Tag: Church Planting

Justice

Girl on filthy street

Last night at Mountain View PC we had a great evening talking about Justice and spending time in worship asking the question: “What is my next step?” What an awesome ministry my good friends Phil and Amy are engaged in with Steps of Justice!  I am convinced that the Church is called to be at the forefront of stepping out against injustice as it acts out the prayer: “Your kingdom come!” I’m not as confident in stating what this looks like exactly. I have a feeling that it will be slightly different for each community of faith.

It is my prayer that whatever form this Stanwood/Camano Island church development takes, that it would be infused with the desire to both reach those who do not yet know the grace of Jesus Christ, and to follow Jesus in reaching out to the “least of these” (Matthew 25:45). One of the most exciting things to me about being engaged in the birthing of a new faith community is the opportunity to infuse some of these qualities into the “DNA” of the community. But in order to do this we must be aware of what the issues are. We must be willing to move beyond self-centeredness and open our eyes to the world around us. This is no easy task.

What do you believe are the most pressing “justice” issues in the Stanwood/Camano area?

Workshop Dates Set

Our discernment team will be participating in a “Starting New Churches” workshop at Mountain View Presbyterian Church, hosted by Craig Williams. Craig is an associate with the Western Office of Church Development with the Presbyterian Church (USA). The workshop dates are January 4 – 7, 2012. We will be meeting in the evenings Wednesday through Friday, and all day on Saturday.

Dandelion in Sunset

The workshop will serve as a kind of “pre-gathering” for our discernment team. During the workshop we will go through everything that we will be doing in our discernment process and begin to anticipate what it will take.  The goal is that after the workshop the “Starting New Churches” process will not only makes sense, but our team will have experience from the training that will speed up the process and make it more thorough. We will begin the 17 Gatherings in the second or third week of January.