Prayer Update: Permission to be Yourself

Hello friends!
I hope you enjoyed a great weekend. Here's an update on how things are going.

1. June 6th - Sending Out - Some local pastors will be present to send me, and a few of our community off to start this new church. I see this as the start of the start. It is where local pastors commission us to be a church. This is very important to me as I've said before. This gathering will be ultra simplistic and casual time together. If you are around you are welcome to come. Pray that it goes smoothly.

2. I've been encouraged recently by several of you who have written me notes of encouragement. They are appreciated and welcome. I want to briefly tell you about a couple interesting conversations I've had in the past few weeks.

First conversation:
I want to share a snapshot of a situation where someone was considering no longer being a part of our group. His comment was, "I'm not sure you know what you are doing." To which I affirmed with a smile, "I don't know what I'm doing! I've said this all a long. I've never started a church like this before." I'm not sure that was helpful to him, but it was honest.

I can see right away the pressure many people put on pastors to have it all together. this kind of behavior or need from the pastor or the person with the expectation is not healthy. It either leads the pastor to fake it, or try to please everyone.

Second conversation:
Over dinner my friend said, "The hole in the ceiling of your living room gives me hope." (Our shower in the upstairs master bath developed a leak several months ago and I gutted the bathroom, and there is a hole in our ceiling below the shower in our living room) But how can a hole in a ceiling give hope? It doesn't feel hopeful to me, and Pam is more embarrassed by it than I am. Our friend went on to talk about how it showed her we weren't perfect, and that we don't have to be. Her comment brought me hope too. That my deficiencies and inadequacies as a leader are ok to show. What my friend was giving me, was a gift most pastor's don't often receive. The gift: Permission to be myself. This is what I hope for our community as well.

Third Conversation:
My buddy and I were having lunch with Mikayla last week. I told him of this quote from the first conversation, "I don't think you know what you are doing." and he stopped. He stopped joking and got real serious and looked me in the eye and he said. "If you knew what you were doing, I'd want out. " He knows we have a plan, he knows we have very specific hopes about what the church will become, but he went on to explain to me that he was not looking for a "polished" church where everything, and everyone has it all together. He was in this to be the church, not play church. He also tells me that God gives us our weaknesses, not so we can irradicate them, but so that we need God, community and so that we can use our strengths. It is in community that we can be who we really are and the community can love and accept other who are different from us, who don't have it together, and who are learning to be committed to following Christ in this kind of messiness.

I tell you these stories because I want you to know that God is working in our group. More and more folks are getting what it means for us to be a church and are "all in" so to speak. Your prayers are a part of how God is building this church. People are being affirmed, transformed and we are greatful to God for his work in our community.

There are so many other things that I want to pass on, but don't have time...

more soon.

don't go to church... be the church: Part 2

Most of the people I run into who ask, "Where will your church be?" would agree with me that the church is the people, at least in some kind of belief. Most churches believe this too. However functionally, I'd argue that most churches do not really believe this, or at least live this in their day to day lives. At best, the way many of these institutions function interferes or misleads people in that the institution is sustainable outside of the people. When this happens, the tail often wags the dog. People are still involved, but their involvement shifts.
People in these organizations may see themselves as missional, because they write checks for a few others to go on their behalf, or for a staff person to live out the church calling. It is not uncommon for marketing to take the place of personal responsibility to invite new people, missions because a yearly event rather than a lifestyle, etc.


In this culture, you can complain about your church without indicting yourself. If a church doesn't meet your needs, then leave and find one that does. Church shopping is not a biblical idea. It's a western consumer idea.

When an institution is responsible for the behavior of being the church, then it lets people off the hook.

Put another way. When the church is an institution:
- I can complain about anything I want, because none of it is my responsibility.
- I can functionally separate how I live my life and what the church does.
- Spiritual growth becomes "private" which unintentionally reinforces a separation between the community members.
- My needs become paramount often simply because I don't know other peoples needs.
- Power is taken from the people to live the fullness of following Christ. This is unintentional and often clashes with stated goals, but whenever the hub of new activity comes from the institution, power has been removed.

But there is another way to live and be. Most churches would agree with what comes next theologically, but functionally their system keep it from happening.

Being the church means that:
- in-as-much as you feed the hungry, the church feeds the hungry.
- in-as-much as you comfort the grieving, the church comforts.
- in-as-much as you welcome, restore, honor, engage, love others, the church does.
- In as much as you minister to children, youth, single moms, and other, the church does.
- In as much as you go, or give, or believe, the church believes.

the church is not simply somewhere out there, it is us, now and how we live.

The church is the people committed to arranging the world the way Jesus would have it.

eikon seeks to be organized into ways that empower people to be the church functionally.

more soon.

don't go to church... be the church: Part 1

Word's getting out that a new church is starting here in Tulsa. When people hear about it they generally have a few questions.

There is one particular question that almost* every person starts with.

"Where will it be?"

All of these people live in the Tulsa area. Most of them are a part of a local church.
and they ask "Where will it be?"



Such an interesting question! I know what they are asking and it shows a flaw in our fundamental identity as people who follow God. The folks who ask "Where will it be?" are wondering where our building will be. Where our ministry will take place. Where worship will take place. Where community will take place. Where "the magic happens", as one friend put it.

These are good people. Very good people actually. But the way they talk about the church, and/or themselves is flawed.

I've been guilty of this kind of talk. and occassionally still fall into it.

Have you ever said, "I'm going to church"? To say this, is a theologically incorrect statement. The Bible never talks about church as a place, or location. Church is a new testament idea, and the new testament never refers to a location as "church". The church is the people. We are the church. The church isn't something you attend, it is something you are.

So let's go back to the question everyone keeps asking.
"Where will your new church be?"

My response. "Everywhere." or "All over Tulsa."

Where ever our people are, that's where the church is. This is not some kind of word game for us. Our primary connecting points for the will be homes, coffee shops and where life happens. Where the church (people) will be who God called them to be.

Don't get me wrong, one day we will have a building, and we will meet in homes, but eikon's structure for our we gather is turned upside down.

More later...







*(I say almost because, though I can't remember a single person asking something else first, I'm giving my memory the benefit of the doubt.)

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