Four Functions: Belong

(part 2 of 5 posts on the four functions of neighborhood life)

Dances With Wolves! I am Wind In His Hair! Do you see that I am your friend?

Can you see that you will always be my friend?

-Wind in His Hair, speaking to Lt. Dunbar in Dances with Wolves

It's an unforgettable image at the end of the epic film Dances with Wolves: Sioux warrior Wind in His Hair, horseback on the cliff above the camp, yelling his loyalty to his friend Dances with Wolves at the top of his lungs. It's a great story of true belonging. Dunbar's previous attachments--the US Military, White expansion across the west, etc.--had proven to lack nourishment for his soul. Though he couldn't have been more different than the Sioux in appearance, background or experience, the sense of belonging within the tribe drew him like a moth to a flame. Eventually he was one of them, in ways deeper and more substantial than blood or background. As Sioux elder Ten Bears says to him, "The white man the soldiers are looking for no longer exists. Now there is only a Sioux named Dances With Wolves." The movie is so powerful because the innate need to belong is so universal. And like Lt. Dunbar, something inside tells us that civilization has robbed us of a deeper sense of belonging people enjoyed in simpler times. In a world of personal computers, Ipods, HDTV and a car for every adult, we still want to be in the tribe.

If the church is anything, it is a belonging organization. But civilization has robbed the church of its sense of belonging. In his book The Connecting Church, Randy Frazee found examples of effective community in gang life that surpassed most church experiences. Think about it: there is a common purpose in which all members are heavily invested; participation is not casual; members are fiercely loyal to one another. In contrast, church is more a commodity than a tribe in most people's experiences.

My hope is that the Springs will be more like a gang than a commodity (minus the gunfire), more like a tribe than an institution. Our turf is the Clear Springs area. Our purpose is to love God and our neighbors and help them do the same. We will not be satisfied with occasionally gathering to play verbal ping-pong ("how are you?" "--fine, how are you?" "--fine, how are you?" "--fine...") and listen to a sermon, but will intertwine our lives closely with others who live near us, know us and our families, and are fiercely loyal to us as brothers and sisters in Christ. This kind of environment is not built overnight, but over time and shared experiences that bond people together. It is not experienced in an auditorium, but might be forged during a family illness or while helping a couple through a rough spot in their marriage. It might be built by those who were present when the baby was born, or those who were there to cheer at the kids' baseball game. It might be made real when the group was willing to listen to all the doubts about whether God really cared or even existed, and still remained loyal friends, or when they celebrated together at the baptism in the backyard pool.

Usually the first question someone asks me when they find out I'm a pastor is, "where is your church?" These days I answer with something about our area of town and the fact that services will be at the YMCA, but honestly I dislike the question. I'm looking forward to the day when the question, "where do you go to church?" is irrelevant. I'm looking forward to being able to talk about my tribe in Magnolia Creek, and the one in the Parks on Clear Creek and the ones in Dickinson and Brittany Lakes. "You know, the ones who bring life to the neighborhood, who belong in a way few experience these days. Yes, those. You should join them."

The Four Functions of Neighborhood Life

(Part 1 of 5 posts on the four functions of neighborhood life)

The the first Christians were distinguished in their culture by the nature of their relationships with one other. There were no external markers that set them apart; they didn't look any different, walk or talk any different than their peers. They did not have Christian t-shirts, ties or bumper stickers, lace or leather Bible covers, Christian radio or television stations, or political action committees. They had no specifically Christian gathering place, so a Christian couldn't be marked merely by going there. Their new devotion to Christ propelled them into the kind of relationships Jesus himself had predicted when he said, "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:35) That love set them apart, and drew people to them--and to Christ--in large numbers. It was expressed in several pursuits described for us in Acts 2:42-47:

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

This is the clearest and most direct description of day-to-day Christian living we have in the Bible. And it was day-to-day, not Sunday-to-Sunday. The first Christians were in constant contact with one another, always aware of their fellow Christians' lives and circumstances; they shared both joys and sorrows, devoted themselves to spiritual growth as a group, took care of one another, and just enjoyed life together. At the Springs, we sum up the activities of Acts 2:42-47 in four functions we are committed to pursuing: Belong, Grow, Serve, and Play.

