At one point our conversation turned to our individualized, isolated society here in North America and how we struggle to really connect with people well.  In the midst of this conversation, something interesting happened. Instead of talking about all that we had that the people in the ghetto didn’t, it was flipped. All the sudden we were talking about what they had that we didn’t.

Tita, the director of the project there in Guatemala, couldn’t comprehend our struggle. As we talked she seemed to have a deep sense of sorrow for us that we struggled with this. To her, community is absolutely vital and a natural part of her life as her culture is much more naturally communal. She couldn’t imagine why we would want to lead lives that were naturally disconnected and isolated.

It is amazing how easily we have normalized individualism and isolation isn’t it?

What ways are you seeking to “un-normalize” our culture’s natural isolatedness?

Far too often suburbia has been seen as antithetical to being missional. The assumption seemed to be that if you wanted to be a legit missional voice or person you had to be talking about and living in the city. Now, I get the importance of the city, especially from a cultural standpoint. But the suburbs are home to millions and millions of Christians. We can’t afford to ignore the challenges that they face when it comes to responding to the call of the gospel.

A few years ago I wrote a paper on this topic called “The Gospel and the God-forsaken: The Challenge of the Missional Church in Suburban America.” It was writing this paper that really got me passionate about this topic. The fact that this post has been viewed 13,392 times (as of today) and has received 52 comments has been quite encouraging. No, not because it makes me feel good and important, but more because it helps me know that I am not alone in this journey. This is a vitally important topic. And thankfully, I’m not the only one who thinks so.

Along the way I’ve met quite a few people (virtually and in person) who have become excellent voices and dialogue partners for this topic. I am never surprised to discover that there are much smarter and more faithful people than me living out and thinking through the challenges we face as suburban Christians.

In an effort to give more and more voices to the conversation, I’ve decided to move my thoughts on this topic to a different website then my personal blog. This topic deserves a wider audience and more contributors.

A while ago I purchased the domain: www.missionalinsuburbia.com.  I sat on it for a while, but for the last year the blog has been co-written with me by my friend Michael Wallenmeyer.  Michael is a pastor at an ELCA church in suburban New Jersey (how much more God-forsaken can it get?!) and his church is in the thick of working out what it means to be missional in their suburban context.

Michael will be driving the conversation at the site and I’ll be putting my two-cents in when I have something to say. I want to encourage you to go there and join the conversation. Add it to your RSS feed.  If you would like to be a contributor, use the contact form and we’ll work with you on posting your thoughts.

Thanks to the so many of you who have helped this conversation forward.

As for the future of my personal blog? I’ve become more and more passionate about issues around missional leadership and community. I’m hoping that my blog can point my readers towards resources and thoughts that help us be better leaders and community members, whether this is inside of or outside of the church.

So my new subtitle: Field Notes on Missional Leadership and Community Systems

Do We Have to Spend Money to Have Fun?

Could you take 5 minutes to fill out our short survey on being missional in suburbia?  If so, you can do so here: http://missionalinsuburbia.com/survey

“tilt white…for the first time, a majority of all racial and ethnic groups in large metro areas live outside the city. Suburban Asians and Hispanics already had topped 50 percent in 2000, and blacks joined them by 2008, rising from 43 percent in those eight years.”

I believe this has major ramifications for how the church in suburbia sees its calling.

A year ago as I was taking part in a prayer walk in my local town (Hatboro, PA). In this small suburban town with a main street.  On the outskirts of this suburb there is a growing hispanic community. Just one evidence of this is the growing number of hispanic grocery stores and restaurants (which by the way, I am really, really excited about!). But, it was during this prayer walk that I realized a significant problem: If you walk around the downtown of Hatboro, you would think the whole town was white.  Except for the restaurants where we eat and they serve, There is very little interaction between the white community and the hispanic community in our area.

It was then that it hit me that perhaps the call of the church in this area isn’t only to grow a great worshipping community with lots of stuff for the young families that are living here. Yes, churches do need to be contextual to these kinds of needs.

But, if we look a bit deeper maybe we’ll see that the call of the church in suburbs like mine is to be a more full picture of the Kingdom by seeking significant relationships (i.e. friendships) with people who are different than us. It’s my belief that Church in the suburbs needs to leaders in modeling an integrated society and really live out the truth that there is neither Jew nor Greek, nor male nor female nor slave nor free.

How do you start?

Friendship.

I think its really as simple (and as complicated) as that.

Here are a few others stats from the article:

• About 83 percent of the U.S. population growth since 2000 was minority, part of a trend that will see minorities become the majority by midcentury. Across all large metro areas, the majority of the child population is now nonwhite.
• The suburban poor grew by 25 percent between 1999 and 2008 — five times the growth rate of the poor in cities. City residents are more likely to live in “deep” poverty, while a higher share of suburban residents have incomes just below the poverty line.
• For the first time in several decades, the population is growing at a faster rate than households, due to delays in marriage, divorce and births as well as longer life spans. People living alone and nonmarried couple families are among the fastest-growing in suburbs.

