Portland neighborhood Church Planting: SE Division

Portland Church Planting: Se Division

Pray for Portland

I was walking and taking pictures on SE Division street in Portland today with my son Cody (actually Cody was taking the real pics). The Clinton neighborhood was one of our stops.

Pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send more disciple makers to this neighborhood along SE Division, especially the streets from 20th thru 39th (Caesar Chavez).

Portland = The Distribution of Urban Fabric

These comments from Jeff Kovel, an architect, are helpful in understanding the difference between the city of Portland and other western cities, like Denver and Seattle:

"What Portland has going for it is the distribution of urban fabric. Everywhere you drive around, people are investing, trying to make their neighborhoods better.  Try driving around in Denver--there's like one neighborhood doing that. In Portland, we have great decentralization. You have a more vibrant city. A lot of cities, you don't know where to go. In every direction in Portland, you run into an interesting neighborhood. In Seattle, you need a tour guide" (Portland Monthly Magazine, April 2014).

Pray for Portland. Pray for these Portland neighborhood in need of disciplemakers who will make new disciples which may become a new church;
1.  Portsmouth/Kenton/University Park (North Portland) = First time home buyers.
2.  Richmond (Southeast)  = urbanites
3.  Sellwood/Moreland (Southeast) = Investors
4.  South Waterfront (Southwest) = empty nesters.

Portland is America's #1.....

The following is post is taken from my friend George Bradley....Thanks George for following Christ and making disciples in Portland!

If you live in Portland, you know all about our town. If you don’t live in Portland, let me share some of our cultural context. The information that follows appears this week in the Portland Tribune and Willamette Week newspapers.

We’re #1! - PORTLAND LEADS the NATION - PORTLAND is AMERICA’S #1:

·       Best City (Motovo)

·       Unhappiest City (Business Week)

·       Most Unbelieving (Irreligious) City (US Census)

·         Most Strip Clubs per Capita (tuscl)

·       Best Beer City (Travel & Leisure)

·       77% identify as Liberal (Values & Beliefs)

·       Top City for Casual Sex (OKCupid)

·       Top City for Book Lovers (Livability)

·       Best City for Movie Lovers (Motivo)

·       Best Bike City (Bicycling)

·       Most Green City (Popular Science)

Some are saying that the TV show Portlandia is not a comedy but a documentary! Portlandia - Forgot My Grocery Bag

Jesus is asking you and me to invite others to fall under His loving discipline. He asks us to make disciples. I have a yearning to be a follower of Jesus in Portland and to make disciples here. Maybe you do too. 

Jesus doesn’t ask us to convert Portlanders to Christianity. Converts change religions. Jesus is asking us to be disciple makers. Disciples change masters. Converts follow a system. Disciples follow the Person of Jesus. Converts build a religion. Disciples of Jesus build the Kingdom of God. Converts adapt rituals. Disciples of Jesus embrace His entire worldview, character, teachings, way of living and dying. Disciples baptize others in the context of “teaching them to observe all that I command you.” Converts love numbers. Followers of Jesus long for transformation. 

Jesus has allowed me to share Him with people from every continent. Then, together you helped us send missionaries from here. In recent years I’ve worked to make Jesus followers in Portland. You and I belong to Jesus. We are sold out, whole route. The people of Portland are wonderful and this town is amazing, despite our ambivalence about Jesus. Portland and I need your prayers.

Thank you for helping us share Jesus in Portland.  

Yours for transformation,

George Bradley

WANTED: Amateurs willing to be More than a Carpenter

Let me confess, I don't like the word BI-VOCATIONAL. The Latin word, vocatio, means to summons, or to call. In ministry, it is equated to "a divine call to the religious life." This immediately creates a division between the professional clergy and the amateur disciple.

I like to frame the word differently because of my biblical understanding of the Trinity and the call given to those of us who are disciples of the way of Jesus. The Father is a sending God who sends the Son who sends the Spirit who sends us. We are summoned to live into this divine call as the priesthood of believers. ALL of Jesus disciples are summoned into the vocation of being SENT ONES. This is our vocation.

However, each of us will have a different OCCUPATION(s).  Occupation is defined as the work in which a person is employed (pays the bills). So, consider Jesus. His early occupation was a carpenter. But His vocation was to be the SENT ONE. His occupation changed as he entered public ministry but his vocation did not. Paul's occupations were being a tent-maker and an apostle as he lived out his vocation to be a sent one to the Gentiles.

