Last week I wrote a bit on why Love Carrick has chosen to do house churches as the way we gather. Another equally important and potentially confusing thing about our ministry is why we focus on such a concentrated area. I mean didn’t Jesus die for the whole world and doesn’t everyone need to be influenced by His love. Yep and yep. I’ll do my best on this one as well.
For us, church and ministry is not some sort of job or duty to gather people to have weekly worship services. For many years churches have focused on this as a primary strategy. Less than a decade ago I attended a church planting workshop for one week where the leaders basically said you just need a good worship band, a good speaker, and decent parking to start a church. Ok kill me. That is not a church and we all know it; that is some form of a christian conference that is definitely not where we are headed. We want to make sure that we do some things right out of the gate that sets us up for long-term permanence in our neighborhood so let’s try to do that.
First, we start with the incarnation of Jesus. Jesus came and dwelled among us. One translation that describes the Immanuel God (God with us) talks about how Jesus moved into the neighborhood. So Love Carrick has this overwhelming assumption that we start with the incarnation of Jesus. He was rooted in a particular time and place, making His dwelling among us. I could write a lot more about what all that means but basically being rooted in a particular place has rich theological and biblical roots and this starts to lay the foundation for why we focus so narrowly on a neighborhood.
Proximity and presence are two key words for us when it comes to being a neighborhood church. We cannot truly follow Jesus into a particular context without knowing that context. This obviously does not take place mechanically as if we are filling out a rubric but it takes place as we “dwell” as Christ did in a particular place. When you are present and live in close proximity with people in a small geographical area, you begin to start to see the same people all the time. You begin to learn what makes a community tick – what are the joys, what are the assets, what are the needs and problems, what are the factors that have contributed to its peace? Living in close proximity and being present answers these question pretty easily.
In the Old Testament, there was something that some have called centripetal mission. Centripetal force may be a familiar term for those of us who paid attention in 7th grade science class; in sum, it is a mission that pulls all to the center. The temple of David and Solomon explains this quite well. The elaborate plan to build a beautiful building that would reflect the beauty of God and its presence would draw people into its courts was the aim. When Jesus came however, He becomes the temple and by virtue of our conection to him, Christ-followers themselves become the new temple. We no longer live under this centripetal mission canopy but are called to incarnate the presence of Jesus where we live and work.
I could say so much more but for Love Carrick we choose to integrate in every nook and cranny of our neighborhood because we love it. Our friends are here. The places where we shop are here. The schools where our kids attend are here. We could, of course, choose to not integrate and have all the different components of our lives not be in a specific place. We choose to swim upstream as we believe that there truly is a longing for community and a longing for home.
We are thrilled to join with community organizations, schools, the local government, the library and anyone else who has a passion to love this place.As we spend time hanging in all these spheres, our longing is that Christ would be reflected in the fullness of His beauty and that a community would be embraced.
We realize that we will not be the church that influences an entire region of the country in a matter of years. Perhaps though, our neighborhood will be better and more Christ-centered because the Kingdom of God has come in and through us. And perhaps, more and more neighborhoods will catch the mission and message of Jesus and see the Kingdom come with proximity and presence in their areas.
We know this is going to be super slow and take a long time. We also realize that this doesn’t pay clergy or provide church staff with financial stability. That isn’t actually our number one goal if you can imagine that. 🙂 But we are convinced that slowly but surely a neighborhood can be influenced by the beauty and radiance of Jesus and transformation can come.
Lastly, and I just have to keep saying it out loud, we are just one of hundreds of ways that the presence of Jesus can express itself in the world. I want to see every kind of church possible serve every kind of person in every kind of community. No one involved in our ministry is upset or railing against the established church. This is just where the Spirit has led us and we’re doing all we can to follow him down that path. To Love Carrick is to live in community and join Jesus to bring His love, liberty, and hope to every pocket of our neighborhood. Gonna take a while. . . 🙂
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