Priming the Pump

It’s Saturday morning and I set my alarm for 6:00 AM.  I hate getting up early on weekends like this.  My back hurts, my head aches, and I want to go back to bed.  I’m up against a deadline for my dissertation so I cruised on down to my local Starbucks to get writing before the family awakes.  But I’m too tired and too fuzzy to write so I thought a quick blog may prime the pump.

I’m giddy and really nervous to begin my research.  Giddy because I love to learn but nervous because of what the results may lead to.  The whole gist of my dissertation stems from the question, “why don’t we plant churches in the city compared to the suburbs?”  As a strategist obviously my heart is for the entire metro area … ‘urbs, ‘burbs, and outlying areas …. white, black, brown, locals, foreign-born, rich, poor, etc.  Tucson is my city and I love this city like a child.  I know that is an odd admission but even during the while where I thought of leaving it was really painful to think of letting go because I’ve invested so much in studying, trying to understand, and falling in love with this city.  I love this place and I love that we’re rapidly becoming more diverse.  We have about 500 refugee families moving here within the next few months with most of them from Iraq.  In my opinion the more diverse a city is the better.

I don’t have a bias against the suburbs.  Since the bulk majority of church planting taking place across tribal lines is in the burbs I feel I don’t need to beat the drum for there.  Most will gravitate towards the suburbs so we’re good to go.  Since my heart is for the metro area I want to see churches planted ALL OVER which is why I have to constantly beat the drum for the city … for the Hispanics, for the refugess, for the internatoinal students, for 4th Ave dwellers, for the creative class, for the downtown, for the poor, and so on.  The hard part is that the truth is … it really is much more difficult to plant a financially sustaining church in the city than the burbs.  Again, not one is better and even in the suburbs there is no such thing as easy.  Its just going to take a completely differernt appraoch to plant in the city.

Ok, I think I’m primed now so TTFN!

Pure Sex in Tucson

I gotta brag about one of our church planters.  Jeremiah McDuffie, pastor of The Element which launched just last year was on the news tonight.  He’s been making headlines with his new sermon series called Pure Sex.  He even started a website called www.puresextucson.com.  The big idea behind it is to talk about sexuality from a biblical perspective.  I was talking with our associational Director John tonight and he told me that the office has fielded dozens of phone calls from irate people.  The Element sent out 35,000 postcards advertising this new series.  This is a bold more for Jeremiah and The Element.  They’re also renting out the auditorium at Rincon High School.

I pray that this would be a huge landslide of momentum for Jeremiah.  He’s worked his tail off connecting with people all over Tucson showing them God’s love in practical ways.  Pray for him and The Element!!!

Here are links to local tv and newspapers regarding the story:

Pure Sex Tucson

Tucson Citizen

Fox 11 Arizona

Beating the Drum of the City

So late last night I was at the gym for an hour on the stationary bike reading.  I picked up a book on urban church planting and was mesmerized.  Written by a whole slew of authors the book is a powerful read.  The question that continuously haunts me and is now the focus of my dissertation is simply, “why don’t we plant churches in the city … in the ‘urbs and not just the ‘burbs?”  To be honest the deeper I look and the more layers I pull back the uglier and more painful it gets.  Ugly may be a light word because scandalous would be more descriptive.  Painful in that I’m confronted with my own biases, self-centeredness, materialism, apathy, and even laziness.

Last night on the bike a very large layer was pulled back and it really hurt even to the point where I wanted to throw the book across the room.  The chapter was on “Addressing Felt Needs of Urban Dwellers” and one of the questions at the beginning was, “Why don’t we?”  Then the author began to dive into American evangelicalism with its assumptions and seamless mergence with middle-class America.  Basically the values of middle-class American has been theologized into white evangelicalism to the point where I’d say it is almost idolatrous.  So many assumptions, so much theologizing derived out of the socio-economic milieu of the middle class, and a overwhelming amount of proof-texting that keeps us at a safe distance from the city and the needs of urban dwellers.

