longhand

This marks the second Sunday Vox has met, and things went a lot smoother this Sunday than last. We're getting used to music and singing together [we never did that on Wednesdays really], and really, just getting used to each other. In talking through where we're going as a church, Matt piped up with the fact that it's going to take time for us to gel as a body. We're just not there, and instead of pretending like we're a big, happy family, we're going to wait until God makes it true. This means we hang out with no program necessarily, we view each other without pretense, desiring to know one another, beginning with superficial and moving to soul-deep.

Lately, I've had a fascination with the longhand [as opposed to shorthand] way of doing things. It's coming out in quirky ways like when I say "cellular telephone" instead of "cell phone" or "compact disc" instead of "CD." I think it's tied to how we're doing church, too.

In growing a church, many times things get watered down to "service starting" instead of church planting. In an article I read called Incarnational Practices where the guy makes a case for what he calls incarnational ministry where we begin with the context of the neighborhood/zip code/borough/city we live in first and plant our lives inside the community that already exists.

Longhand, it's becoming how we do things at Vox Church and I really like it. I don't necessarily think it's cooler or better than any other church, but with the way we're trying to grow one here, taking time to marinate and bring together such a diverse crowd of people, incarnational, longhand ministry seems to be where it's at.

So, as the Saints roll to another defeat [why is that we make Dante Culpepper look like a Pro Bowl QB and the Packers like a playoff team?] this coming Sunday, remember Vox, remember to pray towards the longhand, the slow-cook, the incarnational. In this, we hope to reap a harvest for years to come.

Sidenote: Today, October 10th is Dallas' birthday... here's his blog. Also, check out this post in particular, it's a benediction from our community. Occasionally, people write benedictions during the gathering time and we end with a reading of it.

Tags:

• blog
• God
• music
• organic
• pastoring
• prayer
• Vox