I've mentioned earlier about the name controversy for CTK. It was difficult for some of the members at CTK Lutheran church to embrace the idea of a CTK Community church moving into Durango. I got calls from several people--my favorite was a woman who said it was a fire hazard to have two churches with the same name because the fire department might not know which place to go to in an emergency.
I called and left a message with the pastor of CTK Lutheran asking if he would be willing to meet with me sometime. Long story short, I went in this week and sat down with Pastor John. The man I met could quite possibly be one of the most gracious and authentic people I have ever met. He was not only supportive of our endeavor, but affirming of our calling and quite willing to share the name. I was impressed with his heart and focus in Durango and imagine that he will be a real resource to us as we begin our work here.
I want to thank those of you who were praying about this specific situation. I am pleased and humbled to see that a situation I thought would be characterized by fear and a "scarcity" mentality was met with grace and generosity. Sometimes I am overwhelmed with God's capacity to do things in ways I could never imagine--especially since, in the words of Han Solo, "I can imagine quite a bit".
Friday, September 15, 2006
Saturday, September 09, 2006
One person showed up--so, why am I smiling?
I had lunch with Dave Browning, the founder of CTK who is visiting us. We had a conversation about perspective and attitude when it comes to ministry. One way of leading in ministry is to hedge your bets. In this leadership method, you try to anticipate the story God is developing and smooth the road as much as possible by forseeing every contingency or potential interruption and dealing with it ahead of time. I come from a bet-hedging background. I feel immense pressure to anticipate problems and deal with them before they ever become an issue. My natural tendancy is to deal with things as they come--unfortunately I've become convinced that that is the wrong and borderline lazy way of doing business.
Dave and I talked about approaching things differently--his point was that maybe we should allow God's story to unfold as we participate and respond as opposed to trying to "steer" history toward what we guess God is doing. I found this conversation profoundly fascinating and curiously validating. Not only was it validating, but a concept-come-to-life within hours.
I talked to Vi on the phone about a week ago. She was the one person who answered our CTK ad in the paper who wasn't upset about our name. Instead, we had a lengthy (and fairly one-sided) conversation about everything from how political a church should be to why the NIV Bible translation is evil. She promised to be at our information meeting so she could deliver an article on the evils of NIV, but I half hoped she wouldn't show. I never thought (even with all the potential tragic contingencies that kept me up all night all week) that she would be the one and only person to show up to our information meeting last night.
I knew it was her the minute she walked in the door. She had that look of "I'm coming to a meeting, but I have a mission" on her face. She walked directly up to Dave Browning (I guess he looked more like a pastor than anyone in the room) and introduced herself. When all was said and done, without question, we had ourselves an information meeting last night! It was CTK Durango, however, that was being informed. We decided to forego the planned presentation and the ten of us (our team and Vi) sat in a circle.
On the surface, Vi is an abrupt and fairly abrasive person. She talked a lot about all the evil in town and how she hasn't been able to get the church involved. Her vocabulary and methods were what I would expect from a narrow-minded conservative Christian. As we talked, however, I began to realize that Vi has a heart of gold. Better than that, she authentically loves people--all people. When I asked her what she thought should be done with regards to the people she was mentioning (mostly homosexuals and drug dealers), her response was that we should love them, care for them, and most importantly pray for them. My assessment of Vi is that she has Christ's heart for the lost, but all her vocabulary and equipment is all wrong. I came away from last night's meeting with clearer insight and vision for the direction of our church.
We were suspicious from the beginning that information meetings and newspaper ads might not be the best way to bring CTK to the light in Durango. This is a small town driven by word of mouth and a "show me who you are, don't tell me" attitude. I have a feeling it will be the slower (by my preference) relational path to church growth for CTK Durango. In the mean time, I got a kick out of Vi and every person on our team agrees we were exactly where God intended us to be.
Dave and I talked about approaching things differently--his point was that maybe we should allow God's story to unfold as we participate and respond as opposed to trying to "steer" history toward what we guess God is doing. I found this conversation profoundly fascinating and curiously validating. Not only was it validating, but a concept-come-to-life within hours.
