Filed under: Community, DIY, Love, faith | Tags: church, eastside, Indianapolis, Indy Metro, Jesus, service
As we discussed from the beginning at Indy Metro and during the 40 Days of Prayer specifically, we’ve always been a church for the whole city. Both during our 40 Days of Prayer as a pastoral team and reviewing the many responses we received from the Indy Metro community, it became clear that we are to move forward increasing our commitment to Indy’s eastside.
With great passion and a shared burden by many we are moving forward in faith! The pastoral leadership has begun to make plans towards increasing our emphasis on Indy’s east side initially focused on Community Heights, Emerson Heights, Little Flower, and Irvington.
We want to answer the very basic questions of how we currently are planning to move forward. How will Indy Metro move to expand our presence on the eastside?
The east side needs to see the church in action through SMALL acts of service with a LARGE amount of love! The people of Indy Metro committing to specific acts of service together to be visible servants of the east side’s multi-generational multi-ethnic community. Beginning January 2010, through engaging local artists, serving families and marginalized residents we will serve together as a church. We encourage everyone at Indy Metro, whether residents of the eastside or not, to consider being involved in some form. For our friends online, I certainly hope you will begin to follow us and consider how to support as well.
Establishing a Sunday evening weekly public gathering by Easter, April 4th, 2010 will be a critical component of expanding our presence on the east side. Our first Sunday evening gathering will be Sunday, January 10th with location to be determined. Initially, we will be focused on simply building our relationships together as a CityGroup through learning, playing, and serving together on the eastside.
For people who want to be involved on the eastside with Indy Metro what is your next step?
- Cultivate your spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting and meditating on Scripture. Our commitment to corporate prayer and fasting must continue as a house of prayer of the Lord. Please begin to pray for clarity on how to serve, seeking a potential weekly gathering, identifying the needed resources to prepare the way and provide the needed discipling for the team, and for the Lord to cultivate the hearts of people far from Him to be open to the Gospel.
- Identify yourself to the pastoral leadership before the end of the year. No secret servants, but instead we are establishing the initial team to prepare together. Our desire is to identify 20-25 people who will focus to Indy Metro’s eastside presence in January 2010. If you’re genuinely committed to the east side movement and want to be an intricate part of it please let me know directly. Contact me at aaron@indymetro.org to confirm your commitment or share questions you may have still as we move forward.
Regardless of your own personal involvement, perhaps you know a small business owner, resident, or someone with roots in or near the eastside communities we’re focused on who doesn’t have a church family already. Pray and consider how you might make people aware of Indy Metro’s eastside commitment in January 2010.
If you are passionate about this movement I invite you’re responsive posts. What are your thoughts?
Filed under: Community, DIY, Leadership, faith | Tags: Christianity, faith, Howard Dean, Jesus, Johnny Cash, risk
Sunday am at Indy Metro I shared some concluding thoughts on our 4 month Nehemiah study that focused on a community of people so broken and weeping for a city they committed to doing whatever it took to see the restoration of a community bringing Glory to God. Throughout the entire book, we see Nehemiah to be a man who responded to the opportunities God brought to Him.
As I shared though having the opportunity isn’t enough- It requires us to take action, move, step forward, speak, respond, engage, love, to change…. It requires seizing opportunities that God brings to your door and being willing to live out the faith required to follow through.
So many Christians today have faith… but nothing about their lives require God to show up. No daily faith required in their conversations, schedule, finances, personal health, or with our children. There is so little risk in daily living for most American Christ followers… that you walk around really not knowing most of the time if God showed up or not. All the while asking isn’t there more?
And in my short journey with Christ I’ve experienced that one fully devoted humble, committed follower of Jesus Christ can have on the lives of people around them, their city, their neighbor, their office, their children, their generation, their classmates, their spouse, and their communities.
It’s sad though because I’ve observed so many churches completely tamed and neutralized what it means to be a fully committed follower of Christ. Our culture and many churches might as well have Jesus driving a mini-van, wearing his seatbelt focused on babysitting the kids in the car already. While the most accurate picture is prolly us in the back sitting on a milk crate holding on for dear life while Jesus drives a 350 HP 67 SS Chevelle with a bad paint job and an exhaust leak from launching train tracks chasing Satan hanging out the window yelling like Howard Dean.
Following Jesus has been turned into this safe, calculated, predictable and boring exercise. And inside most of us as Christ followers know something is missing don’t we? Maybe that is most the reason why most churches have always been absent of men? For men the image of following a neutered boring Jesus doesn’t exactly offer much appeal. A travesty too because I’m pretty certain American Christianity isn’t quite what the Scriptures describe.
For most Christians and seekers alike following Jesus can be summarized by the first song in this Johnny Cash movie clip. Puke! So my questions from the Sunday chat applies here too- What are you doing right now that if God for sure doesn’t show up you will be humiliated, embarrassed, ridiculed, exiled, or rejected?
Filed under: Community, DIY, Leadership, Serve, Uncategorized | Tags: Christian, creation, green, Spirit & Place
Doing some live blogging over at smallerindiana.com for our Spirit & Place festival event Imagining Creation. As part of the 13th annual Spirit & Place Festival, this has turned out to be quite a amazing experiential event!