Several conditions are required to live the Christ-life as they did in the first century church: daily or almost daily interaction, some of which is rather unplanned; proximity, which is necessary for daily interaction; and casual meeting places (in the text, the Temple courts, which could be compared to a public square, and their homes). Even though there were thousands of Christians in Jerusalem in Acts 2, they were not gathering by thousands, but rather by dozens. The Acts 2 church was not primarily congregational; in fact, the four functions aren't really possible in a congregational setting. Things are just different in a large crowd. You can feel like you're a part of something at an Astros game, but you don't have the same sense of belonging as the team members do; you can eat a chili dog at Minute Maid Park, but no one would say it has the same sense of connectivity as a family meal.

We tend to think that large, expensive, produced events and programs are necessary for effective ministry. The world-changing activities of the early church were the exact opposite. Christ-life was in the neighborhood. I believe it still is. In my next post, I'll begin to unpack what that life might look like as we pursue the four functions together. But for today, I'll leave you with this quote from the great 19th century pastor and author E.M. Bounds; his words are 100+ years old, but as true today as ever:

We are constantly on a stretch, if not on a strain, to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the church and secure enlargement and efficiency for the gospel. This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the man or sink the man in the plan or organization. God's plan is to make much of the man, far more of him than anything else. Men are God's method. The church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men... . What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more novel methods, but men whom the Holy Spirit can use - men of prayer, mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men.

Is This Your Town?

Where I was born, where I was raised

Where I keep all my yesterdays

Where I ran off 'cos I got mad

And it came to blows with my old man

Where I came back to settle down

It's where they'll put me in the ground

This is my town

Yeah, this is my town

from the hit country song, "My Town," by Montgomery Gentry

With the start of school today, League City felt like a community. For a couple of hours, we were concentrated around the schools as we helped our kids get off to a good start. I drove by the "Boo Hoo Brunch" this morning for the kindergarten moms who were struggling with separation anxiety, and waded through a packed Starbucks where other parents were celebrating their first kid-free coffee in 3 months. There was a buzz around town today; it was my first back-to-school as a League City resident, and it felt good to be a part of it.

I've prayerfully asked a question several times today: is this my town? Do I feel a special affinity for League City? The answer is yes, up to a point. We just moved here in January, and I think attachment is related to experiences, which have been only a few so far. But we moved here to be attached; we moved here with the intention of caring for League City and its people and helping them connect to Christ. I want to be attached, and that certainly helps.

Is this your town? It's an important question. How you answer it may determine whether you are ever happy here. It may determine whether you are willing to get to know people in a significant way, and whether you're interested in serving the community. On average, we Americans move every 7 years (and some curve breakers are moving a lot more often than that). For the vast majority of us, who aren't natives of League City, is there any way to feel the kind of connection to this place that Montgomery Gentry sings about in "My Town"? Is there any point?

Yes. This can be our town, and it needs to be. We don't have to have been born here, and none of us has a crystal ball to know how long we'll stay here (although we do have some say in the matter in most circumstances). But we can have an affinity for this place and the people who live here. If we don't, our time here will be the "years the locusts have eaten" (Joel 2:25). If we want this to be our town, all kinds of good things can happen.

Choose to believe you live here for a reason. If you believe at all that God is directing any part of your life, you have to believe that the place you live isn't accidental or unimportant; neither are the people around you. This small change in thinking sets in motion a whole new set of feelings, thoughts and behaviors in your life. This place is a place where God has placed you. Living here is a blessing and a calling, not a stopover. The next person you meet may become your best friend. The next person you meet may be a difficult relationship God uses powerfully in your life. The next person you meet may come to faith in Christ if someone they knew believed they were here for a reason. This place may be the place you find your niche, the place you bloom, the place you realize your full potential in the body of Christ. Pining for a place of the past or waiting for the place of the future will kill all these possibilities. Our mobile lives carry strong temptations for both, but God can overcome them. Ask God for this sense: make a daily request that your town becomes your town.

