Had 2 great bbq's at my home this weekend, life is good and so are my friends. Fight Club members and their families were over on Saturday (Rains, Johnsons, Allis, Moutz) and that is always a great time. Being with those guys makes me feel so much less isolated in this transitional time of culture doing the missional community gig. Fight Club is becoming a primary source of spiritual growth for me. Ordinary Community was over on Sunday for a gathering and because of some external circumstances, we got pretty "real". We had an in depth discussion on Authenticity, Accountability, Community and mission. We talked of trying to be more intentional in our accountability cuz we've been together long enough as a community now that all of our dirty laundry is out on the table and we feel vulnerable with one another, no more pretense. At the same time, intimate relationships are based on trust and do we feel safe with all of our stuff out there with the larger community? Or do we need another layer of community that is smaller (smaller than a house church??) in which we feel safe being that vulnerable? Our conclusion = who knows? We're never gonna figure this out completely. But the process of journeying together closer and closer to the heart of God is messy and challenging. What we do know, is that Christ-following is a community event. Isolation sucks. I've been floored this week by these words from Henri Nouwen, "In the Name of Jesus" . . .
"more and more people are suffering from profound moral and spiritual handicaps without having any idea of where to look for healing. It is here that the need for a new Christian leadership becomes clear. The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation that allows them to enter into a deep solidarity with the anguish underlying all the glitter of success, and to bring the light of Jesus there."

peace,
Chris