Homosexuality and Gluttony

I’m working through Greg Boyd’s book “Repenting of Religion:  Turning from Judgment to theLove of God.”  As with most of Greg Boyd’s book, the ideas challenge both main-stream evangelical thought (or more accurately – pop culture theology) as well as my own personal life.  In the chapter “Forbidden Tree” he discusses how the sin of wanting to have the knowledge of both good and evil is the sin of placing yourself in judgment over another; doing what only God alone is positioned to do – declaring what is good and/or evil about another person.  Boyd argues that we destroy our Christian witness by casting these judgments all over society and the only appropriate time to make these judgments upon another person is when they’ve invited us into a relationship with them in which we can share these opinions with them, what he calls a “covenant relationship.” 

Religious people, Boyd argues, often create religious idols of their beliefs.  We get self-worth from doing certain “good” things and avoiding “bad” things.  While religious people would look down on someone who gains their self-worth from their money or sex-appeal, Boyd argues that drawing our worth from anything other than the love of Christ (money or religious rules) is idolatrous, no matter what religious jargon we use to justify what we’re doing. 

You’ve likely noticed that religious people tend to make a big deal about sins they don’t struggle with, but others do, while minimizing the sins they struggle with more regularly.  In so doing, they overlook and rationalize their own sin while over-emphasizing and demonizing the sins of others and, in so doing, excluding them from their churches.  The perfect example of this the demonizing of homosexual sex while ignoring gluttony. 

This entire section is powerful and pertinent to some conversations among evangelicals.  I will start by typing out the first few paragraphs before uploading scanned images of the next few pages. 

“Religious idolaters, of course, don’t recognize their idols as such.  On the contrary, part of their religious strategy for getting life is to contrast their ‘true’ beliefs and ethical behaviors with the idols to which secular people cling.  But as a matter of fact, religious idols are just as idolatrous as secular ones.  Indeed, this is the most prevalent and enslaving form of idolatry throughout history….
The standards used to judge others invariably favor the religious people doing the judging.  These standards are, after all, part of their strategy for getting life.  Hence, the sins a particular religious community is good at avoiding tend to be the ones identified as most important to avoid in the mind of that community, while the sins a community is not good at avoiding tend to be minimized or ignored altogether – regardless of what emphasis the Bible puts on these sins.
To give an example, few churches target overeating as sin.  Yet the Bible as a good deal to say about the sin of overeating (gluttony).  In the Jewish culture of Jesus’ day, the inability or unwillingness to control one’s eating was viewed as being on a part with the inability or unwillingness to control one’s sex drive.  Lust and gluttony were two major evidences that a person was undisciplined, governed by ‘shameless passion’ (Sir. 23:6; 4 Macc. 1:3,27).

If this section intrigues you, I strongly recommend that you read the rest of the book.  I’ve pulled another quote from pages 16 and 17 that sums up the goal of the book. 

“Whatever else Christians are known for, they are generally not known for their distinctive love.  Rarely are people drawn to the conclusion that Jesus is Lord simply because of the radical, God-like love the see among Christians and experience from Christians.
Why is this?  What keeps us from living in the place I described above [proving God is real through our love of others]… We position ourselves as judges of others rather than simply as lovers of others.  Our judgments are so instinctive to us that we usually do not notice them.  Even worse, they are so natural to us that when we do notice them, we often assume we are righteous for passing judgment?  Because of this, it is easy to overlook the fact that our judgments are blocking our love, keeping us asleep, preventing us from living in the truth God created us to live in.

We have failed to understand and internalize the biblical teaching that our fundamental sin is not our evil – as though the solution for sin was to become good – but our getting life from what we believe is our knowledge of good and evil.  Our fundamental sin is that we place ourselves in the position of God and divide the world between what we judge is to be good and what we judge to be evil.  And this judgment is the primary thing that keeps us from doing the central thing God created and saved us to do, namely, love like he loves.
Because we do not usually understand and internalize the nature of our foundational sin, we usually think our job as Christians is to embrace a moral system, live by it, and thus to be good people in contrast to all those who are evil.  In fact, I shall argue, God’s goal for us is much more profound and much more beautiful than merely being good; it is to do the will of God by being loving, just as God is loving.  More specifically, I shall show that God’s goal for us is to discover a relationship with him and thereby a relationship with ourselves and others that returns us to a state where we don’t live by our knowledge of good and evil.  Indeed, the goal is nothing less than for us to participate in the very love that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share throughout eternity.”

Pg. 89 into 90
[The Pharisees] are vigilant about their own beliefs ad behavior as well as those of other people.  The Pharisees looked better than Jesus’ disciples and the Pharisees knew it.
In fact, however, this hyper vigilance is evidence not of genuine spiritual health but of an inner emptiness and sickness.  It is evidence of a spiritual pathology.  The very attempt to fill the emptiness of their lives by their beliefs and behaviors rather than God prevents them from ever getting their emptiness really filled.
Not that the emptiness cannot be placated for periods of time; it can.  If people’s idolatrous religious strategies for getting life are successful, as they were with the Pharisees, these people will derive some surrogate life by believing they do all the right things, embrace all the right interpretations of Scripture, hold to all the right doctrines, engage in all the right rituals, and display the right spirituality.  They will get even more surrogate life by looking down on those who don’t do and believe all the right things as they do.  Indeed, they may experience even more surrogate life by entertaining a “holy anger” toward those who do not conform to their way of thinking and behaving (a fact that perhaps explains the remarkable divisiveness within Christianity).  But the positive feelings offered by religious idols are fleeting.  The emptiness returns, driving religious idolaters to further futile attempts to get life by their religion.

Pg. 192
For as a matter of fact, none of us have “arrived.”  It’s just that, for self-serving reasons, we’ve decided to categorize some sins – our sins – as acceptable and other sins – their sins – as condemnable.

If we view ourselves and everyone else through the lens of the cross rather than our knowledge of good and evil, we will see that our self-serving categorizations of sin are as unnecessary as they are illegitimate.  In Christ, we all stand condemned and forgive and righteous.  Hence, the prostitute, the greedy, the murderer, the obese, the homosexual, the rude, the unbathed, the drunk, the poor – even the Pharisee if he is willing – are to be welcomed back to the garden with enthusiastic celebration.

Pg. 197
If, for example, a church treats gays with the same compassion religious judges treat their own overweight people, its leaders will likely be condemned as “compromising the Word of God” by these judges.  Such a church is sinning against the (self-serving) knowledge of good and evil from which the religious judges feed.  Consequently, the judges will likely feel as though their god has been assaulted, and, as a matter of fact, it has!  As idolatrous people often do when their gods are threatened, they may rate.  They did so with Jesus and there’s every reason to believe they will do so with communities that look like Jesus.

A Lingering Legacy - Part III

This is the final edition in a three part series on how the unique ministry of Trinity Family Church is still having a kingdom impact.

This post doesn't need much writing from me. In fact, all we need is the writing of my good friend Michael Palmer who is quickly becoming a better writer and blogger than yours truly.

