Marc’s Musings

It’s happening!

WCSH News was on hand to find out why we were giving away free gas and to hear about our plans for VCW 2.0. They even interviewed people at the pump!

There’s still some gas available, so if you’re in the Waterville area head over to Lucien’s Mobil (right off I-95 exit 127.) Regular gas is $3.73 but because the Vineyard is paying the first 25 cents on each gallon, the regular is $3.48!

It’s another fun way to help out our community.

[If you get Channel 6, would you tape tonight's newscast? Our TV doesn't necessarily get NBC but I'd love to have a copy.]

Closing the church just didn’t seem right without doing some servant evangelism!

We have touched around 5000 individuals since we started, and we didn’t “get” servant evangelism until year 2!

Servant evangelism is about sharing God’s love in very practical, and often quirky, ways. And what’s a very real concern for our neighbors? The cost of gas.

So we’ve decided to do a “gas pay down” here in Waterville at Lucien’s Mobil on KMD.

On Friday, May 16 at 6 a.m., the Vineyard Church of Waterville is paying 25 cents of every single gallon of gas. We’ll keep it going for the first 1000 gallons sold!

Would you help us get the word out?

To see what we mean by servant evangelism, go to http://watervillevineyard.org/servantevangelism.htm

I’m currently reading The Gospel According to Starbucks: Living with a Grande Passion by Leonard Sweet.

Sweet has a way of taking an analogy and s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g it a bit thinner than I think it should go. But I do the same thing so maybe that’s why I like reading his stuff.

The center of his book on what the church can be is built around the acronym EPIC:

• Experiential
• Participatory
• Image-rich
• Connections

In the section on being image-rich, he talks about the need for church cultures to be Imax, not iPod and comments on how Starbucks minimizes words and maximizes images.

As I read that, it hit me, VCW 1.0 has been text heavy. Despite our desire and vision of being a place for artists, having murals or art on the walls, and using all our senses in our worship service, we’ve been basically preaching and singing. We even podcast the sermon.

The walls are still bare. The building’s exterior, embarrassing. Word heavy, image lite.

But I want to be part of a church that attracts people skilled in painting and sculpture as well as word and song. I have no desire to lighten up on the teaching and worship singing. But in VCW 2.0, I certainly want to expand our understanding of worship. I want the giftings of Bezalel and Oholiab to be a reality in our midst.

If you’re of the praying variety, please pray that I’ll be the kind of leader that can release these God-given gifts in our midst. And that I’ll also be able to identify the giftings and release them in people.

The Protestant Church prides itself on being a talking-head-church. But Jesus didn’t seem to hung up on preaching only. He engaged entire human beings, not just their brains.

That’s the kind of people I want VCW 2.0 to be.

Just got a cool invite to a Facebook Group: Romans8Movement. It’s a group of people committed to memorizing the entire chapter of Romans 8.

On the romans8movement.com site, they even have printable flashcards to help.

Check out the text of Romans 8 (TNIV). And then join the Facebook group at: Romans8Movement.

Romans 8
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful humanity to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in human flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind controlled by the sinful nature is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. The sinful mind is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.

You, however, are not controlled by the sinful nature but are in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then can condemn? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Chris Busch has a great blog post about Saving Tinkerbell.

In it, Chris says:

Peter implores the audience to show their belief in fairies by clapping and as the live audience is worked into a frenzy, Tinkerbell is miraculously revived and averts certain death. We just needed to believe in fairies hard enough.

I’ve seen a lot of people in business over the years trying to save Tinkerbell. I’ve done it myself. Made a dumb decision, or two… OK, or three, and then believed that in spite of my own bad judgment I could somehow revive Tinkerbell if I just believed hard enough.

It reminded me alot of our decision to close the Vineyard Church of Waterville.

Someone apologized to me last night. “I’m sorry I didn’t show up more and pay more money.” I thanked him but told him that wasn’t the point. It’s not that “if we just believed more” Tinkerbell (aka VCW) would be saved.

Our God is a God of resurrection. Sure, He could’ve revived VCW. But that’s not the way this journey is headed. VCW is going to die. Period. It served its purpose. It’s time to move on.

What will come next? I don’t know. But I’m thinking a resurrection is coming. The Jesus that was raised from the dead was not the same Jesus that died. The Jesus that was raised had been changed. He now can walk through walls and show up wherever he wants. (Really. Read Luke 24.)

In some amazing way, resurrection made Jesus’ body even more “substantial.” So real, even atoms moved out of the way for Him. (Check out C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorcefor an idea of what I mean.)

In his post, Chris says:

As a teenage lad I was grumbling one day to my dad about how hard life was. A man of few words, he never looked up from the big wheel bearing he was packing with heavy grease, but just said, “It’s supposed to be hard.”

Hmmm. Come to think of it, I don’t remember Dad clapping for Tinkerbell.

The death of Jesus was real. Believing in Him didn’t make it go away. This isn’t Peter Pan.

But the Good News is that resurrection was even more real.

May that be the same with VCW 2.0!

Thanks Chris for helping give me some language to describe the part of the journey we’re on!

Today, Emily and I shared with everyone that we are closing the Vineyard Church of Waterville.

You read it right.

We’d asked our board about just closing down Sundays. Attendence has been declining over the last 18 to 24 months. Offerings have always been below what is needed. As a pastor, I was concerned for the team. There was no “bench” to draw from. We encourage all levels of leadership or oversight to be looking for the person they’ll pass it on to. But there aren’t those people.

