This is not Church

Up to camp to spend a few days in silence in solitude, fasting (which made meal planning very simple), with my dog (for protection against the bears and mountain lions). Slept in a hammock on the Eastern slope of the hill so I could see the city at night and the sunrise woke me up. Gorgeous (even with the smoke).

What I did:

The first day, just committed to worship and prayer. I had so many thoughts, all the things I’ve been reading and studying this last year, all the prayer time towards 2020 vision, all the rich & hard PULSE conversations, all of that swirling around in my brain, and my instinct is to go straight for tactical and strategic and start writing and working… God said “be still… and know that I am God.” It was beautiful. And loud and clear, I knew that I need that, more and more in my life.

Tuesday I sat in the Scriptures. Most especially in every command in the New Testament, Jesus to the apostles, the apostles to the churches. I have a list, just about 500 of them. What did He major on, what did He say is most important. I think it was Tuesday I met Chris Angel. Wise old man in the forest. Not an actual angel, maybe, but he was a messenger of God to me on the archery range. He was a small group leader for Flat Irons and we talked about the way Corona is affecting their life and fellowship.

Wednesday I took the tarp off the porch. And you shouldn’t wait until you have been fasting for a few days to walk around on top of that thing, bending over with a drill. But I survived!

So much God hinted and nudged, so many times I whooped aloud, excited when He’d given me just the right word, or put pieces together in just the right away. Some things I am “psyched out of my mind about!”

In particular, I took this question up the mountain:

Who are we and what the heck are we doing here?

Are we the church God wants us to be? In that context what does it mean to be the church at all… and that isn’t a question that should be answered by us and our ideas… God has a whole lot to say on the matter.

Now these things don’t come out of a vacuum. I am not Moses on the mountain… we have been in conversation these last years. I have had good talks, sometimes heart-breaking talks with many of you… though we don’t all always agree it is amazing how many things and pieces God has been pulling together, affirming and confirming the same things in our hearts.

Things we have discussed as leaders in Advisory Board. Things we have discussed over coffees, teas and… other drinks in 1-1s. Things we have discussed in the PULSE team.

I am submitting the vision and direction of our church to the leaders and ultimately to the church body. I am in conversations with leaders about rolling that out, I will be walking through that vision in the coming weeks. I want to walk forward humbly, in submission as your pastor...

But I want to say this boldly as your pastor, as your spiritual leader: I believe God has given me clear direction for our immediate future: a vision of our immediate more preferable future: to replant and refocus. And I believe God has given us three specific areas to practice. Concrete action in these areas: loving one another, loving others outside our fellowship, and bold witnessing.

First: the hard.

Diagnosis Church

As your pastor, as your shepherd, it is my job to look out for the health and well-being of the sheeps God has given me. I am sinful and VERY imperfect so I don’t always do that well. But here was the burden on my heart, one that has been growing this last year, one that sent me up the mountain in a hurry… and confirmed in my time there.

It is my job as your pastor to judge the health of our church, and here is my “diagnosis”. Hard for me to think… harder for me to say:

Next Step Church Christian is dying. If we continue on our current trajectory, we will die as a church… and if we refuse to change, it will be a good thing that we die, that God may do something new and beautiful in its place.

It isn’t about the numbers, it isn’t about people leaving. Jesus fed the five thousand… and then said to count the cost and everyone went home except 12. What’s more relevant, God scattered the church in Jerusalem and it sent seeds to witness to the world. May God use the leaders trained here to multiply His Kingdom.

It is about our faithfulness to be the church.

Do we love one another like the church we read about in Acts? Bearing one another’s burdens, so famous for loving one another whole cities are talking about them and their unity? Or are we, still, hurting and hurtful. Divided and divisive. Focused on our differences and disagreements?

Do we serve Jesus in our midst? The least of these in our community - the widows and orphans, the beggars and homeless? Like Jesus did? Like the early church did? Is that a part of our DNA, part of our life or something some of us do, once a month, down in Denver? If we disappeared tomorrow, would our community notice? No.

Do we witness boldly to the name of Jesus? Are we making disciples? I think I read about that somewhere in Scripture. It isn’t that there is no fruit there, there is. I hope that most of us have a story in our back pocket somewhere. But on the whole, the fruit is few and far between. And I know my own lack of faithfulness in bold witness. I am convicted and I repent. Maybe you’re with me there.

One by one our externally focused ministries closed, all for good reasons at the time. But I had a hard wake-up call when my wife began coming to church. Woman loves Jesus and was looking to plug in. Okay, where are we serving the community, where is the gospel being preached and declared, where and how are we loving one another. And 90% of the time I had to give the worst answers: well… we used to. We used to serve in the school out back. We used to reach out in the community once a year at ThorntonFest. We used to...

And that was before Corona hit. You know that Corona made everything harder… but what else did it do.

It has stripped away our illusions. Nobody was in the “habit” of going to church anymore. And for some, that’s all it was.

It stripped away our “Jesus check box”. You can’t come to church just to “check the Jesus box” for the week. That isn’t how this works! That isn’t how any of this works!

It has called into question every aspect of how we “do church”, our service, our fellowship, our processes, our building.

It has given us a great gift in that way, to see clearly “What and who are we when we strip away the service, the forms, the habits and the rituals.”

Who are we and what the heck are we doing here?

But who cares what I say. Ultimately we care what God says. And this was the greatest blessing of my time up at camp. Navel gazing is of limited benefit, Amen? What does the Scripture say about who we are and what we should be doing. Lots of that to come. First and foremost:

What is Church?

In a sense, we have watched the birth of the Christian Church through Acts. In all of its messiness, making it up sometimes as they went along, but the Spirit expanding and multiplying, equipping and empowering, we see the Church unfold, the Kingdom of God expanding.