Strippers and Saints

Update: The above link is now correct.

A Lingering Legacy - Part II

This is part two of a tree part series on some of the lasting legacies of Trinity Family Church in Gardner. Of course, TFC still lives on in midtown Kansas City.

Last week, a group of ladies from Indian Creek Gardner helped Erin create and deliver the gift bags for this month's Love Wins ministry outreach. It's been great to see the Love Wins ministry find a new home and a new life with ICG. What's maybe even better was the conversation I had with our old pal, Guido who was impacted by our Love Wins ministry back when working at one of the clubs.

Guido called me the other night excited to share a story with me. After playing phone tag for awhile, I finally got to hear his story.

Guido is now working with a club in Topeka. There just so happens to be a large church near that club. That church has taken the relational approach of most Conservative Evangelical church in interacting with groups who don't share their morals; they don't have a relationship and try to use power overcome that group. Guido says despite his offer to get together with the pastor, the church refuses to talk with them and have used the Christ-like approach of picketing the club.

While the employees of this club have been complaining about the judgmental Christians, Guido has been passionately assuring his co-workers that not all Christians are like that. He then went on to tell them about how much TFC and Love Wins changed some of his views on Christians and even on God. "You guys had a really big impact on me, more than you know." A ministry like Love Wins, however was not just in Guido's past, but soon to be in his present.

A little while later, some timid looking ladies knocked on the door of their club and nervously explained they were from a church in town and wanted to pass out gifts to the dancers in their club. Guido burst out laughing, instantly shattering the confidence of the ladies at the front door. Guido quickly built their confidence back up, though by telling them all about his experience with the ladies from TFC. He shared the positive impact we'd had on them, shared with them the address to this blog, how the TFC ladies had become comfortable in the club and even how they'd thrown us a baby shower.

It looks like there's about to be another positive relationship developing between some church ladies and some workers in the adult entertainment industry. And because this pastor and wife are adopting, there might even be another baby shower.

My Last Sermon at TFC

This is my final message. I want to start with a video we used to show as we travelled around the area, gathering support for our new church.



I still get kind of pumped watching this video. But that line, “Gardner shows no signs of slowing down” is a bit embarrassing now. I didn’t know it would all slow down. I didn’t know that from the time we shot that video until the time we launched TFC, three other churches would open in town. You know what, I’m glad I didn’t know about the challenges. If so, I might’ve wimped out. But with a church composed of myself, my wife and Jeremy, Tonya and Mason Pride, we bought a house and moved to Gardner, KNOWING this new church was going to help people find a new relationship with Jesus.
I’ve learned to let a lot of this go, but for a long time I was really caught up in numbers, specifically the number of people in worship. I’d beat myself up over it, honestly. When one day, while hanging out at my parents over Christmas I remember asking God (again) why we didn’t have more people in our church. It’s only happened a few times in my life, but that was one of the few times God has answered with an almost-audible voice, “Donnie, I promised you you’d reach unchurched people in Gardner. And you are. I didn’t however, promise you how many.” So I started counting up the people who called TFC home who hadn’t been in a church before, and I realized, “yep,” God had come through on his promise. In a little bit, those of you who have come to faith in Christ at TFC will have a chance to share your story.
In addition to that video, whenever I’d speak at other churches I’d also preach from Luke 15. Luke 15 is all about Jesus searching out people who were lost. Luke 15:1-7
I want to share a couple observations. Some things I learned when I first preached from this passage, 7 years ago. And what I’ve learned during the almost 7 years of leading this church.

The love of Jesus is costly A lot of us have an extra-biblical view of what is happening here. We have this picture of the shepherd, at the end of the day, leading his sheep into the safety of the sheep pen. We see the shepherd counting each sheep as it comes through the gate, “96, 97, 98, 99…” Until the shepherd realizes that one of his precious sheep is missing. So the shepherd wisely locks the other 99 in the pen and then bravely goes out to find the lost sheep. It’s a great image. An image of the love of Jesus that warms us. The only problem is that that image, isn’t in this passage.

I’m not sure where we get that image. In my case, I think it was some songs we’d sing in church. Or maybe because my dad was a farmer and we actually had sheep. Maybe some pictures I saw in a children’s bible. But wherever that idea came from, it’s not in the passage. Vs 4 Jesus is asking a rhetorical question. Of course you don’t leave the 99 in the wilderness just to find one. In farming, it’s just a reality that you’re going to lose the occasional animal. Animals wander off, die giving birth or die from some sickness. It’s just a cost of doing business. But what you don’t do as a farmer is risk the entire herd on the off chance that you might rescue that one lost sheep. While the shepherd is off looking for that one lost sheep, a lot of bad stuff could happen to the other 99. A wolf could attack some. Another shepherd could steal a few. They could walk off a cliff. Sheep are herd animals. If one walked off the cliff, the other 98 would follow. I’m not exaggerating. Sheep are dumb. I don’t know this for sure, but that might be why Jesus compares us to sheep. We all do some pretty dumb stuff.

But that’s not the point of this parable. The point is that the Good Shepherd risks the safety of the other 99 on the off chance that he just might find that one lost sheep. In a bit, we’re going to celebrate communion. It’s a meal that reminds us that we are people of the cross. And nowhere do we get a better picture of how much Jesus’ love cost him than when we look at the cross.

But as people of the cross, we are to be living out that same costly love. GS risked the other 99. So we have to ask ourselves, what is it costing me to share the love of Jesus with other people? Are we risking anything? If it isn’t costing you anything, you’re probably not sharing the love of Jesus. You may be sharing a worldly kind of love – a love toward those who we like or who are kind to us. You may be being nice, polite, friendly, a good neighbor. And those are all great. But unless what you’re doing for other people in the name of Jesus is actually costing you something – it’s not Christ-like love.
Loving people the way Jesus loved costs us our time. Changing our schedule so we can be around people who need the love of Jesus. Loving people the way Jesus loved will cost you some money. We see it all throughout the NT, that one of the most Christ-like ways we love other people is by sharing our money with them. And if we’re not sharing our money, the love of Jesus isn’t in us. Money becomes an idol that replaces Jesus.

And if we’re loving people the way Jesus loved them, it’s going to cost us our reputation. At least among good, upright religious folks. People who are so busy looking down on others, they can’t see their own sin. As our church has gone into strip clubs and gay bars, engaging people in the same way Jesus did in the gospels, some people couldn’t handle it. In various different ways, myself and our church has felt the backlash on that. But you know what? It was worth it. In every single way, it was worth it. No pricetag for Sharon’s commitment to Christ. Or for the people who show up at Andy’s every Thursday night to study the scriptures and encounter the life-transforming love of Jesus. Billy Graham once said, It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, God’s job to forgive and our job to love. But leaving the comfort of the 99 to go after that one that is lost – it’s costly. Building relationships with outsiders – costly.
The love of Jesus is scandalous vs 1-2 The titles “tax collectors” and “sinners” is almost cliché for us. We’ve heard it so many times, we’ve forgotten the scandal. We think, “of course Jesus loved the tax collectors.” But who are the tax collectors of today?

