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It has been a while since I wrote an update concerning Jessi and my church planting activities. In my last update I said that Jessi and I had decided that maybe there just wasn’t a need for a church plant in Medford and we should just look for a good church that shared our values and could use our help. We looked for a church that was missional, specifically a church that attempts to seek out those who are neglected. We wanted deep, meaningful spiritual and physical interaction, and interdependence on a regular basis. Finally, Jess and I wanted to be part of church that allows women to exercise the gifts God has given them.

We found a great church – actually two – Set Free and New Life. The way it works is there are two pastors, and two congregations that share a building and resources. They work together in many ways, and one of the pastors oversees everything. The church is Christ-centered and missional – they reach addicts, homeless people, mentally ill people, convicts, bikers (ones who have been in gangs and jail, not just people who own Harleys), people in poverty, young and old, black and white. One pastor is black, the other is white. The church respects the contribution of women to ministry. Jessi has more opportunities to get involved than she has time (or energy now that she’s pregnant). The church is small and works at building meaningful community. We’ve developed some good relationships. One of the people who attends the church was a roommate of mine in Portland, and we’ve become good friends. We encourage each other in our Christian walks, and we help each other out; he’s helped me a lot on my house.

The pastors are great, and I’m really impressed by their willingness to let Jessi and I get involved, even giving us leadership roles. They show no signs of being control-freaks. Though they’ve never even heard of being “missional”, the emerging church, centered sets vs. bounded sets, or any of the emerging church leaders (they might have heard of Brian McLaren), they have created a church that shares the values of the emerging church. Now, it isn’t a cool, or “relevant” church. They don’t serve Starbucks. They don’t have an internet forum – most of the people in the church don’t even have internet access. They don’t have an awesome worship band – the worship is basically karaoke. They aren’t really doing anything particularly innovative. But, I’m not talking about any of that when I say they share the values of the emerging church. For some reason some people seem to think being culturally savvy is what defines the emerging church. All those things, which are at times very nice and helpful, are not primary.

The head pastor of our church used to be a Seventh Day Adventist pastor. He left that church about ten years ago. Now his orthodoxy is about as generous as anyone’s could be, and he has established Set Free / New Life accordingly. The church has no doctrinal statement and no membership. The church is centered and focused on Christ and his gospel of grace; everything else is open for debate. And, you don’t even have to be a follower of Christ; everyone is welcome no matter what they believe, or where they are at in life. They don’t ask anyone to modify their behavior before they welcome them and accept them. They value openness and honesty. They value and seek to create community. They are missional; they aren’t waiting for people to come to them. They seek people out, and they strive to help people in need. Both pastors and many of the congregants are involved in social work.

We love our church new and are excited to help out. We are glad to have found it. Yet, it didn’t take long before the head pastor asked us if we would like to plant a church. He told us we could start our own congregation and use the facilities. He said he didn’t feel they were reaching enough young people – they do reach a lot of young people, but they are usually all addicts, or recovering addicts. Still, he recognizes there are many people he and the other pastor don’t know how to reach and he thinks Jessi and I can. It’s pretty amazing to me that once we gave up the idea of planting a church then we soon met someone who wants to help us plant one. The pastor also wants to work with me to accomplish many shared ideas we have for outreach – for example, an internet café.

Right now we are just helping to facilitate an adult Bible Study and we help on Sunday morning with the youth. I love teaching, preaching, and pastoring. This past year I’ve been learning a lot and growing in my understanding and my relationship with God. As I learn new things I can’t wait to share them with others. I’m already starting to dream of the type of church I’d like to help get started. I want to call it a post-Evangelical church – instead of say Baptist, Lutheran, or emerging. That doesn’t mean I’ve rejected Evangelicalism, if you want to know my thoughts on Evangelicalism I’ve written some past blog posts about why I am one. I just think Jessi and I and many other Christians have moved beyond being defined by the word Evangelical. I’ll write later about what I mean by post-Evangelical and about the ideas I have for the kind of church service I’d like to be a part of.

As of now Jessi and I have to wait for our daughter to be born and for things to settle down a little before we think about actually starting a new congregation, but I’m very excited about the possibilities that are before us.