The issues of why we don’t plant in the city?  (1) money, (2) safety, and (3) discomfort are just a few.  (I’m sure the early disciples must not have gotten the memo on this list)  Listen to this quote, “Our forms and focus of ministry are also shaped by the absolutizing of middle-class norms.  We learn easily that bigger is better, so we freeze our church planting efforts into usually suburban settings which promise the largest number, given our middle-class forms of preaching and worship.”  The bottom line is that if you have 3-5 years to start a financially self-sustaining church you’re best shot is truly in the suburbs.  If you plant in the city or among different ethnic groups you may NEVER be financially sustainable.  I look at Dr. Jimmy Dorrell’s “Church Under the Bridge” in Waco, TX that is a church started for the marginalized.  They have 300 people and no paid staff.  300 people in a suburban church usually means 3-8 full-time paid staff and property.  Who wants to go to seminary, become a trained specialist, earn advanced degrees, and then start a church that may NEVER pay your salary?

So I wrestle and wrestle and wrestle.  This is truly painful but I’m grateful for a God who doesn’t care that I’m comfortable.  How blind I have been!  Over and over and over in Scripture do we see God, like a magnet, drawn to the broken, the marginalized, the distressed, the hurting, the illegal, the alien, the refugee, and the overwhelmed.  Who was Jesus?  He was an Asian-born child who became a refugee in Africa because of political turmoil.  God Himself was marginalized from the beginning …

It’s in the Air

Back home growing up in Iowa you could feel the changing of the seasons.  As fall marched closer the evenings grew crisper and the leaves started to change colors.  You knew that something was on the horizon and everything around you screamed that it was coming with the changing of the seasons. In Arizona?  Well, that’s a different story.  Spring seamlessly turns to summer and somewhere around December you realize it has stopped being so hot.  There aren’t really any other indicators to let you know otherwise.  The scenery basically looks the same which is mostly brown with some green vegetation.

Sitting here at Caffe Luce at Main Gate Square at the U of A gives me hope that fall is coming.  This week marks back to school for college students and this Saturday is the first football game for the Arizona Wildcats.  I’ve waited impatiently for 9 months for this day for college football to start and it is now here.  With no other “triggers” to let me know the season is changing and fall is coming this day just kinda came out of nowhere.  But alas, it is here!!!

I also know that every campus ministry has been extremely busy on campus this past week trying desperately to connect with as many students as possible.  No pun intended but it’s like “hell week” for these leaders as they’re running at a frantic pace trying to start the year off right and amass as many students as they can from the get-go and hopefully maintain momentum through Christmas.  There is an insane amount of work with campus ministry that I can’t comprehend.  On top of that you have the ever-revolving door as students come in and others graduate and move on.  What would it look like to begin planting churches here on and around campus?  I know of Damascus Road who’re here making a presence on campus connecting with students and doing a great job.  A part from that who else is running to the campus to start new churches?

Hope

I just finished a meeting at a downtown coffee shop with the Planning Director from the City of Tucson Department of Urban Planning and Design.  I came away greatly encouraged and excited about the future of Tucson, especially the downtown area.  I know there have been a number of naysayers and skeptics regarding seeing our core revitalized but I think we’re on the cusp of some amazing changes … and yes, it will take time and patience.

Here’s what I came away with today.

1. A new church plant downtown can be the very social glue to pull together this community.  With the several big downtown residential developments coming it is time to plant a church here soon, really soon.
2. The incoming modern electric streetcar will change things more than simply offering a fun way to travel from the U of A to downtown.
3. We’re at the brink of the tipping point to see things really get rolling here downtown … things will be significantly different even in 5 years.
4. Tucson is a young city maturity-wise and we’re still growing up and changing.  Our best days lie ahead.

How exciting is it to think of how the chuch can be part of this process?  How the church can not only redeem lives, but strengthen families, and make our city a better place.  As one of my heros Ray Bakke said, “Christians are the only people on this earth who have the integrated worldview of matter and spirit that enables us to tackle sewer system development and the salvation of souls with equal gusto.”  Rightly said Ray …. rightly said.

Will you dream with me?

Procrastinating

Well … I have 72 hours to start on and write my 25 page dissertation proposal and so I’m blogging instead.  I’d like to think that I’m like MJ, or Kobe, or one of the Manning brothers and that I perform best under pressure … but in reality I’m freaking out so I’m doing everything BUT what I need to do.  I’ve already waxed the car, shampooed the carpets, overhauled one of my engines, replumbed the house, and found a solution for world hunger … all since lunch.

So … I’m supposed to be writing on city / urban-focused church planting with a more fluid / missional ecclesiology centered in city cores that will bring abount community / societal transformation.  I know, I know, sounds like a tall task.  I read this today in an urban church planting book, “Five smooth stones in the hands of a person of faith can still bring down the Goliaths of the large cities.”  Rightly so.  With that said … on to my proposal and may the force be with me!