I remember a line from another sermon I was preaching before this church launched, “If Jesus were here today, he’d be hanging out downtown at the gay bars. Showing God’s love to those rejected by the religious community.”

I knew this in my head. But what I didn’t know was that one night, there would be a baby shower in strip club, that as we were given gift after gift, the manager of that club, with tears running down his face, would tell us “no one has ever loved us the way you’ve loved us.” And when the head bouncer warned me, “Donnie, don’t turn around, that girl didn’t follow our request to put on more clothes,” I knew I was taking a risk similar to the risk Jesus took.

Neither did I know at the time I delivered that sermon, that one night I’d be singing karaoke at one of those downtown establishments. But the time that our people spent in that bar would eventually result in people coming to faith in Christ. Whatever that cost our church – it was worth it.

The love of Jesus is scandalous. Even more so when we realize that it meant for Jesus to share a meal with “sinners.” Eating with someone wasn’t just a way to hang out. It was a theological statement, a statement about God. Whenever a rabbi, like Jesus, ate with someone, he was saying, “God loves you and accepts you. There is a place for you in his kingdom.” Exactly why we see this response – vs 2

And you know how Jesus responded to those self-righteous religious leaders? These religious leaders could quote the entire bible. They knew God didn’t accept those people. But here is Jesus – God-in-the-flesh, eating with these “notorious sinners”, therefore declaring, “God accepts you.”

You know what seems like a bigger scandal, at least to me. Jesus ate with the religious leaders, too.

“God loves and accepts you, too.” Jesus’ love is scandalous.

Jesus responded differently to different groups. To the religious people who believed they had it all figured out, looked great on the outside and thought they should tell others how to live. He got in their face, challenging their fake-ness, telling them to stop ordering others around and to focus on getting clean on the inside.

But to the non-religious, the ones whose weren’t faking it, who were clearly messed up. With them, Jesus took a more gentle approach. Assuring them of God’s love and acceptance and then letting the love of God serve as the motivation for change.

Jesus knew what he was doing. In the gospels, we see the religious and non-religious, Pharisees and sinners both choosing to leave their sin and follow Jesus. We also know that a lot of people turned away and some religious zealots eventually got him crucified.

We also see in Jesus’ example that hanging out with people and assuring them of God’s unwavering love is not a condoning of sinful behavior. And getting in the face of religious leaders is not necessarily a condemnation of sincere intentions, even though the judgmentalism was clearly misguided. Rather, Jesus pushed past the bad behavior, past the sinful judgmentalism – all the way to the heart. If the heart could just meet the scandalous love of God, the behavior would take care of itself. We don’t need the addictions of sin when we’re getting our acceptance from God. We don’t need to condemn others when we’re getting our value from God’s love for us.

Churches are great at loving the people who think like us, act like us, believe like us, vote like us, look like us cheer for our sports teams – whatever. Which is why most churches are culturally homogeneous. As author Ann Lamott said, You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people that you do. Unfortunately, a lot of churches are great at creating an “us vs. them” mentality. “God is for us and against them.” But you can know that the love of Jesus is transforming a church when people of different cultures and opinions can live together in community within the same church. Jesus’ love destroys the “us vs. them” mentality. We’re all in this together. We’re all broken and in desperate needs of God’s powerful love.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the years of leading this great church, it’s that unless we’re being shocked by its scandalous nature, we don’t really understand the love of Jesus.

Obituary

I just read an obitiuary of sorts regarding my time in pastoring TFC.  I read it in the section of my DS's weekly email entitled "transitions," in which he shares news of pastors joining or leaving the District.  It was now my turn to be in that section. 

"Pastor Donnie Miller (Gardner Trinity Family) announced his resignation to the congregation to be effective at the close of services April 3rd. Donnie and Erin planted TFC more than five years ago and have led the church in some of the most creative outreach ministries we know. The ministry of TFC will continue but will relocate from Gardner to Midtown Kansas City under the strategy of reaching some of the most marginalized people among us. We wish the Millers all the best in the days ahead."



You know what, I'm honored by that description of my pastoral service at TFC. 

A Transition for TFC

I'm going to post below what I shared with the congregation this past Sunday.
It was not an easy day, but it was a very good day. Now that the transition is out in the open, I'm free to share a lot of the thoughts I've had lately. While I won't share many now, I do want to share how amazed I am at how well everything was recieved on Sunday. Yes, it was hard and people were crying but people were also understanding, encouraging and excited about the future.
One guy, who has been with us since the beginning, immediately came up and gave me a hug saying, "it takes a lot of courage to stand up and do what you just did."

I was also later sent this message from a leader in our church, "I know what you did today had to be one of the hardest things you ever had to do but I have to tell you again what a great job you did articulating all the details about the transition we are going through. You went over and beyond how I thought you would present it. You and the family are always in our prayers."

For so long, I thought leadership meant having it all figured out, having all the answers and knowing exactly where to lead. I've learned to let that go and be more honest about not having it all figured out while also learning how to suggest rather than demand. Ironically, my influence as a leader has grown a lot during that process. I guess another word for that process is simply "maturity." But I'll blog more on that later...

It's just amazing the level of affirmation and support I recieved after sharing this (below) on Sunday. It seems that during my greatest weakness came my strongest leadership.
                                                                                                     
7 years ago, I was finishing up my last semester in Seminary and preparing to move to Gardner to start the yet-to-be-named Church. My all-consuming passion for starting this church was to reach people who were currently not in church, what we pastor-types call the “unchurched.” And we have been able to do exactly that. Even before our church officially launched, we had unchurched people joining our community. And it has continued to happen throughout our church’s existence. For many of you, TFC is your first church ever or your first church in a long time. I’m hoping he can share his story soon, but Brett Limer, just recently made the decision to live for Jesus. And he hung around TFC for almost 2 years before making that decision. And on Wednesday evening, Shelby told me we’re the first church she’s called home since the 80’s. She told me, and I quote, “you restored my faith in church fellowship.”
Well, as I shared in a likely too-brief email this past week, we’ve got a big announcement to share with everyone. The announcement is this. After 7 wonderful years of reaching unchurched people, we’ve decided to stop. It’s been a good run, we’ve helped a lot of people, but it’s a LOT of work. It’s exhausting. Let them build a relationship with God on their own, the church doesn’t need to help with that anymore. I’m kidding – obviously

