On March 22, 2011, I sent the following letter to the Bible Church elders. This letter will serve as the first entry in this blog and as the introduction to what it is about. I received the blessing I requested in this letter. It is to be given publicly during the church service on Sunday, May 1.
Dear Bible Church elders:
I am captivated by a vision of what could be. It is a vision about Christians and how they gather to worship and grow. I have been thinking about this for many years, but in my current chapter of life, with a new job and both boys soon to be away at college, I now feel free to give it a try.
The idea is inspired in part by the Church of the Savior, in Washington, DC. Started in the 1970s, The Church of the Savior is formed around small missional communities of 5-15. Each community is formed, in turn, around an activity that is an act of worship and expression of God’s love. When I visited them some years ago, one of the communities would purchase an inexpensive and run down house. They would renovate the house themselves, sell it to someone with a low income, then take the payment and buy another house to renovate. In this way, they demonstrated God’s love for the poor. Other missional communities engaged in other activities. Each would gather for worship three weeks out of the month. On the fourth week, all of them would gather together as a large group.
Most churches are centered in a large gathering every Sunday. From there they encourage people to also join a smaller group for greater intimacy and accountability. Some churches, in turn, encourage the small groups to engage in a shared purpose, often an activity in the community. The Church of the Savior model turns this upside down. Its foundation is small groups that are formed around a shared activity as an act of worship. The small, missional groups then gather monthly as a community of communities.
I would like to replicate this decentralized, missional church model in the Triangle. It might not be exactly the same as the Church of the Savior. A few changes may be needed to adapt the model to this area. And several questions need to be addressed up front. For example, what would the missional communities do on the fourth Sunday, and what standards would they have for community leaders? But I believe I got a glimpse of what could be in the early days of Africa Rising. Before we had an executive director, volunteers gathered monthly to share a meal, talk about what had transpired in the previous month, make plans for the next month’s activities, and pray. Apart from meeting weekly, I would add to this teaching and discussion of God’s Word.
Participation in one of these communities would require a higher level of commitment than for a traditional church. In the Church of the Savior model, members sign a one-year covenant, committing to dedicate a certain amount of time each week to work on the shared activity and to gather weekly. I also see a need for training of community leaders, and rising community leaders.
I do not see this model as a rejection of the traditional church. Rather, it is another means of corporately worshiping God. Underscoring this posture, I believe the missional communities need to stay in relationship with the traditional model, perhaps joining a traditional church for worship on the fourth Sunday. In this light, perhaps a number of churches could form missional communities that they are in relationship with. If so, then what I am describing is not a church plant, but a church movement.
There are many details that need to be worked out. After Easter Sunday I plan to enter into a 6-12 month period of discernment in which I will take retreats, pray, have conversations, and do research. I will be doing this based out of Emmaus Way, one of the Bible Church’s daughter churches, because they are several steps ahead of the Bible Church in developing and sustaining missional communities. Their experiences will be invaluable in giving me guidance. But that does not mean I will disappear from the Bible Church. Following the Nairobi Chapel model in which the pastors from their family of churches are a resource to all of their churches, I would like to be a resource to the Bible Church and its spin-offs. For example, I plan to teach occasionally in the young adults group, and to help maintain relations with our partner churches.
I have shared this vision with a number of people I often refer to for advice: Gayle, Ian, Jordan, Keith Newell, Jim Dobbins, Christopher Kigongo, Dave and Angie Ward, Tim Conder, and Randy Russell. I also shared it with Jessica Dykstra, one of the leaders of the young adults group, to ask her advice about how I should talk with the young adults about my move. (I have been one of their main teachers for the last couple of years.) Each of these advisers has been supportive, even excited about my vision.
I am hoping now that the elders, as a group, would be able to bless me as I launch into this venture. I say this because I have been a part of the Bible Church leadership for more than two decades, in several different roles, and I have many significant relationships in this church. Those people will need some help understanding my move. And they will look to the elders, wondering whether I am leaving on good terms. An elders’ blessing would make that clear.
Another reason I seek a blessing is because what I am doing is consistent with one of God’s fingerprints on the Bible Church – creating kingdom ventures. To bless what I am doing would be to claim this as a Bible Church venture, though as with all ventures, we are not assured of the outcome.
I do not seek any financial support, but I would hope for a public declaration of some kind. That could range from an announcement in the bulletin or an article in the Fold, to a prayer on the stage one Sunday morning.
Thank you for prayerfully considering my request. And please pray for what I hope to begin.
Your brother in Christ,
Jim Thomas
