LINC Houston

So, you want to know what I was talking about at the end of my last post? It's kind of hard to know where to begin, so, i'll start by pasting here what i wrote in my other journal and tell it like a story. a little less than a year ago i met a guy named mark junkans. i thought he was a real dork, not sure i can explain why, i just did. the pastors here talked him up like he was the greatest thing ever, but to be honest, i was rather skeptical... he was a pastor. i know this is a gross generalization, but i find that pastors tend to be boring and out of touch with reality (back to the christian bubble thing...), they seem to lack feelings and love politics (not as in national or world politics, but the local church kind) more than i can stand. again, i know this is not a cool generalization, but still, that's kind of what i think... and yes, i still want to be a pastor (those of you that hadn't already heard that, look at my entries from a little over a month ago), and yes, some of our best friends are pastor, yes, i know that not all pastors are like what i described. so, back to meeting mark, i didn't think he was anything noteworthy, we chatted a little after being introduced by one of the pastors at my church and went our seperate ways. interesting enough, around that same time, jeremy and i started to feel like God might someday be calling us back to Chicago to plant a church in the north-chicago area, the area we are from. shortly after, i was told i couldn't remain a director of staff because of our doctrinal stance and was (over the course of several months) demoted. we felt God was saying it was time to go. now, to be honest, i still don't know why He has kept us where we are, but i think we might be getting an idea. so we began looking and had several different opportunities come up, really exciting ministries we would love to be involved in, but God kept closing the doors. we would get to see the kingdom building things these places were doing, but then God would close the door... and we felt like moses, looking from the mountain into the promised land. ever growing was our belief that we were to be in church planting and me considering becoming a pastor. some time in the spring, after God had slammed shut a door, we met mark junkans again, he would be preaching as a guest preacher and i had to work with him on planning the worship services. it was great, i really enjoyed working with him and learned that he was a pastor that i could have a blast working with, he was a real guy, not a fake plastic pastor. he preached several times at our church (and there are more coming up- yeah!) and every time we met, we would learn more of what God is doing through him and the ministry he heads up- LINC Houston (lutheran inter-city network coalition www.linchouston.org), some pretty cool, exciting stuff... mostly church planting. church planting with some of the most difficult people groups in houston. Then there was the day we met to plan worship but we never got around to planning worship... we talked (really, he talked) instead about an urban church plant, somewhere in the montrose/heights/downtown area. and then he asked if we'd want to be involved. several meetings and months later, we had said no a few times (because of the "we're not really lutheran" thing) but he was still working on it. a few months ago we talked again... worship planning... and then church planting. really cool, exciting stuff, and we said yes, but... they can't pay us, we don't know if we should find other jobs and be "tent-makers" and we can't really leave where we are right now anyway. and then a Divine thought (i'm not really sure, but i think it might have been), what if our church supports the LINC urban mission ministry by giving 10% of our time as a tithe to them? mark presents it to our pastors and they say yes. so... now jeremy and i are members of a church planting team for an urban mission. we've had several leadership core meetings and all i can say right now is , PRAISE GOD! i loved it. it has been great and i have no idea really what God is going to do through all this, but i know that we are going to love people for God and i can't wait. for me, one of the neatest parts was to not only being around people that share many of the same passions, but to actually feel valued as a part of the leadership team. we have great conversations and really challenge one another about the very basics of how we view "church." it was wonderful. we only get to give 4-6 hours of our working time to this, but it's a start and we are very grateful for it, plus, we can work extra hours if we want outside of our work time, which we do. this is the kind of thing that's worth doing that for. the other neat thing about this is how i'm experiencing a re-energizing for my ministry. truth be told, i have felt fruitless, stuck, and in the wrong place for a long time now. those feelings are still there, but i have renewed passion, i remember Who i really work for and it's awesome. i want to build the kingdom of God, like crazy, no matter where we are. uban mission. spring branch church. we're given a purpose and a passion, can't help it.
This past weekend was another very exciting ministry opportunity, LINC had it's annual conference called "Houston 20/20." This conference gathers people from all over the city of the many cultures here to worship together and then to spend a day really looking at the city of Houston and how to reach the various people groups. i was asked to plan and lead the worship for the friday evening worship gathering and jeremy worked as the cheif musician. we organized a multi-cultural choir, a praise and worship band with brass and a communion service served in more than 6 languages. jeremy arranged and orchestrated (for acc. guitar, elec. lead guitar, bass, drums, 3 aux. percussionist, keys, and brass) all of the music for the event. if any of you are familiar with hillsong or lakewood, our worship gathering was similar to that, not my favorite style, but translates well for the many cultures that were are part of the worship experience. it really was a powerful worship gathering. then, on saturday, i taught two workshops on ministry in a postmodern world. i had such a great time and enjoyed to opportunity to speak on a topic that is very close to my heart and to have the privilege to have a good friend that is a lead pastor at a very new church plant come and be a part of it. it was somewhat overwhelming for me to realize how little the church understands about the communities surrounding them and how the church wants to stick it's head in the sand and deny the major cultural shift taking place in the world today. i sat there and told church leaders that unless they are willing to learn and know the culture around them as it changes, they don't stand a chance of developing relationships with their communities and their ministries will be useless. not an easy thing for them to hear or for me to say. still, i enjoyed the experience and the opportunity.

this is a very long entry, if you make it all the way through it, thanks for reading. the girls are doing well, ophelia is reading pretty well, she even read to grandma on the phone last week and after our parent teacher conference today, we learned that she is above average in many areas. she is just doing so well and her teacher brags about how wonderful a student ophelia is. lavinia is just as active as ever and really wants to learn how to read too, she's trying. helena has just gotten over being sick with a sinus infection and is still bright and happy. more and more words are popping out of her mouth these days. leave me a comment and let me know what's going on in your lives.
jessica