If you were here two weeks ago, you heard Pastor Andy and his Love Wins team share how they were able to influence a lot of CHURCH leaders at the M-11 conference. The impact came as they shared stories of how TFC Midtown is reaching the people that no other church is going after. Which follows the example of Jesus we see in the gospels. Jesus hung out with the people that good, respectable, religious people would never be caught dead with.
You also may remember that last summer, I began sharing a dream for a new way of doing church. Although we’ve never been conventional and we’ve always been others-focused, TFC was still started, and basically still operates, under a more institutional model. What I mean by that is organization lead by a paid pastor, programming and all the other stuff thought to be ‘normal’ in today’s church culture. I started having a dream for a church structure with several unpaid pastors, a form of gathering for worship that is in the midst of a community and a budget that gives away more than it spends on itself. You may also remember, that when I shared that dream in June, I promised to do my best to lead us there. But I wasn’t sure whether I personally would have what it takes to get us there.
This past year I’ve been working part-time at FedEx, going to school, trying to be faithful in my role as pastor, while still being a dad and husband. Honestly, it’s just about killed me. There have been times in which I’ve been sitting in my office chair, staring at the upcoming Sunday morning like a deer in the headlights, trying to muscle-up another biblical teaching to give to the congregation that deserves it from me. Other times, I’d pull back up to a dock at one of my stops on my FedEx route and just sit there for a few minutes, overwhelmed by the weight of everything. Sometimes a few tears would slip out before I forced myself to go make the delivery.
Eventually, I realized, while staring at the cold, hard numbers, that TFC was quickly going the wrong way financially. While we’ve had enough money in savings to last through June – the end of our fiscal year. The reality is that our current institutional model of church is no longer financially viable. We simply don’t have enough money coming in to continue in this model of church – rent, pastoral salary, programs, etc. And that puts me and my family in a tough spot. Because while I believe in that model of almost-volunteer staff, my two degrees are training for just one job – leading a church as a paid pastor. And I’ve got a lot of work to do still before finishing a degree that makes me marketable outside the institutional church.
I can sum up where we’re at with these two statements: 1) The church no longer has the financial means to pay me what my family needs. 2) I no longer have the ability to give what a church needs from their lead pastor. repeat
But in the midst of my own struggles. And the financial and people struggles of TFC Gardner. God has been faithful to us. In starting TFC Midtown, we have continued to reach people not in church. And we’ve effectively began a church community that follows this non-institutional / missional model.
Over the last month, the Advisory Council has been weighing the good and bad of what I’ve just shared. They’ve assessed the promise of TFC Midtown and the resource-deficit of TFC Gardner. And they’ve come to a decision that is both exciting and painful. We’ve decided to move Trinity Family Church out of Gardner and to the midtown area. Repeat Trinity Family will continue to exist, but with a new address. TFC Gardner will no longer exist, but the history, mission and community of TFC will continue on through the Midtown campus.
I realize this is a hard thing to hear. It’s a hard thing to say, honestly. That’s why I wrote everything out word-for-word. It’s just that in considering all the options, this seemed like the best thing to do. A lot of the New Testament is letters written to churches. None of those churches still exist in the same form in which they existed 2,000 years ago. The Church as a whole still exists, and there are churches and Christians in those same cities – but they’ve changed. All churches change. But what could be hard about this change is that it’s happened more quickly than a lot of church change. With this change, there’s a lot of hope, but also some pain. I realize this.
You probably won’t process all of this as I share it with you, but here are the main details which you need to know.
1) Pastor Andy will be elected as the lead pastor of TFC-Midtown Pending DS’ approval.

2) We’re encouraging everyone to consider moving with TFC to Midtown
However we realize this isn’t possible for everyone, especially people living in Gardner or south Johnson County and/or those with kids. So, we’re proposing another step that can help to maintain the relationships we’ve built over the past several years.

3) We’re encouraging those who want to stay connected with a church in Gardner to transition as a group into the Indian Creek – Gardner church
Let me reiterate, this idea is to help preserve as many relationships as possible. We encourage you to consider making the move to Midtown. But if that simply isn’t do-able for your family, we’re asking you to consider transitioning into ICG. Let me share some reasons we’ve chosen ICG to be the church into which we transition.

ICG is the closest thing to TFC that we could find in Gardner. We’re fairly similar in several ways – theologically (they’re Wesleyan), missionally (they’re outward focused and the little bit of growth they’ve had over the past two years has come not from transfer growth but from formerly unchurched people), worship style (their worship style is a lot like ours was when we still had the manpower to put together a full band on a regular basis), atmosphere (they seem to have the same “safe place” feel that TFC has), and even size (they’re the same size we were two years ago before we started our numerical decline – right around 100 people in worship).
While best-case scenario is that we continue as-is, that simply isn’t possible right now. We’re trusting that transitioning into ICG will be the second-best-case-scenario.

I’ve known the pastor for a couple of years now. Some of you may remember Ben, he preached here one Sunday last April. And while we’re not best friends or anything, what I’ve seen of him has impressed me. I trust him. And I’d better trust him, because I’m leading some of the people I’ve come to love – come to love with the love that only a pastor knows - into his church.
If you choose to transition into ICG, you’ll have the advantage of coming into a new church with pre-existing relationships. Of course, you’ll get to know other great people as you get involved in the life of ICG, but you’ll have a safety net of sorts by having other TFC families come with you. Let me re-state, we’re doing this in an effort to help keep as many people together as possible. Ideally, everyone would choose one of two places – TFC Midtown or ICG.
But we also realize that one of these two options may not be the best for some of us. So we’re encouraging another option, too.

4) Pastor Donnie and the Advisory Council will work to help those not joining Indian Creek Gardner or TFC Midtown to transition into another church
This is particularly for those of you who would like to stay in the CoTN but don’t feel that Midtown works for your family. But even if it’s not a CoTN, we’ll help you transition into whatever church works best for you.

5) Pastor Donnie and the Advisory Council are willing to meet with families and individuals to help them process their decision We’ll be doing this for as long as it takes. I’ll be here through at least June, helping with the transition. Sign ups
But that leads to the other question you’ve probably all been asking.
“Donnie, what are you going to do?”

6) Pastor Donnie will focus upon the transition into Indian Creek Gardner and other churches besides TFC Midtown

7) Pastor Andy is willing to meet with anyone considering joining the move to the midtown area
Again, we want to encourage everyone to make Midtown their first option, with ICG being their second option. Having lunch after worship with anyone interested.

Those are the main details. Let me know give a timeline of how this transition is going to happen. It might feel a bit abrupt, to be honest. But again, we thought a quick move would be the best thing for everyone.

March 20th – follow up with congregation during regular worship time 
 We’ll gather at our regular place and time next Sunday for worship and for a chance to continue discussing all of this. It’s going to take some time to process it all and you’ll likely have more questions, so next Sunday will be a chance to have another church-wide discussion. You can also always email me.
Thursday, March 24th and Sunday, March 27th – “Previews”
This will be your chance to join TFC Midtown for their Thursday evening worship gathering and to worship with ICG on a Sunday morning. Pastor Ben is planning to meet with whatever TFC people come for worship that Sunday morning.
Sunday, April 3rd – last regular worship gathering of TFC Gardner
This will be a time of sharing some stories from the past seven years and looking ahead to how the story of TFC is going to continue. Be prepared to share some stories that day. It’s going to be an emotional day. It will be a good day and a difficult day.
Sundays April 10th and 17th – possible times of meeting with Pastor Donnie and the Advisory Council
In order to process your decision on where to go next. Might also be working on taking inventory of all our equipment those mornings.
Easter Sunday, April 24th – Encourage everyone to worship in their new church home that morning
Our hope is to have big groups at both Midtown and ICG on that morning. While it may not be your long-term decision, we encourage you to be in a church that morning – hopefully with fellow TFCers.

