A series of semi-connected Stories and Pictures
the drum|rob fairbanks: Living Into Movement – Pt 2 – Being a Missional Community
This is part 2 of a post that my friend and president of Christian Associates has been writing on Movements. It’s worth a thought or a reminder. If you don’t care about ‘churchy’ stuff it might be boring, but at the same time you might want to care about this because it is really important.
Tonight I had ‘futbol’ practice…it was the first time I’ve been able to go since Matias was born…To get to the practice facility I take a train that’s a bit bigger than the metro and goes way out of the city.
Tonight is the story of two train rides that have a sobering similarity.
On my way out to practice it was rush hour. There were hundreds of people out and the train was packed. There was no chance of finding of seat so I stood with backpack squeezed in between my ankles, certainly too cramped for me to wear the backpack! I had to hold the bar up above my head to keep my balance. This reminded me of my days in Paris when I’d ride the metro there at around 5:30pm! I love riding trains like this, unless it’s all four of us and we have a stroller and two kids that are getting smushed! The diversity of the people here is remarkable. Each person with a past, a story, a place they are coming from, the experiences of their day. Who knows where they are going…what their home is like. Most people are riding by themselves and sharing nothing other than a seat with the person sitting next to them. All that to say, the metro was packed with people from everywhere…and when you stop to really look at other people, you can’t help but be touched by their humanity and really wonder who they are…at least for me.
My ride home from training was much different. When I walked down to the track there was only one other person waiting for a train. I walked down the platform to the back of the train because I knew that the exit where I would get off was down there. I had my headphones on so I couldn’t really hear anything, but in that particular station there is always the smell of oily railroad ties…I kind of like that smell. I sat there smelling the smell, hearing my music, and looking for the train with virtually no other sign of life in the station. It would have made for a cool photo shoot spot. When the train came into the station I walked up to the door that stopped in front of me. I pushed the green button to open the door and I got on the train. This time, instead of ‘standing room only’ I had the pick of every seat in my car. I was alone. It was almost creepy…especially with my headphones on not being able to tell if anyone else really was on there with me. I looked over my shoulder a few time (as I often do in my neighborhood) to see if anyone was there because in situations like that, I don’t like surprises (not saying that the trains are dangerous at all in Barcelona…just saying I like to know if someone is behind me!) As we pulled into the Arc de Triumph station I stood up and looked around at all the empty chairs and realized something.
“Statistically speaking, there are probably just as many people on this empty train that follow Jesus as the crowded train that I rode on the way to practice early tonight: one…me”
I’ve probably said this 50 times at gatherings in the US…the reality in Europe is that when I ride the bus or the metro there is a high chance that I am the only Jesus follower on that bus or metro. It’s really a huge contrast to the places that I’ve lived before.
But tonight it was different for me to experience that reality like this. Being alone physically really heightened the truth that I am often very alone spiritually.
I guess there are two points to me processing this: one is to remind myself of the vacuum that exists here. I really believe that following Jesus is the hope for this life and the next…and it kills me that so many go through life never knowing the God who is Love…the love that brings grace, redemption, wholeness, peace…
The second thought that comes to mind is the story Paul when he was in Corinth and felt very alone. God reminded him that He had ‘many people’ in that city and that God himself was with Paul (Acts 18). I know that there are two kinds of people that God has here: one being other people that follow Jesus already (we’re trying to meet and connect with these people now), but the other being people that are seeking God…that God has already begun working in their lives and they just need someone to walk with them on the road. This is why we’ve come here…to trust God that we’ll be lead to these people and that they will with experience Jesus through us…and even better, taste and see for themselves that Jesus is who he claimed to be and that becoming ‘a learner’ of Jesus does bring the Life that Jesus said it would.
The beauty of living in the middle of a city (and sometimes difficulty) is that I just can’t escape human contact. I am constantly reminded of my smallness, my weakness, while swimming in this sea of life. I’m grateful for how this teaches me humility. I am also humbled by the work we have chosen to embrace…living out the Kingdom of God in a place like this seems small…like a mustard seed, or a bit of yeast, or something…but we look with anticipation to what is to come. I’m loving this lesson that I learned on the train…
I love this video because:
a.) I like dancing
b.)I like seeing spontaneous movements of fun
c.) I like thinking about the why and how things ‘get started’.
I hate to pollute this is a stand alone (and nearly disturbing) picture, but the question came to mind: “Did this guy intend to start a dance party on a hill, or did he just love to dance?”
For those of us who would like to see a Jesus movement happen…I offer this: Shouldn’t we just start dancing? Instead of talking about dance theory, how to properly dance, complaining about other people dancing wrong, and comparing our dance to others? I would rather be the guy acting like a crazy person and dancing for the love of it, than a professional dancer getting a grass stain on my butt while critiquing his form…and outfit.
Thanks to Mike G. and Zach L. for unearthing this for me.
I found this talk from Clay Shirky to be fascinating. It’s making me think about ‘marketing’ and creating connectedness in our ministry in Barcelona.
