Beadle Bailey's Babblings

I apologize for allowing so much time to pass between posts. Things are progressing well with Tidelands, and I am certainly keeping busy, but life has also been making the road a bit tough. I share the following, not by way of complaint or whining, but as a way to continue reflecting on this process of church planting with the hope that it will benefit and encourage others (but if, after reading, you want to give me a virtual pat on the back along with an “Aaaaw, poor boy!” – I’ll understand).

Roughly five weeks ago we made the shift to the Stanwood Community and Senior Center for our Sunday morning worship gatherings. It has been an answer to prayer for us, even if it wasn’t the ideal office/worship space combination that we were hoping for (more on that in a later post). About the same time I received word that my 95 year-old Grandmother had just been hospitalized after a fall and was having a surgery. Since that phone call I have spent many hours in four different hospitals in Oregon and Washington with family members having surgery. Here’s the story:

My Grandma (an amazing woman of deep faith that personally played a big role in leading many people to Christ) has been living on her own. She had a bad fall and broke a hip requiring surgery. I had the opportunity to talk and pray with her while she was still in the hospital. Not long after my visit, the family and my grandma elected not to pursue further surgeries knowing that her body could only take so much. She was then moved to a hospice facility where she passed away. My wife and kids made the trip back down with me to Oregon for the funeral. It was a beautiful, faith-filled service.

Earlier this summer my wife re-injured her knee while training for a race (I often preach that running is crazy and idiotic but nobody listens!). She had surgery on her ACL in high school after a soccer injury and it is finally catching up with her. Her surgery a week ago was a quick, in-and-out surgery and everything seems to have gone well. But having two young boys out of school for the summer and a wife stuck in a chair does not lend itself to productivity as far as work goes. She is recovering well, and doing much more than she probably should be already, but we had to put some vacation plans on hold until we know how everything turns out.

Finally, my 10 year-old niece (brother’s daughter) was rushed to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy the same day my wife had surgery. This has been the hardest of all. There have been complications and many very scary moments, including being rushed to Seattle Children’s Hospital. My brother and I are very close, and I love my niece to death! It has been very hard seeing both of them in so much pain. Thankfully, she is showing slow signs of recovery, but her hospital stay will likely last awhile. Something like this certainly allows one to see life from a different perspective and to appreciate the gifts that God has given us for today!

I share all of this, because these are all events that I could not foresee or even prepare for as we launched into this church planting endeavor. I am so very thankful that I am doing this work with a team of people, and that we have been very careful about doing everything in a way that allows us to maintain time for rest and play as a family (though it has been a struggle at times). While I feel stressed by all of the things that I am behind on, my faith has been strengthened as I have seen God continuing to work in our midst and giving my family strength. This has simply been one of those periods in my life when I wonder how anyone can make it through without the strength and peace that only comes through a relationship with Jesus, and serves as a reminder of the importance of sharing this Good News – this Gospel – with others.

More reflections to come. In the meantime… back to the hospital.

We have been looking for a new worship gathering location since the beginning of the year – and now we have found it! Beginning this Sunday (June 12, 2013) we will begin gathering for worship at the Stanwood Community and Senior Center! I’ll share more about this place, but first, some background:

As you can see from some of my previous posts, we have experienced some difficulties and learned a lot along the way in our quest for office and worship space. Our hope was that we might find an office space in the community that could also function as a small worship gathering spot until we needed something bigger. All through this process we have been praying that God would lead us to a place that would be more than just a convenient location for worship gatherings, but that the place would also help connect us more with God’s mission in the community. Explained another way: Often times a worship space becomes a building detached from the daily lives of the people in the congregation. Instead, we have been dreaming about a place that would locate us in the community in a way that would help us make connections. And this goal was part of the reason why we ran into trouble with zoning and land use issues since most of these kind of places are in busy commercial/downtown areas.

I have to admit that I was initially reluctant to consider worshipping at a “Senior Center.” I was concerned that this might create more barriers to younger generations (and it might – if we are just talking about getting them to come to worship). However, it quickly became clear to us that the Stanwood Community and Senior Center was a great opportunity! They are under the leadership of a new director, and are focused on being much more outward oriented toward the community (sound familiar?) There is already a private elementary school meeting at the Center, and the Stanwood High School football team is having their team dinners there. In addition, the Center has 85 residents that live there in independent living apartments that help meet the need for low-income senior housing. There is also relatively new low-income family housing next door. The staff is extremely warm, joyful, and welcoming and open to us joining into the many events that happen during the week.