I'm not opposed to people pursuing a ministry occupation. But the church today needs more and more disciples who would consider occupations which would fund them (pay the bills) and allow them to live freely into the vocation given to them by God - to be sent ones!

In Portland, where we have few SBC churches capable of paying an occupational salary to the clergy, we need more and more Disciple-makers willing to find occupations which could pay them to live as a Disciple-maker (follower of Jesus in the church and in the neighborhood). We need more than carpenters. We need carpenters, bloggers, designers, bike builders, baristas, lawyers, entrepreneurs, etc. who will also occupationally be pastors, teachers, shepherds, and evangelist.

Let's call this new breed of SENT ONES - amateurs. This word is defined as one engaging in an activity for pleasure rather than for financial benefits or professional reasons. We need more disciples of Jesus living as AMATEURS.  And, in using this word we are assuming, amateurs are just as capable, just as equipped, just as trained, just as qualified as a "professional," occupational, clergy; they just choose to engage their vocational calling with several different occupations.

This will require us to reframe our expectations. It will mean less "super pastors" to more shared ministry and shared leadership structures in the gathered/scattered church. It will create more ownership. It will require more teamwork and more teams fulfilling the five-fold ministry found in the letter to the Ephesians. This can't be done in isolation. It will require a more wholistic framework of understanding ALL of life should be lived as sent ones.

For those of you currently serving as AMETEURS, THANK YOU!  Keep up the good work and stay encouraged.

WANTED: AMATEURS willing to be more than a carpenter!

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Yelp Us Identify Neighborhoods in Portland OR

Yelp Wordmaps Show Us How To Avoid Hipsters in NYC, Tourists in Paris, AND.....

.....IDENTIFY 20-minute neighborhoods where new churches can be started using Yelp analytics and key words like bacon, cheap, hipster, kosher, noodles, pasta, beer, pricey, romantic, tourist, view, yuppie, etc.....sorry if your city is not listed ;(

Here is a link to the post http://t.co/yyITLXgIZB

Here is the link to Portland's worldmap: www.yelp.com/worldmap/Portland

With over 50+ micro-breweries in Portland and their neighborhood affiliation and a vibrant "brunch"scene, I would follow these "paths" to discover 20-minute communities in need of a new church with new followers of Jesus.

What word or words would you suggest? And, unfortunately, you can't list words like "church" at this time.....

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Kingdom Placemakers: Becoming Attached to the Place You Help Create

Placemaking is a bottom up approach to shaping a public space.

According to Project for Public Spaces, "Placemaking is a multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. Put simply, it involves looking at, listening to, and asking questions of the people who live, work and play in a particular space, to discover their needs and aspirations. This information is then used to create a common vision for that place. The vision can evolve quickly into an implementation strategy, beginning with small-scale, do-able improvements that can immediately bring benefits to public spaces and the people who use them" (http://www.pps.org/reference/what_is_placemaking/).

There are 11 steps guiding the PLACEMAKING strategy (building a better community):

1. The community (the people of the place) are the experts.

2. Create a place, not a design.

3. Look for partners

4. You can see a lot by just observing.

5. Have a vision.

6. Start with the Petunias: Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper

7. Triangulate

8. They Always Say “It Can’t Be Done”

9. Form supports function

10. Money is not an issue

11. You are never finished.

Read more here on the 11 steps: http://www.pps.org/reference/11steps/

The result is community ownership and excitement. See the quotes below....

"If you’re not building social capital in the community where you’re working, you’re not Placemaking; you’re just reorganizing the furniture."

“Human capital and creative talent increasingly goes where it likes; talent increasingly goes to great places; but talented people become most attached to places that they help create.”

 

As you think about making disciples who make disciples and form a church in a local place, community or neighborhood, how might these steps help along the way?

As followers of Jesus into the neighborhood, we alert people to the reign and rule of God's Kingdom through Jesus. We enter into these public places proclaiming the good news both with our words/stories and by our ACTS (the acts of Jesus followers), demonstrating a kingdom place worth entering into!

Let's be Kingdom Placemakers!

