A Unique Opportunity: Two Churches One Location

An Open Letter to The Harbor Community Church

            Early this spring Greg Buettmann forwarded an email that we had received thru our website from Walt Eischmann, a member of Jefferson Hills Church which meets at Windsor High School in Imperial, MO.

           After 6 years of meeting and traveling around various facilities  in the Windsor campus   they began to look for an alternative meeting location. They learned what many new churches discover retail property is expensive. They were looking to rent, purchase outright, or purchase with the intent of subletting a portion of their space to recoup some of the costs.

            Somewhere in the course of their conversations the idea came up of approaching existing churches about renting space from them. They set the criteria that the church would have a similar outlook on church and ministry.  Walt began that search and came across our website thus the email I mentioned earlier.

            In response to that email, Greg Buettmann, Bill Smith  and I believed we should meet with them and hear what was on their hearts – after all this was the kind of weirdness that seems to be a part of our DNA. Bill and I had breakfast with Walt and the Lead Pastor, Steve Benke at Denny’s. It was amazing, Walt had the same passions as Bill and Steve and I had very similar stories and our journeys of the last few years mirrored each other.

            Steve and I both grew up in denominational life, went to college and seminary in denominational schools, served in denominational churches; in fact, we both served less than 10 miles from one another for 12 years and had never met. What a shame!

            From that breakfast meeting we  committed ourselves to meet again, this time with Greg.  As we all prayed together about the idea of sharing our space we went from asking God to making His will clear to asking God to stop this process if we were heading in the wrong direction.

            Eventually our leadership team and the leadership team of Jefferson Hills met  at The Harbor. I must say the first few minutes of the meeting were as awkward as an Eighth Grade Homecoming dance. We took the opportunity to go around the room and share how we came to be leaders in missional churches. This time of sharing solidified both groups understanding that first and foremost serving God this way was not a sign of insanity – there are others out there just like us! And secondly, we all sensed a wooing of God’s Spirit and a calling of our paths to be shared in a very unique way.

            So, today I am sharing with you that our Leadership Team, unanimously announces our plans to invite Jefferson Hills Church to share our space with us.

            Here are some pertinent details:

·         JHC will be paying us rent. We are working out the fine details of that this week.

·         We have developed a relationship covenant that has built in benchmarks that require both Leadership Teams to evaluate this relationship thoroughly. If one Leadership Team believes that there are problems in the process we have agreed that both Leadership Teams will view that as failure to achieve one of the benchmarks which will then allow us to part as family.

                     First Benchmark:This benchmark asks, “Can we exist side by side?” If so, consider ministry team partnerships.

                       Second Benchmark: This benchmark asks, “Can we exist side by side AND partner?” If so,

       consider longer term sustainability of shared vision.

                               Third Benchmark: This benchmark asks, “Can we exist side by side AND partner AND  pursue  a shared future?” If so consider site expansion/building purchase.

·         We will begin this relationship on September 30^th with a combined time of worship here at THCC where we will have a joint outdoor service as an opportunity to get to know one another. We will have lunch together on that day. We will have a second combined worship experience on November 25th at Jefferson Hills Church.

·         We will then have at least three Test Drive Sundays. These are to give us the opportunity to gradually work together to get all the kinks out of the system as two churches learn to have worship in the same location at different times.  Once we finalize our plans we will post these dates here and in other avenues.

·        Worship Schedule. The schedule is; JHC worship @ 9AM; fellowship time from 10:00AM – 10:40AM; THCC Worship to begin at 10:45AM. The simplest way to explain this process is that this is what we would need to be doing if we were to plan two worship services on Sunday morning.

·          We will be asking you to help in several areas: parking lot attendants as we seek to help people navigate the coming and going of additional vehicles. We will be asking you to help with being guides to help people navigate entering and leaving the building.

There are many more details to be discussed and more information to be shared. We will do our best to keep you in the loop and answer any questions you may have. If this sounds like a strange idea – it is! But please remember, God is doing something very different among us and his grace has been sufficient to this point which should give us the confidence that he will lead us in this endeavor also.

