Four Years On #1: Here we are!

I started to write a post about the beginnings of Bridgepointe but I thought would rather begin by telling you where we are now. Maybe that will help you decide if you want to keep reading… and also the beginnings piece wasn’t flowing.

Anywhooo, Bridgepointe Church is a community of roughly forty people in downtown Edmonton. Since January we’ve been meeting in the basement of One Accord Bible Fellowship Baptist Church (that’s the real name) on Sunday mornings for our main gathering. Were you to join us on a Sunday morning you might be surprised by how little you would be surprised. We gather, we snack, we sing a couple of songs. We pray and read the Bible and I preach. We sing more songs. We drink more coffee and we go home. Bridgepointe has in no way shape or form reinvented the Sunday wheel, nor are we trying to.

Continuing with our old-schoolness there is a Mom’s group that meets Wednesday mornings. We periodically have a Men’s breakfast where we eat bacon and talk about the Oilers. We’re doing  a marriage retreat in the fall and do marriage mentoring. We’re doing a family camp this summer. Pretty simple and standard stuff.

If you measure us by the numbers (which I don’t think are irrelevant) we’re pretty insignificant. We’re in many ways still a baby church that is striving to find a consistent way to give to the community around us. If you asked the dreaded “would the neighbourhood miss you if you were gone” question the honest answer would be probably not. While we’ve never stopped growing, we might add a family or couple or person every six months.Our resources are extremely limited. We’re still way to homogeneous for my liking. Our oldest person is 36. we’re mostly white,  mostly middle class, mostly educated, mostly churched, we’re not cool in most of the ways I hoped we would be or in ways that get you invited to church planting conferences.

But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Almost no one was part of a church community in Edmonton before they came to Bridgepointe. If Bridgepointe didn’t exist, most of them wouldn’t go anywhere else. We have only lost one family since we started. This summer we put roofs on each others houses. (not me, I’m afraid of heights) Everyone has been to my house and I’ve been to theirs. We babysit each others kids. We shovel each others snow. We pray for the sick. We rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Despite our immaturity and our lack of organization and our inconsistency, we have a real community founded on the idea that we have received good news and that we have good news to share with the world. I’ve been around churches long enough to know that that is not automatic and it’s not easy.

So, church planters, impressed yet? You shouldn’t be.

or maybe I should be…

Church Planting Sucks: Four Years On

Ever have a person that you wanted to talk to, and really meant to talk to, but didn’t talk to? First you forgot, then you got busy, and time kept passing and passing and it felt more and more awkward to just pick up the phone and call or hit send on that email and talk to them. Well, that’s sort of how I’ve felt about this blog thing. So I’m back for now, and for the dozen or so of you who recognize my genius I’m back with specific purpose.
By far the most read item here is Church Planting Sucks, and even though that piece is years old people still keep finding it and, strangely, finding it helpful. So I’m going to write something new for you all. Here’s why. A little while back there was a conversation on a couple of blogs about how to form missional communities and how difficult and tenuous it can be. Some questions were coming from a church planter in the early stages, and another from someone who had closed his plant down after a couple of years of toil, and finally one of the big names in missional circles. I didn’t participate in the conversation because, well, I don’t participate in online conversations. (I’m just a better human being since I quit reading blogs and comments a year ago). But I am four years into an urban church plant and we’re surviving. We’re growing, both numerically and spiritually. My marriage is doing okay and my kids are healthy and don’t hate church. I feel like I’ve got something to say about this subject.
So, over the next four or so posts you’ll see my church planting story and whatever nuggets of wisdom I’ ve gleaned thus far. Perhaps you can spot something I’m missing. I warn you, reader, this will not be an inspirational tale of success and #winning. However, If you follow it exactly I guarantee you too can grow a church from zero to forty in four and a bit years.
Okay, not really, I guarantee nothing. But this will be the story of how a real live church plant got started and survived. And how one community is growing; warts and all. And probably most of all how I was changed on the way.

Plus, If it’s really good,  might get asked to lead a breakout session at Re:Call 2011

See you tomorrow

why the pastors wearing purple

This morning, October 20, I went to my closet and pulled out a pale purple button down. I will be joining hundreds of thousands of others wearing purple to remember, honour, and give hope. This is what it says on the facebook page:

It’s been decided! On October 20th, 2010, we will wear purple in honor of the LGBT youth who have committed suicide in recent weeks/months due to homophobic abuse in their homes and schools. PURPLE represents Spirit on the LGBTQ flag and that’s exactly what we’d like all of you to have with you: spirit. Please know that times will get better and that you will meet people who will love you and respect you for who you are, no matter your sexuality.

