Being the Church... and going to one too.

There's a guy I know who moved his whole family to New York for the express purpose of living intentional missional lives. He was a denominational leader in the denomination that my church is a part of, and he tells about how he and his wife just started feeling called to go live in New York city. It's really an amazing story, and you can check out what he's doing here.

In an e-mail exchange, he made reference to "being the church while attending one (sometimes)" and I really liked that. At River City, I'm unapologetically the "small group zealot." It really worked out that I get to go do that every day and get paid for it, because it's what I'd gladly do for nothing (but don't tell my boss). I was far away from God and the church when I discovered community and I realized the power it has - power to destroy if it's focused on something essentially life taking, power to restore if it's focused on something live giving - but power none the less.

The reason I liked his comments about being the church while going to one (which he may or may not have borrowed from George Barna's book Revolution) is because it fundamentally taps into a conviction that I haven't necessarily communicated as well as I wish. The "mechanism" for community at River City Community Church is small groups. The primary way people find their way into a small group is through attending a River City worship gathering or event... I wonder what would change if the direction of those arrows were reversed... what if a primary way people discovered a River City worship gathering was through a small group?

That's what really captures my imagination and makes my palms sweat...

• There are about 50 Life Groups (intentional discipleship small group) at RCCC.


• There are about 20 Activity Groups (less frequent, event related gatherings)


• There are atleast as many Service Groups (ministry specific communities).


• There are probably close to 700 people in groups at RCCC (guestimate).


• Each person in each group lives in a neighborhood.


• Each neighborhood represented is filled with people whose lives are falling apart or are simply wrestling with the reality of insignificance. There are those who are going through divorces, having affairs, abusing their children, and countless other activities that simply fall short of the abundance that God wants to offer.

What if 700 people got freaked out about their neighborhoods? Not the scared, go into isolation type of freaked out, but the standing on a hilltop weeping for the hurts below type of freaked out. What if small groups decided that it was intolerable that the people around them would live without the type of life-giving community while they gathered within ear-shot?

Bill Hybels wrote a book called Holy Discontent. It's not the kind of book that's going to bend your brain, but it is the kind of book that should inspire you to get off the couch and do something. The thing I realized as I read this book is that my Holy Discontent is two-fold, 1)people living in isolation, and 2) people who aren't living in isolation not caring about people who are.

So that's my rant for today. Go check out Jeff & Christina Getz's site, go pick up Barna's book or Hybel's book or better still, find a group of people that you can gather with on a regular basis who will make you better and who will ask you to make them better. When you find those people, pray for God to expand it, then go looking for who He's sending and invite them. When you do that, Church stops being a place and starts being a living breathing life giving thing, infused with the power and life of God Himself. Who could say no to that?

A River Ran Through It

The urban gave way to the pine forest at a spot called the grotto. In the distance the 10:00 mass echoed through the thickett. Just across the street, invisible from even the nearest edge were laundromat's and coffee shops and liquor stores vying for the time and attention of passers by and drivers through.

The grotto didn't cry out, unless you were listening for the silent spot among the roar. All along the path, the stations of the cross juxtaposed the sorrow and the joy that marked the life of Christ, going all the way back to his Annunciation. It was hard to imagine much sorrow walking through the Grotto.

There is a section there called "The Peace Garden," with a river/brook and several ponds intended to remind visitors of the waters of baptism, the sacred waters that cleanse us and symbolize the hope of forgiveness. So close to a flow like the Colombia River, I also thought of the one out of whom Christ would make flow Rivers of Living Water.

It was one of those moments with the air of eternity. The colors seemed more vivid, the air more crisp, the scents more alive than in other places. I've been lucky enough to encounter a few of those moments. Once when I was 12 in Washington D.C. Another in the Austrian Alps, and then today, sitting on a hewn wooden bench in the Peace Garden.

"...when Peace like a river attendeth my way... it is well with my soul..."

A rose (city) by any other name...