That’s everything. If this just hit you like a ton of bricks, I greatly apologize. Please know that our leadership is open to letting everyone process and even grieve this change for however long it’s necessary.

Trinity Family Midtown

I still have the piece of paper, my "church planting contract."  In October of 2004, I committed to several things.  One was that I'd stay in Gardner for at least 5 years. I fulfilled that one last October.  Another was that our new church would plant another church within 5 years.  Well, we're a few months late, but we're fulfilling that one as well. 

There have been so many good things happening with the Love Wins:LGBT ministry, so many relationships built and so many people from the LGBT community that have been asking the Love Wins team, "tell us about your God" that we've decided to stop asking them to come down to Gardner and we're bringing TFC  downtown. 

I'm actually a bit late posting this because this Thursday will be the third gathering of "TFC Midtown."  The gatherings have been quite a success so far, with more people hearing about it and planning to show up.  I was there on the first Thursday and Andy was quite surprised by some of the people who did come. 

Just think about this.  A little over a year ago, the Love Wins teams entered the bars downtown with quite a bit of anxiousness, wondering how they'd be accepted.  Now, we have a new campus of TFC a couple blocks from those bars and people who have been mistreated and rejected by the church are getting involved in a church and learning about the inclusive and transforming love of Jesus Christ. 

This is a short blog post, considering the immensity of this step by our church.  But I could write pages and pages and not communicate just how wonderful and amazing this is. 

Wow. 

"God Sought Me Out"

I don't need to share all the details, but Susan has had enough terrible experiences in her own life to equal that of five other people who we'd describe as having rough lives. I hope that sentence makes sense.... she's had an incredibly difficult life. To go along with these two posts, 1 and 2, she's been to various gutters.

As she's gotten older, Susan has begun to sense that God was trying to find a way back into her life. As a result of her life situation, however she had no way of trying to seek out God on her own. So she was left with this lingering question, "how was God going to find me?"

Almost one year ago, while hanging out at the bar in which she spends a lot of her time, Susan felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned to see the smiling face of Sara Weems, one of the members of TFC's Love Wins: LGBT ministry. That act of a hand on a shoulder lead to Susan, almost a year later, choosing to give her heart to Christ. Looking back on the development of her relationship with the Love Wins team and the response to the love of Christ she knew was somehow seeking her out, Susan describes that hand on her shoulder as "the hand of God" and the fact that some Christians would leave their comfort zone and choose to enter a gay bar for the sake of building relationships that would share Jesus' love with the bar patrons as "God seeking me out."

I would describe it as Incarnation; the act of God putting on flesh. We celebrate the incarnation of Jesus every Christmas. As followers of the Jesus who chose to become human so as to introduce us to the love of God, we also are to incarnate the love of God. We are the flesh and bones of God's love and we're to take that love to the people who don't yet know that love.

We aren't all called to gay bars but we are all, every single person who claims to follow Christ, called to incarnate the love of Jesus for the people with whom we interact. And following the same act of self-giving that Paul describes in Philippians 2, we're to take the love of Jesus (embodied in our very person) to places that are out of our comfort zone and outside of the regular path of most Christ-followers.

A TRULY safe place

TFC has always been described as a "safe place." A place in which people who don't feel comfortable in more regular... churches feel welcomed as well as a place in which people who have never been involved in a church also feel safe and accepted. My leadership inadequacies would make a long list, but I'm glad that creating this type of safe and welcoming environment has been a leadership strength of mine.

In 2007, we really stretched our congregation's ability to continue to be a "safe place" by launching our Love Wins ministry to the local gentlemen's clubs. While we got some pushback from other churches (though we also received large amounts of financial support from surrounding churches as well), we received very little pushback from within our congregation. The only real pushback we received was from a group thinking we needed to go into the clubs and tell the ladies what sinners they are. While that approach does fit within the practice of many North American churches, it is 180 degrees removed from the approach Jesus modeled in the gospels. When faced with doing what most church people do and what Jesud did, we went with Jesus. That group eventually moved on from TFC.

But in the summer of 2009, we pushed the limits of this Jesus-like model of engaging "sinners." I use quotation marks because most church people define "sinners" as those who do sinful things that aren't like their sinful things or are worse than their sins - i.e. stripping in a club or engaging in same-sex eroticism. If the cover was pulled back from the lives of most church people, we'd see that they have as much sin as non-church people, they're just better at either excusing the sin or showing how their sin somehow isn't as bad. But I digress...
We pushed the limits of TFC's ability to be a "safe place" by expanding our Love Wins ministry from sharing the love of Jesus within strip clubs to also sharing the love of Jesus within the Lesbian / Gay community of downtown KC. We announced the begining of Love Wins: LGBT in August of 09 and within about one month, we began to experience the fallout of launching this ministry within TFC. Over the next year, 1/5 of the families within our congregation left TFC stating Love Wins: LGBT as either one of, or the main reason for, their leaving our church (or they told someone else and it eventually got back to me). Ironically, one church that a former TFC family believed would be "safe" from this type of ministry has now begun to partner with us in this endeavor.

I guess sharing Jesus' love with women stripping in clubs and men 'boucing' in those clubs, while a bit of a stretch, can be supported by church culture, but supporting a ministry that shares Jesus' love with people living a gay or lesbian lifestyle is just too much for people accustomed to the mindset of North American evangelicalism. A mindset that says that the sin of homosexual or lesbian activity is somehow worse than other sins or that our engagement with people practicing this sin needs to be approached differently than people practicing any other sin. I addressed some of this mindset in these two posts: Gutter I and Gutter II

So we've lost a lot of people, at least partly, as a result of a ministry, that according to my District Superintendent (who said he's tempted to resign his position so as to work directly with our ministry but knows he should stay in his role to "protect" us from people who would give us grief) is the only one of its kind among Nazarene churches in North America.

But you know who have come in to fill some of the openings left by people who chose to move on? Two groups of people: 1) those who helped launch Love Wins: LGBT in the first place and 2) people who live within the LGBT community of KC. Yes, you read that right. People who have been rejected by the church culture at large are meeting God for the first time or returning after decades away within the church community of TFC. I want to cry as I write those words...

If our church had developed the way I'd originally hoped and planned for us to develop, we never would've been in the place to launch a ministry like Love Wins: LGBT. If we were a larger church, I'd be more concerned with keeping church people happy so they'd continue to support the structure and financial obligations of a larger church. But the fact that we've shrunk so much over the two years has put us in a place in which we're free to take a crazy risk like sharing Jesus' love with the LGBT community. I almost feel like Gideon, who had to have his army shrunk exponentially to bring Gideon to the place of realizing that 1) it wasn't his army in the first place, 2) God moves his people around to the place they can best be used and 3) the victory is God's to be given, not ours to win.

