Tag: Tidelands Church

Getting Caught Up

It has been quite some time since I have updated my blog. I don’t want this to be misinterpreted as a sign that things aren’t going well. It is actually quite the opposite. Things are getting busier as Tidelands grows, and that means that I am going to have to be more focused and intentional about making time for my blog. I also took some time off over the holidays to be with family and relax. There you have it – my best excuses. I can provide more later if requested.

In other news, we had a few more “firsts” in December. Last December we were still only meeting once a month for worship, so this was our first time moving through an entire Advent season of worship together. I would typically preach one of the sermons during Advent when I was at Mountain View, but this was my first time planning and implementing all four weeks on my own. I have to say that I enjoyed it – other than the business of preparing for three worship services at once the week before Christmas with family in town (Christmas Eve, Sunday before and Sunday after Christmas). But it was worth it so that I could enjoy time off with family after Christmas. Having a Christmas Eve service was another of our “firsts” for Tidelands.

Our Missional Community had some wonderful time together over the holidays. We had Thanksgiving and Christmas meals together (not on the exact days, but close enough), we made cookies for the elementary school staff, had a “white elephant” gift exchange, watched some football, and continued to share the “Story of God” with our kids. A new family has begun joining us on Sunday nights. Christmas is a great time to introduce people to life lived for Christ! Most of our MC families also helped out with the giving tree at the local school again. We are still working toward helping the school district and the food bank develop a local “backpack program” (a program that provides food for the weekend to kids that need the extra help). The idea was that we would be launching the program this week, but we are running into some snags. Tidelands donated a significant amount of our local mission giving to get the program up and running, so the barriers are more procedural (and perhaps spiritual as well).

Some of the more mundane (yet necessary) things that we are currently working on have to do with the logistics of starting a new church. We registered for a EIN (Employee Identification Number) with the federal government, and we are now working on getting incorporated with the state. This also requires creating some articles of incorporation. Fortunately for us, this process is made easier by being under the umbrella of the Presbyterian Church (USA). We’re also getting more people involved with all of the details that go into Sunday morning worship: set-up, tear-down, children’s ministry, offerings, coffee bar, etc. Thankfully God is leading some amazing people to partner in this with us!

For me personally, I’m beginning to feel like the “honeymoon” is over. I’ll share more about what I mean in another blog post (hopefully on its way before another two months pass!).

Give Me an Illustration

I’ve been working on some images that I hope will be helpful as we continue work on communicating what it means to be a church with a missional community structure. Part of the challenge is that we are still working this out ourselves as well. I got the idea for the following graphics from the “napkin theology” found on the Soma GCM site. I’ve posted some of their graphics on this blog before. They are definitely worth looking at. You can also find a free e-book of Napkin Theology by Seth McBee here.

Here are some that I have been working on:
Tidelands Structure1People are often confused when we begin to talk about missional communities. We were recently asked if we were a “commune!” I have found it helpful to tell people that we are striving to be a “congregation made up of missional communities.” Though I would prefer to say that our primary mode for being the church is through missional communities, I think that only brings up more commune-like images for those that haven’t seen it. I also don’t want to say that we are a church with many “small groups” of people in MCs. The idea of what a “small group” is in the church has taken on a life of its own (often very inward-focused) and we don’t want people to think it is just a new “small group program.” So for us, the worship gathering is still our touchstone every Sunday morning for all of our MC’s (right now we only have one). We have people that worship with us that are not part of a MC yet, and some may never be (but we hope they will give it a try). But our MC’s help fill in that large gap between Sunday worship and where we live the rest of the week.

Tidelands Structure2The above image is obviously just an expansion on the first, showing the inward/outward nature of missional communities. We gather together to worship as “Tidelands Church,” but each MC is focused on sharing the gospel with a different “people group” in the larger community. The focus is outward!

MC.IdentityI stole this idea directly from Seth’s napkin theology. His is much better and you can see it here. The most simple definition of a missional community is “a family of missionary servants.” I like this because it connects us into our identity in a triune God. We have one Father so we are family. We are all filled with the Holy Spirit and are “missionaries” to those around us. We all claim Jesus as our Lord and follow him in serving others. (John 13:13-17).

