I'm in a season of ministry where I've never hustled more. Every day is a hustle; hence the three-month absence as curator of this community.
Every day is busy.
Every day is full.
It's ministry all the time. It's family all the time. It's making time for Jesus all the time.
300% effort all the time.
As people of God, we want to share with the world a Gospel of Peace and Rest, a haven from the business of the common life, a break from the world that we call worship ... A place of community, singing, and communion with the Real Presence of God.
Three months into our launch as a weekly Saturday night community called Family Style and I search for that rest. They tell you, though, when you're launching that new faith community that you ain't gonna rest that first year ...
Because of the hustle you have to bring to introduce Christ to the people of our Post-Christian world.
Yet, yet, I'm floored by the buy-in to a new vision for community in our fast-growing suburb. The willingness to find people setting roots in a new way to order their lives, oriented towards Jesus and His Kingdom.
One of the things that's been most amazing to me during this time, and there have been amazing things God has brought to the table, is way people been accountable to our Liturgy of Moving Chairs.
Every week we setup for Family Style, moving the chairs and tables of Sunday morning to get set for our gathering. We've gotten it to where a team of three or four of us can get it done in thirty minutes.
And then, Saturday night, as I prepare to offer the benediction at 7pm, I think everybody in advance for being a part of our tear-down crew, the mission being to reset things for Sunday.
Without fail, every single person joins in, moving things around, getting things ready for the people that will gather again in our sanctuary twelve hours after we turn off the lights and lockup for the night.
One night, to capture this thing that I marvel at as I work alongside my people every week, I set my phone's camera on a time delay and set it on the sound booth ... Shrinking twenty-five-minutes of sweat to about twenty seconds.
For whatever reason, I feel like it's the height of liturgy. Our collective work together, after the dinner, worship, and communion, to get things ready for our brothers and sisters that will enjoy God's presence in the same space the next day.
At 8pm, every Saturday, as I lockup and my wife and I load the kids in the minivan after five or so hours of crazy, God-breathed goodness, I give thanks for this vision of a community that works together for the good of people that they don't always see and worship with.
The people of God are so capable.