Previous Post – A Prophetic (Franciscan) Challenge
Recently, Jason Coker began posting a series of very raw and honest articles about their decision to shut down their missional church plant, Ikon (see Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 & Part 4). In these incredibly vulnerable posts, Jason explores the whole story of how his community came to be, the struggles throughout, the reasons for shutting it down and even his own personal insecurities and fears throughout. As hard as it is to read about the end of a great community, these posts are also a gift to the rest of it.
As I shared with Jason, the parallels between Ikon and Little Flowers Community are many, even (and perhaps especially) in respect to the challenges that ultimately led to their decision to shut down. To be perfectly honest, these realities scare the hell out of me. People have tried to assure me not to worry too much about it, but I have deep sense that our community is facing some of the same challenges.
What scares me more is that this story- the story that I identify with in Jason’s experience- is one that I am seeing played out again and again in small missional communities. I believe in the values we hold and even more so in the communities we are a part of. However, I also know that survive, to be sustainable will require some significant changes.
The fact is this: the values and practices of being missional are much harder and less efficient than most church planting/growth models. There is intentional commitment to resist choices that could quickly “solve” many of the immediate problems, yet compromise the core convictions and “DNA” of the community in the long run. Some will suggest that these convictions are thus proven idealistic and untenable. Perhaps they are right, but I am far from convinced.
Yet such conviction- as strong as it may be- does not help the difficult realities that we face. Yes, I will trust God and be faithful. I know that God provides and is faithful. However, I also know that God invites us into costly lives of sacrificial service. I also know that often His children suffer because of others choices.
I am discouraged, but hopeful. Tired, but stubborn. I deeply believe in what God is doing in our little community. We are seeking to be obedient to God in community that has all too often been ignored or abandoned by the church. We are building a family that desires to be faithful to God and one another without some of the basic resources that most churches take for granted. We are imperfect, broken and messy, but we are seeing His grace revealed in ways we could not have elsewhere.
I am not sure if such a blog post is effective or helpful, but I know I need to say this: We need a faithful few who are willing to join us- join us in our faith community and in our local neighbourhood- and share the joys and burdens of building God’s kingdom here. I don’t know who those people will be, but I want to ask you to genuinely consider what part you might play.
Tags: Missional
Thanks for sharing these words.
For what it’s worth, I appreciate how many of the church planters in the missional conversation are extremely honest about the challenges of planting (as opposed to the good news only.)
Anyway, I’m honored to add you to my prayer list (It’s a short list given my track record
Let me know how else I can help but know that I am grateful for you expressing your vulnerability. Ministry is a tough road and it’s good to not be alone – so thanks to you.
Grace and peace.
My reflections on my alternative church experiences, and why I am back in a small but growing traditional church setting:
Leadership is tough. I think we underestimate its importance, overestimate people’s openness to change, and somehow believe that God’s ultimate desires for us translate into His producing the required transformations in our desired short time frame. It took a long time to bring us from Moses to Jesus to today.
And perhaps underlying the above misconceptions is a false duality between secular and spiritual truth.
Hey Tim,
Thanks so much. That means a lot. Keep praying & if you run across anyone waiting for their lives to be seriously disrupted by God, send them my way!
Peace,
Jamie
Hey David,
While I agree with some of your points in principle, I find them insufficient for me to believe that I should leave “alternative church experiences”. In fact, some of your very points spur me on even further. I see no misconceptions in my post. If you care to point some out, we can discuss it. In fact, I believe that false duality you speak of convinces me further to stay the course. Thanks for weighing in.
Peace,
Jamie
Jamie
The misconceptions I was referring to were the ones I posit in my comment, not anything in your post.
May God guide you to the work that He has for you now. I believe that is the true definition of “idealistic” and “realistic”.
Peace
David
Thanks David. I wasn’t sure. I think your points are valid, but I suspect that some (not suggesting you) use those reasons to make an easier choice. Many people have broken commitments to new missional communities because it was just too hard.
