought it was a great idea. This is our fourth year and we’re going strong. We have learned a lot in the last four years... and this past year has been our best year yet. We averaged 200 to 400 people, depending on the movie.

Movie Nights provide an environment for churches to come together and meet others on neutral ground with no hidden agendas. Local organizations, colleges, and churched are invited to provide games, activities and even free snacks. It's been beautiful to watch. We've been able to provide resources for families to get even more connected in our community. The local churches are meeting people where they already go.

7. Know God's order in life and ministry. 

“If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?” (1 Timothy 3:5) and “But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.” (1 Corinthians 14:40)

Jesus, marriage, family, then ministry and rest!!! Know how to keep a healthy balance. Bring friends around you that can keep you in check. Stay connected to a church family and body of believers that not only sees the need for mission in the community, but they see the call to join you there. For me, I focus on third spaces that are family friendly because my kids and family walk it out with me. We are a family on Mission. 

Really these seven steps are all about the space. The space you join God in is the space right out in front of you... Waiting for you to join God in missional adventure. What space could you be inspired to join? Go and be missional in the space God leads you!

Jeri Lewis is a practitioner and identified as a street pastor by the locals in her community. Her goals are to go to God's people and the darkest areas and share the love of God. She is a firm believer of the belonging then believing approach. She is the Community Development, Missions and Discipleship Director at Kingswell Seminary in Middletown, Ohio. 

Put Here For A Purpose

In the fall of 2013, I moved into a predominantly African American neighborhood in Rochester, NY. I had just gotten divorced and moved there with my two boys (ages 7 and 9). The following spring we were inundated with teenage boys who started playing basketball in our driveway. Not knowing how to stop them from coming when we weren’t around, I decided to get to know them. “Tell me your life story,” was my request. And they did. This led to shared meals, card games, cookie baking, applesauce making, Christmas dinner together, and even five of these teenage boys dressing up as shepherds and wise men for our church’s Christmas Eve service.

By spring of 2016, I was tired. The neighborhood was beginning to wear on me and my children. Our house had been broken into several times. My younger son was scared of the neighborhood and wanted to move. Gun violence had come too close for comfort. The loud music, the fights, the drugs, and the large groups of guys hanging out in front of our house were too much. One evening, I was sitting in the living room as chaos erupted outside. I decided I was done. I don’t have to do this anymore, I told myself. In fact, I can’t do this another year. I started looking for a house in the suburbs.

Right around this time, I began the Forge residency. Our learnings, action prompts, and journaling prompts were about context. I was challenged to consider that perhaps God had brought us to our neighborhood for a purpose; that it wasn’t a coincidence or simply because of cheap housing that we were here. The relationships I had been building for years mattered. I began again to look for simple opportunities to connect with people. I bought chairs for my front porch, instead of sitting out back all the time. Also, instead of hurrying inside after my daily runs, I stopped to talk with the neighbors.

Forge challenged me and equipped me to just demonstrate and proclaim the reign of God in my little neighborhood with those I was rubbing shoulders with. The Forge Residency also helped me to connect my actions with my faith when asked why I was doing certain things like - letting teenagers in my house, or helping someone move, making birthday cakes for the neighborhood kids. Through Forge I found language that felt sincere. For example, when I started sharing my car with my neighbor so she could get her grandson to school every day, I told her, “Life isn’t supposed to be hard for some and easy for others. There shouldn’t be barriers for your grandson to get to school. That’s not the world that God desires. Sharing my car is one tiny way to try to set things right.”

Forge gave me renewed passion for my neighborhood. Even though it’s hard at times, I have been profoundly changed by the relationships and experiences I’ve had here. Just as much as I want to bring value to the community, the community has also brought so much value to me. I will press on. Who knows what God will do next! 

- Chrissie Walls, Rochester, NY