listeninchurch.com

Maybe the question is really whether or not people want this to be a church where the undiscipled can feel comfortable, or if it’s for Christians. Can it be both? Or should it be one way on Sundays, with more for already Christians during the week?

—brandi

I have always thought that it should be possible to reach the experienced and the inexperienced.

• yesterday was yesterday. not the same as the week before or what next week will be. as always at the journey, one sunday is not indicitave of what to expect the next week.

• i opted to use the stage because we are having MAJOR sound and lighting challenges. deal with it. OR join the tech team and help me figure out how to be down on the floor without feedback or 3 hours of lighting set up.

• i thought i set up the chairs in a semi-circle with the sides looking directly at each other. obviously it didn’t look this way when the room was full. so far we have not done the same seating arrangement once since we’ve moved to pioneer. we are still very much experimenting. but frankly, i’m tired. as is the set up team. again, any ideas are GREATLY appreciated. and if you come and help set it up with me, i’ll care a lot more about your assessment of it afterward.

• the co-teaching / rotation of teachers is 100% still in place. Jeff taught through september to cast vision for the change and now as we are in transition, we as a leadership team have decided it is best for the current journey folks as well as newbies to have jeff’s presence on sundays. the message team [and others] will still serve in this capacity in the near future.

• as we continue through this transition as a church over the next months or even year, we will figure this out by trial and error. please hear this clearly: i’m not interested in evaluation any longer. not positive or negative. but i am interested in IDEAS that will help us accomplish what we set out to as a body. do you have any specifics we could try on a sunday?

now…

i’m intrigued about the distinction between the series you thought were meaningful and engaging for undiscipled people. those series were prayed and thought through by the message and epic teams. part of our new mode is to have everyone generate content on the site and in conversation all week long. our hope was that what bubbled up mid week could be discussed, integrated, dissected on sundays. which is part of where the current series came from [the discussion about communion was a major prompt]. so… question for dave and everyone else… if 90% of the people using this site are christians, will the content it generates match what an undiscipled person would be interested in discussing and learning about? would it even be something they’d be willing to sit through?

if our sundays are [and they are] meant to engage the non-christian, non-church type person - how can we make sure undiscipled people can give input, dialogue with others, and engage in sundays?

I will never forget Vanessa’s testimony or Josh Shipp’s. Josh’s film about his life moved me to tears as I felt the pain that foster kids go through (fortunately it was dark in the auditorium). Honestly, Josh’s film would be a great recruiting film for foster parents… it made me want to take all of the unwanted foster kids into my house. Vanessa’s word about performance was unforgettable.

i think creating some more videos of people’s stores could be really cool.

its a great way for someone to share their story who may not be comfortable getting up on stage and sharing their story.

plus half of us are blind.
half of us are deaf.

some learn by seeing.
some learn by hearing.

here’s a video ezra & I did with Lee Williamson from the journey.

he’s a pimp.

I showed this video to my students because it went along with one of the stories we were reading. They LOVED it. They asked if they could watch it again the next day.

When we were being prepped for the relaunch, various statements excited me. One was, “Everything is going to change.” A bigger one was the explanation of why we were relaunching: that the leadership felt we were having a diminishing impact and realized that a cultural shift was taking place, so therefore we had to change.

As we all do, I heard these things through my own filters. I added my own assumptions of what was meant, and consequently was disappointed when these things did not happen — things that were never stated. I am resetting my expectations, which on the one hand is a healthy adjustment to reality, but on the other hand is a letdown for me because my hopes are not surface issues, but are a deep part of who I am and how I am endeavoring to live out my missional calling.

What was stated: The culture is shifting, as we can see in “Web 2.0”. To impact the culture, we need to have that “2.0” type of input and interaction.

What was not stated: This is just the latest manifestation of the larger ongoing shift from modernity to post-modernity, and we are embracing that larger shift. We will go to those who were not positively impacted by what we have done to date. We need to learn what the Way of Jesus looks like in our culture (and how to live it out). We will reshape our activities, giving relationships priority over events.

Now “modernity vs. post-modernity” is not an on-off switch; there is a shift, and people are at different points. But the difference between the two is not something that can be boiled down to “an approach” or “a technique”. The difference is deep. I know; the faith I embraced and shaped by was modernistic. Going from there to a post-modernist faith was hard, so hard. I felt like I nearly lost my faith, and was amazed to find Jesus all over again, in a foreign culture as it were. Eventually I stopped being an “immigrant” to this new faith, and now consider myself a “native”, but it was a process that took years.