Thanks for the clarification and sorry for my misunderstanding.
Peace,
Jamie
Hi Jaime,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. As a fellow (missional), (bi-vocational), (canadian) church planter in a neighborhood with diverse socio-economic realities and challenges I appreciate your honesty. And I can honestly say I can relate to the burden and challenges you are facing. We are in our 4th year and although we have made significant strides, the wear and tear it brings cannot be ignored.
So I just wanted to drop a quick note to encourage you to not give in to the quick fixes that will compromise. And if I come across anyone heading to Winnipeg, I will send them your way! Know that your journey so far has been encouraging to me in Calgary.
Scott
(Read if wanting advice (if not… stop reading!!): My only piece of advice that I’ve learned would be to focus not on the content of your vision but on the scope. Keep your values just live them out in a manner that’s sustainable. I’ve wanted to radically address and challenge all the injustice in our neighborhood but I’ve hardly learned to just love my immediate neighbors. Have a scope that reflects your abilities and your community and as those grow, so may your vision.)
Hey Scott,
Thanks for the encouragement. Actually, it isn’t so much the breadth of vision that is taxing. Having been serving in this community for nearly 10 years, I’ve learned that lesson long ago. Rather it is simply being sustainable with what we have and where we are. There is a great deal of brokenness and need for mature influence for our crew. With our child coming soon, my ability to do what I have been doing will decrease, meaning doing less. I’d rather not see that if possible. Thanks for the advice. It is always welcomed from those who understand!
Peace,
Jamie
Thanks for writing this Jamie. I know there’s a lot of us who identify with the worries on this. I was just thinking today how God convicting me of this whole missional thing has felt a bit like dieing. It would be much easier to go help start an attractional church and re-organize the deck chairs on the titanic.
But unfortunately, Jesus doesn’t seem to promise us anything easy and so we continue on.
Blessings bro.
Thanks B.D. Our conversation earlier helped push me to write this, as I know you understand all too well. Here’s to dying!
Peace,
Jamie
Jamie, take heart! Death really is only the beginning, not the end, and no matter how it comes – by the public death of the institution, or merely the private death of some vestigial self-confidence – it eventually must come to us all, many times over.
In our case, all we really killed was the institutional vision (okay, maybe a fair bit of self-confidence too). But the relationships, and therefore God’s work of mission among us, remain. Likewise, I’m confident that whatever iterations you undergo in Winnipeg, you won’t ever lose what is truly most valuable. In that sense, the grace of your ministry can never die.
For what it’s worth, I pray you don’t lose the structures you have in place. Little Flowers is far more developed than Ikon ever was. It’s worth fighting for.
If your family ever wants to come lounge on the beach for a while, our home is always open to you.
Thanks Jason. Wise words. I think, more than anything, I deeply, deeply long for someone(s) to share the heart and core of the ministry with us until the community matures together.
And if your family ever want to lounge in the world’s coldest city for a while… you’re crazy! But seriously, our home is open to you as well.
Hey bro,
I have you on my mind quite often, so here’s to you receiving those things that are on my mind. Don’t worry, it’s all goodwill!
Maybe asking yourself some “tough” questions can ease your mind a bit (I’m sure that you’ve asked yourself all of these a million times, but if you haven’t…):
1. What is the result that you want to occur? Can your vision be achieved from a wide range of outcomes?
2. What exactly was it about the missional communities of old that made them so successful? Can that be recreated with the resources that you have (or that you can receive by faith)?
3. If things don’t turn out the way you have envisioned… then what? Will our Father love you any less? (Just hearing what you are trying to do has endeared you to me… and I don’t even really consider myself that good of a person… how much more does He love you?)
Here’s to a community that you can call Jehovah-shammah! May it come soon!
God bless.
Hey Micheal,
Thanks. Yes, tough questions abound. Here are my initial answers to the questions you posed:
1. While it is too much to explain in detail here, the results/outcomes are not the primary challenge (or concern) as much as being together in community in a way that is honouring of God and moving us more towards Christ everyday. In that sense, we are doing well. However, I also believe that key to what God wants for us is a more diverse community, especially in respect to age and maturity. What we have done (and continue to do) towards this end would take several posts to explore.