The famous "shortest verse in the Bible" is John 11:35, "Jesus wept." He wept because he saw Mary, the sister of Lazarus, weeping over her brother's death. He was moved because Mary was a friend, and he hurt with her over the loss of her brother. He was so moved that he miraculously raised him from the dead. If this is our place, and these are our people, we will share in their joys and their sorrows. We will care what happens to them, and the rest will just come naturally, because you don't have to muster up caring for your friends. And God may be moved to the miraculous. We may not have been born here, and we may or may not be buried here; but right now we are here. This is our town.

It's a Family Tradition

School is once again upon us. At my house, everything is beginning to change. The boys aren't staying up as late as they did. Summer reading projects are being wrapped up. My oldest son got his locker and equipment for football season today. We've tried to squeeze in some of those "one last time" activities this week: a trip to the skatepark, a daytime trip to the movies. But in just 3 days, the school routine takes over.

Transitions are windows of opportunity, chances to start new habits or create new traditions. While your kids are establishing a new routine, you have an opportunity to inject spiritual life into their--and your own--daily and weekly schedule. Here are few ideas to start a new spiritual tradition in your household next week:

• Share a brief devotional or spiritual thought at the breakfast table. If everyone doesn't eat breakfast together, leave it as a personal note on the table for each person. It will make a big impression on your kids, especially if you've never done anything like that before.
• Pray for your kids (out loud, with them) before they leave for school; pray specifically that they are aware of God and engage with Him in their school day.
• If your kids take lunches to school, leave a note and/or passage of scripture in their lunch.
• Share the family table--not just a meal, but time spent hearing about each person's day and their personal lives. In nationwide surveys, 90% of Americans say that dinner time is when family traditions are born; in contrast, children who don't eat dinner with their families are 60% more likely to engage in destructive behaviors (source: Kraft Foods, National Eat Dinner Together Week, National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse). IMPORTANT NOTE: turn off the TV during dinner!
• Pray with and for your children at night before they go to sleep.

There are other great ideas I haven't mentioned. If you have a spiritual habit in your family, leave it as a comment and add it to the list.

Our first resource for parents (with much more to come) is the 10 Core Beliefs of Christianity, or the 10 Things I Know for grade school kids and younger (which include hand motions for memorability). Learning these is a great exercise that can give a plan and structure to your family spiritual habits. You can download them as part of my teaching on the Core Beliefs, which can be found in the news section of our website, www.cometothesprings.com. The pdf file includes printout sheets you can put on the refrigerator and memory cards you can tape on the fridge, the bathroom mirror, the car dashboard, etc.

National surveys of kids' beliefs reveal that 93% of American 13 year-olds consider themselves Christian, but only 3% actually have a biblical worldview that serves as a foundation for their decision-making (source: Barna Research Group). In effect, they call themselves Christians but they don't really know how to be one. Church involvement can help, but there is no substitute for the influence and training in spiritual life that comes from a kid's own family experience. We are committed to resourcing, helping, and challenging parents to be personally involved in their kid's spiritual development. For instance, at each of our Sunday services, children will be learning the same truths and principles as the adults, and helps will be available to facilitate family discussion on the topics after services. Beyond the obvious benefit to your kids, it may be the single greatest catalyst for your own spiritual growth.

The most significant aspect of every person's life is his or her spiritual health. A clear worldview, a moral compass, purpose and meaning in life--everything else flows from here. We invest so much in our children's development in other areas--it would be tragic to miss the most important one that gives meaning and focus to all the rest. Don't let this opportunity pass you by. It requires no training or experience or even the ability to answer all a kid's questions: just a willingness to engage in conversation with your kids that will help the whole family to grow. I hope you'll let me know how you choose to pursue it, and as always, I'm available to answer questions or provide help in any way I can. Here's to a great school year at Ross, Gilmore, Bauerschlag, Creekside, Victory Lakes, Dickinson schools and Clear Springs High--Go Chargers!