But that's not all that is happening. The Love Wins: LGBT team has been invited to speak at the M-11 Conference, a national conference of the Church of the Nazarene. Their intent is to educate the broader church in how to relate to and share Jesus' love with the LGBT community. That conference is using the hot buzz-word of "mission" and Love Wins: LGBT is a wonderful example of the mission of Jesus being lived out. While many people within our denomination approach the LGBT community with judgmentalism and retreat from the community with an isolationistic approach (both of which are reactions born out of fear), the 'top dawgs' of the COTN are empowering us to live out this mission.

But that's not all that's happening... The amazing results of Love Wins: LGBT from this past year has prompted the Advisory Council of TFC to make what might be the biggest decision in the history of our church - a decision that was meant to be made at the very beginning but has been five long years in developing. But that's for another post...

From the people who have recently joined our church in worship to the chance to share at the M-11 Conference, the fruit of the Love Wins: LGBT ministry is so much greater than we'd ever imagined, we have nothing to do but admit it was God who brought all this about, not our amazing skillset. While the Advisory Council of 2009 did have to say "yes" and the Love Wins team had to overcome their fears to step into a foreign mission field, it was God who brought (and will continue to bring) the victory.

So maybe I can't really take credit for TFC being a "safe place." Maybe, just mabye, the same Jesus who was a walking "safe place" for those rejected by the religious culture of his day is the same Jesus making TFC a "safe place" for those rejected by the religious culture of our day.

A strip club vs. a church

Here's a great story from Harmony Dust's blog.

In the Battle Between Church & Strip Club: Love Wins!

After hearing breaking news about women from an Ohio strip club showing up to protest at a local church that had been picketing their club for years, our friends from JC’s Girls in San Diego decided to show up. And I mean literally. They got on a plane and went to the strip club in Ohio to love on the girls.

What happened next is truly incredible. On Day 1, they had the opportunity to visit the strip club dressing room, tell share their stories, and tell them how much God loves them. They were met with open ears and open hearts.

On Day 2, knowing that God can change things around through Love, they decided to reach out to the Pastor of the church that had been protesting. There too, they were met with open hearts and ultimately invited to speak to the entire church on Sunday. They invited the congregation to “CHANGE THE FACE OF CHRISTIANITY by standing with us and truly LOVING God’s Beautiful Girls just as Jesus would.”

The people of New Life Ministries Church rose to the call and committed to loving their community, beginning with the women who worked at the local strip club. They went to the women, loved them, hugged them and even sought forgiveness from them. The Pastor himself promised one woman “he would not fail her”.

Even the Pastor and Strip Club Owner have reconciled and scheduled a lunch date!

My heart is touched and inspired by this story. It is amazing to see what happens when we fulfill the mandate of Love that is placed on our lives. I believe that this community will never be the same.

Read the JC’s Girls full story here

Love, Harmony

Author of Scars and Stilettos

You can check out Harmony's blog here.

The Love of Jesus

Here's a powerful quote from Tim Keller's book The Prodigal God.

“[In every example in the New Testament] when Jesus meets a religious person and a sexual outcast (Luke 7) or a religious person and a racial outcast (John 3-4) or a religious person and a political outcast (Luke 19), the outcast is the one who connects with Jesus and the elder-brother type does not. Jesus says to the respectable religious leaders 'the tax collectors and the prostitutes enter the kingdom before you.' (Matthew 21:31)

“Jesus’ teachings consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day. However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. This can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on the people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. If our churches aren't appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we'd like to think."

Closed Culture

Here's a great article written by a member of Pastor Andy's Love Wins team:

Everyday, we hear news in corners of the world about places that are closed to proselytizing and sharing the Gospel. The penalties if caught unwarranted sharing this message can be intense as people face fines, jail time, torture or even death. Yet through the hard times, they persevere with an unwavering presence and share the Gospel not only through words, but through actions.

We often feel so far and separated from such places, but think about the United States for a moment. There are many areas in our own back yard that are considered closed cultures similar to the cultures overseas. These closed cultures in the United States consist of people simliar to us, however, they have been wounded and deeply hurt by the church in the past- so much that Christians often find themselves challenged to reach out and to show love.

What does it take? First of all, prayer! God hears and answers prayer and often times more than not, we find that He's already been working ahead of the efforts of this ministry team to break down walls and barriers so lives may be impacted. Second of all, it takes Faithfulness to the call. We have been called to show love and to be a presence in a community that has been wounded in order to reflect Hope-little by little, bit by bit it's working. Third, it takes Presence- Just Show UP and literally, God takes care of the rest. God is a God of opportunity and when we pray, are faithful and present- He works in magnificent ways.

Really, the United States, in some regard is similar to many closed areas of the world in the sense that we have to change the way we've operated as the Church as a whole and as Christians on a personal level in order to properly build bridges. We are no longer "Christian Soldiers Marching Gallantly unto War with our Bibles in the Air." Instead, we are intentionally present and patient as we build relationships with individuals who begin to see differences in our lives and ask questions. Through these opportunities we not only have a chance to share our faith and our relationship with God, we have the opportunity to live our faith out through our actions.

Let us not forget it is about relationships and genuinely knowing and caring for the people God places in our paths. Let us not forget that part of ministry in a "Creative Access Area" means that CREATIVITY is the KEY! We can reach people in ways we have never imagined because we can span beyond tradition.

I encourage you to look around you, to take note of your hobbies and interests and use them to build relationships. You never know how God will use them or who He will allow you to cross paths with in life. :-)

Small Church = Big Impact

A church can impact the culture around it in many different ways. The most commonly thought of and the way most often used to measure a church "success" is by counting the number of people who call that church "home." In fact, that was about the only way I knew how to measure a church's fruitfulness coming out of seminary.

That way of making an impact, however has not been TFC's story. Our church has taken a different path, one that's way out of the box - too far out of the box for most seasoned church-goers - but is helping break paradigms for measuring "success."

I was trained with the idea of bringing people to church in order to share the love of Jesus with them but TFC is working to bring church to people in order to share that life-changing love. Not only are we sharing Jesus' love with people who will never darken the door of a church building (or a school building in our case) but we're helping other church leaders gain a fresh perspective on the work of helping spread the reality of Jesus' Kingdom.

A good friend and colleague here in the KC area used to be on staff at one of the largest churches in our denomination. Just recently, he had a conversation with his former boss who asked him, "have you heard about this church in your area that does this ministry called Love Wins?" My friend responded, "as a matter of fact, I have heard of that church." TFC was helping change that pastor's paradigm.

A few weeks ago, a letter I wrote explaining our relationship with the clubs in our county was read by a senator on the floor of the State Senate in Topeka. The senator called me up later to say, "thanks for your ministry." So the entire legislative body of Kansas is having their church-paradigm stretched.

Pastor Andy will be at his home church in Alabama in a couple weeks to share about his work with Love Wins. The District Superintendent of Alabama is planning on being there because he's wanting to challenge the entire state to follow TFC's example in taking the love of Jesus outside the walls of the church.

