soma school
Jeff Vanderstelt, Caesar Kalowinski and the folks at Soma Communities in Tacoma, WA, are into missional living. So into it that they’ve built their entire church life and ministry around it. These are the dudes (along with Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, authors of Total Church) who gave us the terminology “don’t plant a service and don’t plant a church. Plant the gospel. Let it bear fruit (regeneration). Then let the church grow out of that.” Well, anyway, these guys have a missional living school (Soma School) that Brent Brewer (one of our pastors), Mike Crawford (from LA and moving to B’more) and I are attending in Oct. We’ll live in their peoples’ homes and do mission with them for a week. Then we’ll seek to bring that home to Maryland. Here’s another idea I remember from one of their talks: “if you’re not their friend, you’re probably not winning them. And if you’re not eating with them regularly, you’re not their friend.” Jesus was a friend of sinners. He ate with them. Who are you eating with this week?
April 17th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Yo rock to me Pastor!
Way to go… way to go…Glory to God.
- Terrence
April 17th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Terrance – You’re too cool. And you’re the first person to make a commend on my new blog. Thanks. – s
April 18th, 2009 at 2:07 am
Im going to be eating with Terry this week.
No seriously. This was good for me to think about. Josh and I have been talking/praying about this lately. How can we invite our neighbors over after years of never talking to some them…praying for wisdom and grace on this one.
April 18th, 2009 at 3:49 am
Yeah, how do we get started? Anybody got good ideas for us? Here are a few: You might circulate a flier in the neighborhood about a game night at your house (Texas Hold’um?). Or it might not be your geographical neighborhood you should focus on. It might be your relational neighborhood; non-christians you already know from sports, kid’s school, work, etc. Glad you’re thinking and praying about it! For us it’s been people we’ve met here or there; our realtor, people met while bicycling, their friends…
April 18th, 2009 at 8:46 am
Hey Pastor Steve,
That is a great idea about the texas holdem fliers. I will bring that up to Josh and see what he says. We already do the relational neighborhood stuff to some extent, but most of my geographical neighbors are left ignored; I really want to change that.
April 18th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Good stuff here Steve. I think that his remarks about friendship and eating are good, and very convicting! One thing that crossed my mind is that we shouldn’t be necessarily trying to copy the exact methods that others are using, but rather do the hard work of studying the people around us and finding out ways to apply our lives and the gospel through these means in the way that is most specific to them. That might mean cards, or food, or movies, or wine tasting, or board games, or hunting trips, or cross stitch, or, ….. You get the idea. I am still theorizing here, but I have the feeling that the real blessing on innovation will come when we find out the specific needs/fears/tastes/stories of the people around us and connect there. Not easy….
April 18th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Matt – Absolutely. Totally agree. In fact, it probably means all those things plus the kitchen sink.