No more Vox Church

Over the last year or so, I have undergone one of the most painful and revealing times of my adult life. Our efforts to plant a church have proven only temporarily fruitful. We planted a church, but the church did not survive.

I guess this is what most church planters feel when their efforts do not produce a church that lasts longer than a few months or years. It's difficult to put into words, but one phrase that captures a lot of it is second guessing.

"Is there something wrong with me?"
"Did I really receive a call to plant this church?"
"Is this mostly my fault?"
"Is this what the 'minor' prophets felt like?"
"How in the world does this fit into God's plan?"

The list goes on and on. In fact, I'm thinking about writing a book filled with just the questions that are in my head at this given moment.

I'll leave you with what I wrote at the end of my last newsletter:

Two and a half years ago, two men and their families came to Lafayette with a dream and a calling for a church family. Through heartaches and jubilation, I have journeyed through the process of church planting with no church and fewer friends to show for it. I know the LORD has done great things in the lives of others and has transformed things that I cannot see, but it still seems like such a loss. Even in that "I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death." Even though Paul wrote this from prison and I'm far from that, this is one of the hardest things I have walked through. Thank you to all who have walked it with me. I am better because of you. The LORD is glorified because of you.

By the way, could one of you Photoshop-ers make me an image of a nice gravestone with "Vox Church RIP June 1, 2005 - May 9th, 2007" on it? I'd like to post it here, but don't have the means to make it.

UPDATE: Kent Caperton has come through for me. It's a little spooky, but I appreciate it, thanks bro.

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A Catholic and a Baptist Walk into a Church...

I'm thinking of writing treatises concerning serious issues within the Church and Culture, primarily within the local area of Lafayette. My hope is to shed light on recurring problems that continually plague most people [both believers and unbelievers]. Here's a working list:

The Gospel of Jesus Christ: Freedom, not Behavior Modification
Alcohol: Moderation, the Spirit, and Our Permission
Evangelism: Fishing with Nets, not Poles
The Church: How People Gather
Speaking in Tongues: Abuse and Freedom
Catholicism and the Gospel

I would like everyone to weigh in with comments, suggestions, and other snide remarks.

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Books for the pastor?

During this replanting phase of Vox Church, I'm making out a list of books I'd really like to read over the next three months. I'm wondering if any of you guys have any of these books [and if I could borrow them]:

Church Planting: Laying Foundations by Stuart Murray
Simply Christian by N. T. Wright
Overcoming Sin and Temptation by John Owen
Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? by Philip Yancy
The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards: A Reader
The Careless Society by John McKnight
Leading With a Limp by Dan Allender
The Emotionally Healthy Church by Peter Scazzero and Warren Bird
The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard and Richard Foster

Let me know if you guys can let me borrow some of these. Also, if you want to suggest some reading, you can.

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So, what's up with Vox?

I've gotten this question a lot lately. Naturally, I'm going to use my all-but-dead blog to relay the important details of some big decisions that have gone down with our Vox Church.

After a few months of stuff just not working**, I laid it out before God and asked Him to help make sense of what was going on with the church. He let me know that I needed to step back from the situation and cancel all that was going on.

So the quick story is that Vox Church in its current form has been shut down. We're not doing anything organizationally as a church.

The long [and more confusing] story is that I'm still a church planter and that Vox Church will be replanted sooner or later.

This situation has brought about some necessary questions:

#1 - What are you doing for money? There is not complete answer to this one yet. I'm still continuing to raise support for the church [and thus, me and my family] and being funded in part by the Southern Baptist Convention as a church-planting missionary. We're at about 60-65% support right now.

#2 - How long will it be until things start up again? I'm still not sure. To immediately try and jump back in and start something else feels a little forced. So, as hippie as it sounds, I'm waiting until it "feels right" with the Spirit. It seems like the first thing we'll do is start a home Bible study somewhere and grow it from there.

#3 - What are the people of Vox Church going to do? Well, everyone will do something different I suppose. The Capertons are going to be settling in at East Bayou Baptist Church for a while, as they are our "sponsoring church" within the SBC stuff, but we'll probably be all over.

#4 - How are you doing? I'm in pain. It deeply hurt to do this, and I'm dealing with feeling like a failure. I've shed some tears over this privately and have confided in people that I trust and respect. I know I need to grieve this thing, and I'm doing that. I've even thought about taking advantage of some free counseling.

If I missed an obvious question, let me know and I'll edit the post. Thank you for reading.

** If you want the details of why stuff was not working, call me or email me.

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What Vox Church is about

Five Streams of the Emerging Church by Scot McKnight

In my brief time leading an emerging-missional church, I have come across many stereotypes, both of me and my church. I have also come across some sabotage from other believers [and some pastors] in the form of slander and false gossip. I need to address this issue, but sometimes the rumors spread faster than anyone can cover.

For all those interested or mistaken or lied to about what exactly the emerging church movement is, please take a few moments and read this article. It is scholarly [in a good way] and respectful in its approach and dead on with its content.

