Yesterday, at a very exciting, Spirit-filled (and I don't say that casually or flippantly) meeting, a
coalition of followers of Jesus, leaders in congregational
ministry as well as one of the most faithful denominational executives/visionaries I have ever met, brought our discussion regarding a new ministry proposal that involves my (our) future to a culmination. In what was truly a delight, the gathering unanimously and enthusiastically decided to step out in faith and enter Kingdom work with a new sense of urgency and direction.
I posted the proposal (if you are curious) but for the sake of quick information - the members and friends of our home faith community unanimously decided to become a "mother congregation" - to start to intentionally train and equip Christ-followers to "plant" as many missional/faith communities as the Lord God leads us to do over the coming year. This is not for the purpose of starting churches in a traditional sense of the word/concept but rather indigenous, incarnational gatherings of people whose primary reason for existence is disciple-making, transformation and multiplication. Below is a copy of the overall proposal document if you would like to see it:
To say I am excited and humbled would be an understatement...so our community is owning our "sent-ness" and actually taking HUGE action steps to actualize Jesus in the day to day grit and reality of our lives and relationships. Woa! As someone who has led traditional church for years, you have to know that for ANY group of mainline believers to take this step is huge.
As I promised in a post a few weeks back, there are a whole HOST of friends who ought to be getting prepared to be bombarded with questions and a need for community - that means you Jamie, Alan, Mike, Kevin, Nate, Rickard, Chris, Henry, Craig, Dave, Bob, Mr. Kiwi, Dennis, Clint, Bro Maynard, Doug, Len, Ed, and the list goes on...be prepared!
I'm looking forward to the questions.
Posted by: Nathan Barnes | June 08, 2009 at 04:12 PM
Wow Robin, this sounds so good! Praying He will continue to open your eyes and heart to what He is doing in your world and faith community.
I'm trying real hard to come through Eagle on Monday June 15th on my way to McCall.
Posted by: Rick Meigs | June 09, 2009 at 04:32 PM