Confession Confetti

The reward of gospel-centered community isn’t affirmation or praise, or honor. It is a hellbore brokenness before the people (in the open). We are free from condemnation, not the judgment of others but the self imposed darkness of keeping up the lie that we know what we’re doing and that we are doing it all so well.

We must come to terms with the fact that though relief from the pain comes from dogged honesty with our selves; our true restoration comes from honesty with others. It is not our place to hold back and live secretly. 

A good friend of mine says “fail publicly, restored publicly” that way God gets the glory or a life changed and a heart renewed.

I just want the church (God’s people) to be honest and stop hiding behind religiosity. 

Our religious practice is worthless – not because we haven’t learned how to practice correctly but because we’ve substituted practicing it for the genuine, heart-wrenching, glory-producing power of God through obedience. We have traded the brokering and proclamation of freedom for gate-keeping our own bondage and holding others in the same snare. Release yourself from the cycle of secret sin, confess them to each other, believe for each other, and restore the weaker brother. God is good.

The Big 3

Mission – Vision – Strategy

“The founding of a movement should be organic.” 

A valid statement, for sure, but a little muddy when it comes to the specifics. These are three general ingredients to address on the road to building community. Not 3 steps, or 3 must haves. These pieces will be confronted in the natural process of acting on the call to Christ in you, however, if we define and shape these ideas beforehand, I believe we will be in a receptive position that recognizes and acts on their approach.

Mission – the specific thing we will accomplish (example: Bring salvation to the unchurched population)

Vision – what God gives us to accomplish mission (example: the direction and leading of the Holy Spirit)

Strategy – the plan we apply to the vision to accomplish mission (example: draw ppl to community serve others and weekly small groups)

They may be consecutive in application but they are definitely not consecutive in conception. Sometimes God births a vision that draws you to a mission, sometimes you get mission and nothing else, I’m my case I responded to an opportunity to develop strategy and out of that process I found a mission to invest in and God started to grow a vision in me. If starting the movement or being a catalyst to community or change is in your heart, studying these themes may be extremely beneficial.

We should not become so tied to any of the three that we get them confused with each other or the bigger picture of what God is trying to do in us. We should re-approach them at common intervals to see if we are still “in step” with what God actually wants. I have friends who experienced deep (even tragic) loss that pulled them away from ministry. At the time failure is all anyone could see, but I can say with confidence that the plan of God isn’t predictable and many times the immediate struggle is necessary to get to the place where the right mission can be accomplished effectively.

Community can fail, Community never fails

This is a collaborative exercise, needed input from community outside of my immediate influence to accurately go into this. . . enjoy.

          I’m gonna be brutally honest and let you into my world for a second. I have no idea what to do specifically about this subject; it’s seemingly unavoidable and unnerving at the same time. Those of you that have shared in faith with me know that the last several years of my life have been about promoting, building, and sustaining COMMUNITY. There are many great blogs about it that go far deeper into its meaning and value within the body than I have time to, but what I want to talk about is a little more specific. I want to talk about the cycle, and even more pointed than that I wanna get into the thick of:

“when community starts to fall”.

Now the intricate balance we have learned to strike in leadership is one of growing with people but allowing people to grow outside of your influence also. [Another blog entirely involves growing with people you lead instead of just leading people, but another time-] This is no simple task because inevitably you will have a follower that gets into something so detrimental to their development that you feel that not stepping in is almost promoting sin, but it must be done. If people are not believed in and encouraged to great faith they will always struggle in “little faith”. We never want to see people fail but it’s the price that is paid to make them truly succeed. Now take that a step further, there are ministries and discipleships and a myriad of other things that we pour ourselves into that will eventually fade. The impact on individuals may never be fully realized (good or bad, eternal or temporary) but the first inclination is to step back in and revitalize the movement. I don’t know every step to take but my first impression is. . . NO! Stop. Think about our desires and the call of God. He called you away for a purpose, I know it’s hard, but the movement isn’t yours, it’s the Spirit of God moving in them. There are no bailouts in the Kingdom, a thing stands and falls on the Will of God alone. Of course good stewardship is necessary and should be duly encouraged, but we must allow things to run their course. It’s just as likely that things need to be destroyed to give birth to the next thing God wants to do.

Now I’m probably going to get some push back from this and that’s okay but something that is so incredibly lacking today is the true faith that comes through persevering. People make mistakes and as light or drastic as it appears, those mistakes have consequences. There is a natural cycle in the church; from youth programs to leadership and this experience is universal. Excitement swells, connections are made, influence becomes standard, critical mass is reached, the people revolt, leadership freaks out, there becomes a new norm and from there we either rebuild from nearly scratch or get called away. Now there are many more factors that come into play and the more community reliant a movement becomes the less likely the winding down takes hold and the easier to notice problems and address them with personal devotion/attention. The point is that we must allow leaders to lead, they will always need mentorship, the people will always need a new thing to rally for, but it’s our responsibility as leaders to give everyone the room to grow. God has a lot of puzzle pieces to order, we each have our call, be obedient to the ministry you are called to “Right Now” and avoid the trap of being disappointed about what cannot be sustained. Community will be rebuilt, attacked from a different angle, and flourish through the attack. God is faithful, His way is perfect.

Once again it’s hard to fully gauge this because my view of Community has come into such focus over the last few years, but we will work through this, and as churches become more aware of the filter of community I’m sure we’ll all have some better approaches, but for now trust in what God can and will do through our people. I’m interested in the thoughts of others who have seen vast community decline or change in the last few years, what are your thoughts, opinions, and warnings?