MC.FunctionsAgain, the above image is an expansion  on the previous idea. If we know that the identity of an MC is a family of missionary servants, then we can talk about how they function. In the graphic above I’ve given just some of the activities that an MC might do as they seek to live this out together. I could add a lot more, and probably need to move a few around, but I hope it conveys the idea. People always want to know: “What does a missional community do?” Really, that is like asking: “What does your church do?” In many ways each MC functions like a mini church plant: finding creative and effective ways to share the gospel to a particular people in a particular culture. We do a lot of activities as an MC, but the things that we “do” are always rooted in who we “are” in Christ and our desire to bring the gospel to bear in all of life. This is not a program, this is living as the church!

I hope these are helpful. Visuals always tend to stick with me better than simply listening or reading. If you’ve made it this far let me know what you think.

New Communion Ware Pictures

It’s one of those things that I took for granted – vessels for the Lord’s Supper. We always had them around at the churches I had worshiped at in the past. It never really occurred to me that there was a Sunday when someone said: “What are we going to use for the Lord’s Supper?” and then went out and bought them. I decided that since that task fell to me that I would seek out a local artist to make something for us. If you don’t know, Stanwood and Camano Island are known for the local art community. It just made sense. Here are some pictures of the vessels made for us by Leslie Whaley at Moonswept Studio:

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You may be curious about the choice of design for the plate/platter. I’ll tell you about the salmon, but first you need to understand the writing. The Greek is from John 6:51 that is translated: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” I chose to have it in Greek because for me it adds to the sense of mystery, tradition, and ancient roots of the Lord’s Supper. John 6 has intrigued me for years ever since I discovered the connections in the story. Jesus wants to take his disciples away to be alone for awhile after days of serving and teaching. Instead, crowds follow him into the middle of nowhere. He has compassion, teaches them, and then miraculously feeds them with FISH and broken bread. After that, he sends the disciples across the lake by boat and Jesus goes up the mountain to pray.

The crowds decide that they are going to create a violent uprising against Rome and make Jesus king. Jesus knows their plans and secretly walks across the surface of the lake in the middle of the night. In a dramatic meeting in a storm on the lake the disciples take Jesus into their boat and reach their destination. In the morning the crowds figure out that Jesus has given them the slip, and in need of more food they follow him across the lake. When they find him they try to convince him to give them more food. Jesus does not do it, but instead tells them that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood. He teaches them that he is the bread from heaven and that anyone who eats him will never go hungry again and will have eternal life.The teaching is so hard (should we say “repulsive”) that many of his followers, and presumably the entire hungry crowd, desert him. I could write a lot more here about this, but I think I’ll save it for a future sermon. My main point here is that this passage is where we get the best glimpse into Jesus’ early teaching about what the Lord’s Supper really is all about.

So why the salmon? Well, first of all, fish have always played an important role in Christian symbolism and often in early Christianity it is associated with the eucharist (Lord’s Supper). If you want to to read a good article that explains this connection take a look at “Symbolism of the Fish” from the Catholic Encyclopedia.  The one thing that this article doesn’t mention is that many of Jesus’ early disciples were fishermen and they were told by Jesus that they had a greater calling – that they were to “fish for people” (Matt. 4:19).

As for choosing a salmon, I would hope that it would be obvious. We have a lot of salmon around Stanwood and Camano Island! Maybe not as much as there once was, but you will still hear people from all walks of life talking about salmon. Our newspapers always seem to have articles about the connection between salmon and the health of Puget Sound, our rivers, the Native American culture, sport fishing, etc. In the Stanwood/Camano Island area there is some conflict and debate about the “tidelands” and their importance for both the salmon and local agriculture. Since the type of fish has never seemed to be especially important in Christian symbolism it just made sense to have a salmon for Tidelands Church. Beyond that, for me, it will always connect me back to that story from John 6. So many people ate from the miraculous fish, but so few were willing to follow Jesus when his teaching was less palatable.