charlieDEAN’S Blog

Okay, I just got called out by Summer for not posting this sooner. I’ll make my excuse…I’ve wanted to write this all day, but have had a hard time putting words to everything that I was thinking/feeling. So this is my best effort.

After that, I’ll let the people that were there comment, to give you a feel for what it was like…

First, The Gateway Building is awesome! I think every church I’ve attended in my lifetime either has had no windows or dark stained glass. I love feeling connected to the world outside — and I love that the city is always in view!

I really am quite speechless about everything! It’s hard to describe what a cool feeling of excitement & anticipation there was. It was fun to have friends, family and even quite a contingent of Northwoods folks there to wish us well.

For the first week, I thought things went about as smoothly as could be hoped for.

Without getting cheesy, I can’t really talk about it without just getting to a place where I feel overwhelmed by God’s goodness to us!

Two pictures…the one is from the balcony overlooking the scenic Illinois River, the other is of people arriving and getting coffee (before we ran out of the 5 gallons we purchased!)

people keep asking me, “when does your church start?”

i know what they’re really asking so i graciously smile and give them the answer to what they’re asking, which is “this Sunday, 9:45am.”

but here’s what I really want to say:

first off, it’s not “my church.”  it’s our church.  really it’s His church, but most definately it’s not mine.  i’m just the pastor/teacher — i don’t run all the ministries of the church, and i’m not some dictator who just tells everyone what to do.  this body — that we call imago Dei church — is born out of a community of people — who all have ideas, visions and dreams and when you put those all together, you get this beautiful mosaic that we call imago.

but that’s not even the thing that really fired me up…the real answer to your question is that the church started late in the fall of 2003.  it started in the living room of Ryan & Angie as a small group…and it started in the fall of 2004 when that group broke into three groups and some of us chose to begin the process of getting to know each other deeper…and as we grew together there were hints and inklings of God doing something bigger than us, but it was never really clear…and it started in January when our launch team began meeting in Kevin & Summer’s basement and we shed tears together in awe of how God providentially drew each of us to this place in our lives where we’re hungry for more from church…and it starts this weekend when the whole thing “goes public.”

so, i’m not mad at you or anything, but i don’t know how to say succinctly to you that this weekend is definately a big deal…it’s a significant time, but it’s not “the beginning,” it’s not THE start…but it’s A start…

and you’re welcome to be a part, because we get the sense that God is really doing something special and unique in us.   and truthfully, we just feel overwhelmed and excited and privileged to be in the midst of something that God is doing, and we’d love it if you want to join us!

Personally, I like that churches have paid more attention to the “secular” business world in looking after the church. There’s a lot to be said for stuff about leadership, financial accountability, strategic planning and the like. Of course one can take it to far, but overall, I think that in the last 20 years or so, the net effect has been positive.

However, church is not a business. And therefore, at times, the church must choose to make poor business decisions due to a greater good or a greater call. So, here’s what I really want to say:

I quickly found out in Nov/Dec., that there is no end to all the people that want to tell you what you have to do to plant a church. Organizations & denominations have all kinds of “strategic plans” and “church plant models” that you can follow. There are “church planter boot camps” and “church planter retreats” and seminars and evaluations ad nauseum. [Of course I'm priveleged to have several friends who have walked this path before and I love to hear their experiences. It's just the "cookie-cutter," business model approach that irks me.]

I’m trying to listen. I’m trying to sort through everything and take the really good advice. But at the same time, there’s a serious sense among our leadership team, that if we had to describe how we’re leading Imago Dei it would sound more like this: “well…everyday we look up and there’s this cloud of fire in the sky and we follow it. when it stops, we stop. when it moves, we move.”

This is way more fun than simply following someone else’s “model”

I don’t really believe that the ethos of a church can be summarized in a statement or written about. It really needs to be experienced. However, as we proceed with creating a new church, there are some underlying directives that guide how we think and process. So, for the next couple of weeks, I’m going to lay these out here. I’m sure that we’ll continue to “wordsmith” these, so here’s the first:

Everything – we believe that all of life – food, friends, work, money, pleasure, sleep – is spiritual. We do not fragment our lives – we live with a growing understanding that everything we do relates to God.

Obviously we’re using some of Rob Bell’s language here — “Everything is Spiritual” — but really the idea is much older than Rob Bell.

One of the features of modern life (I think it has it roots in the Industrial Revolution) is that we fragment our lives. We have our “personal life,” our “work life” our “spiritual life,” etc. But the truth of Scripture is that ALL of life is spiritual. God isn’t interested in having my attention for 1 hour on Sunday mornings. I am not a fragmented person. I don’t turn on or turn off my spirituality.

So here are some implications for Imago Dei:

• teachings and spiritual formation in our church has to go beyond “that was a good service” to practical and applicable on Mon - Fri as well.
• the “church” is not the sunday morning gathering. The church does gather on Sunday mornings, but the church is always a reality… church is always in session — over coffee, around tables, celebrating births, mourning at funerals, playing in swimming pools…everything relates to God.
• everyone is spiritual — if we define spirituality as the sense that there’s more to our existence than what we taste, hear, smell, touch — then everyone is spiritual, and the role of Christ followers is to help “spiritual” people connect with the real Spirit.

