The following is a post from my MySpace.com... way back in October of 2005. It's an interesting bit of history. If you can look past some of the sillyness, you can see the beginnings of the dream that has lead us here, now.
I think I’m going to start a church. Yes, a church from scratch. Not my great grandma’s recipe, but something fresh out of the oven. Crazy huh?
The idea to start a church came out of left field (for you non-baseball fans, that means it came unexpectedly and from an unexpected place). I was at Starbuck’s one fine August morning drinking a cup of Joe (The word Joe is used for everything) with the pastor of the church I go to, (Clovis Hills Community Church) when all of a sudden he asked me if I’ve ever thought of starting a church.
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Then Steve (that’s the pastor I’m drinking Joe with – this could get confusing because I'm Joe, too) told me that I should pray about starting a brand new church and he told me that he thought I had the skill-set to do it.
Well, from that moment on, I’ve prayed about it, read books about it, night-dreamed
about it, day-dreamed about it, talked about it… I’ve even joined a Coaching group for Church Planters down in Southern California. Sarah and I also had a paid professional come to do an assessment of us… he assessed whether or not we had the abilities and giftings to start a church.
So, we definitely MIGHT do it. Definitely. Maybe. Probably.
I dream of a place where there’s room for the doubts that people have… where it’s ok to be in process… where we value dialogue - all stages of the journey together.
I dream of a place where we loose the need to pretend… where even the leaders can be insecure about things… “no perfect people allowed” should be posted outside… where people don’t put on a churchy-face… they just wear the one they woke up with.
I’m dreaming of a place where people can come as they are… where maybe we teach our leaders and congregation to give up trying to fix people… it’s not our job, it’s God’s. I want a culture of acceptance.
There’s more to the dream… wholeness, growth, healing, family, connecting, and truth… don’t even get me started.
That’s it. No ‘big announcement’ from Joe and Sarah, yet. I just thought I’d share what we are up to right now.
What do you think? Would you come to my church? What is missing from our churches in general that you would put into a new church if you had the chance? Let me know your
thoughts.
---joe
1 comments:
Here are some responses to the original post on myspace... reprinted without permission, of course.
New Zealand: i want to be a part of your church... can you continue to post blogs when you're a "minister"... maybe your sermons could be blogs and then I could kindof be going to your church by reading them. love you brother (not brother in the christian sense... brother in the real sense, but of course I love you in the christian sense too, but i love you even more in the REAL sense!)
Fresno: I think it's great that you both are thinking of starting a church! I know for a while now there seems to be an abundance of us that really need to see a new church formed. The give and take in finding a church gets so frustrating, and well seemingly endless. But to know that people like yourselves might want to take Jesus to the real world in a real way is, to say the least, a great hope builder! I'm here for you in prayer for sure. If there is anything you guys need please call or email -I'd be happy to help!
"The" O.C.: If i werent here, I'd so be there
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