This week

This is a big week. Jonah "graduates" from preschool. I didn't want to asociate the "G" word with my kids for at least another 13 years. It is a milestone to enter Kindergarten, though. He has assessments for Kindergarten on Thursday. Cherie is attending Music Together Directors weekend in Princeton, NJ this weekend. I am taking the three boys to the zoo on Saturday. Thank God for Grammy!

This afternoon I will be meeting with Rodney and two young adult Christians who are interested in more intentional networking, learning, and encouragement among peers. I think initially we are exploring the development of an unaffiliated small group or a coffee house church. I also hope to develop a pub church in the Fall/Winter of 2009-2010. I believe there is real interest for real conversation and real community among some of my gen x peers who are refugees from mainline churches. I wonder who else we might invite or encourage. I know some yuonger people who are home from college. I wonder if Jay might get connected to this group too. I sense that these smaller movements among smaller peer groups is the future of missional, apostolic ministry. It will take time to bring these smaller groups together to form a congregation. House churches will likely develop first. This would be a different way of congregational development for Lutherans. That is, if we were developing something uniquely Lutheran. But I might suggest that any organic development of a missional community would seek to embrace a variety of Christian denominational attributes without necessarily conforming to one particular tribe. We know that tribal groups, especially mainliners, continue to decline in adherents. Perhaps its time for us to find ways to concede to that spiritual movement and go with it, to the affect that Lutheran Christian ID needs to be a part of something new but not an exclusive aspect of who we are. What I mean is, if being Lutheran is an obstacle or deterrent to creating Christ-centered missional community than we need to reorient our identities to change that. At a micro level, spiritual formation with peers is an important aspect of apostolic ministry that occurs outside of traditional modes like Sunday School. Conversational formation through informal interaction seems to work. So we'll see.

Tonight I will be in Harrisburg for the quarterly LAMPA policy council meeting. I am a member of the council since January. If you want to read about LAMPa and what it means for Lutherans to advocate for justice, go to the LAMPA website or click on the link the ELCA Advovacy on the links sidebar.

Tomorrow is Lutheran Day at the Capital in Harrisburg. It is an annual day in which PA Lutherans engage in advocacy with members of the general assembly. We want to make our collective voices heard as we seek to encourage laws and legislation and budgets that reflect values consistent with biblical justice. Again, the ELCA's Advocacy website is a great place to start. Another place to start is the National Council of churches justice website.

On Thursday, I hope to meet with two of the newly connected families at Zion to talk about belonging, baptism, believing and becoming. What DNA are we hoping to replicate? Not old member church DNA that makes it easy for people to come and go and do as they please wth respect to their faith expression. We want to create an inclusive, open access community of hospitality and welcome that invites people to a process of spiritual formation and faithful practice toward maturity as followers of Jesus. Church growth begins with maturation and leads to multiplication. Maturation is an action/reflection process. You see others in the community practicing their faith. You seek to belong by becoming part of that movemement. You learn by becoming an obedient hearer of the Word. You pray. You get reoriented as a Kingdom person. You become a doer of the Word and not just a hearer of it. You begin to recognize the spiritual gifts God has given you and you begin to use them to serve others. You practice. You take small steps. You try. You experiment.
By joining a learning group, rooted in God's Word and in prayer, you begin to let God reshape your heart and mind. We need to create more small group opportunities at Zion for formation and fellowship. Sunday morning is not enough. I think we need household-based share groups. But they need to develop organically as a natural expression of who we are becoming. That means that Cherie and I need to initiate a share group in our house. Maybe we could initiate one and see where it leads.
So that's the week. Not to mention the full schedule of evening meetings, none of which I will participat in for the entire time. Our household requires my attention at bedtime, especially this week in prep for Cherie's weekend absense.