I talked to Vi on the phone about a week ago. She was the one person who answered our CTK ad in the paper who wasn't upset about our name. Instead, we had a lengthy (and fairly one-sided) conversation about everything from how political a church should be to why the NIV Bible translation is evil. She promised to be at our information meeting so she could deliver an article on the evils of NIV, but I half hoped she wouldn't show. I never thought (even with all the potential tragic contingencies that kept me up all night all week) that she would be the one and only person to show up to our information meeting last night.
I knew it was her the minute she walked in the door. She had that look of "I'm coming to a meeting, but I have a mission" on her face. She walked directly up to Dave Browning (I guess he looked more like a pastor than anyone in the room) and introduced herself. When all was said and done, without question, we had ourselves an information meeting last night! It was CTK Durango, however, that was being informed. We decided to forego the planned presentation and the ten of us (our team and Vi) sat in a circle.
On the surface, Vi is an abrupt and fairly abrasive person. She talked a lot about all the evil in town and how she hasn't been able to get the church involved. Her vocabulary and methods were what I would expect from a narrow-minded conservative Christian. As we talked, however, I began to realize that Vi has a heart of gold. Better than that, she authentically loves people--all people. When I asked her what she thought should be done with regards to the people she was mentioning (mostly homosexuals and drug dealers), her response was that we should love them, care for them, and most importantly pray for them. My assessment of Vi is that she has Christ's heart for the lost, but all her vocabulary and equipment is all wrong. I came away from last night's meeting with clearer insight and vision for the direction of our church.
We were suspicious from the beginning that information meetings and newspaper ads might not be the best way to bring CTK to the light in Durango. This is a small town driven by word of mouth and a "show me who you are, don't tell me" attitude. I have a feeling it will be the slower (by my preference) relational path to church growth for CTK Durango. In the mean time, I got a kick out of Vi and every person on our team agrees we were exactly where God intended us to be.
Friday, September 08, 2006
A Big Night
Tonight is our first informational meeting for CTK Durango! I am really excited about this moment, even though I have no idea what to expect. I don't know if a ton of people will show up or none--I have plenty of coffee and pens, though! I'm mostly looking forward to an opportunity to communicate our vision for communicating God's good news to people in Durango. I desperately want people in this town to see our heart. I'm anxious to get past name trauma, arguing about what version of the Bible we use, and tracking down sound systems. I cannot wait to see small groups begin to grow and hear stories of people who have been unable to worship God for whatever internal or external reasons and find their place in our community. I'm confident all these things will happen--we just have to get through tonight first!
We've come to this point with interesting opposition. I don't know what to label spiritual opposition or simply life as usual, but it's been an interesting week. Within one 24 hour period this week Jenn's car broke down with a cracked head (the one we just bought three weeks ago to replace the Suburban that broke down three weeks before that), I bought some expensive software that didn't work on my computer and can't be returned, people were telling me I couldn't call the church Christ the King, and Steve Irwin (the Crocodile Hunter) died--not to mention anxiety about tonight's meeting and our difficulties finding a permanent place to meet for church stewing in the back of my mind! Looking at these calamities from this distance, they don't seem unmanageable, but let me tell you, it was heavy load to bear in the moment.
My goal right now is to try and focus all this energy toward being authentic and clear at this meeting tonight. This is what we came to do and it will play itself out one way or another.
Some things I'm excited about this coming week are a couple of meetings with local pastors (no, the CTK Lutheran pastor has not called me back yet) who I've met along the way. One of them is Joe Beckler who was key in our process of moving here--very encouraging and enthusiastic about the potential for ministry in Durango. I am hoping these meetings will be the beginning of solid "other pastor-type" relationships that I am really missing right now.
We've come to this point with interesting opposition. I don't know what to label spiritual opposition or simply life as usual, but it's been an interesting week. Within one 24 hour period this week Jenn's car broke down with a cracked head (the one we just bought three weeks ago to replace the Suburban that broke down three weeks before that), I bought some expensive software that didn't work on my computer and can't be returned, people were telling me I couldn't call the church Christ the King, and Steve Irwin (the Crocodile Hunter) died--not to mention anxiety about tonight's meeting and our difficulties finding a permanent place to meet for church stewing in the back of my mind! Looking at these calamities from this distance, they don't seem unmanageable, but let me tell you, it was heavy load to bear in the moment.
My goal right now is to try and focus all this energy toward being authentic and clear at this meeting tonight. This is what we came to do and it will play itself out one way or another.