Here’s a graph of our weekly attendence, each year in a different color:

You’ll note two things:

• The 2007 trend line is going in the wrong direction. It’s going down. And 2007 was lower than 2005 or 2006.
• The purple line is 2008. It’s lower than any other year.

I also showed them this image of last year’s offerings and this year’s.

The red line is the barebones budget, less in 2008 than in 2007. What this doesn’t show is that our average monthly tithes and offerings were twice this, around $4000, in 2005.

But other things are going well: our budget course is attended by people from our church and guests. People have been healed and demons have been cast out. And servant evangelism is going through the roof:

Clearly, our church is having an impact far beyond our numbers. And we continue to find amazing favor in our community. But something’s not connecting to make this attempt viable.

I’m so glad to be part of a movement. People wiser than us and in authority over us have been recommending we get some rest. We’ve been working at this very hard for the last 3 1/2 years. Now is a good time to take a rest.

In telling this to one of our leaders, I commented, “I don’t feel I need a rest.” She asked me, “Isn’t that the time you should rest? Before you’re totally burnt-out?”

So we’re closing VCW 1.0 on Sunday, May 18. The old sign is already down.

Then we’ll all enter into a period of rest. My family will go to our sending church, the Vineyard Church of Lewiston, a couple times each month. We’ve been encouraged to go up for prayer every time we can. (No matter what the call is for! ) We’ll go to the Vineyard East Regional Conference in July. And we’ll rest and play.

Resting is so foreign to American Christians. But it’s pretty biblical. This is like a Sabbath. It’s stepping back to move forward. Steven Covey calls this “sharpening the saw.”

“Suppose you were to come upon someone in the woods working feverishly to saw down a tree.

‘What are you doing?’ you ask.

‘Can’t you see?’ comes the impatient reply. ‘I’m sawing down this tree.’

‘You look exhausted!’ you exclaim. ‘How long have you been at it?’

‘Over five hours,’ he returns, ‘and I’m beat! This is hard work.’

‘Well, why don’t you take a break for a few minutes and sharpen that saw?’ you inquire. ‘I’m sure it would go a lot faster.’

‘I don’t have time to sharpen the saw,’ the man says emphatically. ‘I’m too busy sawing!’

So many churches are to busy sawing to stop and re-assess.

Interestingly, as I share this with the people I feel called to, they instinctively “get” it. And it makes sense to them. Hopefully this will help us build even more credibility!

At some point toward the end of the summer, we’ll begin to regroup. We’ll be articulating our vision as pastors. We haven’t really ever done that. We’ve always articulated our vision in the context of the reality of having a building. Phil commented that we’ve been planting this church from other people’s vision. So true. Now we’ve been here for a few years and have a heart for the people and the region.

We’ll also do a hard assessment of the first plant. We certainly want to identify what wasn’t working so we don’t bring that into the next plant!

And we’ll begin meeting with our team–who ever is left in Waterville, the board (all in Lewiston), and other people. We’ll be hammering out our strategy for a launch, which we hope will be Easter 2009.

Then we’ll re-engage. We’re planning on starting a good kinship in September. And are expecting to start monthly gatherings in October (6 months before the launch).

Even with the sadness of putting a church down, I’m pretty excited. I know God’s not through with us here in Waterville. And He’s giving us a chance to plant the kind of church we’d want to go to. We’ve always wanted to plant a church

• that is experiential, not just a head-trip
• that attracts artists, not just reads about them
• that inspires community and inter-personal connections, not just talks about them
• that minsters to people knowingly following Jesus and not knowingly.

To hear more, and many of the questions that I think are good to ask, listen to Emily and me talk about it during today’s sermon Closing the Church: Rest, Regroup, Relaunch.

This isn’t a neat and tidy process. We’ll be unpacking it over the remaining three weeks. As in today’s sermon, I’ve asked Adrian Monk to walk us through the stages of grieving. Just click on this image:

Please be praying for us and the people that call VCW their home. And the people that will call our next church plant, Waterville Vineyard 2.0, their home!

We were blessed to be the recipient of our local Starbuck’s first community service project!

They helped with heavy yard work in Vassalboro and rebuilding a roof in Norridgewock.

Here are a few of the pictures:

Just had a conversation that made my head spin:

Person 1: Have a great weekend.

Me: It will be a wonderful weekend!

Person 2 (aka Eeyore): Don’t say that just yet, you don’t know for sure.

Me: Of course I do. The local Starbucks chose our church as the recipient of their community service. So, no matter what happens, two of the ladies in our church will have volunteers making their houses nicer this weekend.

Eeyore: Did you hear Starbucks is going bankrupt?

I kid you not.

I just had to smile and walk away.

I just saw this quote on a website promoting a new book, Jesus Brand Spirituality:

“I left the church because too many self described ‘Christians’ mainly wanted Jesus to do something for them. I thought that what Jesus had to say was more challenging than whether he was God, and if he was, he didn’t need me to tell him. So I left church to look for what Jesus was talking about. But this book makes me wonder whether, had Ken Wilson been my pastor, I might have stayed.”

—Carl Safina, author of Song for the Blue Ocean and Eye of the Albatross

It’s really resonating with me. I hope I can be that kind of pastor.

Thanks to Phil Brabbs for posting this to the Green Vineyard Facebook Group.

Last night, my 3 year old told me that Jesus said to be nice.

Sof: Do you know why he said to be nice, daddy?

Me: No, why?

Sof: Because everybody has hiccups.

I think that’ll preach. Hope I can find the reference!