The Ecclesia Network

a missional church network

Archives for February 2011

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The Church as a Three-Legged Dog

By Winn Collier

In our first year, my wife Miska described All Souls as a “three-legged dog.” She meant it an endearing way. Miska has always been drawn to those of us who hop along in life; and she’s always eschewed the pretensions many of us so easily take on. Somehow, All Souls became a refuge for burnt, weary, broken people. Most people had some measure of church experience (we are in Virginia after all). Some weren’t sure what they thought of God. Some felt beat up. Most all of us wanted a space where we could know love.

Into our second year, we’ve actually seen a little community form. For me, the beautiful things are when I see that glimmer of hope or joy return to someone’s eyes or when someone joins us at Jesus’ Table for the first time. Just the other day, one woman told me. “You know, for the first time, I don’t feel like running away from church. I feel like I’ve been allowed to be a person here.” Another woman told me simply, “I think that now I know God is real.”

Our community is about as simple as they come. We read the Scriptures each Sunday. We pray prayers and gather around the gospel. We always pass Jesus’ peace to one another. Sometime someone will have a reading or a piece of art or a story to share. We gather around the Scripture, either through a pastor teaching or through (and these are fun moments) a guided text conversation. Once a month, we have a shared meal. We meet in smaller communities in various nooks and crannies around the city, asking what it means to live as Jesus’ disciples in our world. Most who are with us believe. Some are beginning to believe. Some don’t care much but think there might be something here worth hanging around.

Soon, we’ll turn from Lent to Easter, and on Easter morning we’ll have our second Easter Party downtown. We’ll have music and give away hot organic apple-spiced donuts from our local donut artisan, Carpe Donut. We’ll be out in our city, among neighbors and friends and soon-to-be friends, celebrating that Jesus rose from the dead. We’ll be out there, hopping along.

Winn Collier is the pastor at All Souls Charlottesville and blogs at http://winncollier.com/ and is pretty much a great guy. You can follow him on Twitter here.

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Dallas Willard on Jet-Lag

by Dustin Bagby

Dallas Willard isn’t an easy man to create small talk with.

What do you say to a distinguished professor of Philosophy at USC who has chosen in his spare time to write life-changing books like The Divine Conspiracy and speak to Christians regularly about spiritual practices and disciplines?

But as I got stuck sitting by him, against my will, at the Ecclesia National Gathering I felt like I should say something to him rather than endure the awkward silence that surrounded us. I didn’t realize our short conversation would leave me thinking for weeks.

I opened with, “So, did you get in from California yesterday?”

He said, “Yes.”

I waited for a few awkward seconds but that was clearly the only thing he intended to say. I followed up with: “Still on California time?” An innocent and somewhat silly question, but I was nervous and was feeling pretty wrecked myself after having just arriving from Portland the day before. His response was not what I expected.

“Let me tell you something” he said gently as I can imagine a grandfather saying to one he loves. “I used to travel a lot, and I particularly remember a 14 hour flight to South Africa where they practically had to scrape me off the plane. It was then that I heard the Lord tell me very clearly, “Dallas, when you travel I want you to do three things: fast, prayer, and memorize scripture. And if you do those things, I will sustain you.” He continued, “And so I started doing those three things anytime I flew longer than 2 or 3 hours and since then I’ve never felt the effects of jet-lag again. He has sustained me.”

At this point in the conversation I felt about a half-inch tall. Dallas wasn’t trying to make me feel small, it was simply that in his presence there was no way for me to not feel small, and petty, and trite. You can sense when you are in the presence of someone that is genuine and real, just as easily as you can sense when you are in the presence of a complete phony. And Dallas is the real deal.

People like Dallas Willard are special not just for what they say, but because they model what a faithful Christ-follower looks like. After you hear or interact with such people, you’re not just left with great ideas, but with a desire to be the quality of person that they themselves are. It’s easy to find pastors who are wise and give you great ministry advice, it’s a lot harder to find pastors who you see and think, “I want to be like that person because they are like Jesus.” I hope that when I’m 75 years old, people will say that about me. But I know for now I have quite a distance between where I am and what I aspire to be. I also know that Dallas Willard didn’t become the kind of person he is naturally or easily.

I don’t aspire to be a “famous” pastor. Nor do I aspire to write a great book, speak at conferences, be known by a lot of people who have tons of twitter followers, or make a name for myself. I simply want to be the kind of person who has the depth of friendship with God that people like Dallas Willard have cultivated over the years. If I can model for people what that looks like as I grow older, I will feel more than successful.

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Sink Yourself Into the Work You've Been Given

Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. – Galatians 6:4 (MSG)

I’m doing a memorization challenge in 2011 through the Living Proof Ministries blog and this is the verse I chose for the second half of January. I came across it in a morning devotional and the more I have meditated on it the past few weeks, the more I can see why God led my eyes to this verse.

As we seek to live missional lives, it’s important that we first know our mission. Not just the overall mission of the church and the specific mission of the church we attend, but our personal mission – who we are and the work that we have been given by God.

That is what we are called to sink our lives into, according to Paul.

At times this can be a struggle for me. I wrestle with competing urges on what I want to be involved in. I dream big dreams of how God might use me. I can easily get pumped after attending a conference or listening to a message. But this verse reminds me that while those are great things, the most important work that I can do is the work that God has given me. Not the work he has given my neighbor, my pastor, or my best friend. The work he has given me.

I’m a crisis counselor at a community college, and I realize that part of my mission is to be the hands and feet of Jesus on a daily basis. Sometimes I can talk about my faith during sessions, sometimes I cannot. But regardless of my words, my actions can always show the love of Jesus.

Wendy Chinn, an associate (fancy word for volunteer) staff member at NLCF in Blacksburg, Virginia, earns her paycheck working part-time as a personal and crisis counselor at New River Community College. She blogs about life at the houseofchinn at http://wechinn.blogspot.com/