We Almost Had A Block Party

We almost had a block party this weekend! I know it sounds weird to be excited about a party that almost happened, but I am. It marks real progress for us in developing relationships in our neighborhood, something we've tried to be a lot more intentional about since moving to Magnolia Creek earlier this year. So when my wife Elizabeth said that she and two other ladies on our street discussed having a block party this weekend...well, that alone was reason enough to celebrate, even if the party isn't going to happen this weekend after all.


Neighborhood life is an essential part of life at the Springs. We believe that close proximity and regularity of contact are crucial to the kinds of relationships we see modeled and taught in Scripture. We are currently launching groups organized by intermediate school area because we are small and need a larger geographical area to achieve critical mass; but while we're meeting together weekly as a Victory Lakes intermediate group, participant families like ours will also be developing community at closer range. It is my personal hope that we'll have a neighborhood group by early next year, and that there will be groups in the other neighborhoods that filter into Victory Lakes intermediate also.

Here is how my family is going about it. We're relatively new in our neighborhood, so we're just being intentional about getting to know people. We try not to hole ourselves up in the house; we've met neighbors on the sidewalk and at the mailbox, and from the kids on the street all playing together. We've accepted every invitation from neighbors to come over for a party or a meal, or for the kids to play together. It's not complicated, but it's amazing how few people do it. I'd say our block is about 50/50, where half the families are social in the neighborhood, and the other half just drive into the garage and the door closes behind them. After 6 months, I still haven't met one of my next-door neighbors. Another neighbor only comes out of the house after dark to go to the mailbox. I noticed this, so one night I waited until after dark to get my own mail, and waited to see him come out with his dog like he does every night (O my gosh, I sound like a stalker!). I approached him, stuck out my hand, and introduced myself. He graciously shook my hand and asked me which house I lived in...and that was it. He didn't tell me his name. So now I've met the guy with the dog who lives 4 houses down on the left. I'm not discouraged by this, it's actually fun! It takes time--with some people it may take a long time, maybe years--but it's worth it.

Here's what we're shooting for: neighborhood relationships where we're living out the 4 functions of neighborhood life together: belong, grow, serve, and play. Right now we're just meeting people mostly, but some belong is starting to happen, and some play. We invited a couple of families to serve with us when we did a shoe drive for orphans this summer, and we'll do it again with a Habitat for Humanity project this Fall. When the block party happens (probably Halloween--now I'm a stalker and a heretic), we'll be on the way toward belong and play. We now know some other people on the street who are Christians, and we hope to develop real community with them and begin to serve our neighborhood together as the Body of Christ. Jump in and try it for yourself! Here's how to get started:

• Pray that God will give you a missionary's mindset for your neighborhood, and that He'll show you opportunities to get to know people on your block--then watch out! One creative way to do this is to walk around your neighborhood while you pray (keep your eyes open); you get some exercise, you can pray house to house as you go, and you may get to meet some people.
• Be in your neighborhood! Actually being at home is important. This may require some lifestyle adjustment on your part. DO IT! You probably need to offload some other activities anyway, so I'm giving you a good reason. Eat at home, be in your yard in the evenings, take walks in your neighborhood, etc.
• The intermediate group should help you here; host the group at your house, and invite a friend or two from the neighborhood to come also. Have a party where you invite intermediate group members as well as neighbors. This way, you don't (and shouldn't) feel like the Lone Ranger out there trying to develop neighborhood life.
• As you get to know people, you will be able to identify other Christians on your block. Pursue Neighborhood Life with them first--commitment to the 4 functions and regular involvement in each other's lives. What "church" each of you attends is not necessarily relevant, and the goal is not to get anyone to change church attendance. We will resource you with ideas and helps for each of the 4 functions.
• Christians living the 4 functions together in a neighborhood is powerful. When this happens, you will start having a major impact on your neighborhood. Opportunities to serve others in your neighborhood will arise, and your community will expand. God will use this in your life: you will grow better, serve more often and more personally, have a sense of belonging as well as provide it for others, and have fun!

I've told some of my stories. I'll save others for another day. Let me hear some of yours! If you have a story about developing relationships in your neighborhood, leave it as a comment. Questions or other comments are also welcome.