Some things I'm excited about this coming week are a couple of meetings with local pastors (no, the CTK Lutheran pastor has not called me back yet) who I've met along the way. One of them is Joe Beckler who was key in our process of moving here--very encouraging and enthusiastic about the potential for ministry in Durango. I am hoping these meetings will be the beginning of solid "other pastor-type" relationships that I am really missing right now.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
What's in a name?
Friday is on the horizon--newspaper ads have been published, I have boxes of coffe mugs in my hallway, our plan has been set--we are anxiously awaiting our opportunity to introduce our new community to Durango. The phone calls and emails are starting to come in...one problem, though...the phone calls and emails I'm receiving are not curious locals, but patrons of another church. Apparently, there is another Christ the King Church in Durango--a Lutheran church. They have been around for 42 years and have built a good reputation as a place of worship as well as making their facility available to the public. I noticed this church in the phone book a year ago and (perhaps naively) decided it would not be that big of a deal--since, we are part of an organization, we don't have a lot of choice in the name selection. If we were operating on our own, I would be more inclined to try and choose a different name for the sake of distinquishing oursleves, but the nature of our organization is that we are a campus (albeit several states away) of Christ the King Community Church in Washington.
The people I have talked to seem nice enough, but extremely concerned that our presence might be confusing to the people of Durango. My initial thoughts are these:
1. I'm pretty sure someone looking for a Lutheran church will find CTK Lutheran church easily in the phone book and be able to distinguish between it and CTK Community church.
2. Someone looking for a facility to rent called Christ the King will find the correct address since we will most likely never have a facility of our own and CTK Lutheran does.
3. I am confident that our basic mode of operation--worship, small groups, and service will not tarnish the reputation of any church--if anything it will enhance the standing of all churches in Durango to have a community of people pouring their lives into any cause which promotes and serves Durango.
4. Reversing roles in my head, if I were to notice a church start up with the name Christ the King I would, in fact, be interested to see that they were interested in "keeping the main the the main thing" in terms of their faith and mission--that settled, I would want to welcome and promote them as much as possible, not pressure them to change their name.
Something I may regret in this process: as naive as I am, I wonder if I still should have forseen this and contacted the pastor of the Lutheran church before hand to, at least, explain who we are and possibly forgoe some of this awkwardness. I plan to contact him now, anyway--I just hope it doesn't amount to too much too late in his/his congregation's eyes.
My worst nightmare is that this would become such an obstacle to our counterparts in Durango that a God-seeking and upstanding church becomes distracted from their mission (one we share, by the way) by the likes of us.
Time will tell. My goal at this point is to do whatever I can to guide this small community of believers in such a way so as to please and delight Christ the King--oh, and Christ the King Lutheran too.
The people I have talked to seem nice enough, but extremely concerned that our presence might be confusing to the people of Durango. My initial thoughts are these:
1. I'm pretty sure someone looking for a Lutheran church will find CTK Lutheran church easily in the phone book and be able to distinguish between it and CTK Community church.
2. Someone looking for a facility to rent called Christ the King will find the correct address since we will most likely never have a facility of our own and CTK Lutheran does.
3. I am confident that our basic mode of operation--worship, small groups, and service will not tarnish the reputation of any church--if anything it will enhance the standing of all churches in Durango to have a community of people pouring their lives into any cause which promotes and serves Durango.
4. Reversing roles in my head, if I were to notice a church start up with the name Christ the King I would, in fact, be interested to see that they were interested in "keeping the main the the main thing" in terms of their faith and mission--that settled, I would want to welcome and promote them as much as possible, not pressure them to change their name.
Something I may regret in this process: as naive as I am, I wonder if I still should have forseen this and contacted the pastor of the Lutheran church before hand to, at least, explain who we are and possibly forgoe some of this awkwardness. I plan to contact him now, anyway--I just hope it doesn't amount to too much too late in his/his congregation's eyes.
My worst nightmare is that this would become such an obstacle to our counterparts in Durango that a God-seeking and upstanding church becomes distracted from their mission (one we share, by the way) by the likes of us.
Time will tell. My goal at this point is to do whatever I can to guide this small community of believers in such a way so as to please and delight Christ the King--oh, and Christ the King Lutheran too.
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