Somethings in Life are hard to understand… from Project Church on Vimeo.

Silhouette - Driveblind
The Angry Mob - Kaiser Chiefs
Solid Sender - John Lee Hooker
Everything - The Normals
Bluebird - Randall Goodgame
Rooftops - Lostprophets
Boy with a Coin - Iron & Wine
40 Acres - Caedmons Call
Dreamin’ - Weezer
Hold You In My Arms - Ray LaMontagne
Instead of a Show - Jon Foreman
Grey Clouds - Dakoda Motor Co.
Going, Going, Gone - Paloalto
Long, Long Way - Smalltown Poets
My Life Before Today - House of Fools
This is Home - Switchfoot
Alice Wading - Dirty Three
Best of You - Foo Fighters
Easy Listening - Steve Taylor
Spaceman - The Killers
Spiralling - Keane
Shattered (Turn the Car Around) - O.A.R.
Break My Fall - Plankeye
Come On Get Higher - Matt Nathanson
Spotlight - MuteMath
Sea of Faces - Kutless
Assassin - Muse
To Be Alone With You - Sufjan Stevens
One More Time - Daft Punk
Gabriel and the Vagabond - Foy Vance
She Crawls Away - Hootie & the Blowfish
Personal Jesus - Johnny Cash
Feed Jake - Pirates of the Mississippi

Luke 15 is hands down one of my favorite sections in all of Scripture.  If you recall, Jesus is “caught” by the Pharisees getting his grub on with sinners and tax collectors.  Oh, the scandal! As they criticize him for the company he keeps, Jesus hits back with three stories that reveal his heart as he talked about a lost son, a lost coin, and a lost sheep.

In the parable of the lost sheep, you’ll see the shepherd leave the ninety-nine sheep to go find the one that is lost. When he finds it he throws it over his shoulders, carries it back, and throws a party.  Something valuable was missing and now is found.  Then Jesus tells us that in the same way, Heaven celebrates over one sinner (like you and me) turns a one-eighty than over ninety-nine righteous people who don’t need to.

There are many layers to this passage but when I read it I can’t help but think about church planting and how there is a easy way and the right way to build churches.

The easy way is to start a sexy church for the ninety-nine.  All you have to do is be more attractive than other churches in your area.  Soon enough, you’ll have lots of Christians from other churches joining.  You’ll grow quickly and be heralded as the next big thing in church planting world.  Blogs subscribers, Twitter followers, and speaking invitations will come.  Success for your church is breaking attendance records and your mission is to keep that attendance chart rising.  Congratulations Mr. Church Planter, you are an excellent event planner and your sexy church can put on a great show.  At least until something sexier comes along.

Hear my heart- I’m all for inviting environments and I do believe numbers matter. I want as many as possible to follow Jesus.  I’m just wondering which numbers matter most. The ninety-nine or the one?

All churches agree that Jesus should be at the center of any healthy church.  He is the object of worship.  He is the way, the truth, and the life.  We love Jesus and want to do what he says and be more like him.

I find it interesting that God could have entered human history as a sexy beast, but he didn’t according to Isaiah 52:2.  I suppose if Jesus was incredibly good-looking, people could have said his disciples followed him because of his movie-star looks.  But that wasn’t the case. Instead, people were drawn to Jesus because he was Jesus.  People were added daily to the early church because Jesus is Jesus.  Today, people are still compelled to Jesus because he is still Jesus.

If Jesus is right (and he is), then the right way to start a church is to share his heart for the one who’s lost.  And if Luke 15 is any indication, we don’t wait for them to find us.  We go find them!

If our churches are like Jesus, we don’t prepare a fancy table for the ninety-nine.  We go and sit at the table of the one(s). The point isn’t for the ninety-nine to come to our sexy church show, it’s for the one to come to Jesus.

As many as possible.

And we can party like mad when they do!

While it’s a sexy tool- and the list of pro’s is very long- it’s not perfect.  There are a few things I don’t like:

1) Eject - I use an external hard drive for my iTunes collections and I wish I could just plug in the USB when I need it and just unplug it.  If I unplug it I get a message telling me I did a bad thing and next time to go to the icon, right-click, and eject it first.  It’s annoying.

2) No SD card slot - Transferring pictures from my digital camera now requires a cord when I used to just pull he card out of the slot.  I thought Apple wanted less cords….?

3) Adapters - To connect to a projector, I have to purchase a seperate adapter.   I understand why they would leave out the output from the design of the Macbook, but they could have thrown an adapter in for the inconvinience.

What do you like/dislike about Mac’s?

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Here are the last 5 tweets (twitter posts) I had in the last 24 hours.

1. Just killed a spider with a hammer. That’s how I roll.
2. Rapid City: Walk into Starbucks- sun shining. (5 minutes later) Walk out of Starbucks. Snow blowing sideways.
3. Celebrating my brother’s 22nd birthday tonight!
4. TED is working on a religious project centered around The Golden Rule http://charterforcompassion.com Kinda creepy.
5. I just have to say that it annoys me when National Geographic channel calls themselves Nat Geo.