But in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, he really struck a chord with me.  In fact, I was hooked on the first page where he wrote,

If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for a few years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when we drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers.  You wouldn’t tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the story you’d just seen.  The truth is, you woldn’t remember that movie a week later, except you’d feel robbed and want your money back.  Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo.

But we spend years actually living those stories, and expect our lives to feel meaningful.  The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either…

For those of you who know me, you’ll know why this paragraph struck such a chord with me. The last five years I’ve been living with a deepening and growing discontent with our consumer driven and (especially) suburban world.  I’ve asked myself over and over again, “What are we doing?”  It seems like the answer constantly is, “I don’t really know” or “watching TV” or “stuff.” (My life included, I’m the worst of the offenders!)

Don gets at the heart of my question. After all, I’m not really concerned about what you are doing right now. Well, i am concerned about that a little considering you are reading my blog…

“What story am I living?”

Now, a good, aware christian can answer this question by saying “I’m living as a witness to the risen Messiah, Jesus Christ, in all the areas of my life.”

Yes, that’s hopefully true.  I think that should be the core of our story.  It should be the foundation.

But, I think more of us need to answer that question more specifically to our personal lives and callings.

I think that some of us are living great stories and we are really unaware of how great they are. An example of this might be someone who is working as a teacher.  I sense it would be easy to miss just how significant of a role you have in the shaping so many young people in significant ways.  That would be an easy story to miss when students are driving you nuts or you  have spend your evenings grading papers during the all the Phillies playoff games.  Being aware of the story you are living would (hopefully) make the sacrifices worth it.

Others of us are living short-term stories in the context of a larger story. By that, I mean that we’re living one story to get onto a larger, more meaningful part of the story.  A good example of this might be someone in college or finishing up a graduate degree so they can pursue a specific calling.  Knowing your greater story makes all the late nights and mind-numbing reading worth it.

Others of us are blessed enough to be living significant stories. Maybe we’re building a family. Maybe you’re a social worker in a bad area of the city. Maybe you are serving the handicapped.  Maybe you are trying to bring together a broken family.  Maybe you are counter culturally living your faith in a difficult work environment. The possibilities are endless really…

As I read Don’s book, he wrote in a such a way that really helped me look carefully at the story that I am currently living. Honestly, it gave me such important perspective that my wife and I have been able to finally see a glimpse of what we want to do in life beyond web-designing and starbucks. We’re living in a short-term story at the moment and if God is really leading, I won’t wake up at 4:30am on February 11, 2018 and go to Starbucks (that’s the day I turn 40).

Rather, we’ll hopefully be living a different story by then.  Honestly, that makes all these mornings at 4:30am worth it.  And, if those dreams come true, I’d be more than willing to wake up at 4:30am if I had to!

(Note: just for the record, the story I am talking about should, Lord willing, include us still being at The Well).

But, I think that’s the best way to describe our church, The Well. You see, we are a church in the heart of suburbia and, well, we aren’t very contextual for this culture.

We’re not really very refined. We meet in an ugly warehouse (at least on the outside). We don’t cater to consumer mentality very well (we somehow miss the church-shopper circuit in Bucks County). We don’t have a super polished worship service (though it is awesome) and we certainly don’t have slick bulletins.

You see, people who find a home at The Well are usually the people who don’t quite fit in suburbia. We generally are a haven for artists, creative types and people who are not satisfied with the consumer driven, fast-paced, disconnected lifestyle that suburbia is usually defined by.

Really we’re contextual to the sub-culture of suburbia.

I like to call that “sub-contextual.”

Great, just what we need, another snobby, missional church term…

It was called, “Are You Rioting with the Suburban Mob.”

I’ve been reflecting on these thoughts and where we are as a family now, a year later. 

I can say that we have put some great effort into refocusing our lives and being aware of the culture we are living in and how it is offering a way of life that has some major roadblocks to a distinctly christian life.  This has expressed itself in different ways.  Some ways we have been successful and other ways have been harder.  For example we’ve made great progress on living more within our means financially and paying off debt.  

I think if you live in suburbia (or any other culture for that matter, as each one brings a unique set of challenges) and don’t struggle with living in line with the teachings of Jesus, then you probably need to take a fresh look at the scriptures and your culture.

The struggle is good.  

It’s complacency that I scares me. 

It’s funny, I feel like part of the reason God called me to Zambia, a culture so different than mine, so I could see the reality of my culture more clearly. 

The simple truth is, the world’s default way of life just doesn’t work.  This is definitely no exception in suburbia.