Acts 2:42–47 ESV

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Remember that? It isn’t about imitating what they did, mimicking the outward actions.

Are we worshipping like they worshipped?

But do we love like they loved?

Are we serving like they served?

Are we witnessing boldly the name of Jesus?

It isn’t about imitating what they did. Who are they?

Who are these people? There’s a word they start to use to describe these people… not “Christian” which the outsiders start calling them in Antioch, that’s good, but another word that starts here in Acts 9.

Acts 9:31 ESV

So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.

Who or what is this “church” we’ve been reading about all through Acts?

Ekklesia. The “called out”. The assembly. Congregation of the faithful.

“Kaleo” means “HEY YOU!” Ek means “out of”. So I call you all, “Hey, you all, come out here!”

1 Peter 2:9–10 ESV

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

See that “called out”? Same root word, not lost on his readers, I guarantee you. Who “called you out”… who “churched you, churchy people you”.

That’s you! That’s us! Yes, it is the “Church” universal, but this same language is used of every “church” local as well.

Yoohoo! You, the church, the called out, what are you called out to be? A chosen race, a priesthood, a nation, that is His, God’s people, by His mercy. Elsewhere, the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, the Kingdom of God...

This Isn’t Church

“Church” is not somewhere we go or something we do. It is something we are… it is who we are.

You may say “I knew that.” And you probably did.

But you don’t act that way most of the time. You don’t talk that way most of the time.

Oh, I missed church this week. Will I see you at church next week? Oh, the church is leaking...

We reduce church to a building, and not just that, a building Saturday mornings at 11. How small is that. That isn’t “church”. This isn’t “church.”

That isn’t to say that what we do here in worship isn’t good, that sermons aren’t good, that Sabbath morning service isn’t good, that having a building can’t be good.... but it isn’t church.

And though we may “know” that… I think the way we talk reflects and affects what we really think and feel.

Why does that matter?

Because if “church” is a what, or a place, or a certain way of doing things… then we can be done. I am discontent with that. I believe God has made me discontent with church if it’s a place we go, a thing we do… and if we do it without divine love for one another, without love-that-serves the needy, and without witness that requires boldness and faith and even suffering to accomplish.

But church isn’t a “what”… it is “us”.

And I love you people!

I love loving Jesus with you. I want to grow in that.

I love serving alongside you… I want to do more of that, and to step out in faith in who we love and how we love them!

I want to share the joy with you of welcoming people into the Kingdom of God. And to be so sold out on that mission: to be and to make disciples of Jesus that we simply aren’t content with any lesser thing.

I loved hearing from Serena this morning. Her testimony of a life rescued and a life saved. YES! That, and that a hundred times over. That is what we are about, that is who we are, I want more of that!!!

I got this card from Abby Sparks, a Thank You to me and to the church for supporting her in using the camp for her wedding. She said some other stuff… and then she said this “It’s because of Next Step that I know Jesus.”

THAT! Yes! That is what we are about.

That’s what it’s all about. I want more of that.

Replant - Refocus -Revive

I met Rich. Rich lives next door to camp, down below wedding point. He has been hiking the property for 30 years and never met anyone from the church before. He told me “that big tree blew down!”

“What big tree?”

“The big tree”. and then, it was bizarre, he gave me directions, and it was so weird to hear such clear directions from a stranger, this guy knew the property better than I did and it freaked me out.

“So, if you’re going down to the South meadow, you know where this fire trail ends, and you swing up towards Geneva point… and there’s that smaller trail that leads back up towards the fire trail again? There’s an outcropping of rock just to the North of that and a valley on the other side, just down that slope is the fallen tree.”

I followed his directions, and had to search a bit because I missed the right “outcropping of rock” at first… but I found it. And I had no idea something that big was there.

Huge beautiful tree. Roots ripped up and out of the ground. But there is life there.

I saw this over and over again. That whole side of the mountain was burned in the fire, and you see trees that look dead and awful and done… and now you see new life growing right out of the burn.

Who are we and what are we doing here? What does it mean to be the "church", the "called out"... and are we living up to that?

Let's take the opportunity Corona has given us and God has called us to. Repent of settling for less and getting distracted by and caught up in lesser things.

We serve a God of Resurrection.

A God of Revival and Restoration.

He is not content that we should be content or satisfied with any cheap substitute.

I hear God’s words to the church in Sardis

Revelation 3:1–2 ESV

“And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. “ ‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.

God isn’t done with us, our works are not yet complete.

More to come, so much more to come. I’ll be sharing for weeks to come, and we will be walking into some new things together.

The heart of it is this:

Let's be "called out", disciples of Jesus, covenanted together to love God and love others, inside and outside the fellowship, by the Spirit of God, in sacrifice, submission and trust. Let’s be on mission: to encourage and equip one another to take the next bold step in being and making disciples of Jesus.

God isn’t done with us. Our works are not complete.

He is calling us to love one another radically, the supernatural love of disciples of Jesus for one another, to restore that among us, through intimate fellowship and communion. We are going to teach that and practice that together in the coming weeks.

He is calling us to serve the least of these, knocking on our front door, to love the homeless who are coming to us as if they were Jesus himself showing up on our front door. We are going to do that starting now and continuing through 2020.

He is calling us to witness boldly. It’s time to go old school, to actually speak the name of Jesus, the story He has written on our hearts, to friend and stranger alike. We are going to do that, actually do that, starting now and through the rest of 2020.

We will be unpacking that in the coming week, to be continued next week. But God is not done with His church. God is not done with this church. I believe He is calling us to Replant, Refocus… and there is Revival coming.

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