Money and the Art of Image Maintenance

When you plant a church, there are always certain ideals you hope to achieve. One of those has been realized recently, and I want to celebrate it.

I'm not a very good fundraiser. I don't enjoy it. Our current income reflects that. But beyond my personal issues, it is important and necessary in church life and especially in church planting. We have some significant up-front expenses in our near future, and I've had to ask our launch team to give to this cause beyond what they've already been giving. I've been honest about my family's ability to give and publicly communicated what we're pledging to contribute, and I've asked each family on the launch team to do the same. Several have done so, but the pleasant surprise has not been in the amount of money we've raised (like I said, I'm not good at fundraising). In recent days I've had some of the most honest, candid conversations with people about their financial situations that I've ever had. It has been a refreshing experience, and one that I hope will set a tone for personal transparency for our church for years to come.

Generally speaking, people are about as secretive about money as they are about anything. Those who have a lot of it don't usually want that to be known, and there are always people who want you to believe they have more of it than they do. People in debt don't want anyone to know about it, and people who don't know how to manage it seldom ask for help. This is nowhere more true than in the church. As a person who has had access to people's giving records over the years, let me just say that who actually gives and how much they give is not the same as what people assume is true by appearances. It may be the area of least honesty in church life...again, generally speaking.

So honesty in this regard is an especially refreshing thing. I have been thrilled to listen to friends as they've honestly laid out their financial struggles, their hopes and dreams, their mistakes and their plans for growth in the future. I've been impressed by people's desire to be in a place where they can be better givers. I've been equally impressed by people of significant means who take seriously their responsibility before God to be good investors, who have asked me the right questions to ensure that an investment in the Springs is a good one. The money is a gift, but even more so the conversations have been a gift. This is the way it should be, and it's made me feel privileged to be a part of this church.

We may or may not have a lot of money to work with, but we obviously have a more precious and rare commodity: people who don't want to play the game. I hope this is true in every area of life for us, not just our financial lives. Conversations are happening daily among the Springs right now that have in them the potential for real life change. They are the kind of transparent conversations that God uses. This is where the kingdom is really built. Thanks for the glimpses I've seen.

How Do You Measure Spiritual Growth?

In my previous post, I mentioned the resistance I've sensed in Christian circles to attempting to define or measure spiritual growth. How do you quantify something like that? A groundbreaking passage of scripture for me in this regard was 1 Peter 1:5-9. Here it is in the TNIV translation:

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if any of you do not have them, you are nearsighted and blind, and you have forgotten that you have been cleansed from your past sins.

This passage lays out a kind of layering approach to spiritual growth, and even uses the uncommon terms "ineffective" and "unproductive" to describe it. The text implies that a person could know whether or not he or she has added goodness to their faith, or knowledge, or self-control, etc. (or, in Great Commandment terms, loving God with your heart [faith], mind [knowledge], strength [self-control]) This text, like so many similar ones in the New Testament, ends with love as the pinnacle of the growth process, or perhaps the word that encompasses all the rest (see Galatians 5, 1 Corinthians 13).

Paul definitely promoted an intentional and focused approach to spiritual growth. He compared it to sports training in 1 Corinthians 9:25-26,

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air.

So much of our spiritual growth activity can be described as aimless: striving for an unknown result and either (1) being frustrated that we don't get a result, or (2) becoming self-satisfied that we merely engaged in a spiritual activity. Jesus calls us to more. As different as this may sound, Jesus is results-oriented (read John 15). We are called to increase in our love for God and for our neighbor, to be intentional about it, and not be satisfied by merely engaging in aimless religious practices.

In September, our neighborhood groups (currently intermediate school-areas) will implement a tool called the Christian Life Profile. It is a guide that helps you discover, in specific ways, the quality of your relationships with God and others. It will give each of us cause to celebrate where Christ has made us fruitful (which Christians seldom do), and will also help us to know specifically how God wants to grow us (which Christians seldom do). It is not an individual activity; it involves three other trusted Christians for every person who participates. The end result of the profile is a specific plan for growth in the next season of our lives. I believe God will honor this process and use it powerfully. Imagine a group of Christ followers who know where they're going, who are not striving aimlessly, and who can celebrate specific and actual progress in their spiritual lives. I'm excited to be part of a group like that. We're going somewhere! And the benefit is not just to ourselves--we are becoming "a spring of living water welling up to eternal life."