I flew into Portland yesterday on my expectations, it seems. I have been looking forward to this trip for a long time. In many ways I think it seemed like the payoff for all my years of pining away for the Pacific Northwest. It's almost like the final redemption of the story my life was in before. I don't think I could have handled leaving Portland 8 years ago. For every co-dependent needy reason you can think of, if I had come here and had to leave it would have been devastating.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking forward to leaving. I'm a big believer in "place" and "space" and "location" and there have been enough places and spaces and locations that just felt right the first time I encountereed them. I believe some heart places may even be intrinsic, drawing us from the heart even before we've ever been there. When we finally get to those places, it feels like a visit to a place from our early childhood. There almost seem to be memories in places we've never been and a familiarity on streets we've never walked.

I wonder if Heaven will be like that. I wonder if when we get there, it will seem like we've finally come back to the place we always should have been. I think heaven for me is going to be in one of the mountainous places, close to the ocean and pinned behind a mountain range so the moisture doesn't dissipate and the place stays green and temperate year round. I definitely think heaven will be like that.

Bullets don't kill people, puma's kill people. Always watch out for pumas.

There is a point of no-return for my blogging. I go so long without saying anything, that I get locked up trying to say everything that I haven't said since the last post. I'm such a brain-twisted animal, but I know who I am and I sleep good at night, so that's alright.



So here's the readers digest version, bullet pointed for easy reading (I'm in this for you!), of where I've been. Comment as you like, tell me what you think, help me stay on task. When you respond, it keeps me thinking. This is a symbiotic relationship here. You..... complete....... me. I know you're touched.

• I've been sick for over a week now. Nothing makes you appreciate health like sickness. Today I feel much better, and I think I'm going to stop by Whole Foods or Sun Harvest and check into the all natural supplementation. I've realized a few things... 1) I eat like crap all the time. 2) I NEVER take any sort of vitamin ever, under any circumstances. 3) I don't exercise. Well, I exercise slightly more often than I take vitamins. But only slightly. and 4) I don't go to bed early enough. All of that is a concoction for unhealth. Throw into the mix that I am now 6 months into my three oh's and I'm starting to think that it really may be time to start taking care of this old tent.

• Natalie and I are going to Portland on Friday. I've never been to the Pacific Northwest, but I've always wanted to. I've got this sneaking suspicion that somewhere up there may just be where my hearts home is. Natalie's worried that I won't come back. I assure here that I'm 74% positive that I'm going to come back to Texas atleast long enough to get all my things. It's funny that I have such a love for a place I've never been before. It's the remnant of the hippie ethic still living and breathing in my soul. Someone I know who used to be in Portland once said, "you can only look at pretty trees for so long." I'm not so sure.

• Life is good. I've been pretty aware lately of all the really cool things that are in my life. I think I have a tendency to be somewhat pessimistic. Maybe cynical is a better word. I have to admit lately though, I just have this sense that whatever comes, whatever happens, however it all shakes out, I've got it pretty good and I'm really thankful to God for what He's done and given me. I need to live in light of that and make it more of a habit to remember more often. Remembering is a discipline, but it's important. Vital even, to being the right kind of person.

• Friendships make the world go 'round. Not literally. That's centrifugal force (centripedal? any Physicists out there?). But along with the life is good thing, I realize that I've been given a great hands when it comes to the friends in my life. I don't get to see all of them as often as I should, but I appreciate that there's never a begrudging guilt trip or manipulation game when our paths finally do cross. We just pick up where we left off. My friends challenge me to dream big dreams, have big thoughts, and just generally want to be a big person... but the good kind of big. Not the fat kind of big that I'm increasingly finding a propensity toward. It wasn't always like this. Again, I attribute it to the three oh's.

• Here's an Interesting Christmas Idea. Go here and see what you think. I learned about it from reading this blog from a guy whose a pastor at the church who started this last year. What do you think? What would the implications be if ten's of thousands of Christians across America undertook a project like this (at the site, click on the "read more" link at the bottom, and that will open up a window which will then have a link to a .pdf file that gives more details and vision)? What would the implications be for YOU if you undertook something like this? Who would understand? Who wouldn't? How would they respond? How does that make you feel?

