Defining Vision

Well, Mindy and I will be in Texas at the end of December, so we're looking forward to some time away from our beloved little wasteland on the West Coast. Check out these pictures from the Halloween Party in West Hollywood literally 100 yards away from our front door. Over 500,000 people in costumes showed up! It was crazy at 7:00 when Mindy and I ventured out. I can't imagine what it was like later that night!

And in honor of the election, here's a guy dressed up like a devil holding a "Cheney/Satan 2008" campaign sign. Now that's a Cali culture study if I've ever seen one!

Between now and Christmas, we are meeting with our little group of people and refocusing our thinking on "discipleship" and what we are called to in this mission field out here. When you work in a church, go to seminary, and then go plant a church, one of the things you are exposed to on a constant basis is "vision" for the church. I've heard every type of vision you can imagine, some of them fantastic and inspirational (like the vision set forth by Watermark in Dallas), some of them nothing more than glorified business plans for the imperialistic expansion of what amounts to a Christian country club. As we move forward out here, we are basically studying vision for the church in a relatively unique way.

Rather than looking at statistics and trends in church planting, we're looking at the life of Christ.

It's a little selfish of me when it comes down to it. You see, statistics and trends bore me. So I don't like them very much. Jesus doesn't bore me. And since I like him quite a bit more than I like statistics and trends, we're going to focus on Him. When it comes down to it, I could spend my energy and time convincing people in LA that there is a need for a Missional Emerging Conservative Evangelical Bible Community Church on the West side, and show them the demographics and talk about the latest clever ideas for launching new programs that will target people who like to be targeted by clever new programs, or I could spend my time and energy teaching, encouraging, and inspiring us to be disciple makers. I'd prefer the later though it isn't always neat and pretty.

So here's our vision for the immediate future. Learn about the LIFE OF CHRIST because it is the foundation for the LIFE OF THE DISCIPLE which in turn is the backbone of the LIFE OF THE CHURCH. It may sound overly simplistic to some people, but for us it's critical. Most of us out here have significant experience programming. Honestly, if programming and planning were all it took to be successful at planting a church, these guys would be superstars. We're surrounded by some incredibly gifted and talented people. But there's more to the Church than it's programs.

So we're studying the life of Christ to see if it helps us be better disciples and ultimately better disciple makers. Of course, it's one thing to know about it and whole other thing to actually do something about it.

So please pray for us. Much like anywhere else in the world, being a disciple maker ain't exactly rocket science. But then again it ain't exactly child's play either.