in.his.grip

Since we canceled services this past Sunday, I am holding off publishing the Kingdom Experiment Part 2 blog post.

The picture above is a crop of a picture I found here. This is from the Star Trek: Deep Space 9 series, and is a vision of a ubiquitous device for interacting with data. Such devices, ubiquitous in Gene Roddenberry’s world, are about to become a 2010 reality. Before I get into the correlations to ministry, I have to say that it is an amazing time to be alive if you are a tech geek. Microsoft, Apple, and the like, are creating some crazy technology. Every time I think about it, I am amazed at how my life is so different after the Xbox-360 and after the iPhone. OK, now back on track.

I am not an expert on futurists and can only name two (Gene Roddenberry & Arthur C. Clark), but I was one of those guys who would always be lured into a magazine cover of a futurist’s vision of things. My fascination comes from seeing beyond the ubiquitous. While I’ve never been a fan of his personality, I have always respected Steve Job’s ability to see life this way, which has resulted in some amazing products, the latest of which is the iPad. After a lot of thought, I decided that I will be one of the folks itching to own one of these. The deciding factor was being able to correlate the potential of the device (as championed by Jobs) with the casualness of such devices in Roddenberry’s visions. When the moment of intersection finally took place in my head, my decision was made. It takes critical mass and convergence of circumstances to achieve ubiquity, and I think the iPad embodies both.

Thrive Church will be 3 years old come mid-March, 2010. I have always maintained a tension in my ministry philosophy between size and mission. On the one hand, there is no escaping the fact that a church needs numerical growth in order to be able to fund mission. This is simple math, and I have been somewhat resistant to the truth of it. On the other hand, the vision God gave Angel and me for Thrive cannot be realized with quick-growth. “Relationship” is the theological root of that vision (with Jesus first, then with one another, then extending). Building strong relationships take time. There is no way to escape it. So, Angel and I have always prayed, “God, grow us as fast as we are able to nurture relationships.” The result, is good, solid, growth via relationship. I would not trade that for anything.

We are not perfect at relationships, but we are intentional about them. We have the same struggles as every other church regarding the drama of life with people. But, it hurts so much more when the struggles come, and it is so much more immensely wonderful during the great moments. And that is exactly the way I want it. I want to be hurt to the core when there is a relational problem. I want to be overjoyed in the innermost nooks and crannies of my heart when things are awesome. It’s how I know we’re legit. It’s how I know we’re tight.

But, here’s the thing: we are not living in God’s vision for Thrive - not yet. As amazing as this place is, it is but a hazed-over picture of who God wants us to be. We are still only preparing and planting. Right now, I feel as if we are some kind of oddity in the midst of reality - almost but not yet. But God’s given me a clear vision of what Thrive will look like, but sometimes the journey is frustrating - especially when we’ve chosen the hard way to get where we want to go.

Someone recently told me that during their church growth push, her church’s motto is “fake it until you make it” (if you’re reading this please know that I’m not mocking your church). That may work for other churches. Some people may think we should adopt that philosophy. But, you will never hear that sort of thing from me. We are always going to be honest about where we are on this journey - during the struggles and the triumphs. When critical mass comes, we’ll be able to look back and witness the amazing grace of God as he grew us to that place - which will, of course, be the beginning point of the next “thing” God wants to do through Thrive, because we’ll never “arrive”. But, we’ll be able to look back with amazement at how the things we will enjoy as ubiquitous to life at Thrive Church, we were once just out of reach.
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In His grip!

Herb Halstead, Pastor
www.ThriveCommunityChurch.com

Posted via email from Herb Halstead’s posterous

I decided to try to document my experiences with the Kingdom Experiment that we are doing at Thrive Church.

Week 1 - Poor in Spirit

The “poor in the spirit” are those who realize that they are spiritually bankrupt, and must rely on God alone for the ability to even fathom Him, let alone to have the choice to accept His offer of reconciliation. This poverty of spirit flavors the whole person - flowing through the persons thoughts and actions. Of course, we are mere human reflectors of the Divine Glory that flows within us. The best way to understand a poverty of spirit is to explore the idea of poverty itself, and draw some analogies, which is how we approached the teaching this week, to mirror the book’s approach. The suggested experiments follow two paths: inward reflection or outward expression.

I chose one of the “outward expression” experiments, which was to visit the Kiva.org website and “co-sponsor” a loan for an entrepreneur in a developing country. My only twist was that I wanted this to be a family project. My goal was that we would go to the site together, choose a world area together, choose a country together, and then choose a person to co-sponsor. This “twist” proved to be quite a frustrating experience to be honest.

The “together” part was a challenge. My daughter is in college and only comes home for the weekends - sometimes. Thankfully she was coming, but that meant that we were limited to Friday night and Saturday to get it done before church on Sunday. Also, my son is a fairly independent teenager who has his own agenda when it comes to how he spends his time. Then there’s my bride, Angel, who is such hard working teacher that I really hate to put anything else on her plate, especially since she uses Saturdays to work on Sunday’s children’s lessons. Waiting for the weekend proved to e extremely taxing on my patience.

I got really excited about the family project. Once everyone was home, and relatively “un-busy”, I hooked the computer up to our home theater projector and launched the website. Then I told everyone it was time to get ready to do our experiment. After some prying from their activities, we finally assembled and refreshed the Kiva page. And there it was - a dreadful message: “all loans an this site are fully funded.” Seriously??? Ten minutes ago, there WERE loans available to co-sponsor. Where did they go? Apparently, there are way too many eager lenders for the number of loans that flow through the system.

I read the FAQ that said they updated hourly. Yeah, right - on a Saturday night, I highly doubt there will be a new loan posted. I felt frustrated and defeated. There is no way that I, the pastor, can show up at church not having done a Kingdom Experiment. GRRRR! My patience is all but gone now. So, I sat there, sulking, and feeling sorry for myself. With a sense of futile resignation, I flippantly hit the reload button. VOILA! A new loan opportunity showed up! We cheered and read the bio, then eagerly processed our money.

The picture above is the person whose business we sponsored. Her name is Natalia Casalino Antesana, and she is trying to expand her booth at a fish market in Peru.

What did I learn? I learned to be patient with God’s timing. He is so wise and He is never late. Sometimes I want to do things my way and on my time table. OK, so maybe “sometimes” is a bit more generous than I should be for my OCD tendencies. I truly believe that when we seek to honor God, His faithfulness will shine. My challenge is to trust Him all the way,not just with the “what” but also with the “when” and “how”.
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In His grip!

Herb Halstead, Pastor
www.ThriveCommunityChurch.com

Posted via email from Herb Halstead’s posterous

There are so many needs that we are confronted with day-by-day. The Haiti crisis is one of many, albeit an urgent one.

We are so fortunate that our globally deployed Nazarene Compassionate Ministries (NCM) was on the ground within minutes after the disaster through our network of churches. They continue to do the hard work in the field, and need our help.

If you are able to help support the Haiti relief efforts, I have a couple web addresses for you:

1) NCM.org where you can find many ways to help, including making crisis-care-kits.

2) Direct Supply Shipment, NCM partnered with Amazon.com to directly ship needed supplies to the Haiti field stations. I am already seeing some of the supplies going out of stock which is an awesome sign that things are moving!

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In His grip!

Herb Halstead, Pastor
www.ThriveCommunityChurch.com

Posted via email from Herb Halstead’s posterous