Last week, Pastor Andy was going through his annual District re-licensure meeting - talking with older and ordained pastors from KC. He told me, "when they realized I was from TFC, they basically gave me a standing ovation." But when Andy began to share how he's expanded Love Wins he said their jaws almost hit the floor in amazement.

A few months ago, my DS Jeren Rowell, was having a conversation with another church leader who was asking whether any Church of the Nazarene in the US would have the guts to start a specific ministry. Jeren then told them that a church on his District (yes, it's us) was doing exactly that. I guess someone in North America has to be the first.

Small in numbers, big in scope of our impact. And I'm starting to think our small size may be on purpose. I'm not sure we'd be able to do church the way we do if we were larger, there would likely be too high of expectations that we fit into a more mainstream mold.

Nope, that's just not us. And I think it makes God smile.

Yep, love still wins

I just received this email from Pastor Andy regarding his Love Wins team. He actually would rather I not talk about a lot of stuff (that's why I removed an earlier blog post) so as to not give the wrong impression. But he was okay with me sharing this email.


04-28-10

Good Afternoon, Ya’ll!

I wanted to take a moment first and foremost to thank you for your prayers on Sunday evening as I went to dinner with my friend and secondly to fill you in on the events of that evening.

I met her around 5 and we went to a salad buffet. Almost immediately after she got into the car and we started driving, she shifted the conversation to more spiritual matters by telling me of her journey in faith (raised in a Christian home, good Christian parents- backslidden for a while and then a recommitment to Christ- AMEN, GO GOD!)

When we got to the restaurant- we got our food and ate- the conversation was a great one as about 4 hours later we realized it was time to go and we were the last people in there! Throughout the evening, she told me more of her journey and some of the struggles she faced about forgiveness, belief in grace and the doubt of living perfectly up to God’s standard…

THIS is the moment where your prayers came in and God’s Spirit moved and directed the conversation. You see, I am not one who has had much experience or comfort when it comes to death and preparation in the final days. I was able to share the truth with her- that we serve a God of grace who will forgive us our sins when we confess and purify us from all unrighteousness! Through your prayers, I was able to be a tool to communicate God’s Grace to her, His love, forgiveness and desire to be in relationship with her.

Hope was something in her life that seemed out of reach until Sunday night. But after the talk that evening, another friend ran into her and later told me that she was talking in more hopeful terms about the days she has here on earth.

This side of eternity, I may never fully know the impact of this conversation, but I am fully convinced it was a divine opportunity and appointment. She has been such a friend and blessing to me in the time I have known her- I see a great gentleness in her spirit and I know that as long as she’s here on this earth, God is at work and there is an amazing threshold of grace.

Thank you for your prayers. Many times people may think it’s the least they can do- but I want to challenge you to think of it as the Most you can do- it is powerful and it really does work.

Blessings and Joy.

Respectfully Submitted,

A Love Wins Member

And then another person just told the author of this note that she'd better keep hanging out because she sees "a hope in your eyes I haven't seen for awhile."

Really, really amazing stuff. And there are a whole lot of other amazing conversations happening, but just can't share them all.

Scars and Stilettos

Four years ago, when Love Wins was just a crazy idea and my wife had no idea of how to serve the clubs, we stumbled across Harmony Dust's ministry of Treasures. As a former dancer who is now leading the incredible ministry of Treasures, Harmony coached Erin and the other ladies on how to begin this type of ministry; from what gifts to bring to what to say to the bouncers. Harmony just published her autobiography, Scars and Stilettos and I was privileged enough to get a free copy.

A comment on the back of the book reads "Once you start this book, you will not be able to put it down. You will laugh, you will cry, you will be encouraged, you will fall in love with God all over again." When I first read that, I just assumed it was written to help sell the book. Nope. That statement is completely true. I started the book on a Saturday afternoon and finished it in the PRMS parking lot just before set-up the next Sunday morning.

I've been growing into a more accepting and empathetic person. I must admit though, that I've got a pretty narrow perspective. I grew up in a fairly normal and healthy family. My parents loved us and taught us to love God. I think the love and support of my family of origin is why I simply cannot understand how someone could stay in an abusive relationship or allow themselves to be used and exploited.

It's one of the biggest understatements ever written on this blog to say that Harmony didn't grow up in the same supportive and loving environment.

Several times while reading this book, I gasped out loud as I read of how men would treat Harmony and yet she kept coming back to them. As a result of her story, for the first time ever, I had a clear glimpse into the thought process of an abuse victim.

Here are some excerpts that illustrate what was going on in Harmony's mind.

In reference to the boyfriend who repeatedly raped her, "In the end, it was easier to blame myself than to make sense of the ambiguity of it all. If it was my fault, I still had control. If blame rested on me, there was always the hope that I could change."

Harmony lived with a boyfriend for several years. This guy took all of her earnings as a dancer and spent them on himself, while refusing to get a job of his own. He repeatedly left for long periods of time, going to see other girlfriends, only to return home suddenly. He even brought another girlfriend who was pregnant with his child, over to live in the apartment Harmony paid for - forcing her out onto the couch.

At one point, this guy realized other people were aware of Harmony's sexuality. Her earlier experiences of abuse seemed result in the wrong kind of attention. As men walked by and looked at Harmony, her boyfriend stated matter-of-factly, "I could sell you."

Read that again.
That statement alone sums up the years of abuse and exploitation Harmony allowed herself to experience.

"As we so often do, I stayed in my dysfunction because it was most familiar to me, and familiarity was the closest thing to comfort I knew. Emerging from that has taken time, and it's an ongoing process."

But God's love is relentless. God's love searched for Harmony through all the abusive relationships, the black lighted table-dance booths and the authentic Christianity of some new friends. The following are some quotes from the 'lighter' part of the book, when Harmony is being introduced to the love of Jesus and his followers.

"I was nervous about telling her, because I thought coming clean might mean that she wouldn't want to talk to me any more - after all, she was a Christian. I didn't know much about Christians, but I was pretty sure they didn't like strippers."

"It was time to start running toward a greater Love. As I walked back home, He whispered my name in the afternoon sun that shone gentle and warm. Each ray was a reminder of His kindness outstretched towards my weary soul."

The description of Harmony's baptism brought tears to my eyes. Her own words, "I had been in the process of becoming. And that evening, I was going to leave all the pain - all the things I never wanted to be - right there in that water, and I was going to emerge a new person."

In writing about an interaction with a dancer in her ministry, Treasures, "Melanie Star is a young woman who embodies this vision. After hearing about Treasures, Melanie was so moved she asked if she could come with us on an outreach, even though she wasn't ready to give up her job at the strip club. One night with the team was all it took before she announced that she was going to clean out her locker at work and leave stripping behind. Not because we told her to, or made her feel bad about what she did for a living, but because God was doing a work inside her. It's not our job to judge and convict people. All we have to do is love people and trust in God and His goodness, because it's the goodness of God that inspired people to change."

"[God] loved me while I was still in the middle of my deepest mess. My relationship with Him did not begin once I 'got my act together'. He not only loved us in spite of our junk, but He sees past all of it to the person He has created us to be. God loved me just as much standing half-naked in the middle of a strip club as He does today. I didn't somehow gain His approval by doing or saying the right things. I didn't need to win His heart. He won mine."

