i just came from [last fri.&sat.] my first board of directors mtg. for the state of michigan. i'm on the bd. by default of chairing the youth ministries task force for the state. yea me...at least that's what i thought going in. ok, so my expectations were very low at the out-set. my thoughts were simply this; i'm going to be, far and away, the youngest person there [i was but not as far and away as i thought], it's going to be a lot about budget & what may need to get hacked in case of $$ tightening, insert you own potentially boring thought here and it was probably mine.but hey, the state paid for a hotel, my wife came and i was there.but the whole day and 1/2 was steered toward looking at michigan's vision/mission statements and if we were really acting like a missional organization or not.the short answer to that question was 'no' we don't act missional at all.now comes the hard work of deciding what ministries of the coG in mi. do to become missional. and if they don't meet the criteria [yet to be determined] of missional action maybe they get to die the narley death [is that the way to spell 'narley'?].anyways, i walked away thinking that there may be hope for an institution that has been mired in "the way we've always done it" thinking with a good deal of optimism.i know, it's a short fall from such a low height that we climbed to over the weekend; even easier to jump off. but maybe this is one of the reasons for my presence in the "chair's" seat of youth ministry for mi. to help be the voice of the [i'm not sure i still like this word] emerging church.then again, maybe not. i don't know, can't decide...

Check out the story of 2 emerging churches along with Brian McLaren on ABC News. LINK

recently i have been reading r.bell's book velvet elvis [a dang good read] and was just coming through the parts about community in the church.
in the weeks leading up to Christmas i was speaking to our students about the importance of community; how the journey is not ment to be done in solitude, the shared experience is the rich expreience, etc. then at our Christmas morning gathering as i spoke i touched the communal issues that we've done a good job of limiting. we've limited them through our attitudes and importance we've placed on individualism.

then just this week my sr. and i are talking in staff mtg. about issues of community and how we ramp up the communal aspect of life in the local church. needless to say, we haven't landed on any answers just yet.

so, all of that to ask this...
how are you addressing the need for community in your local churches? anything from students, kids & adults.

later tater...