Meat Market

This summer I blazed through a wickedly fun book called “Meat Market: Inside the Smash-Mouth World of College Football Recruiting.”  Since I listen to ESPN radio more religiously than I brush my teeth I heard them talk about it one day and I knew I had to get it.  The book follows Ole Miss’s former head coach who is something of a recruiting wiz.  As a matter of fact he almost single-handedly was the one responsible for turning around USC with recruiting gobs of All-Americans and some other “no names” like Reggie Bush and Matt Lienart.  The reason why the book fascinates me is (1) I’m a 100% college-football junkie and I have no need to go into rehab for it either and (2) I feel like my best contribution to the body of work of church planting is in the recruiting.

As I read through the book I was talking with a friend about how we could maybe devise a recruitnig website like scout.com or something along those lines and give potential church planters a star-rating like incoming college athletes.  Heck, we could post top-rated recruiting classes city by city or association by association, have highlight tapes, and hype the heck out of church planting.  In college football they have “war rooms” where they constantly break down tape of blue-chippers and discern who’s the best out there that they can get constantly moving names up and down on their recruiting board.

Is it unspiritual to do this for church planters?  I mean, I’m amped up thinking of Nike endorsements, new facilities for recruiting, private jets, and the whole 9 yards …. hahahaha.  Seriously though, I like what coaches do … they maintain a good pulse on rising stars NATION-WIDE and do the best they can do to woo them to their city and team.  What if I were to take a total proactive role and GO AFTER blue-chippers and call each seminary asking for their brightest, best, and most talented up and coming leaders?  What if I then visited, gave them an awe-inspiring “sell” about Tucson and church planting here, movements, a wining team, a healthy environment for growth, and all the tools to help them take it to the next level?  Is there something wrong with that?  Is it sinful, worldly, or simply being wise?  Do we not as Christians employ the best of what we have available to impact this world?  Is this any different than using technology in our worship, websites, blogs, media in evangelism, tracking systems, creating discipleship systems, and so on?  Are we to use everything non-tech?  Is what I’m proposing any different?  Am I simply being like a wise farmer utilizing the best technology and disease resistant crops to yield a greater harvest?

You tell me?  Here’s the bottom line … the more and harder I recruit the more church planters plant churches in Tucson, PERIOD.

Transformed

Another day another trip downtown.  Another opportunity to sit, reflect, discover, and plan.  Change is slow.  I wish it would happen a lot faster.  Its like you go to the gym month after month working hard and change comes slow.  The first time Grant worked out with me he got home and flexed his mighty 9-year old muscles in the mirror exclaiming how much stronger he is and that his muscles had grown.  If it only were so easy.  I wish that changes could happen that fast … I want to have a robust spiritual connectivity with God NOW, I want instant results at the gym NOW, I want to plant gobs of churches throughout the region NOW, and I want to see Tucson as a city transformed NOW not only spiritually but more hip and trendy places to hang out and go to.

When you crave change and transformation and monitor it daily it is frustrating, overwhelming, and progess creeps along like at the pace of a growing saguaro.  But maybe that is life in general or in particular here in the desert.  We all love the majestic saguaros with all of their arms reaching towards the heavens looking like a forest of green people smattered across the landscape waving at you.  Then you realize that they sprouted way back when Tucson was still part of Spain or Mexico.  Change is slow but the results are stunning.  When you follow change daily it is slow but even if you look back after a year you’re surprised to see how much has transpired … and then five years, amazing.

The desire to see Tucson grow and mature as a new world-class city is not going to be some overnight transformation.  I remember a breakfast I had with one of the urban city planners here in Tucson and he said, “In 5 years downtown Tucson will be completely changed.”  But as I sit here again today I do see signs of hope …. new residential lofts being built, the tracks of the new electric streetcar are a mere 30 feet from where I sit, the interstate is halfway complete, the Mercado District is making good progress, and so much more.  He is right … in 5 years it will be amazing.  Even this coffee shop I sit in wasn’t here a year ago and now it is a vital launching point for me as I study and explore this city that I take for granted.

I want change and want it now but I’m learning to have more patience although it kills me sometimes.  This is a commitment for the long haul because nothing happens easily or overnight but transformation is taking place.  At the same time I also want to stop and savor each moment.  Yesterday I took a drive up close to the Catalinas and just stared at them as the shadows from the afternoon sun highlighted numerous granite spires along the western flank.  It was stunning.  I just needed to take a 20 minute mental vacation and slow down.  My breath slowed and it was almost like I could breathe again.