The Journey itself is in the shift, and certain elements like “Web 2.0” are certainly nudges.
(And please don’t take me as pooh-poohing what has been done, I know that people have been busting their butts to make it happen. But things like sound and lighting, as challenging as they may be, are entirely peripheral. I’m afraid we are majoring in the minors.)
But I can’t tell if the leadership is embracing the larger shift — and if I can’t tell, it’s not going to happen, because such a large shift requires determined envisioning with buy-in (and opt-out) to get through the pain of transition. Complete transition may not be possible. It may not be desirable! (Mark 2:22)

So I am resetting my expectations: “The Journey as we know it, with an excellent website and more input.” The rest will sort itself out over time. But my missional calling remains.

responding specifically to dave’s comment about being on the stage. so i countered a “minor” point with a “minor” point. i think we all know the issue isn’t sound or lights.

feeling the impact of a change as large as some of us were hoping for … i just don’t think it happens in a few weeks during one hour on one day. especially when those of us responsible for that one hour on one day aren’t entirely sure how to do it so that the point gets across and a culture of a large group of people shifts noticeably within 75 minutes.

i find it humorous [at best] that the people least interested in focusing on sunday are gauging the effectiveness of the journey’s change by what happens or doesn’t happen on sunday.

i was talking to dave & tanya the other night and mentioned that i think we made an error [we meaning the purple cobras of which dave & tanya were a part] by not defining what NEEDED to change and what did not. to be the most effective at what we hope to do, i’m convinced now that NOT everything should change. that’s ludicrous. some things were very effective and we should honor those as we continue to stretch at a rate that make sense for the long haul. lesson learned = you can’t change a culture overnight. and i get your comment about leadership and agree with it. because of course, you can’t change a person overnight either. it will take years.

how patient are you willing to be?

First, let me give a big shout out to Vanessa! Amen, girl! I know that the sound issues have been huge in this space and I don’t think that the band being on stage is the hill to die on, here.

Dave, you said we aren’t experimenting at all? No interaction? Are you joking me? I was at the first hour and Jeff stood on the floor, used posts from the site, Jeff asked us to read the scripture verses, and I saw many people as I turned around to see who was talking while many people shared their personal thoughts and accounts on baptism.

Different but not too different is right (in my opinion), especially right for right now. We are trying to listen to feedback and although there are many opinions out there, the overwhelming feedback was that people needed to be able to connect the essence of the Journey to Pioneer. Having so many things be so different was alarming and people felt DISCONNECTED.

I definately agree with you, Dave, about some weeks being more engaging for me than others and I loved the series that you mentioned. But, I was also totally drawn in to this week even more than some of those. I actually came back for the 2nd hour to hear what people were saying in that hour.

If people aren’t remembering what was talked about on Sunday, I must ask the following…
Did you take notes?
Did you look through it afterwards and pray that God would make the themes more relevant in your life?
Have you engaged anyone, an LTG maybe, in a discussion about the topic?
Did you take the challenge that the message presented and DO something with it?
You get my point.

I appreciate your post, Jon. I think you brought some good clarity here. Clearly, many posts on the site and other conversations are based on people’s assumptions not being met. I don’t remember ever hearing that everything is going to change so I never thought that. I thought that we were going to use the web and some new experiences to help us reach people who aren’t going to church. So, we lauched the site and are spending time on Sundays to experiment.

We heard a strong, negative reaction where people came to the first few Sundays and things were so different. It is unfamiliar and uncomfortable. That is not fulfilling our mission.

I do like hearing other voices involved besides the Sr Pastor so I really like it when others read the scriptures.

So Journey 2.0 is focused on Sundays and the web site? We are overlooking that many many people have been empowered to step out and get us involved as a community. There are just not many churches that not only allow, but encourage people to step up and set up plans. Since the move we have new walking groups, women’s groups, sky diving groups, park days and …… Instead of being afraid of too much too fast - the leadership has cheered us on. No big screening process is going on, gee - it is like we are trusting that God is leading each and every one. Instead of everything coming from the core leadership, especially from the head pastor, on down, as is normally true, Journey is being formed and reformed from the ground up. Sundays are the unifying core that keeps us focused and all going forward together. Sure they take a lot of effort, and a lot of money - but they are for everyone. If your needs are not being met how about focusing on meeting the needs of someone else.