What Is Spiritual Growth...Exactly?

A lot of people are interested in spiritual growth, whether Christian or not. If you believe that, as a human being, there is a spiritual aspect to your life, and you don't want it to atrophy, then you want it to grow. People pursue spiritual growth in a variety of different ways: Bible study, prayer and meditation, reading books or websites about spiritual subjects, serving others, the list goes on. But seldom does anyone really define what spiritual growth is. In fact, it seems almost un-spiritual to define it, or especially to measure it. The word "spiritual" equates with "mysterious" or "unknown," and attempts to examine it or approach it in a scientific way seem out of sync with the whole idea of spirituality. But have you ever considered that, by viewing spiritual growth this way, we only ensure that we never really know if we are making progress? How do we know if we are growing spiritually? Do we just feel it?

I suppose it's easy to miss, but Jesus gave us a simple and straightforward definition of spiritual growth. We call it the Great Commandment: "Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself." (Luke 10:27). Jesus said that these two loves, if you will, sum up all the Law and the Prophets, which was a whole lot of content about spiritual growth for the people of Israel. And his definition puts very real boundaries around spiritual growth; it tells us what it is and, just as importantly, what it is not. It's not anything as cold and lifeless as rule-keeping, but it's also not vapor. It's not religious activity, unless it revolves around love for God or neighbor, and it might be irreligious activity if it promotes loving God or neighbor better than religious stuff does. It's spiritual life being poured into a human being, causing that person to be and to do things he or she would not have done on their own; namely, loving God and others. In my experience, no one can just muster up the willpower to do this. So you may or may not go into a trance, and you may or may not feel tingly, and there may or may not be any candles or incense involved. But Jesus said one thing would be true, if it's real spiritual growth: love for God and love for neighbor would be increased.

Some very devoted and very smart people conducted a 3-year study into spiritual growth in Christian churches. It's published in a book called Reveal, which is listed among the books I'm reading in the right hand column of this blog. They performed in-depth studies of spiritual growth in a variety of different churches using--and here's an astonishing idea--Jesus' definition of spiritual growth. When growth was measured according to whether or not people increased in love for God and neighbor, some amazing information came to the surface. I won't "reveal" the whole study, but here are two big light-bulb moments:

• Neither gender, adult age, or particular church attended was a significant factor in how people grew spiritually. Think about that: how much do we separate into age, gender, and cultural groups based on our personal preferences, supposedly in order to receive customized help in spiritual growth? This study reveals an ugly secret about us: our spiritual pursuits are often more about our own comfort than they are about actual spiritual growth. In fact, it may just be that our intent on hand-picking where, how, and with whom we grow spiritually is preventing our growth as much as it is promoting it. I'd like to see a study on that.
• There is only a limited connection between involvement in "church" activities and spiritual growth. [quotations around "church" are mine; church is used here in an institutional sense, which may differ from a biblical definition of church.] The idea that participating in an array of church programs is an effective path to spiritual growth just doesn't hold up to the data. I don't believe that church programs are bad or even poorly executed; it's the inherent limitations of a class or seminar or worship service that pose the problem. Loving God and your neighbor in increasing measure inevitably takes you out of an auditorium or classroom, and into new places like the lives of people and a personal relationship with God. This is important, because it's certainly not the case that you grow spiritually by yourself: the work of the Spirit of God directly and through relationships with others is crucial...just not insitutional.

At the Springs, we're addressing these issues head-on. Our mission is to connect people to Christ and teach them to love God and their neighbor. We've locked in on the Great Commandment as our definition of spiritual growth so that nothing else can define success for us. And we're pushing the church out of the classroom and into the neighborhood, where loving God and your neighbor has real meaning and consequences.

