Wednesday, July 2, 2008

First steps

I thought of another way our open house was like a wedding—lots of great food that I didn’t have time to eat! (I’m sure our wedding cake was good, but I certainly don’t remember eating any of it.) I was pretty focused in on greeting people and on what needed to be said; so it was hard to want to munch on chips and seven layer dip.

Exactly fifty people attended our open house. A number of people brought great munchies and desserts. Justin brought a bouncy castle and set it up in the front yard, which had the kids (and some adults) jumping for joy.

After spending some time meeting each other and finding out silly facts about ourselves, we got into looking at what this new church will be like. We looked at what it means to be missional—getting into the community to transform it—rather than focusing on trying to attract people with super cool programs. We saw how our primary mission field is... Helena. We explored what it would be like for the front door of our church to be our small community groups rather than a worship service. We looked at how our children could participate in the life of the church. We discussed where we go from here.

And just where do we go from here? Over the next few months we’ll be focusing on gathering people to join on this church planting endeavor. We’ll host more events for people to come and catch the vision of what we’re about. And toward the latter part of the fall we’ll take our first steps toward publicly worshiping together.

So stay tuned. Get involved. Pray.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Sounds really exciting having bunch of your current and future family at the opening. ^^ Prayers are with you and everyone there! Noriko

Matt said...

Thanks for your prayers, Noriko--your prayers are powerful!
I still often think of our conversation this spring when I saw you in Anaheim. You've had a big impact already.