Jesus calls us to a different way of life.  The gospel has some strong critique of this default way of life. Far too often we can’t even see this critique because it’s all we know.

This way of life isn’t about solo christianity.  This way of life requires us to engage a new/ancient way together. 

New because we live in a unique time. Ancient because living in the way of Jesus aren’t new. 

That is why I need my church community.  I need them because God has always been about creating alternative communities that do their best to live life as he intended it.  Stanley Hauerwas uses the term Resident Aliens to describe this community.  I kind of like the term “Alternative mob”  that i used in the post I wrote a year ago.

Either way you say it, I pray that The Well, and your church community, can be about forming a group of people who are working together to live in light of the Kingdom of God and not the kingdom of your culture. 

God bless.

Have you see it? What were your reactions to it? 

I loved the voice of the “mentally ill” friend who called out the suburban bluff.   

Interesting that he’s the one who is considered “insane.” 

The movie reminded me of my reactions to coming back to suburbia after being in Zambia last summer in this blog post here.

Dear Church Family,

During our worship gathering on Sunday we took a break from our regular sermon series in order to look back at the early dreams and passions of The Well and to celebrate how God is making these dreams a reality. (You can listen to the audio on the church website here: http://church.thewellpa.com/podcast/the-history-next-steps-for-the-well/)

The Well has four foundational values:

• Discipleship (we are a community of people becoming more and more like Jesus)
• Justice/Evangelism (we reach out and share the love of Jesus with others, especially those on the fringes of society)
• Locality (we are locally embedded in our neighborhood, especially through the use of our building)
• Unity (we are connected to the historical and global Church)

On Sunday we focused on three of these four values, and how God continues to bless our desire to serve in these areas. Below is a quick overview:

Discipleship: God has been actively working in the lives of the people in our congregation. It’s clear that his Spirit is present and active among us. We believe that it is now time for us to become even more intentional about allowing God to form all of our lives into the image of Christ. We seek to enrich our environment in a way that will help people discover practices and relationships that foster Christ-likeness. This summer we will begin a very intentional time of searching and seeking in order to more fully understand the next steps before us. If being part of this process interests you, please e-mail Shanna (splatt20@hotmail.com).

Justice/Outreach: Over the last few years God has given us wonderful opportunities to serve our local community in things such as the missions trip to Lower Bucks County, meeting specific local needs, and partnering with local community services organizations. As we continue serving in those ways we are making intentional steps to reach outside ourselves. God has planted a desire among many in The Well to serve our neighboring community of Bristol. From June 7 to August 23, we will meet in Bristol for informal Sunday night worship gatherings. We will meet at Brian and Dorie Morgan’s house (922 Spring St, Bristol, PA) at 6 pm for a potluck dinner, followed by music and discussion from 7 to 8. Once a month, we will also do a service project in the community of Bristol. We pray this will be an awesome opportunity to worship God in an intimate setting, grow close with friends and neighbors, and serve in the most depressed part of Bucks County. For now, this is a summertime program, but we will pray as to how God is leading us in the future. For anyone interested in serving the people of Bristol, there will be a meeting after church on May 24. If you have any questions, please contact Gary Alloway (garya@thewellpa.com).

Locality: Our prayer is that our building would serve as an important means of blessing and partnering with our local community. We have certainly seen God honor our prayers, as he has allowed us to use our building to minister in exciting ways. We now see the need to hire a Building Ministry Coordinator to continue our faithful use of this resource by finding new opportunities for our community to serve others through use of our space. Our goal is to have the Coordinator in place by August in order to prepare for fall programming. We will also be undergoing some renovations to our bathrooms and coffee bar as well as adding another classroom. We are currently in the midst of estimating costs and exploring grants to fund this position and the renovations. If you are interested in helping with the planning process, writing grants, or doing renovations please contact Todd Hiestand (toddh@thewellpa.com).

Our journey the last twelve years has been much like a hike. Our dream was to walk this journey in step with the Spirit. There have been some peaks, some valleys, and some great stories of God working in, among, and through us. For the last year or so we have sensed that God has brought us (organizationally speaking) to a peaceful clearing on the trail. This clearing has been a place of much needed stability and rest. We’ve been able to catch our breath, roast a few marshmallows on the fire, and throw the frisbee around a bit. As nice as it is, we do not desire to stay in the clearing for too long. It’s time to continue on our journey. So we walk forward in faith, believing that God will continue the good work he started in us twelve years ago.

As always, we invite conversation and discussion about these decisions. We also ask you to join in prayer with us as we ask God to lead and direct these goals. As each of these areas proceeds there will be opportunities to participate with your time, ideas and finances. If you have questions, concerns, ideas or just want to hear more, please do not hesitate to ask.

The Ministry Leadership Team at The Well,

Gary Alloway, Shanna Cummings, Todd Hiestand, Patti Pearson, Anna Pelger, Phil Wood