I loved it when anyone and everyone was encouraged to make an announcement. i know it can get out of control but what if we limited it to 15 seconds - you can give time, place reason easy in that time.

• People face each other in either small groups of chairs (20ish per group — but not necessarily for interaction) or in a circular arrangement like we tried the first week. Or we could do like we talked about in Purple Cobras but haven’t done yet: get a program, grab a chair, sit where you want with who you want.

• I understand the sound issues related to the band. Keep the band on the stage.

• Teaching comes from the center of the circle or whatever “shape” emerges. Teaching should not come from the stage. It’s an authoritative not collaborative posture there.

• Teaching loose with no support from powerpoint slides — organic not structured. Play off what people offer up.

• Bring back other teachers besides Jeff. I understand the rationale for Jeff leading vision and content but I think it’s time to involve the community and other people who have teaching gifts.

• Teaching lasts 10 - 15 minutes. 25 minutes for interaction among groups and debrief (LTGs, small groups, with established groups taking the initiative to invite others to their groups). Let people play with ideas. Less emphasis on brain stuff, more emphasis on evoking emotional responses. For example, communion could be experienced in the 20-ish person groups.

• Debrief would take the form of on-the-fly leadership of discussion. If whacked ideas are tossed out, use on-the-fly responses with scripture to counteract. Use the same technique for good ideas as well.

• Allow access to the microphone. You know, Talk In Church. If we promise it, we should deliver it. The teacher’s talking doesn’t count.

• Consistent use of communion and prayer stations for on-demand needs. Integrate communion in the service at least once a month but prolly not every week because frequent use of spiritual disciplines tends to lead to empty practice.

• Teaching content shifts away from How To or Here’s What This Means back to engaging the mind and heart of the undiscipled person. After all, the undiscipled person is the focal point of the Journeys mission.

• Teach people how to build their own content. I thought the YouTube vids were cool. Maybe there could be a JGA class on how to use a webcam to make a YouTube video and post it on talkinchurch.com

• Actively elicit people’s art, music, writing, etc. Display them on line or on Sundays.

• Create opportunities to gather outside of the main session during the session. For times when ppl are uninterested in the current topic being taught but still want to interact with one another (hey, it happens sometimes!). E.g. sit at tables outside and talk. Make other classrooms available for impromptu discussions. Minimal to no setup needed

• Re-engage EPIC with creative videos and multi media. Not just talking head vids but let’s bring back the creativity on screen.

• How about if we outlaw powerpoint for a month?

• And instead use projectors for images, videos, abstract patterns to serve as a type of art

• Surf non-traditional web sites for ideas on where the culture is at and address the ideas on Sundays. Kind of the opposite of How to Be A Christian Without Being A Stereotypical Idiot. Maybe something like What’s On the Mind of The Post-Modern? Sic Andy on this: he can come up with a more creative title/theme LOL.

How’s this for ideas? Can I go back to critiquing now? LOL

I believe in God because every once in a while, I hear a voice that says, “You’re my favorite.”

more! more!

I have talked to quite a few other Journeites about the changes, and one thing is resounding and clear from what they say… which is also a view I share. There are many reasons why we attend and love the Journey, but the primary reason is Jeff… his ability to engage and speak about a topic while tying it in to scripture and real life. To paraphrase one person’s comment, “it feels like God’s words are being directly channeled to me through Jeff messages.” The guest speakers we have had have been wonderful, and hearing other’s personal stories keeps things fresh. But Jeff’s messages make me look forward to Sunday mornings.

The little breakout groups and an open mic beyond quick topic input to me are generally an unwanted distraction. I admit I loved Journey 1.0 and endorse 2.0… but to hear complaining already about 2.0 irks me. It has been completely different every week for the past 5 weeks in a row and with (what appears to me) everyone with skin in the game working to almost burnout. How much more change can we cram into each and every worship experience on Sunday without being awash in chaos? How much more could we possibly have expected to accomplish in such a short time? I understand some think we have taken a couple ‘steps back’ in the last couple weeks (more like 1.0), which frankly many people are glad to see.

Do not jump the gun thinking we have totally reverted back to our old 1.0 ways simply because the latest week looked like the old Journey. It is truly amazing how much really has happened and changed with the Journey this past month as Jacklyn said above. Some people need to be more supportive of the efforts others are making to deal with and keep up with the changes. Some people are anxious and able to jump into change so fast they don’t care if they throw the baby out with the bathwater….others are more prudent than that. Keep the changes coming, and keep the baby too…

This is the kind of stuff that gets my attention.