Before the industrial revolution, most people didn’t “go to work.”  Work was on the family farm, or one’s trade was plied in the home.  With the advent of machinary and the factory, men (and eventually women) started leaving their homes 8-12 hours a day to “go to work.”Another of the changes that’s happening in my life is a convergence of “home life” and “church life.”  With my office here at home I find myself much more a part of the rhythm of my family and I also find my family more attuned with the rhythms of my ministry.It probably means that I’m actually “working more hours” than I did when I worked in an office, but if feels like less.One of the coolest things, in my opinion, is that every morning, because I start the day fairly early and my office is right next to my two oldest sons in the basement, they come in and say “good morning” to me right after they get up — and they get to see their dad, with his Bible open, reading — and that too, is a good thing. 

Okay, I joined a new gym 3 weeks ago, and I do have sore muscles…but that’s not what this post is about.This season of life is interesting…everything is changing…developing new rhythms and patterns of doing life & ministry.One of the things that’s quite different is my own personal study/reading habits.  Someone was asking me yesterday about what is driving us in planting Imago Dei, and for me at least, one of these things that’s burning in me is a passion to teach the Bible. (Maybe someday I’ll do a post on my perception of a growing Biblical illiteracy in the American church, that deeply saddens me.)And so, for maybe the first time since leaving Seminary, I’ve found myself deeply reading commentaries — and not just sections, but actually reading through them.  Currently, our leadership team is working through 1 Corinthians, so I’m reading The NIV Application Commentary: 1 Corinthians by Craig Blomberg (one of my seminary profs), Conflict & Coommunity in Corinth: a Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians by Ben Witherington and on occasion I’m consulting NICNT: The First Epistle to the Corinthians by Gordon Fee.It’s work, but very invigorating — stimulating intellectual/spiritual muscles that I haven’t flexed in years.Good stuff. 

Since it was announced at Northwoods that I would be leaving to plant a church somewhere in Peoria, the first question that I heard from most people was, “where will you guys meet?”

The answer has been something like, “Wherever God leads us…I’m not really worried about the ‘where’ so much.”  But, two weeks ago, one of the guys on the leadership team & I started looking around, stopping at hotels, inquiring about space…and after visiting just a couple places, we had a crazy idea to call one of the coolest banquet facilities in the area, just to see what they charge.

Well, God is so good!  For what to us seems an incredible rate, on Easter Sunday we will be officially opening the doors to Imago Dei Church at The Gateway Building on the Peoria Riverfront.

(This will probably be the coolest place we’ll ever meet, everything else is downhill from here!)

It’s just another confirmation that God is leading us, making us into the church he wants us to be in Peoria.

This wasn’t exactly a “Mars Hill” thing so I didn’t include it, but I’ll say it here…

Rob’s message last weekend was solid…not spectacular, not “I’ll never forget when he said X,” but solid…the kind of teaching that as part of a regular diet in a church is good & healthy.

But what I loved is the way our team took it.  One of the verses Rob spoke on was Philippians 1:6 and it was cool to listen to our team apply what Rob was teaching to us, as a church and not just individually.

One of the characteristics of the modern American church is that we tend to read texts as individuals, when they were written to faith communities.  It was great to see our team start to understand a text as a faith community!

God is really starting something going!!

Okay, this will be my last post about our visit to Mars Hill.

There is a danger, whenever you visit another church, that you come home and just start copying the other church.  Churches all across the country have done this with Willow Creek.

However, if there’s something good to be taken away, we want to figure out what it looks like in our context.  Jennifer — on our drive home Sunday night said to me, “I was surprised at how so many things that we’ve been talking about doing are already in place at Mars Hill.”

So over the next couple of weeks, our leadership team and launch team will be really figuring some of this stuff out.  Some of the stuff that I’d love to take away:

• the emphasis on simplicity…let community and solid Bible teaching be what draws people to our community and not slick advertising and great entertainment.
• the offering boxes in the back…brilliant
• their dedication to be good stewards of kingdom resources.
• I liked the auditorium in the round…we’d have to see if this works for us…you need to have a decent number of people first, before this would really work.

Matt Krick has been on staff at Mars Hill for 7 1/2 years…and for the first year and a half, he was a key volunteer.  Some of you may recognize the name — he spoke in the “God is Green” series that they did last summer.  Matt met with our team for about 45 minutes and just answered questions.  I’m not going to put everything he said here, but judging by head bobbing and later conversations, here’s what resonated with our team:

• Mars Hill will never do a building campaign, unless it’s to build something for the kingdom.
• From the very beginning, they took 25% of the offering and put it aside to be used for International needs…meeting the needs “of the least of these”
• They do not direct or manage house churches…most of those communities develop in a grass-roots fashion.
• It’s estimated that about 10,000 people come to Mars Hill every weekend (they don’t count).  And they have about 70 staff.  (FYI: that’s about a third of the ratio found in most churches)
• Someone on our team asked how they manage the “Rob phenomenom.”  It was cool to hear Matt talk about how the elders work with Rob to establish his schedule for the year.  He is first and foremost a pastor of a church in Grand Rapids.
• Their elder selection process begins with “What gifts are not real strong on the elder board at this time?”  “What kind of person are we looking for?”

I let other people that were in the room comment on what jazzed them…