Besides dispelling rumors, I also found it very helpful in explaining to my father that I'm a Christian, but not like many of the ones he sees on TV. Thank you, Scot.

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Strategery...

When I was younger, I took every personality and assessment test known to man. It was almost to the point of obsession, and after a few years, I thought I had myself [and everyone around me] pegged. Whether it was the DiSC Profile [High ID], Uniquely You [Encouragement, Prophecy, Teaching] or Myers-Briggs [ENFP], I was completely over-fascinated with knowing myself during the teenage and early college years.

As I entered adulthood, I took a new kind of assessment: the Strengthsfinder. It threw me for a loop because of one word: Strategic.

Without getting into how it all works, your assessment results from the Strengthsfinder come back in five words: each used to describe how you specifically are strong. Mine [with a brief explanation] are:

Ideation [I can see simple themes through complex structures]
Woo [I can make connections with complete strangers quickly and easily]
Strategic [I can assess a situation and think ahead to remove obstacles]
Communication [I can communicate things clearly and effectively]
Activator [I am predisposed to action first and questions later; I learn by doing]

I was fine with the other four. In fact, I probably could have read all 32 strength themes and picked them out. All except Strategic. That was over 3 years ago, and I'm just now getting around to understanding how I can use it.

With Vox, there are many questions, uncertainties, choices, and overall directions we have to deal with... both as elders and as a community. As I look ahead and think through what's approaching, I can see we need to add to the efforts we have already established- efforts that serve and nurture and train and love and preach. More on this later, just had to get it out there.

It's exciting for me to look ahead, my prayer is that our community can get there in one piece and take others along with us.

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gatherings...

So I'm under a moderate amount of stress right now and it's 10:45 at night! I've got Vox Church on the brain, so I'm going to rant. You've been warned.

As I've been wrestling through current issues, I'm feeling a bit stuck on worship gatherings. I'm dealing with two immovable objects.

ROCK: My desire to not put on a show and further add gasoline to the consumerism fire that exists in American culture.

HARD PLACE: My desire to inspire, lead, rally, celebrate with everyone else in Vox Church. It seems like in order to do that, we need coordinated effort and common experiences.

Dallas and I are having more and more conversations where our clashing leadership styles come into play, and I think it's due, in part, to issues like these that we're wrestling through. We're getting a little bigger and more are collectively growing deeper, so the playing field has changed since it was 10 people in a living room.

Secondarily, I have this question in my head: what can a church do with a larger group of people [20-200] that it cannot do with a small group [5-20]? It's a pretty important question.

So, I threw it all to the side and closed my eyes with one thing in mind...

Everyone would come in, and feel welcomed beyond belief, like Cheers only more loving. There would be art on the walls to look at, music to listen to, incense and food to smell, and a warm feeling about the whole environment.

As we'd all sit down, we would pray together for our time to bless God and for us to collectively feel His presence. The conversation over communion breakfast is interesting and we're blessed to get to know each other a little better: making connections over common interests and experiences.

The music starts and we're invited to kneel at the presence of God, there's all the time in world for this. No hurry, just time to worship God however we desire to. The teacher comes in the same Spirit as the music that just ended to inspire, lead. He communicates as if we're all going somewhere together- somewhere towards a deeper obedience in Christ.

Jesus, how can we do this? Is this even something you want? Didn't it inspire me? It wasn't fake. It wasn't something I regret or look back at with contempt. I felt YOU there. I want to do the same thing with Vox Church gatherings.

All that's in my head is in Your hands...

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On Dying

We've started small groups at Vox Church. Without going into grand detail [and I want to] about the form of it all, one of our primary concerns is for each small group to be connected with some kind of service organization. It's a way to get into the community and begin to meet people, serving them in Jesus' Name.

So as I was having a meeting with a Christian non-profit organization as a potential partner for our small group, and our choices came down to two. Either we served once every 4-6 weeks in service to the organization [cleaning offices, painting, organizing events] or we served every 7-14 days in service to the children of the community [tutoring, playing, helping with homework].

Suddenly, it was clear. I was hit with the stark reality of death: This is going to radically change my weekly schedule and the schedule of everyone in the small group. This is going to greatly affect our lives and the lives of those around us significantly. It was a very uncomfortable thought.

Instead of pushing forward, I held off. I told the organization that I'd talk with the small group about it and see what they wanted to do. I'm still feeling queezy about the whole thing.

First things first, I need to listen to Jesus concerning my expectations of serving. We are called to die. To let ourselves be thrown in the ground and die, all for the sake of the Kingdom. That was never more real than yesterday at that meeting, and I'm still reeling a little.

Secondly, I'm a little twisted up about the organization we'd be serving. They're not horrible people or anything like that, I'm just wondering if our missions coincide - they want to indoctrinate these children for Jesus [among other very helpful things they do for the community] and we're more about building the relationship first. Like I said, I'm still not sure. If they don't really mesh, we might need to look elsewhere. Decisions...

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