Overall, things are good. Thanks for being a part of what's going on in my life, even if we've never met and you just stumbled upon this blog for the first time today. I hope you've enjoyed your stay, and I hope you come back again. Find a way to get involved. Make a difference. Be engaged.

Beauty close by

Driving to my parents house from the west, you have to drive by this piece of property, probably 100 acres of undeveloped "ranch land." I put the quotes because I've never really seen more than 10 or 15 cows, and most of the property is in a flood plain. I don't know how useable it is for grazing or raising cows or sheep or other livestock, but that 100 acre plot is one of my favorite places in the world.

When my parents built their house in their suburban neighborhood 7 years ago, it was on the growing edge of northeast San Antonio. It was well within the city, accessible to major freeways and all of that, but still separate enough to feel like you weren't in the middle of town. Since then, the area has exploded with shopping centers and gas stations and more track housing than ought to be legal. Except for those 100 acres.

One corner of the property in particular will probably always be one of those memory sweet spots that lives forever in my mind. It's on a gentle rise, so it fills the horizon as you drive past it. Every spring the landscape progresses from blues to yellows to whites with little spots and speckles of reds and orange when the wildflowers bloom in succession. It seems like a piece of Montana, transplanted close by so that I can either stoke my longing for the wilderness or at least continue to believe that I'm a mountain man in my heart.

I'm grateful for the little reminders that even as things drive forward and grow skyward, there is still hope for open spaces and natural beauty. Someday the owner of that property will pass on, and that wonderful piece of property will pass into the hands of someone else. I hope they love it as much as I do. Or I hope that I have enough money to buy 100 acres of woods in the middle of suburban San Antonio.

Speaking the Truth in Love: rightness to the core

When Paul tells his Ephesian listeners that it's time to move from spiritual infancy to spiritual adulthood, he challenges them to the highest level of "rightness."

"Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ." Ephesians 4:15

By speaking the truth in love, we grow up. By not speaking the truth in love, we don't grow up. It's easy for me to see the truth. I'm just wired that way. I can smell the crap a mile away and cut through it quickly. I struggle with the love part. Not the friendship or the respect, but the kind of love that softens the sharpness of tone that the truth can sometimes wield. The truth hurts because usually the time someone needs to hear truth the most is when they're living blindly oblivious to it.

After our small group tonight I had to have a hard conversation with a couple that I've known for almost 2 years. The guy called the church one day and got me on the phone and we talked for over an hour about the hard times he was facing. He and his fiancee at the time came to our group a few weeks later and they've been faithful ever since. They're married now and have a hard marriage. They both bring baggage from previous marriages and hard life issues, and they have a hard time unpacking it.

Before I went to group, I prayed that God would guide my words tonight. We were talking about the role of men and women in marriage, and the couple's baggage was there in the room again, and I felt like I should address it with them. It was a hard conversation before it ever began. How do you gently reveal blindspots? How do you help someone see something that's glaring to everyone else, but blissfully dark to them?

So we went outside and had the conversation in private. I talked with Natalie afterward and I think that what I said to them was truth.

I'm not sure that what I said to them was said with love.

I believe in hard conversations. I think the Church is weakened when we shy away from helping others see the things that are killing them. But tonight I realized, again, why the love part is so important. Without love, words are clanging cymbals; obnoxious noise and meaningless syllables strung together. My friends may have heard truthful words tonight, but I don't know that those words will ever find their place. Love makes the hard truth land gently, so it grows.

Truth is easy to spot, and pointing it out is a cheap gift. Speaking the truth in love is the measure of maturity because it means that the truth spoken is for the benefit of the other party, not simply for the benefit of being right. On some level, my heart was and is to see my friends have a better marriage than they can imagine. But I fear that the truth destroyed tonight, rather than building up.

Personally, this is a lesson hard learned. I've made this mistake before, even recently to much the same result as this time. Culturally, I think this is a balance that I want the Church to wrestle with more publicly and honestly. Like I said before, I think the Church needs to have the hard conversations with the culture, and I think we need to have the hard conversations with ourselves. But the greatest command is not to tell truth. The greatest command is to love. The lines are blurry, because love expects the best and has an obligation to the loved one to help them realize the best. But I've seen the truth spoken in love, and I've seen the miraculous results it brings.

