Well, this is my first post using my Handspring. Hopefully the portability of this setup will help ensure that I update this blog a little more often. That, and with some hopefully shifting priorities, this will become a primary outlet for me. We'll see.

My foray into the emerging church movement hasn't stopped...but it seems to have changed. I've been pastoring a small church about 35 miles north of here since the end of February. It's a part-time gig, but it's been a welcome change. This church as been pursuing the same paradigm of ministry for about 20 years, and it doesn't seem to be working. What is really needed in this small midwestern town is a church stemming from the emerging church movement. I hate to use labels...but for the sake of the uninitiated...

The town is probably about 80% churched...but that doesn't mean that 80% of the people know Christ. But this situation poses some unique problems for us...namely that fact that no one really wants to explain why their car was at our church on Sunday morning instead of their own. What this requires is a change in paradigm concerning how we relate to the community and how we execute our services. If we can resituate ourselves as a non-threatening family-oriented entity, I think we'll have a chance. We can only hope.

At any rate, as for the Gateway, things are on hold for now. We may look at moving toward a worship-service-only format, at least to start. I don't really want it to be a church...but rather a faith community. We need a generic statement of faith, but then not have to worry about the details. Perhaps I'm dreaming...but then faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen, right?