Things will change and transform … I just need to enjoy the process and not get too impatient.

Eureka! Planting in the Core

This is Day 2 of my pilgrimage to downtown Tucson as I continue my exploration of learning more about the creative class.  Sure enough that means I’m kickin’ it at Tooley’s, a new coffee shop, at Fifth and Congress.  After walking in I already feel like I’m the “old conservative guy” since my one solo tattoo just ain’t cuttin’ it here … I need about 7 more, a few piercings, and possibly some dreads.  Eureka!  I found it though.

I’ve been here a number of times but not specifically for the sole purpose of uncovering the creative class.  I want to sit here, drink my latte, and let the vibe of this place seep into my pores.  I walked and drove by loads of art galleries which leads me to believe I’m somewhat close to the epicenter.  Upon walking into Tooley’s there’s a table full of info on local art galleries.  I also think Tucson as a city is thinking more and more along these lines because as I sit here next to the window I’m watching the big reconstruction project that is called One North Fith which are trendy apartment lofts.  When you check out the website and consider the location they have one demographic profile in their sights … the creative class.  These are all studio apartments or one bedroom ones, not really conducive for a family.

Maybe the city planners know more than we do and know that the future of urban living is found in the creative class.  I mean these are people who’re reclaimng dumpy old warehouses and turning them into galleries and studios.  So my follow-up question is … where’s the church?  What would a new church look like here at the core of the city?  How would you start one?  What would it look like / be like?  Where do you go to connect with people?  How does the church make the core a better place?

Let the Show Go On!

What is the purpose of our gatherings as believers?  This is an “age-old” discussion we wrestle with here in the West or all over the world for that matter.  Do we gather to worship?  Is it discipleship?  Is it evangelism for people to bring their friends who are not Christians?  Often times the answer to this question determines how you “do church.”  I have a library full of books written by authors, mostly pastors, who advocate their slant on the answer to this question.  Within this continuum you have a wide variety of expressions ranging from the ultimate show like Ed Young Jr. at Fellowship Church in Grapevine (TX) who used a real tank on stage as a prop.  They don’t spare any expense for the Sunday morning program to be top notch.  For other churches it is more like huge bible studies with the focus being on cognitive discipleship where the teaching usually is expository and lasts a good hour.

What is the purpose?  Does anything from the early church in Acts give us a blueprint?  Well, yes and no.  If the goal is to contextualize the expression of church into the host culture then what does Acts teach us?  Again, do we read Acts as DEscriptive or PREscriptive?  So they gathered in the temple initially and met in homes daily but once persecution hit the temple-gig was out the door and the church was forced underground.  Obviously they weren’t putting on a big show for the “lost” people of the first century and instead of tanks on the stage there were camels or something.

I’m not even saying how we’re “doing church” is wrong at all, but sometime when you think of placing our blueprint of church today back onto the Acts church it does seem a bit odd.  How would the people respond to an entertainment-drive church?  Would it makes sense?  Would masses of “lost” people wander in off the dusty roads to learn about how to have a better marriage or to learn skills from a biblical perspective on how to deal with co-workers?  Well … I’d have to say probably?  Maybe?  Definitely?  Who knows?  And that’s probably not even a valid question since I firmly believe that Acts is more descriptive and reactionary as to the way they “did church.”

Others argue that we gather to simply worship God through song.  So which is it?  Are we taking too much liberty in our compartmentalized categories to think we can dissect what takes place on Sunday as one thing over another?  Church is not something that happens on Sundays.  It’s akin to saying that I am a human more than one hour a week.  I’m a human 24/7.  We ARE the church 24/7 and while we may gather on Sundays for an hour that is but a mere fraction of our entire lives.  Think about it … you spend more time in the shower each week than you do at a worship gathering!  So if all we’ve done is defined chuch as an hour time slot on the weekends where does that lead us the rest of that day or even the entire week?  So is all the debate on how we meet for an hour even a relevant conversation?  Shouldn’t we spend more time getting people to do/be church the rest of the week since that takes up 99.8% of the rest of their lives?  If all we’re focusing is that .02% of the week and spend all of our money, resources, and staff on that itty bitty time slot doesn’t that seem a little lop-sided?