So why am I joining in? I’m a Baptist pastor, I’ve already declared that I think there’s more important things about you than how you feel about penises. I’ve preached on Romans 1 (which does touch on homosexuality) and the Sodom and Gommorah story (which does not). I have said that I believe sex acts outside a male/female covenantal marriage relationship are outside God’s will. Why am I intentionally joining in an event that seeks to promote and raise the spirit of LGBT youth? Well first of all, it’s a small and probably insignificant act of repentance. Regardless of what we think about lifestyles and orientations, we as the Church have failed to love God and love our neighbours as ourselves and things that pastors and churches have done and said have contributed to environment where hatred and violence toward Gay people has been allowed to exist. And where millions of I’m sorrys need to be said, this is one.

But bigger than that, people are dying. Not abstractions or orientations or agenda’s, but real flesh and blood human beings. Sons and daughters are dying because of fear and hate and hopelessness and I’m against that. More importantly Jesus is against that and his church should be against that and if wearing a purple shirt helps someone have enough hope to survive one more day I will wear one till I die. As a pastor my call is to share the good news that Jesus brings and just the first part of that Good news is that all people matter, And before we are anything else on this planet we are created and loved by the eternal and almighty God. And there is hope, no matter what we’ve done or what we desire we have hope in the God who lived died, rose from the dead and lives again for us. And that’s why this pastor’s wearing purple.

Camp! I love camp!

Long time not talk. Well, I’ve been busy. Sorry

I’ve gotten some camp speaking gigs for the summer and I’m looking to fill the rest of my summer. It’s odd. I was never really a camp kid growing up, so I don’t really get camp culture, but people really respond to my speaking in that context. I have some ideas for why this happens.

First, God works at camps. Not for everyone, and not all the time, but he does. For the most part, the people there really do care. They want God to show up and they pray hard and deeply that he does. Young people are taking a week in an artificially intense environment and often. In some ways as a speaker your job is to get out of the way and not screw things up.
As a speaker though it’s fun to have a week to progress through an idea and tell a story. You don’t have to spend a lot of time reviewing and you stay on top because you’re rolling once or twice a day as opposed to once a week.

I’m well aware of the horror stories people have to tell about camps and they can easily move into manipulation if we’re not careful and if they’re not connected to year round relationship and discipling they don’t do what we intend.

But instead of bashing camp done badly, lets do camp well.

(Cheesy self promotion begins now, bad announcer voice)

One way you could do camp well is to invite me as your speaker! Check me out at Myspace.com/dantaylortalks or on facebook. Dates for summer 2010 still available.

First Sunday

Yesterday we met for the first time in our new space in the small gym at the Norwood Child and Family Resource Centre. After some minor locking and key issues we got in and began assimilating ourselves to our new surroundings, figuring out what we forgot, what we need to bring for next time, what we need to do to make it a little more user friendly for us and the people around us.
So why were we here? Why are we now meeting in public? Why are we going to put a sign out front to tell people who we are and where we are? Well the short answer to those questions is that we don’t fit in a living room any more, and we don’t see anyone buying a larger house anytime soon, so here we are.
But there is more than that. We’ve always believed that we were called to something bigger than our living rooms, that the message we carry is bigger than the numbers of the messengers who carry it, and that the message we carry actually matters. It changes us. It changes us as individuals. It changes our relationships with other people. It changes our networks and communities.
So as we go forward into the answered prayer that is this bigger public location, our message doesn’t change. The passage God gave us from 1 Samuel 22 is still our DNA
David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him. And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, gathered to him. And he became captain over them. And there were with him about four hundred men.
David has been rejected by Saul and Saul’s kingdom of God’s people. He doesn’t fit in the Kingdoms of the world around him, so he ends up alone in the wilderness. And his family comes, and then others come, and he finds himself surrounded by all who find the Kingdoms of the world aren’t working for. And what they find in short order is that God has called this band of losers and misfits to the wilderness to make mighty people of them who protect and serve the people around them and change the course of history. We believe that we’re in the same boat. The we don’t fit in a lot of places and we’re scared and we’re in debt and we’re bitter in soul but in this wilderness we meet Jesus who changes everything about how we see him and ourselves and the world around us. We become part of a family worth belong to, a family that we can be honest with and requires us to be honest with ourselves, and we do things and perform acts that change us and the world around us for the better.
And this is what we did when we fit in a living room. And this is what we’re going to do now. And this is what we’re going to keep doing, because we believe like God told Paul about Corinth that he already has many people in this city. We have to different things around it, but the core of who God is calling Bridgepointe to be is the same.
Sunday @ Norwood Centre 9516 – 114 Avenue
Continental breakfast @ 9:30, Words and Music @ 10:30

