The Only Thing You Know is Where You've Been

I suppose sometimes God lays something on your heart in really huge and obvious ways, but most of the time He's more subtle. It's only when we look back that we can see with such confidence that God was in it. At the time you might just sense a slight nudge, or something might catch your ear in a peculiar way. When it's over we look back and make all of the connections and say, God did this amazing thing!

I think there are many reasons why God might choose the still-quiet-voice approach over the in-your-face approach, but one in particular strikes me as particularly relevant to our situation here. For Jenn and I, it was critical that this ministry move was something that we did together, with one heart. It was also something that had to be clearly marked with the fingerprints of God. When that kind of confidence is there it means that we can't run away when things get tough, and we can't take the credit when things go well.

As I began to pray about where God might call us to ministry, I sensed a call to West Vancouver. When Jenn really felt like it was time to move, she fell in love with a house in West Vancouver. These two events may not have had any impact on their own, but together and in the context of everything, it became clear that this was another prompting of the Holy Spirit. Another nudge to take the next faith step in our journey.

If I would have approached Jenn a year ago and said, "We're moving to West Vancouver for ministry, I'll fill you in on the details later, just trust me..." I image it would have been met with some resistance. Allowing God to do His work simultaneously in both our hearts has shown us how God uses the still small voice to prompt us because we need a little time to adjust our thinking. Then, when our thinking is adjusted, he doesn't waste any time.

Pointing our Hearts to the Big City

When we began thinking about where God would have us plant a church, we thought that a city would be a great place. It's a funny thing that the population density of an urban area is much higher than that of a suburb, but the churches seem to be moving to the suburbs. Don't get me wrong, we need churches everywhere, but I think churches ought to be where people are. The idea of a cool restaurant, the headquarters of a bank, a night club, and a church all on the same block sounds really cool to me. Churches should be where everyday life happens, and they should be a vital part of it.

As we started praying about a specific area to minister we got out a map and looked at demographics. We talked about a lot of places around Oregon and Washington that were growing or needy and one area in particular was West Vancouver. I wasn't sure why at the time, but that stuck with me and Jenn and I began praying about what that would mean for us.

We didn't really know what would come next. We patiently waited for God show us our next move.

Take it from the top

A couple of years ago I started getting together with a few guys to dream about what church would be like if we could start from scratch. What would we keep, what would we tweak, and what would we do without altogether.

One thing that we all agreed on was the importance of relationships. Whether it's a pastor or first-time guest everyone should feel loved in a powerful and tangible way. If Christians are to be known by their love then relationships have to be at the top of the priority list. Love doesn't happen apart from relationships.

Another thing that we got excited about was teaching that deeply impacted the people listening. We weren't interested in fluffy self-help, nor did we dream of a church where the teaching was so "high and lofty" that it didn't connect with real life.

We talked about the importance of creating a visually engaging environment that would move people to worship. Art has a sense of transcendence and immanence that reminds us of what God is like. There is an aspect that is very real and right in front of us, and then there's an aspect that mysteriously goes beyond what you see. This is important to our culture and it often overlooked inside the church.

We also wanted worship that was relevant to everyone who was there. People connect with God in different ways, they're at a variety of places in their spiritual journey, and come in with different needs on any given day. That means that quality and consistency are important, but authenticity, transparency and spiritual sensitivity are critical.

We began talking about what it might look like to put some of these philosophies into reality, and we quickly realized it was much easier to dream. Since then we've gone in some different directions, but one thing that we all realized at that time was that we should be doing something to make the Church better and more effective by following the prompting that God placed in our hearts.