So I’m sitting on a plane reading the new book by Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost called “ReJesus” and I started thinking that from time to time I would like to describe to you the expression of church that I am a part of. I should be honest and tell you that I hesitate to do this because I feel like sometimes it has a danger of coming across as boasting or as posturing, and that is not my intent at all. Truth be told, there is a lot about our community that isn’t really something to boast about in our current church culture. We certainly aren’t setting any growth records, and our worship team isn’t going to be publishing its own CD any time soon, I am enjoying the way that God is at work within us and I would like to share it with you.
30 Elliot Avenue, Barrie, Ontario
Every church expression has at its core a number of deeply held values and convictions that drive the direction, practice and tone of the church. For some, these convictions are well know, and in some cases, even documented, but for many other churches these underlying assumptions are not even consciously known by the church leadership, much less the average person within the church. Often these underlying assumptions lie in complete contradiction to the recorded values and convictions of the church. I can remember reading an advertisement in a local newspaper for a church that read, “King James Bible Believing, Pre-Millennial, Fundamentalist Baptist Church. All are welcome!” Now, I’m not sure how you read that, but I definitely read that, as suggesting that if I was to subscribe to a belief in the New Living Translation of the scriptures, a less clear cut view of the millennium, and a more broad understanding of the Christian life than the fundamentalist doctrine I would not really be “welcome” in this community. What I would like to do every now and then is discuss some of the values and convictions that we are beginning to hold as a church.
Now for those of you that know me, you know that I am not exactly renowned for my ability to stay focused and on topic, so I hope you’ll forgive me if my thoughts become a little rambling at times. I should also say that these little glimpses into Redwood Barrie’s values and convictions will not be prioritized in anyway, but rather spring out of whatever it is that made me think of it at the time.
That reminds me of a joke that my friend Kevin liked to tell. “How many people with ADHD does it take to change a light bulb? Want to ride a bike!”
Lately, one of the values that has been most pressing on me has been the belief that as followers of Christ, we must be living out a gospel that is good news to the poor, the oppressed, the disenfranchised, the marginalized, and those that are overlooked by our society. A few months ago my friend Tim came to me with the idea of starting an organization that would provide rental properties to people that were struggling to make ends meet at a substantially reduced rate than the market value in the Barrie area. Tim had done some research and found out that there are approximately 3000 families on waiting lists for “geared to income” housing in our area. That’s 3000 families that aren’t able to make their monthly rent cheques and are being forced to decide between paying the rent and buying groceries. We had both been sensing a growing conviction within our church community that if the gospel was good news for one person, it had to be good news for everyone, and we were going to do whatever is necessary to see that happen.
Now, what I found to be a little amusing about this whole thing, was that at the time that Tim started talking to me about starting this organization, there were three families in our church that had either just lost their jobs, or had been out of work for awhile. I don’t know what your church is like, but when your church only has about ten families, this is a pretty big deal, especially when you’re talking about starting up an organization that’s going to purchase a bunch of property and then rent it out at half the market value to potentially risky renters. I don’t really know much about money, and real estate, but I knew enough to know that walking into a bank and asking them to let us purchase a bunch of property with no money down, and then securing the organization with a bunch of people that didn’t have any money, or for that matter employment, was going to be a tough sell.
Anyways, to make a long story short, the value was so deeply engrained in the group that we have continued to move forward with it, and are now at the process of waiting for our various applications with the government to be approved so we can move forward. We are confident that we will be able to purchase our first two properties in a few weeks. The first two properties we purchase are going to be fixed up and turned into rental properties dedicated to providing housing to women coming out of our local women’s shelter for abused women.
I guess if I was to try to put this particular value into words it might be something like this: It is our conviction that the church, cannot, should not, and will not be confined to the building we meet in on Sunday. If the church is not at work in the world bringing the Kingdom of God to the places that need it than it is simply not the church.
By the way, I’ll keep you up-to-date on the process of our organization. We’re calling it Redwood Park Communities. I like the name.
Well, my ears just popped so that means they’ve started the descent into Thunder Bay, so I’d better get ready to land.
Blessings,