Relationships and Spiritual Growth

In my last post, I wrote about 2 ways I'm simplifying my relational life and encouraging people at the Springs to do the same: pursuing relationships close to me and merging my relational worlds. I'm not a social genius, and those who know me best will all say so. I can be very task oriented, I lack sensitivity at times, and I prefer time alone more than most. Brad, our community pastor, and my wife Elizabeth, are both fantastic relationship people. They are the kind of people others just like to be around. So why am I spending so much time talking about relationships? Because everybody needs them, not just the most socially adept. In fact, if I thought about it for very long, I'd have to conclude that God brought people like Elizabeth and Brad into my life because people like me need people like them. I think that's part of God's plan for the church: the introverts and the extroverts, the task-oriented and the people-oriented, all mixing it up for mutual benefit. When Paul said, "there is no Jew or Gentile, male or female, slave or free, for you are all one in Christ," I don't think he meant that we're all the same--we obviously aren't. But in Christ, it's possible for us to be one, and maybe we can't be whole unless we become one with all those disparate others. The United States didn't invent e pluribus unum.

I'm learning more and more that these kinds of relationships are keys to spiritual growth. As a church guy, I used to think that church programs were the key. I was raised on a healthy diet of church programs. I'm thankful for that, by the way, because each one represented at least one person who cared about me and helped me grow spiritually. But when Elizabeth and I started dating, she presented me with a dilemma. She grew up in a very small town where churches were under-resourced and had little to offer in the way of programs. She had come to faith in Christ primarily through the influence of her grandmother and some adults in her town who cared for her. She had never participated in a discipleship program or an evangelism program or gone through leadership development or been to Christian camp like I had. But anyone could see that she was more kind than I was, and more joyful, and more patient, and more a lot of other stuff. She loved God and loved her neighbor in ways I did not. She still does. I knew 2 things from that moment on: that I was in love with her, and that church programs didn't make a person like her. They made a person like me: knowledgeable; "prepared." But neither of those things made the list of Jesus' benchmarks of spiritual growth. What is "spiritually mature"? Jesus was not vague about this: love God and love your neighbor. The rest, as it turns out, is window-dressing.

In Pursuit of Neighborhood Life

In my previous post, I wrote about Christian simplicity as a core value for us at the Springs. In this post I want to describe how we're pursuing it. We call our pursuit Neighborhood Life, and consider it an application of Jesus' command to love our neighbors as ourselves.

In our commuter society, we tend to ignore the impact of physical distance on our relationships and schedules. For example, we don't hesitate to live far from work or enlist our kids in activities that require long deliveries and pick-ups. If church life is part of the family picture, it tends to be one more factor in family fragmentation. As a church staff member, it was common for me to be leaving my family and waving to my neighbors as I left home for another meeting or church activity. Church, like most everything else in our society, markets separate products and activities to each family member based on age and personal interest. And it's likely that a commute is required for church involvement, too.

There are 2 ways I'm changing my relational world, and encouraging our launch team members to do the same. First, I'm pursuing "close" relationships. We are discovering that being "close" by location really helps us to be "close" in relationship. Our goal is to develop significant relationships with both Christians and non-Christians who live near us. Proximity becomes a factor in relationships that trumps almost all other factors: it dramatically increases the amount of contact with another person; it enables spontaneity, like sidewalk conversations, last-minute invitations to dinner, or a game of cards; and it enables important facets of good friendships like helping each other on a project or borrowing something from the tool box or the kitchen.

Second, I'm merging my relational worlds. It's not something we think about, but our travelling lifestyles produce relational circles that seldom overlap, which is an unhealthy and dangerous place to be. Our spouses don't know our co-workers, who don't know our friends from the kids' sports league, who don't know our church friends, who've never met our extended family, etc. This kind of relational world is difficult to maintain and has a built-in temptation for us to project whatever image we prefer to each group, as the various groups don't know each other--you can be one person at work, another person at home, another person at the golf course and still another person at church. But when your relational world is close to home, the various people you know best also tend to know each other. Your friends know each other, your spouse and your kids, and you know theirs. And it's much more likely that we really know each other, the good and the bad, and experience God's grace through others who know our faults and still care for us. Your kids may play together on a sports team, but they also play together spontaneously (which is a healthy lost art for kids).