 

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Build a Better Brick Wall

How do you build a better brick wall? Simply, one-brick-at-a-time!

It is easy in ministry to focus on the outcome, the brick wall in this case, instead of, the individual brick(s). You want walls. You don't necessarily want to place bricks and position bricks to form a wall. For example, "I will plant a church." This is the brick wall. Nothing wrong with this. But, be careful in what you are building. You can build a brick wall, but if you don't give attention to the individual bricks to form the wall you may wind up with a wall you never intended. Be careful what type of wall you are building.

The outcome focuses you, but the bricks point to the steps it took you to get there. You need to be more careful in focusing your efforts on placing the bricks (making disciples who make disciples). In working towards building the wall, i.e. planting the church, focus on the simple steps-the individual bricks-you will need to carefully build a better wall.

So, what will it take today to place the brick? What will you need to do today to build a better new church? What are the bricks you will need to place to see new believers come into the Kingdom? Perhaps, the first brick is seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Perhaps, another brick is praying to the Lord of the Harvest for harvest hands in His fields ripe unto harvest. Maybe another brick is walking across the street to introduce yourself to the neighbors? Brick-by-brick a new wall is formed - a better brick wall.

Measure your success in the individual bricks. Set realistic goals in placing the bricks. Keep your focus on the brick and the wall will come together.

So, plant a church- build a brick wall. But please, take time to put the right brick, in the right place, with the right effort and with the the right attitude to get the brick wall God really intended for us to build.

You want to see new churches birthed. Make sure we are making new disciples who will become the church.

What are the individual bricks Jesus is leading you to place to start a new church? Write them down and focus on those individual bricks. Measure your success here.

 

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Nextdoor.com - What if we saw our Neighborhood as our Parish?

If you serve a missionary God, by default, YOU are a missionary. He (God the Father) sends Jesus (God the Son) who in turn sends us and promises us a Helper (God the Spirit). We are to be his ambassadors. We are to be His missionary people. This is what followers of God do. If disciples love Him -Jesus- they (disciples) do what He says.

Where do missionaries in obedience begin to think and act like missionaries? In the places they are planted and rooted- in the NEIGHBORHOOD! Next-door-neighbors, across-the-street-neighbors, out-the-back-door neighbors are the context for missionaries to live for Jesus and invite neighbors into the Kingdom of God.

It is time for disciples who are God's missionary people to see the neighborhood where they live as their parish. This is the place we GO to and then STAY. We go to a church service to celebrate what God is doing in the neighborhood. We don't go to a church building to go on mission. We go to the person next door to be on mission.

Watch this video from nextdoor.com to consider how you might become the neighbor next door to create community, participate in community, be a blessing and tangibly express the Kingdom of God.

http://vimeo.com/59427424

Come back and tell your stories.

 

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Make this the Primary Organizing Structure for the Church and Incredible Things Will Happen?

What is the primary organizing structure of your Church?  Is it the gathering--the weekend worship service? Is it your small groups/community groups/etc.?

If Jesus commission to us is to "go make disciples," should the primary organizing structure for the called out people of God be the weekend gathering?  Should these small groups of the family of God primarily be the organizing principle of the church to make disciples who make disciples?

OR, should JESUS be the primary, centering, organizing principle for the gathered and scattered church?

It is amazing how little we make of Jesus in our gatherings.  Do we believe Jesus is good news for everything?  If we had a better understanding of how Jesus is good news for our friends, neighbors, relationships, etc.we may make mention of HIM more often.  Jesus says, "if you will be my disciples, then, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free."

Discipleship then becomes inviting people to walk with us in the ways of Jesus. THEN, as they walk in the ways of Jesus, the good news of Jesus is applied to all of life and they become a Jesus follower.

The journey would be:
acquaintance, to follower of you,  follower of you in community with others, follower of the ways of Jesus, to maker of other followers.

So, here is some guidance on how to form a gathered and scattered community called the Church:

These communities--families--should be:
1.  Jesus centered - Jesus is the good news.
2.  Community oriented - Doing Jesus life with others.
3.  Mission directed - it is not about me, but it is about me, apart of the community, making disciples of
     those who are not yet following Jesus.

Life-on-life     Life-in-Community    Life-on-Mission  = disciple making

Centered in Jesus is key.  And from this, we move to community and to mission.