In closing, just imagine the opportunity we will have to repair the image of 'church' in our community. Imagine the opportunity to join with a church and be blessed by their strengths and to assist them in their weaknesses. We each will be able to do ministry better and more effectively as we partner together to reach our community.

I am asking you today, to covenant together with our Leadership Team to pray daily about this opportunity. Pray that God will guide us clearly, that we will see and understand that leadership. Pray that we will be wise in this endeavor and get the little details right so as not to trip over minutia. Pray that this will be an opportunity to open the hurting and maybe closed off hearts of people who have been rejected by the church in the past, who have said, “I don’t want anything to do with those people!”. Pray that this will be an occasion for a fresh wind of God’s presence in our hurting community. And finally, pray that God and God alone will receive glory as Jefferson Hills Church and The Harbor Community Church seek to demonstrate that God has indeed made one people out of separate, cut off, fearful people.

"Honor Thy Father and Mother"



       Recently I had a conversation with my dad that was amusing and troubling. I have begun to take on a role of helping my parents with some of their financial decisions - not a role I ever saw coming. With their selling their home, relocating and buying a new, smaller home, I have been involved in handling some of the finances for that process. Dad had asked me to send them some money from that transaction and I forgot to send the check!
     We both had a good laugh at the forgetfulness of a 49 year old son and an 82 year old father. I am grateful that my father did not get angry with me in the several day process of figuring out what had and had not been done.
     The troubling part though was the fear in his voice that he had made a financial error with the money and could not remember what he had done. In my journey around this globe, my father has been one of my most trusted and admired mentors. It was tough watching him loose his physical stature and not be able to physically do the things he had always done. But, I must say, watching his oncoming mental and emotional frailty is even harder. My dad is a business man. A great business man!  With the kind of business acumen that led his peers to seek out his advice, his church to depend upon his insight too much at times, and his son to  lean on him for financial and life wisdom daily.
     And now, well now it is a different story. Not that he is incompetent to make those decisions. Now he is afraid of those decisions, afraid he'll make a mistake and cause financial harm to he and my mother. In the midst of trying to figure out what had happened with a lost financial transaction, I could hear a fear and a bewilderment in his voice that was unfamiliar and disturbing. He sounded small, frail, and honestly old. Not the old that comes with age, but with stress and strain. My first inclination was to get off the phone and go hide somewhere, but in that odd twist of fate that aging places on fathers and sons I realized I could not just go away. He needed my help. Just writing that is intimidating to me.
     This should come easy for me. I should be prepared for this - after all I work for a Long Term Care ministry! But I must say it is a battle. It is a battle watching both of my parents age physically, but is a harder battle watching them age emotionally and mentally.
     Along the way I have watched a couple of friends go through the same journey. Honestly, they are farther along the journey than I and my siblings are at this moment. I have watched as they have made the complicated decision to place their moms in nursing facilities. I have even had the opportunity to help them in the process.
     Here's what I have learned so far:

• This process sucks - for my more refined friends, sorry but this just sucks! No one wants to live in a nursing facility because of all that it means and no adult child wants to be the one who says, "Mom, I don't think you should live alone anymore."
• Honoring your parents means learning to parent them as they grow less independent and more dependent on others.
• Having friends who will walk with you through the process is invaluable.
• Hard decisions are probably going to be the kinds of decisions we have to make in the rest of our times with our parents, so we need to get ready for it. They need us now, just as we needed them earlier in our lives.
• God is real! Their eyes are clouding, their hearing is fading, their friends are dying in droves, their minds are dulling, but God is real to them. Thus, we must help them continue in their maturity in Christ.

      I am thankful that I failed to mail a check to my dad. It made me slow down and look at things realistically, get over the fear of what this all means, and try, really try, to get this right.
     When I was younger honoring my parents meant doing what they asked; take out the trash, come home at a decent hour, treat them with respect, and try not to screw up my life. Now, honoring my parents means not running away from their needs, being honest with them when honesty may not be what they want to hear, and walking this slowing journey with them.
In His Grace,
A fellow pilgrim trying to get it right.

"All You Need is Love! Really?!"