If want to discover more about twitter, watch this brief video and then join the fun at Twitter.com.  If you do, look me up.

We’re changing things up this weekend at Project Church and you don’t want to miss it!

The first thing we’re changing is this week’s message.  We’re going to pause our current series, “True or False” and this week we’re going to look at the vision of Project Church. Where are we going? How are we doing? Why do we do what we do?  If there’s ever been a week to check us out for the first time or invite friends/family who might dig us, this is it.

We’re also adding a new element to our weekly gathering called, “Stories.” It will be a brief Q & A between me and someone with a story to tell. This week, we begin with story from a dude who’s recently connected with Project Church.   We’ll chat and then he’ll share his story with a song.  I’m really looking forward to it. If you or someone you know have a story you think others should hear, shoot me an email.

Some other items to note.

• Be a Facebook Fan of Project Church here.  There are some special goodies there so check it out.
• This Christmas season, we’re taking part in something called The Advent Conspiracy. More to come.
• There will be no gathering on Saturday, November 29 due to the Festival of Lights parade downtown.  This is a great city-wide event and I hope to see you there. We’re back in action on December 6.
• If you’re interested in helping out this weekend, be at Alternative Fuel at 5:30pm on Saturday.

So join us Saturdays night @ 6pm at the recently-expanded Alternative Fuel Coffee House in downtown Rapid City (next to the Firehouse Brewing Co.).  Bring a friend, grab a coffee, enjoy some live music, and discover more about Project Church.

The missional church is a new idea
Perhaps the word, “missional” is a recent discovery to our vernacular, but it’s been around for a while (since the 1800’s).  However, the command to “Go and make disciples…” has been around for a couple of thousand years.  And the missio dei, the mission of God, has been around since the fall of humanity.   It’s not a new idea.  It’s a return to an ancient call to be the church Jesus had in mind. No trend here, just obedience.

The missional church believes gathering for worship is unnecessary
The misunderstanding here is the shift in thinking, “it’s all about Sunday” to “it’s all about everyday including Sundays.”  A church that doesn’t worship Jesus is no church at all.  But let’s not limit worship to an hour a week.  That kind of dualistic thinking and lifestyle is a dangerous pool to swim in and doesn’t mesh with Scripture.  The truth is missional churches do worship Jesus by assembling together- it just doesn’t end there.

The missional church is about raking leaves and hanging out in homes
Well…actually…that’s true.  But it’s incomplete.  The missional church intends to advance the gospel abeit through public gatherings, house parties, loving thy neighbor, serving their city, or having coffee with a friend. Whatever it takes to love God and others.  Missional church doesn’t need a leaf-raking church program to help the elderly couple across the street.  They just do it.

The missional church isn’t attractional
Imagination flows heavy in missional church. So does creativity. I’m not sure where the idea came from that missional church can’t (or won’t) have compelling environments.  Perhaps the notion came from the correct rejection of reducing the church to being a big show or a building.  Maybe it has something to do with replacing language like “we go to church” with “we are the church.”  Nonetheless, missional church believes the most attractive environments are created when they are filled with compelling people.

The missional church isn’t concerned about church growth
Any missional church that doesn’t intend “to go and make disciples…” isn’t missional.  Any missional church that intends to be a holy huddle (i.e. us 4 no more) isn’t missional.  Actually, the opposite is true. All missional churches want to reach people far from God.  As many as possible.  And if that’s happening, the Church will grow.  You can’t make disciples without people believing in Jesus in the first place.  But with missional church, it doesn’t end there.   Missional church is about two things: first steps and next steps.   Getting thousands to an event isn’t church growth (concerts can do that), but making thousands of disciples is.  That’s what missional church is committed to.

The missional church is a church model
Cookie cutter approaches are rare in missional church.  What works in one city, may not work in another.  True missional churches know their context.  They’ve studied their culture and the rhythms of the people in their city.  They look at the streams of people who aren’t connected to Jesus (or a church) and ask, “How can we meet them where they are?”   The answer to that question will result is various methods, approaches, and styles.  And the missional church has to continually pay attention to the ever-changing rapids of their culture- which means their methods will change as well.  That said, my hope is that missional churches not just change with culture- but that we change culture.  That’s our challenge.

If you’re a church leader, you may have noticed that some of this describes your church.  Congratulations, you might be missional. The question is whether it’s by accident or intention.

You see, missional churches are simply biblical churches.  The ones who “go and make disciples…”  The ones who are centered on Jesus.  The ones who love God and love people.   The ones who are sent on mission by Jesus to reach the whole world with the greatest news to ever hit the planet- the gospel of Jesus Christ. That should be the mission of all biblical churches regardless of how we’re labeled.

That’s what being missional is all about.

One Church, Under Jesus,

Jason

This week at Project Church we’re adding a new element to our gatherings that we’re calling Stories.   It will last about 5-10 minutes and will be a Q & A between me and someone with a story to tell.

This week, we begin with a story from a dude who’s recently connected with Project Church.   We’ll chat and then he’ll share the story in a song he wrote.  I’m really looking forward to it.

If you or someone you know have a story you think others should hear, shoot me an email.