Bridgepointe Note August 31

Hey guys,
A couple of things for us to think and pray about over the next little while
We have outgrown all of our houses. While it was wonderful and good for us for a time the space issues we have are beginning to hold us back. We simply do not have room to add people to our community. That is a good problem. We thank God for that problem and it is not a problem we have to face on our own, but it is a problem.
Like any issue, though solving it creates more issues. If we move into a public place we need to have a place and supervision and programming for children under grade one. This means we need regular volunteering and people to lead and take ownership of it.
If move into a public place we need to be better stewards of money. I have We have a much better relationship with the new Church Planting Director for the denomination, and he has instructed us to open our own bank account and we will be taking care of our own money. I’m sorry that we haven’t done this better in the past. I allowed us to get paralyzed and we didn’t take action on this issue. We will have our own bank account by the end of the week and we will begin to issue monthly financial statements about what Bridgepointe is doing with God’s money. Again, I’m sorry that this has taken this long but it’s changing moving forward.
We also need a space. It has to be available Sunday morning and it has to have separate children’s space for us to use. We’ll beat the bushes again and I firmly believe that God will provide but please make a point of praying for imagination and courage when pursuing this issue.
Another issue is that that when we go public our community will change. This is unavoidable, and while it will be a change we need not fear it. I more strongly that ever God calling all of us to together be that cave where the distressed, disenfranchised and indebted meet Jesus and are changed for the benefit of all around them. I also believe that God is calling us to stay in our lane and as much as is possible continue to do and believe and receive the things that brought us to this point. We need not re invent the wheel, nor need we fear what may come. All of you seventeen (we counted) adult who currently call Bridgepointe your church are here because God has called you to be a part of what he is doing in Edmonton. This is is true whether or not you can clearly see your place in it. We believe that and continue to believe it.
On a personal note, it is incredibly humbling that all of you choose to be part of this thing. I’m pretty sure I can speak for J.B. and say that we don’t take this privilege lightly and we are trying our best to serve God by serving you. Where we have failed you we are sorry and we thank you for your patience as we try and figure this thing out with you.
So what am I asking? Pray and continue to pray, that the space issue is worked out. That people willing to care for the kids step up, that we become better stewards of God’s money, but mostly that God continue to build up Bridgepointe as his church in his city.
More to come
Blessings
Dan

cupcake communion

A few years back I had someone give me a word of prophecy. For those unfamiliar that’s when someone tells you something that they believe God has told them about your life.

It sounds pretty weird, and it is, but not scary weird.

Anyway, I don’t remember the exact words but the image was that I was walking through a dark and tangled woods, with thorns and brambles, but that God wanted to promise that I would walk out into a green and clear and warm field. I was confused and wrecked at the time so it was an encouraging word.

As I was driving on the long highway back home that night, I was thinking about that word and the thought crossed my mind, as it has since, that the field could be death. Maybe life is just brambles and thorns and dark and confusion and then I come out when I die.

It’s hard to remember when we’re lonely, and the job hasn’t turned out how we wanted, and hope that life is going turn out how we planned is running short that God is good to us now. Not just in the past and not just in the undefined future, but now. God is good to us and for us now.

Part of the reason I don’t remember that is I don’t do a good enough job of celebrating how God is being good to me. How everything I have comes from him.

So yesterday, by providence or happy accident, depending on your theological inclinations (I’m leaning toward providence on this one) we had cupcakes at church today and I led us in cupcake communion. Because while it is good to take bread and wine and remember the broken body and spilled blood of Jesus on our behalf, it is also good to taste and see that the Lord is good, even when we see dark and thorns and tangles.

Seriously?,

Are you kidding me? This isn’t a joke?

Happy Birthday Billy Graham

Billy Graham turns 90 today. I’ve always been impressed by him. In an era when any well known preacher was a punch line, Billy Graham was the exception to the rule.

What has impressed me most about Graham is his obedience. His call was simple. To share the gospel with as many people as he possibly can. The outworking of that was complex but the  original call was so simple. It’s interesting that when his few mistakes did come (his preoccupation with politics, the Richard Nixon stuff) they came when he deviated from that simple course.

For all the debate over the effectiveness of the Crusade and the long term effects, Billy Graham showed us the power of God working through the dedication of group of people to one simple goal, to share the simple message that God came to Earth. That Jesus came and lived, died, and was resurrected for us and through his life we can have life and freedom, and we can’t gauge the impact these people had.

This is a video of Graham doing some of his best work, and the clarity with which he speaks is something I need to emulate.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Anyone?