Back on the road...

I have wondered out loud if The Loop should be categorized as something other than a “church plant.”  Church plants bring to my mind mass mailings and launch Sundays, with the hope of future buildings being built and a physical presence in the community being grown & maintained.  

Of course, the ministry of Jesus didn’t exactly look like this kind of “church plant.”   There were no mass mailings or launch Sundays (although the feeding of the 5,000 would have been a spectacular one!).  No building was built, no physical reminder for generations to come of ‘the Church that Jesus built’...

...Unless you consider ‘The Church’ being the relationships and the people that Jesus built!  For certainly The Twelve, The 72, The 120 were all that was needed to change the world.  

I confess, I sometimes envy people their mass mailings, and launch Sundays, and new buildings and physical presence in their community.  But... it seems that this is not our call.

This has been a season of waiting for The Loop.  While in the Fall we saw new people coming, and others being discipled, in late February it seemed that The Loop was coming undone.  People who had been with us, disappeared.  Events where we would be expecting 10-15 people, would have no one show up.  The well seemed to be ‘running dry.’  We entered Lent with one prayer:  That what needed to die would die, so that Christ would more fully live in us.  

God seemed to be in a process of peeling away much of what we depend upon.  Jobs, where we live, and important relationships all seemed to be up in the air.  My husband and I wondered if God was calling us to a new place.  We waited... and waited... and waited... to hear what God would say.

Slowly... God seems to be letting us know that we are not done here yet.  People who were gone (from The Loop) came back.  Our next “Taste of Alpha” brought in three new young women to the group.  We found a system of discipleship that fits with our vision.  The few who remained began reporting that God was at work, transforming their lives in new, deep ways.  They are ready for the ‘next steps‘ for us... whatever they may be.  We are encouraged.

And so...  we continue this journey of letting others know of Jesus and inviting them into His Way, this journey of ‘doing’ church in a way that bears more resemblance to the disciples walking through the fields of grain with Jesus, than a building with a steeple.   Pray for us as we journey...