Or do they sit in the proverbial bath water their whole lives?

I believe in God because every once in a while, I hear a voice that says, “You’re my favorite.”

I’ve received a few, “What did your comment titled “Do babies ever grow up?” mean?”

Kirk used the old saw, Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, to say, “Let’s not change too much.”

And what I was trying to get at was this idea that the baby represents constancy amidst change. And people use this metaphor to justify not moving too quickly with change. So, what I’m trying to get at is to ask when the baby grows up. In other words, babies grow up, they change, they mature. And in that sense, we get rid of the bath water and the babies.

Journey is beyond the toddler phase. It’s time to view the church through a lens of expectation of more maturity. As the writer of Hebrews said, by now you should be eating solid food but you’re still drinking milk. I’m saying we need to be maturing as a church and as a body of disciples who are seeking to integrate with their culture. I’m wondering if we want to wander around Mars Hill with Paul to see if there are connections we can find with the culture and Jesus or if we would prefer to just huddle in our church and do things the same way we’ve always done them.

Jim, my tagline is my dry, sarcastic way of making fun of how Christians think we are the only ones who matter because we hear God saying to us that we are his people and we act as if that’s all that matters. What I’m trying to get people to think about is that the way you feel when you read my tagline is how undiscipled people feel when we assert that we have the market cornered on God and his favor. When people read my tagline, I’m guessing some might think, “Man, it’s kind of arrogant to say that…”

ding ding ding

I believe in God because every once in a while, I hear a voice that says, “You’re my favorite.”

I tried to say something, it didn’t come out the way I mean it. Maybe I’ll try again later. Sorry.

Sue, a basic assumption across churches is that if someone is giving a speech, that is teaching. I would argue that where learning is taking place, teaching is happening. This does not exclude speeches, but it breaks the speech-giving monopoly.

(But even saying “learning” is too focused on intellect, for the reasons Dave has written. I prefer to think in terms of “spiritual formation” and what practices help that formation to occur. Alan Hirsch writes about acting our way into a new way of thinking, as opposed to thinking our way into a new way of acting.)

On the other hand, “OK, everybody talk, you have 7 minutes, go!” is also off-putting to me because you can’t create something organic in a top-down manner. Much of the so-called “2.0” effort feels alien to me. Remember in Back to the Future 2 when Marty visits “Café 80’s” and it’s funny because it’s all wrong?

Thanks for commenting before I retracted my comment. Wow, funny thing, I am actually in a class called Spiritual Formation right now and it’s surely messing with my attitude and my underlying assumptions about being a Christian!

I am not removing my comment for any reason other than I didn’t say it right, but thank you for your input, I will look at that link, i’m in a researching mode lately. Amazing how many names keep coming up in spiritual formation circles these days.

I think learning and teaching are both subjective between the people involved, where perhaps I would learn better in a listening mode while someone else would learn better if they were doing the teaching. Hmmm… Escher-ish.

Dave,
I thought your tagline was a serious statement about the love of God… now that I see that it is not I am dissappointed. I don’t think it is arrogant at all… I think he loves you… Dave… so much it really is as if you… Dave… were his favorite.
Jim

I wish we had more non-believers on this forum. I would really like to hear from them. We keep assuming that they want small group discussions and want to be able to interact and ask questions and have this whole experience. Yet, when I ask my friend to come to the Journey, she won’t because she doesn’t want to be in those small groups/discussions/etc. She is someone who loves to talk and engage but is afraid to do that at church because she isn’t as “knowledgeable” as the rest of us and doesn’t want to feel stupid. Is she typical? Is she the only one that feels this way? I don’t know. I don’t have alot of non christian friends. What do non Christians really want and is it something that we can provide on a Sunday morning? We keep putting our effort on Sunday morning but is that really where our effort should be? I don’t think showing up on a sunday morning is the first step a non Christian is going to take. I can see them showing up for the AIDS benefit or a community impact day or an open book club or a band jam instead.

As for the baby out with the bathwater comments…we all know that a baby doesn’t become a toddler overnight…and that a baby doesn’t go from drinking milk to eating solid food over night. It is all a developmental process. It takes time. When a child learns to walk they don’t just get up and run, they start slowly by standing by something, then they walk holding onto things and then they finally let go and start walking and they fall down and get up and fall down and get up.