2. This is the question I like the least because the answer seems to be… they struggled with the same things we are struggling with (though the finer details are different, of course). It is to be expected, I guess, as Jesus calls us to follow Him daily to the cross.
3. A common misunderstanding I seem to get from people is that it is about a failure to reach a goal that I/we have envisioned. In fact, we have surpassed those expectations in ways that humble us daily. Knowing that I am loved is not what worries me, especially not by God (though of course there are moments of doubt and insecurity). Rather, it is about a deep discontent, what a friend calls a “holy discontent” and a knowledge that it isn’t sustainable as is. I trust God to lead, I am just tired.
Thanks for the encouragement, bro!
Peace,
Jamie
Jamie, thanks. My first reaction to your post was to recall my own experience of stepping out – community,idealism, hope and hurt (http://www.themennonite.org/pdf/magazine_pdf_87.pdf). Since the time I describe in the article Karen and I suffered marital breakdown. The cost has been high.
For a lot of us who take inspiration from monastic or Anabaptist sources those foundations are both bane and blessing. Both traditional monasticism and Anabaptism contain extraordinarily durable examples of community life which have peristed over hundreds of years. The price of this stability though, has been institutionalization. For missional pioneers, Neo-monastics or Neo-Anabaptists that institutionalization is a problem – it carries a distinct Christendom taint. So, we bend over backwards for fluidity, openness, inclusiveness and spontaneity. Sadly, the price of our progressive ways is the loss of stability.
Whatever our pain in seeking to act authentically I still wouldn’t have it any other way. Community runs against every grain but is uniquely joyful in way that’s difficult to communicate without living it. Shalom, Phil
[...] planting that Jason and Jenell were doing. Jason’s posts fed that angst. Jamie Arpin-ricci’s recent post poured more gas on the flames of that anxiety. So I started to write this post. This post is not [...]
Thanks Phil, for your encouragement and raw honesty. You have some very good insights, ones that I will be pondering with. Thanks again, bro.
Peace,
Jamie
Hey Jaime,
We met at the Sargent Ave event a month or so back. Stumbled on this through your Little Flowers site. I was curious if you are aware of any studies or sustained reflection on the historical and social trajectory of this movement and how it is currently playing out. My experience is that many of these expressions flow from or began in the context of middle-class, white, decently educated, relatively conservative, college aged folk motivated to make a difference in a context outside their upbringing (I include myself). This comment may be entirely irrelevant (or unfair), and I do not know the literature around missional communities so this may be addressed already but I wanted to ask the question in any event.
Hey David,
David Fitch would be the guy to ask this question of (in respect to studies, etc.). However, there is an aspect of that trend in some missional circles, but I would argue that they are not the norm. That will always be typical of “alternative” expressions of church, I think. So I don’t think it is unfair, but it can be dismissed too quickly as such.
Peace,
Jamie
[...] planting that Jason and Jenell were doing. Jason’s posts fed that angst. Jamie Arpin-ricci’s recent post poured moreArticle source: [...]
[...] planting that Jason and Jenell were doing. Jason’s posts fed that angst. Jamie Arpin-ricci’s recent post poured more gas on the flames of that anxiety. So I started to write this post. This post is not [...]
[...] Previous Post – Surviving Missional [...]
[...] No idea how to do this…just throwing it out. I echo the sentiment of Jamie Arpin-Ricci: “We need a faithful few who are willing to join us- join us in our faith community and in our … That’s [...]
[...] many of my posts over at the other blog are about Little Flowers, so here are a couple selections: Surviving Missional and Community: A Costly Missional [...]
@Jamie: As always, another needed & insightful post…keep “surviving missional.”
@Jason: Your response nailed it from start to finish, & echoes the stories of many across the continent.
Thanks Chris!