The launch team for the Springs is still relatively few in number, so we are currently organized by intermediate school (currently a Creekside group, a Victory Lakes group, and a group in Dickinson in Bay Colony). But at the same time my family and I, and others on the launch team, are pursuing relationships in a smaller area, like our elementary school and our neighborhood. We have only lived in our home for a few months, but the kind of relationships we already enjoy on our block are refreshing and encouraging to us. Our kids play together daily and spontaneously, and eat out of each other's refrigerators; we talk in the front yard or on the sidewalk, and have enjoyed dinners in neighbors' homes, block parties and game nights. We have invited neighbors to help serve others in need alongside us, and some have responded. In my next post, I'll write more about how God is using these kinds of relationships in my life.

Ockham's Razor

"entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem."

Or, translated from Latin to English, "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity." This phrase was made famous by William of Ockham, a 14th-century English Friar, and has become known as Ockham's Razor. Ockham proposed that, all things being equal, the simpler solution is usually the best one. This thought stands in stark contrast to the frantic, fragmented lives of most 21st century Americans. We multiply everything beyond necessity. It's almost an American virtue: the more/bigger/busier/

flashier/faster the better. Eventually, though, we find ourselves trapped by our excesses, and enslaved by our own schedules and the demands of maintaining "the good life." Richard Foster describes it this way in his book Freedom of Simplicity: "We feel strained, hurried, breathless. The complexity of rushing to achieve and accumulate more and more frequently threatens to overwhelm us. It seems there is no escape from the rat race."

I love the "razor" tag used to describe Ockham's idea, as if an actual razor could shave all the excess from life. I believe Christian simplicity is just such a razor. Simplicity is an actual calling of the Christ-life, and a gift of Christ. Jesus lived a simple life (and not just because he lived in AD 30). Even among skeptics he's considered one the world's greatest teachers, yet his teachings are characteristically simple and straightforward. He summed them all up in one statement: love god with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. He authored no books, and had only a small band of followers as his strategic leadership team. He provided almost no organizational structure for his church, though it was charged with carrying his message around the world.

At the Springs, we're recapturing Christian simplicity in our lives and in the church. We're actually advocating less involvement in "church activities" as modern people understand that term, and returning to the activities of Jesus and the first century church: things like shared meals, home gatherings and serving those in need (usually the first thing to go in our busy lives). We're helping people find the life Jesus promised by learning how to cut through all the things that compete for our time, talents, and resources, and letting Christ redirect our energies in a simpler way. The Houston Profile Project compiled data on the lifestyles of people in our community, and found that less than 28% of residents believed they were successful at balancing the demands of work and family. This tension was also a leading cause of family dissolution--parents and kids, husbands and wives chasing life in multiple directions at once and never quite catching it. We believe that Christian simplicity is a direct answer to this problem. In my next post, I'll describe what that looks like in my own life, and how we're living out the value of simplicity as Christians and as a church.

Alternate Delivery Methods

Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
Ecclesiastes 1:10 TNIV

It's funny that I could be writing my first blog post and think this is some new kind of communication. As we've launched Church @ the Springs, I've been reminded at every turn that new is ancient and innovation is just recapturing something that was once lost.

We've done a lot of brainstorming about alternative methods to deliver content. "Alternative" means anything besides preaching a sermon--only one method of teaching, by the way, although it has become almost synonymous with the gospel among church folk. So I created this blog as an innovative, 21st-century way to communicate with the Springs and the community. And in doing so, I find myself in a long tradition of letter-writers that include the apostles Paul, Peter, and John. Christianity thrived for 300 years on letters written to the churches that were passed around and read to groups of 20-30 people at someone's house. No buildings, no gatherings of thousands, and yet the Christ-life spread like wildfire. So here's to innovation!

I hope something miraculous happens among us as we read our letters to the church, and talk about them around the table. Stay tuned for the next letter...