Clay Shirky: How Twitter can make history | Video on TED.com
I’ve had the chance to go out with some other CA staff this past week to do some (more) research in the cities of Montpelier and Barcelona. After 5 full days of traveling, meetings, and walking I’m really tired. I’m in Barcelona now waiting to head to the airport and I’m so tired that all I feel like doing is sitting and typing on my computer! *Note: I’m in this really cool pub that I’ve walked by a hundred times and I had no idea how cool it is in here. Free wifi too! I really really wish that I didn’t have to get on a plane tonight in order to go ‘home’ and see my family. I wish that we just lived here and I could just drop in here from our apartment…that would make life a lot easier and it make Jen and I oh-so-happy to be finally settled!!!*
So the research stuff…both cities went well. Very different places and very different trips. Montpelier was virtually unknown to any of us. We had some great meetings and learned a lot about the city. It’s a really pretty place and a ton of students! People we talked to said that there were as many as from 60k to 90k students…in a city of 500,000 that’s a lot. We left really feeling like there is opportunity…also important, it seemed as though a lot of those we talked with would like to see another church planted there. Like most cities in Europe…there are only a few churches in every city that are really doing anything about the current spiritual climate here, other than just simply existing.
This has been my 4th time in Barca…and a very productive time for us. Marty planted a church here in 1992 that has since been lead by people from Assemblies of God. It’s been cool to be here w/ Marty, to hear his stories and to learn from his experience. We had a few meetings and all of them went well…Each person expressed the need for new work here and each offered to help in any way and to be a resource for us. Everyone also expressed a need to really know Spanish (and even Catalan) even though our initial work will be with internationals. We are stoked to learn Spanish and I’m really looking forward to being able to communicate here. I think that I’ll love the city even more when I feel less out of water. I saw places in the city that I had never seen and even found a great open air market with all kinds of stuff that we may be able to use someday! I feel like I have a much broader and better understanding of the work that is going on here…it’s great to know the context in which we’ll be entering…and to have the relationships with people who have experience and can provide wisdom when we’ll certainly need it!
All in all, both places are great places where more, new, and creative forms of following Jesus are needed. I’m excited to see how Jen and I will engage Barcelona and take what I’ve learned here and put it to use…and see lives changed.
I’ve been reading through 1 John the last few days. Today this part stuck out to me:
1 John 3:23
This is [God's] commandment: to believe in his Son, the one named Jesus Christ, and to love each other as he commanded us. Those who obey Christ’s commandments live in God, and God lives in them. We know that he lives in us because he has given us the Spirit.
The simplicity of this verse stands in stark contrast to the amount of all that I’ve read, heard, and lived in regards to being a follower of Jesus. My reasoning for this error is that we live a culture that values the pursuit of knowledge above most else. In the story of the Garden in Genesis…what does the serpent tempt Adam and Eve with? Knowledge. Abandoning the simple trust in their God, they chose it.
I wonder: In our pursuit of knowledge about God, scripture, and what we believe is Christian living; in what ways have we abandoned the commandment of God: to obey Jesus, and love each other.
I wonder: How would the world be different if we traded our talk, thoughts, and plans for loving others – for actually loving others?
I wonder: Will we ever be content with the simplicity of love? Or will we continually be tempted to add more to it? …maybe as a justification for our lack of obeying Jesus’ commandment to love?
I’m serious about this choosing love thing. We’ve done the knowledge thing for a long time and it’s gotten us only so far. I say we allow our knowledge to evolve into love and let God have a shot using that for a few generations.
If you want to kill a movement, get spooked by supernatural phenomena outside your paradigm…
I grew up in a fairly normal evangelical environment. The most charismatic thing that I saw were people holding up their hands in worship…and this was even pushing it for some. So, it’s safe to say that when my best friend from college started going to a church that practiced spiritual gifts outside of the raising of the hands, I thought it he had gone off of the deep end. Seriously, I thought he was in a cult or something and I thought I had to get him out of there.
In my past, the Holy Spirit for me was pretty much a retired author and I found it easy to pick and choose from scripture what ways His working was still applicable to Church…those days are long gone.
Here’s my theory…’Being Spooked’ (not my words) basically means being surprised…or not being in the know…And most leaders don’t like not being in the know. In fact, we like the opposite. We like being in control. So the ways that the Holy Spirit works can be contradictory to the way we want to work.
In my experience, the reality that the Holy Spirit would trust me with being surprised is evidence that He is getting ready to do something new in me. But on a movement level I think that we have to ask the hard questions: Do we even want the Holy Spirit to speak into plans? Are our plans so set in stone that we couldn’t follow even if we wanted to? If God showed up in a new way in our movement would we act like healed lepers, or blind Pharisees?
The truth is that we need to be careful not to too greatly define our Holy Spirit paradigm. We run the risk of idolatry when we allow our view of the Spirit to be tamed and captured by our paradigm. After all…Jesus is the head of the Church and He clearly left us a Helper to guide us as we manage and steward what is His…Imagine if Peter and the rest of the disciples had not allowed the Spirit to speak outside of their paradigm. Would we even be having this conversation? It seems to be pretty effective when the Spirit leads as he did in Acts 2. If you had told the disciples a few days before Pentecost what was getting ready to go down, they may had not even shown up for prayer meeting that morning! Being surprised by the Spirit is great, because it makes us into the empty and willing people we need to be in order for big, movement type, things to happen! My prayer is that we would allow the Helper to define our paradigm and not our comfort, plans, or strategies. A willingness to obey in this type of way reflects the kind of leadership God would trust to initiate a movement.
Number of Metro Trips: 11
Number Cafe con Leches: 8
Number of Gaudi Buildings seen: 1
Number of people who most likely don’t follow in Jesus: 1,400,000
Number of steps taken while praying through this city: My feet say close to 1.4 million!
Number of pictures taken: 175
Number of facial piercings seen : ???
Number of tattoos seen: ???
Number of reasons why this would be a great place to live: At least 30!!!
Number of reasons why this would be a great place to begin a new church: 1,400,000
More thoughts coming when I have time to write…gotta catch a plane!
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