Here are a couple live pics… visit smallerindiana.com to track it live.
Filed under: Community, DIY, Serve | Tags: creation care, green, Indianapolis, Indy Metro Church
I am super excited about this Sunday am!
On Sunday morning November 9th at the American Cabaret Theatre at 10:30 am, we welcome guest speaker Matt Krick. We will encounter the topic of caring for creation as God’s original plan for every believer. Matt is the Director of Theology at Mars Hill Church in Michigan and is an expert on the Biblical mandate for creation care!
And on Sunday evening, a spirited discussion with powerful thinkers from around the country gathering at the American Cabaret Theatre from 6 to 9 p.m. on Sunday, November 9, 2008 for a spontaneous, on-stage dialogue on the theme titled, Imagining Creation: Exploring the Spiritual Mandate for Creation Care.
We are part of the thirteenth annual Spirit & Place Festival, this multi-media event will feature an interdisciplinary panel of nationally known voices in the arts, humanities and religion and provide audiences the chance to creatively explore the fundamental question: “Is there a moral obligation to care for the environment?” This event is FREE and the more the merrier!
If you are in the area and would like to join in the discussion the American Cabaret Theatre is located in the historic Athenaeum Building – 401 E. Michigan St., Indianapolis.
Filed under: DIY, Serve | Tags: Anthanaeum, church, creation care, Indianapolis, Indy Metro Church, November, Spirit & Place
In posting of our Spirit & Place Festival event site- ImaginingCreation, a powerful quote was posted. “The environmental crisis is in reality a spiritual and religious crisis.” — Richard Foltz, Islamist at University of Florida. What a powerful connection!
Filed under: Community, DIY, Serve | Tags: East 91st, Jireh Sports, KKSM, Shepherd Community, SkateCamp
Pretty excited about an upcoming event planned for July that I’m involved in. A Skate Camp at Shepherd Community on Indy’s Eastside is turning out to be a pretty sweet thing. Quite a few people are coming together from all over to host a SkateCamp for the kids of Shepherd Community in Indy. Good times.
Filed under: Community, DIY, Leadership, Love, Serve, faith | Tags: generosity, Jesus, Love, poor, rich, Serve
Sunday evening we helped lead a collision of the worlds. A collision of the rich and the poor; of different races; but most importantly a collision of love. One that I pray no one will recover from. An overabundance of love was poured out. I think Paul describes it best in the letter of Philippians, “Poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you.”
This collision occured at the John J. Barton Annex. The John J. Barton Annex is a government housing facility managed by the Indianapolis Housing Authority. A very diverse crowd ethnically and nearly all of the residents fall beneath the “poverty line.” A group of Jesus followers from IMC and Heartland “poured an offering” of love and service into the lives of many friends and “strangers.” I’m pretty sure no one left the same.
One of the most consistent topics throughout all of Scripture is God’s heart for the poor. There is no way to escape that God desires for people whom proclaim to be active followers of Jesus Christ to be lovers of the poor and marginalized in our world. Whether it was through the breaking of bread together, handshakes, hugs, singing some music, sharing a message of hope available to everyone, Jesus uses it all to bring light into the darkness.
Proverbs 31:8-9, “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice.”
As disciples of Jesus Christ, our purpose or calling is to help people take steps closer to Him. For the addict to be freed; For the hungry to be fed; and the hopeless to hear about the hope we have in Jesus Christ.
I am tempted to be known for how many Bible verses I know, what my job is, or even what my possessions add up too but the reality is that, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” as Paul writes in Galatians.
Perhaps one of the most exciting things for me in the midst of this is having children participate in their own way. Having children playing and introducing childlike joy is beautiful. As a parent attempting to raise children that spit in the face of a culture that rejects people based on their position in society… its a joy of mine to engage our children in these collisions of the worlds.
Loving God. Loving people. Following Jesus.
Filed under: Community, DIY, Leadership, Serve, Uncategorized | Tags: influence, Jesus, leader, leadership
Sitting in the middle of our Regional Gathering of Missional Leaders being facilitated by Gary Rohrmayer.
One of the things that he has said that struck me was this convicting statement was to, “Act like a leader!” While morally, ethically, and emotionally are all part of this… the context he layed it out is for the leader to act in a way in culture that other people already see them as.
As a follower of Jesus and a leader part of the mantle of leadership requires accepting some of the public expectations and issues that come with it. So often I miss the opportunity to influence people positively because I neglect owning the opportunities to lead to the fullest of my potential and the depth of the need.
I think about times when I haven’t allowed my baggage, job, excuses, etc. to be barriers to engaging a situation with the completeness of my ability. When that happens, God always does things that I never thought weren’t possible. And yet I think of times when I have blown opportunities to be used by God and, “act like a leader.” Uggg.
I can’t help but reflect on what it would look like for me to wake up for even a month straight and act like a leader for Jesus Christ?
Filed under: Community, DIY, Leadership, Love, Serve, Skate, faith | Tags: fun, Indy, Serve, thanks, urban
A quick vid on some of the things we are involved in around Indy. Lots more to come.
