What we see in the church of tomorrow

MISSION AND FAMILY

As we connect with our spiritual entrepreneurs to check in about how we can best pray for people, there is a recurring trend that we are noticing.

First, a story. When I was young in full time ministry, I was a college minister. As I stepped into the lead role, I had a long time pastor tell me that one of the rules of the "church," meaning any ministry where I worked, should be that it is "no place for children," except in the kid ministries where they belonged. It was clear to this man that keeping the kids away from the business of the church was the only way to pastor. I had two elementary aged children at the time. This statement was perplexing. I had been a part of thriving campus ministries and the families who were the leaders always brought their children to events, not all of course, and the college students loved having the families there. Also, it was an opportunity to model healthy family life for students who came from broken homes.

I was quick to break that rule, and my children (now adults) and our students grew in their faith because my kids were at retreats, and some of our more fun events, regularly.

Fast forward to today and as we were in touch with each of you about your prayer needs, we were struck with the ways that we could pray for you. It wasn't all "ministry" in the way we used to think about it. By and large the requests that poured in were a beautiful mix of family needs, friend needs, mission needs and how to be worshipful in your context.

One of you has a new baby on the way while creating dinner spaces with neighbors, another is doing life with small children and an infant while playing basketball in your intentional neighborhood. One of you is juggling school, four kids and two mission|community|worship contexts that work with young adults. One of you is the coach for your kid's baseball team and in need of an assistant so that there can be some time freed up to also focus on the mission of microchurch. One of you has split custody with your ex and are working to establish the rhythm that loves on your kids well while you have them at home while working in your context to create community. One of you is building community while maintaining a loving long distance relationship.

To us, this is the church of tomorrow. No more clean lines of compartmentalized ministry and family life. No more boxes to fit one part of our lives in to make it easier to focus and "go to work."

In fact, most of us in the network are bi-vocational, nigh tri-vocational! Keeping jobs that are meaningful yet pay the bills and doing our mission|community|worship in our spare time and with our families gives us the freedom to create in a messy, family friendly world.

Is it easier? Nope. Is it messy? 100%. When our families and our friends and our business partners get to see the innovation and the joy and the passion of the church of tomorrow, they are seeing a faith that is alive. They are witnessing a love for people that comes off the page and out of the pews. It doesn't take much time before they are willing participants in the Mystery of Christ that is the church of tomorrow, instead of watching on the sidelines.

As we pray for you this week, we pray that God wraps you up in his great big love and sends you out - into your contexts and into you neighborhoods and into your cities and villages and into your mission that he has given you and that your families and friends jump in with joy along with you.

Now that's a church we want to be a part of!