Tag: community

The Table Project is live

The Table Project
The Table Project’s Jason Wenell | Via ChurchMarketingSucks.com

With a slogan like “We’re not about connecting people all over the world, we’re about family” – the Table Project has grabbed my attention.

In a time when Christian Facebook alternatives are popping up everywhere, the ideas behind the (non-profit) Table Project are refreshing.

The Table is a relational, online web application, custom-tailored for the church. We aim to engage the community, empower leaders, and move people beyond the pews and into authentic, life-changing friendships.

The site is based around “four legs of the table” – Introduction, Engagement, Prayer & Sharing/Serving.

Now sure you can do all these things on Facebook, or Myspace, or whatever network comes along, but The Table Project gives you an opportunity to share these things in a more private setting with members of “your family/tribe” verses broadcasting them to the world.

In fact, the team behind the project addressed the differences between The Table Project and Facebook in a recent blog post…

The Three Big Differences

  • The fact that The Table is designed for “us” instead of “me” is a fundamental shift from the traditional social media mindset.
  • The Table’s atmosphere of privacy and intimacy causes different behaviors to arise that are not seen elsewhere online.
  • The fact that The Table is designed specifically for the church directs what we create and helps us to define “success” differently.

And I love their explanation video, which includes some history of the church and the importance of church as family… and not just a place we go each week.

Read more via ChurchMarketingSucks

So what do you think? Think this would be useful for your community of faith?

Or is it just another site adding to the noise?

In Judas we see our need for community

The Last Supper
The Last Supper | Via Wikicommons

Judas carried with him into that field the burden of not receiving God’s grace because he was removed from the community in which he could hear it. In Judas’ ears there never was placed a word of grace. And let me tell you. …that’s not something the sinner can create for him or herself. – Nadia Bolz-Weber’s sermon on Judas

She continues…

We cannot in our isolation manufacture the beautiful radical grace that flows from the heart of God to God’s broken and blessed humanity. As human beings there are a lot of things that we can create for ourselves. Entertainment, stories, pain, toothpaste. We cannot create the thing that frees us from the bondage of self the thing the frees us from the shackles of sin and death and the guilt of all of it. We cannot create for ourselves the word of God. We must tell it to each other. You cannot as it was said of Judas “turn aside and go to your own place” of meditation or yoga or your own place of resentment and anger or your own place of voluntary simplicity or even prayer and create the proclamation of God’s grace. That’s why we have community. So that we can stand together under the cross and point to the Gospel. And it takes a good sinner to really get the gospel; which Bonhoeffer says is frankly hard for the pious to understand. Because this grace confronts us with the truth saying: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner, now come as the sinner you are to a God who loves you. God wants you as you are; God does not want anything from you; a sacrifice, a work. God wants you alone.

Nobody said this to Judas.

How would that early Christian community have been different if Judas had received forgiveness as the rest of them had. Again and again Jesus had said they should preach forgiveness of sins in his name. I mean, it was forgiveness of sin that got Jesus in trouble with the pious folks. He was pretty serious about the whole thing – mentioned it all the time even.

Maybe Judas was destined to betray Jesus. Maybe it all had to go down just like it did. And maybe Judas chose death too soon. Maybe he didn’t avail himself of the means of God’s grace…. But maybe his community never sought him out and offered. Maybe extending the Word of God’s forgiveness to Judas was simply too painful for them. Maybe it was easier for Judas to be the identified problem in the family. Certainly would have been tempting to me. Judas is the traitor…not us. We need a villain so that we don’t have to sit in the awkward and discomforting reality that it is actually all of us. Maybe his community failed him….

Read the entire sermon.

What do you think?

Did the community fail Judas? Or was he simply beyond redemption?

Perhaps the greater question…. Who in your community are you failing?

Listen to Nadia’s story on this week’s episode of the something beautiful podcast.

C is for Church

A few friends helped put together a new e-book and website recently, C is for Church, and have made it available for you to download (free or pay what you want).

“C is for church” is a collective conversation for the Church at large. It’s a step towards open-sourcing the discussions happening behind the closed doors of many church staffs.

Everyone from Senior Pastors to Support Staff to Administrative Staff to Church Members engaged in conversations that led to the published study. (over 100 hours of one-on-one discussions)

Common motifs were discovered amidst the convos and are illustrated via typography. Each theme is meant to provoke a thought rather than provide an answer.

I read through it last night and thought it was an easy (and important) read for many of my friends so I’m passing it along to you as well.
Continue reading C is for Church

Looking back and moving forward

Traffic cone
Traffic cone | Photo by Jonasb

It’s been nearly two months now since Laurie and I left the plains of Red Oak for the fields of Forney.

As part of the move, we of course carried with us a number of dear memories and relationships that we made during our four years with encounter.

Luckily, we don’t leave these things behind when we move — we carry them with us.

Yesterday, Brian and I were trying to remember when it was that he shared an illustration that’s stuck with me and others ever since.

Setting out four construction cones around him, Brian drove home the point that we should be building spaces of grace wherever we go — especially as followers of The Way.
Continue reading Looking back and moving forward

The Big Red Tractor

From Francis Chan:

Excellent!

How does your community of faith compare? Are you trying to push the Big Red Tractor with your own strength, or putting its true power source to full use?

Read more from Holiday at the Sea

Building community dialogue

This Saturday I plan to meet with a number of folks interested in building community within our tribe.

The group will be made up primarily of our community group facilitators and hosts.

We’ll be working through our regroup material as some what of a refresher course and I hope to show this video from the TransFORM Network as well…
Continue reading Building community dialogue