What does it mean to love someone? No, seriously, what does love really look like? What does it mean to love as Christ loved us? Is that even possible?
Too often, I think we are grossly confused about love. We mistake human appetite for love, whether it's for chocolate, a medium-rare rib eye, or sex, we focus on how something or someone makes us feel and then evaluate whether or not that is love. In that aspect, love is a purely human and purely selfish reaction to the stimulus of the world around us. Surely love means more than just the reaction of our appetite or our libido?
Sometimes, I think we feel like love means we have to accept, overlook, even endorse harmful and dangerous behavior from others.  I don't know how many times I have heard, "Well, we have to love them anyway."  What does that mean? If someone we know is caught up in self-destructive behavior to stand aside with some anemic spiritual shrug, regurgitating some well worn platitude can't be all there is to love.
Seriously, there must be more - please there has to be more!
When I look at Jesus I see love and it is so intricate and faceted that it is almost beyond description. Here are just a few examples:

• He turns water into wine to please his mother and avert an embarrassing situation for a bride's parents.
• He made children the center of so many of his examples of how to follow him with simple joy and childlike whimsy.
• He put himself between selfish, bigoted religious folk and a broken woman, so that she knew that, at last, someone cared for her.
• He harshly, caustically criticized Peter for his petulance when He just told them He was going to die for them.
• And, most importantly he crawled onto a cross and let love pierce his hands and feet and side and died as the ultimate example of love.

Somehow I think you and I need to re-evaluate what love means. It is more than just fulfilling our desires. It is more than finding affinity with those most like us. It is more than just ignoring the pain of others and the pain their pain inflicts on others.
Love is a radical thing! It is a dangerous thing! It is a simple thing! But it is a thing that will change everything!

Ah, so you see, "All You Need Is Love!"



"A (not so) Long Strange Trip It's Been!

Pam and I took a rather interesting vacation a few days ago. Interesting because we were going somewhere new in places in which things were very familiar. First, we went to Eureka Springs for a quiet couple of days to celebrate our 29th Anniversary. Shhh, don't tell Pam Eureka Springs is a mecca for all things culturally liberal - it'll just mess up the experience for her!

Then, we went to visit my parents in their NEW home. Have your parents moved since you moved out of the house?  Am I the only one who found it really weird! When Kaitlyn heard that her Grandparents were moving she exclaimed, "They can't move that's Grandpa and Grandma's house!" However, in spite of my disquiet, mom and dad are more relaxed and at ease then they have been in years.  My sister is very nearby and she is having a ball 'playing' with our folks!

Next, we spent a few days hanging out with Pam's folks and helping them paint their new house -  what's with these 70 and 80 something's and new houses? My father in law and I have had our disagreements over the years, but we had a great time working, sweating, painting, sweating, eating, oh and did I say sweating?

Then, we went to my 30th High School Reunion (Ok, quit laughing at me!).  I was not sure what to expect and Pam confessed later that she was afraid she would be left out, but we had an absolute blast. There was a reason High School was so much fun.  It was the people!  Our class was loud, gregarious, mischievous, rebellious, and protective.  I would have never thought some would have grown to be the men and women they are today. And I think many of them were surprised that I am quite normal these days.

On Sunday of the week away, we had a great opportunity to worship together with my oldest (well she is!) sister.  Her church is trying to reach their culture there in the Tulsa area in a different way and seems to be having some real impact.  I have never been able to worship with my sister at her church in all of my 48 years. It was a true joy to stand beside her, sing with her, praise God together with her and celebrate our Lord together - thanks Sis!

Then, we made the trip back home. Home - hmmm, while the time away was great, returning home was even better. For the first time in a long time, I really looked forward to getting back home, back to work, back to the fellowship of fellow strange ones at The Harbor! 

And all this reminded me of Jerry's words, "What a long strange trip it's been!"  Amen.

A Humbling Opportunity

A few days ago, I received a reply from Gateway Church in Austin, TX to a request I had made about some small group materials they were offering, for free by the way!  The reply asked how we had heard about Gateway and the book by their pastor John Burke, "No Perfect People Allowed."  As a result of a very simple conversation, our story is now a part of their church planting network's blog.