Obviously there are many opportunities for us to serve at the Center – everything from painting to classes to helping with large social events. However, we quickly realized that the best service that we could provide is one that we are already doing – a worship service! Since our primary model for reaching younger families detached from church is through the missional communities, there is absolutely no conflict here! Older generations obviously have a much more positive attitude toward the church (generalizing here) and are much more likely to “come” to a worship service. Obviously, many of the seniors that come to the Center and those that live there are already connected to churches in the community, and we will not be trying to compete for there attendance. But especially for those that have a hard time going very far for worship, we pray that as we go to them it will be a blessing and that they will join our community for worship!

As a side note: The main part of the Stanwood Community and Senior Center building is the historic “Lincoln School” building that sits directly above the current Stanwood High School football field. Since we are a new church, it will be good to have that connection with the history of the community.

Second side note: The earliest worship experiences that I can remember in my life were with the Light and Life Free Methodist Church in Bend, Oregon. We met at the Bend Senior Center which, at the time, was about a block away from my house.

I’m writing this entry in my blog primarily as a resource to those who made read this later while moving through the church planting process. Unlike me, you may already be aware of some of these issues, but I was caught off-guard. I’m referring specifically to my naiveté regarding worship space for our church. I honestly thought that a church could gather for worship pretty much anywhere that they desired, provided that they were willing to pay to lease the location and certain fire/building codes were met. So I was quite surprised to find that there are areas within the city (many in fact), where “houses of worship” are not allowed under the city/county codes. And even in some of the areas where they are allowed there are other conditions that must be met (like minimum size of property) and additional applications that must be submitted and approved. So my advice to others beginning to search for space for their church plant: go and ask the city about this issue specifically and get a map before you begin looking.

I’m learning a lot about this issue, but I admittedly still know very little. I can tell you this: it’s quite complicated and the issue of churches and zoning is dealt with differently in different locations. Stanwood does not allow churches in most of the commercial areas in town. Our vision of having an office and small worship location in a community center with a cafe type atmosphere is looking more and more unlikely. The city explained it to me this way: if we want to lease a place that is being used primarily as something else (like a school/theater/etc.) then we are ok. But if we want to lease a space to be used on Sunday morning for worship and the rest of the week as an office then we fall under the “house of worship” classification and our choices are limited by the current zoning.

There is a federal law that was passed in 2000 often referred to by the acronym RLUIPA (Religous Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act) that prohibits cities from discriminating against religious organizations in their zoning. I did some research and a number of sources say that most cities are probably not in compliance with the law. However, there have also been differing circuit court rulings on the interpretation of the law. The heart of the problem is apparently not so much that cities are anti-church, but rather that they need tax revenue. When a church moves into a commercial or industrial space that city loses the potential tax revenue. When a church purchases a building the city loses the property tax revenue. I understand the dilemma. I also understand the some mega-churches have not been the most welcome neighbors and have not been in well-planned locations.

Whether or not a city is in compliance with the law is probably a matter of debate and would likely require significant legal work to resolve. For us, legal action and fighting is simply not the way forward. We desire to be the best church for the community and to work in partnership with the existing organizations and structures, not to be an adversary. However, it is very frustrating and I believe short-sighted on the part of the city. A healthy church provides so much benefit to the community and neighborhood that go well beyond the issue to taxes and revenue. We dream of being a church that supports work with the homeless, provides tutoring, supports the local schools, and through the power of Christ changes the very lives of families for the better. We want to see crime reduced, marriages healed, children educated, hungry fed, seniors provided with community, etc. – all in the name of Christ. So my hope is that over time we can also be a voice to challenge some of the existing zoning so that more creative models of “church” can be allowed to flourish in the community as it continues to grow.

In the meantime, we are once again back to the drawing board. I’m convinced that we will eventually find the right fit for us, it just may not happen as easily or as quickly as we hoped. And this entire issue convinces me, once again, that the missional community model is an effective way to live as the church in our changing culture. None of these land use issues effect what happens in our home, with 10 – 20 people gathered together for a meal, and strategizing about how to “be the church” in the neighborhood where we live. And nothing is preventing us from having another 10 – 20 groups all doing the same thing!