I see that as the Journey. We are not a baby church anymore and we are moving into that next stage of life (too slowly for some of you and too quickly for others) But as with anything it takes time. Some are frustrated because we haven’t started running in one Sunday. Others are uneasy because they felt we started walking without standing first in one Sunday. I believe we can be a church that engages all kinds of believers and non believers and can provide all kinds of experiences and discussions. I was told there couldn’t be a happy medium. I think there can be. How? Still processing that, but I think it is possible.

I don’t know if anything I said made sense but I think we need to realize this all takes time. And it takes compromise. It takes working together rather than saying “it has to be this new way” or “we need to keep the old way”. I don’t like change but I know change is good and healthy. When we started the Journey, the change was very different for many of us but we adjusted to it over time. We tried things that worked wonderfully and we tried things that um…didn’t work so well. But that didn’t stop us. Now we are changing again. And rather than saying “Let’s do church this way on Sunday and ask God to bless it”…lets first ask God “what route do you want us to take this next Sunday or during the week.” Unfortunately, we (I) switch those two around because I want what I want and I want it now or sometimes I don’t want it at all. Which is why I strongly believe change is a process.

I’m rambling now…so will shut up….but I want talkinchurch and I want some listeninchurch.

Here’s an idea for a happy medium. We should have Jeff do about 30 minutes of his teaching, and then ask people who want more of a discussion/interaction about the subject to go to the gym to discuss. After the breakout group leaves, Jeff will continue with the last half of his teaching to those that want to listen.

Then, no one should be able to complain…those who want to listen, get to listen…those who want to talk, get to talk.

Some weeks the breakout group may have lots of people…sometimes just a few. It becomes your choice…not a forced choice like we have had. Also, you will know that the people who are in the breakout group are authentic about their interest in talking about the subject.

(this will probably just be more work for Jeff, as he will have to find a good stopping point in the middle of his teaching)

Bingo Arlet, your post above really resounds in me. I certainly do want the changes to keep coming. I may have sounded more status quo than I wanted…. not much is less satisfying than cold bath water. I came originally from a church which didn’t change at all for 30 years and is probably still the same… little to no outreach or outward energy detectable. Then I went to COTC, which appeared somewhat better but still mostly inward focused. I feel the true heart of the Journey is focused outward, and we put energy behind that. I love that about the Journey, and I could never go back to a church which does not at least try to reach out to others. Of course we could do better, but we do try.

I believe I have really learned a lot about DaveR lately in his posts and his post on how to read his posts (very helpful, thx Dave :). As a deep thinker he wants to be challenged and see others deeply excited about and engaged in questioning and exploring their faith, especially non-Christians who are seeking. One line that he posted above struck me, it was “Teaching content shifts away from How To or Here’s What This Means back to engaging the mind and heart of the undiscipled person”. The obvious key is ‘How’?

How do you know if a subject will or will not engage the mind and heart of someone hearing it? You don’t know until you try…and even then you might never find out until much later if a person was truly touched. How can we do that every week? The same way a great song writer writes a hit every time. Oh yeah, a great song writer might only have a real hit song how often, 1 in 5 songs? The idea was that this site would help provide the subject matter for future message series. Obviously, Jeff and the EPIC team are always open for great message ideas or ‘angles’ on a subject that would really engage the mind and heart of all the people attending on a Sunday. Would the magic subject matter be any different for an undiscipled person vs a believer? I don’t know. If so, how?

Just an idea I had a few days ago, similar to John C’s. What if we had someone who was in touch with what discussion material would really ignite the mind and heart of the undiscipled (probably a deep thinker….:) That person could use TIC to coordinate a weekly meeting right after the first worship experience to engage people genuinely interested in the subject material. People arriving early before the second service for the session could stay engaged in the discussion if they believe it is more worth their time then the regular service. Wouldn’t take much but an insightful coordinator, a great question/topic, and a place to do it.

This would be in addition to continually trying to get people to stretch, grow (change), and engage their heart and mind in the regular worship experiences (like we always try to do). Just as musical tastes vary, the impact of any message or worship experience will vary for each person.

So if the journey is now 2.0, does that make Calvary the Journey 3.0? Or like, “The Journey 2.0 Los Gatos Edition?” Just a random thought :)

hardly. LOL