Iam posting the link here to give you an opportunity to read our story from a different perspective.

https://www.elichurchplanting.​com/blog/
In His Grace

Ron

Living in the tension

     For the past couple of weeks I have been sharing with my friends at The Harbor Community Church that following Christ is like living between the tension, on one hand, of God's Truth and Justice, and on the other hand, his Grace and Mercy.

     When I was a kid I used to love to play on the train tracks near our church (I really hope my mother doesn't see this post!).  I learned that if you squat down between the tracks and look as far towards the horizon as you could, those two parallel tracks seemed to meet on the horizon.  OK! I know that two parallel train tracks will never meet, even at the horizon. And I know that there really is no such thing as a point on the horizon.  However, the idea still makes sense when you focus on the big picture - there are some things about God that seem to be running side by side but will never seem to come together.

      God's justice and his mercy seem to be aspects of his character that never come together. Yet, Christ said of himself, "When you've seen me, you've seen the Father", and it was said of Jesus that he was full of "grace and truth". So is it possible that the justice and truth of God do actually meet and intersect with his mercy and grace - YES.  They meet in the person and work of Christ who came to show us the Father.  Whenever I struggle with the Truth of God as it confronts some screwy aspect of my flawed character I am thankful for the Grace and Mercy of God that holds me to him at the same time.

     It is the living in the tension between that gives life reality.  Following Jesus is never simple, and it is far more than just about getting my fanny into heaven rather than hell.  It is all about the tension. The tension of the now and the not yet, the come as you are, and the don't stay that way. The tension of knowing Christ intimately and then realizing you really know so very little - all at the same time.

     I love my family at THCC! I love them for their honesty. I love them for their desire to know God and make him known. I love them for desiring to meet people where they are and lovingly, humbly, by God's grace. helping them not stay that way. May God increase your tribe.

Happy Mother's Day?!

      In all honesty I have to admit that holidays like Mother's Day and Father's Day are holidays that I have approached with angst as a pastor. Most churches I have pastored have acknowledged these holidays in some way or another.  Mother's day was always the diciest because of the way we acknowledged those in attendance.  First, we would recognize the youngest mom which on many occasions was a teenage, unmarried young lady - that was certainly scandalous in rural Oklahoma. Second, we acknowledged the oldest mom present which meant we were asking ladies who typically did not want to even be asked their age to stand up in front of all their peers and celebrate that they were older than everyone else - this made me sick to my stomach most of the time.  And, thirdly we recognized the woman who had given birth the most number of times. Man this was fraught with all kinds of danger.

     So, we recognized youth in relationship to birth, we recognized age, and then we recognized fertility!  Kind of weird, wouldn't you say? Given all the family means and all that it may not mean for some, perhaps we should recognize Mother's Day and Father's Day differently.

     Today, in worship we welcomed our friends by recognizing that it was Mother's Day but then, during our prayer time, we invited people to a time of prayer.  Prayer of thanksgiving for a mom who loved them and cared for them.  Prayer for those for whom mom is a painful word. Prayer for those whose womb has never been able to bring life into this world. And prayer for those for whom this day is a reminder that someone is not with them today.

     Mother's Day and Father's Day for Pam and I have been  holidays that remind us of the physical distance between us and our parents.  And now standing on the verge of being empty nesters we were both feeling somewhat down as we approached Mother's Day. So, instead of just feeling sorry for ourselves, we decided to invite a friend to lunch with us today.  Our friend is a mom who recently lost her husband and has been a model of struggling towards maturity through pain.  While at worship, Pam was approached by a new friend who shared with her that his mother passed away recently and this was his first Mother's Day without her, so Pam invited him to lunch with us as well.

     So there we were, two middle aged empty nesters missing their moms, a widow, and a young man who lost his mom too soon.  We had to introduce our friends to each other at lunch! We ate, we shared, we got to know one another better, we ate some more, and we learned a great deal about how God holds us together through loss and pain.

     At the end of the day Pam and me had one of the best Mother's Days we have had in a long time. And all of this was made possible by a great God who brought us all together through the fellowship of The Harbor.  All I can say to that is a humble, "Wow!"



Have a Happy Mother's Day wherever you are and going through whatever you are facing.

Ron