I hope I have the opportunity to make it up to my friends. I hope I have the opportunity to speak love into their lives. I hope that as they see that love, they hear the truth as well.

It's wet again: When the north moves down and the west moves over

For the time being, while our offices are under construction, my desk is situated next to an ancient looking white bordered window carved into a red wall. My new office won't have an outside window (or any window at all) so I'm soaking in all the sights and sounds I can while I've got it.

My window looks out over the deck of River City's youth building. Surrounded by oaks and laurels and mulch filled beds of greens and colors bordering the asphalt slab filled to capacity on Sunday's by cars and bikes and scuttling feet, my perspective affords me a view of the corner of the patio cover and the trees beyond. On a day like today, when the downpours range from non-existent to torrential I realize how much I enjoy grey days.

I've always thought that I'd love to live in the Pacific Northwest. Several years ago I was within days of moving up to live with several friends who had relocated there. I couldn't scrounge up the airfare/gas money to get there, and soon enough I abandoned the thought. It all worked out perfectly. Had I moved there, I would have missed all the things that have rolled my way since then. I don't think of it as an opportunity lost, I think of it more like a road not taken.

So when the grey days roll down I start to wonder if I could have taken the Northwestern greyness. Whenever a few rain days are strung together I wait to see if the blues roll in. They never do. I just don't mind the rain. Honestly I wish it would rain more often.

Part of me wonders recently if the moments spent looking out the window and thinking of places far away is the rearing up of the wanderer in me. I've never been in a state of homeostasis for this long. It seems I've got restlessness in the deepest parts of me. Maybe it's (relative) youth, maybe it's laziness, or maybe it's something different that defies labels. It just seems that when I sit still for too long, I start to twitch.

So here's to rainy days and being where you are at the present moment. Billy Joel says, "the good ol' days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems." In between both of the hypothetical yesterday's and tomorrow's is right now. It's all you've got. Make it sweet.

A Toast to Being Poured Out: the optimism of half emptiness

I started reading Augustines Confessions. Mostly because it's a classic and I think there's great value in reading books that have been continually published for 1500 years. As much as I"m intrigued and excited at the prospect of tackling a book like this, I fear that there's part of me that's hoping this will be the silver bullet that slays the dragon of emptiness. But all the while there's this sneaking knowledge that there's no shortcut to true fullness. You can't hurry it. Sometimes when I'm in a hurry to make a bottle for Jackson (usually in the wee hours of the morning) I turn the faucet on full blast and let the water jet into the bottle. Typically what I find when I pull the bottle away is that it's mostly just bubbles, and I have to go back for a second round. The bottle's not full because I didn't let it fill properly.

Those are the little lessons in life that will sneak by if you're not watching for them. I think it's the very process of learning how to slow down and see them that makes fullness happen. I won't be filled instantlyby reading a book, by saying the right prayer, or by doing the good deeds that pop into my head. I can only hope to be filled bit by bit as I learn to take life as it comes. And it comes slowly, and it fills slowly.

The other thing about being filled, is that I'm not starting from empty. I think if I were simply an empty vessel, I'd recognize the little increases and be satisfied. I think more frustrating is the process of unfilling, because that can't be done hastily either. I've got 30 years of habits and reactions to contend with, each one needing to systematically and intentionally unlearned. My frustrations aren't so much that I can't pray for 5 hours at a time or fast for weeks on end, my frustration is that I can't control my temper or manage my money as well as I'd like. The unlearning is the hardest part.

Jesus said that people don't pour new wine into old bottles because the old bottles would break and you'd lose all the wine (He said wineskins, but I don't have any wineskins). You have to get a new bottle for the new wine. This new life that He has for me can't just be superimposed on my old lifestyle. The venerable Chris Coggins used to say "if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got."

So I raise my glass to the process of unlearning. May we enjoy the moments as our empty glasses become full again.