You can order a copy of Harmony's book at this link, Scars and Stilettos.

A great article on the lady who inspired and coached us in our Love Wins ministry

Check out this article. After reading the Glamour article on Harmony, we were able to find her online. Harmony has coached and inspired us in starting Love Wins. She's quite an encouragement to us.

And on the Love Wins front, we combined with Bonita's again last weekend to serve at My Father's House. We spent the morning helping organize the storage area of their thrift store. The service project was a great time, as was hanging out together at lunch afterwards.

My favorite part of the morning was the 'stump / shock the pastor' session while doing some work. I had some hard questions thrown at me as well as some "I shouldn't say that in front of a pastor," even though I don't care. In fact, in situations like that, I usually drop a profanity to let people know I'm a normal guy.

But what I think is really going on when people throw tough questions at me or take on a tough persona is the deeper question of "will you befriend and accept me for who I am." Or even deeper, "does God love and accept me just the way I am."

The answer to both questions is a solid "YES!"

Love Wins is expanding!

Continuing with the TFC tradition, we're going to be taking the love of Jesus to a place that most Christians either completely avoid, or when they do engage that community they mis-represent the love of Jesus. We've been affectionately calling this new endeavor Love Wins Part Deux but the official name is "Love Wins: LGBT" (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, trans-gender). It's now "Love Wins: Gentlemen's Clubs" and "Love Wins: LGBT."

I won't be able to get the audio up until next week but below is the text of what we discussed on Sunday. While you likely won't be able to sense it from the manuscripts, Sunday morning's worship was INTENSE! People were calling out affirmation, crying, praying intensely and generally getting all pumped up about where TFC is headed. The past 4 years have been quite a ride but I have a feeling we're only getting started. I never could've imagined how much God would've blown apart my narrow box of what defines "church." But it's happening and it's amazing. I just got a note from a pastor in St. Louis who wrote, "I'm admiring what you're doing from a distance. Thanks for incarnating a new model of church."

Or to quote Pastor Andy, "LOVE WINS, y'all"!

To read more and to ask questions, check out Pastor Andy's blog here.

Here's the text of Sunday's message:

Pastor Donnie
As you’ve likely already noticed, we’re doing things a bit different today. Rather than discussion groups after the message, we’re going to spend more time in prayer. We’ll still have the chance to discuss the message, though but it will happen later in the week, via Pastor Andy’s blog, which he’ll explain later.
Just before the blessing, we’ll read Dr. Seuss’ “Oh, the Places You’ll Go.” But we’re going to start by looking at a time in scripture in which Jesus dared to go to a place where no “upright, religious person” would ever go. John 4:1-10 running commentary
Vs. 3 – once again, Jesus is making the ultra religious people, the ones so caught up with rules, mad because he won’t follow their rules and doesn’t fit their expectations
Vs. 4 – “had” map of Samaria We’re seeing some irony here. Samaria is right in the middle between Judea and Galilee. When a good Jewish religious person went from Judea to Galilee, they always took the long way around, so they didn’t have to go through Samaria. They wouldn’t be caught dead in Samaria. This had been going on for centuries.
The Samaritans didn’t keep the rules the same way the Jews did. To the Jews, Samaritans were spiritual sell-outs, compromisers. You couldn’t hang out with a Samaritan. Just being in the same country would get you contaminated.
Religious people haven’t changed much. I enjoy seeing people’s reactions sometimes. “You hang out in bars? Your wife hangs out in strip clubs?” One time, a lady told us (in a very condescending voice) “well, I guess they need Jesus, too.” Wow, that still makes me mad. Jesus is going to a place that rule-following religious people avoided like the plague.
Vs. 9 - Jesus is breaking so many rules here.
1) He’s in Samaria
2) He’s talking to a woman – alone
3) The woman is Samaritan
4) She’s the town whore. She’s been married 5 times and is now living with a guy to whom she’s not married. She’s at the well at noon, the hottest part of the day, because she knows no one else will be there. She’s an outcast.
5) In that culture, a man did not ask a woman for help, it was beneath his dignity. Especially not a loose Samaritan woman.
Vs. 10 – Jesus is breaking all the rules because he knows people matter more than rules. This woman needs a relationship with Jesus. Jesus refuses to put a rule above a relationship.
They then have this whole conversation in which Jesus points out that she’s trying to find fulfillment in relationships but that only he can fill that void in her life.
John 4:25-30
Vs. 26 – had Jesus been following the rules, he never could’ve had this conversation with this woman. He had to break the religious rules to share God’s love.
Vs. 27 – “shocked” Of course, it shocked the disciples. Here’s the deal, if you’re showing love the way Jesus showed love, it will shock most religious people. Religious people focus on rules and performance. Jesus is about grace and acceptance. The love of Jesus is scandalous.
Vs. 30 – Not only was the Samaritan woman’s life changed. But an entire village of religious outcasts met Jesus. Why? Because Jesus dared go to a place no one else would go.
2 years ago, we launched our Love Wins ministry. Daring to take the love of Jesus to a place where most Christians either ignored, tried to shut down or stood outside with picket signs. 2 years ago, right before our first trip to the clubs, I shared what we were going to do with some pastors at an annual meeting of churches in the KC area. You should’ve seen some of the shocked faces. 2 years later, our DS told the Love Wins story to a couple thousand people as an example of how to share the love of Jesus. We’re going to watch the videos he shared.









Last month, our newly elected Advisory Council heard a proposal from Pastor Andy regarding taking Love Wins to another group of people. Another group that, just like the employees of the clubs, have been bullied by Christians. Who have felt a Christ-dishonoring condemnation, rather than a Christ-honoring love.

Pastor Andy
Today is a big day Trinity Family. Today we continue the story of Love Wins. Before I get to that though, let me begin with a story.The summer before I came to Trinity Family, I lived in Togo, a small country in West Africa. That summer, my team and I saw some of the most amazing things happen. God was all over that trip inspiring us and shaping us in ways we could have never imagined. The story I want to share with you from our trip is about a banana lady, Outside of a massive Shell refinery there was this lady with a small stool, a big pan, and a whole lot of bananas. We would visit this lady when we wanted to buy bananas. One day God compelled us to reach this banana lady. We knew what we needed to do. We bought bananas and we bought bananas and we bought bananas. We bought so many bananas from this lady that it got to the point that when she saw our car she would run after us to sell us bananas. We ate so many bananas that summer it was unreal. We did it so that we could build a relationship with the banana lady so that we could share Christ’s love with her. It wasn’t about forcing Christ message down her throat, it wasn’t about pulling out our evange-cubes it was about building a relationship with a person so that we could show and share Christ love with her. Period. We went that whole summer and all we did was buy bananas. We built a relationship and guess what folks…out of that relationship came a new follower of Christ! LOVE WINS!This is what Love Wins is all about. It’s all about Trinity Family building relationships with people outside of our walls. It’s all about Trinity Family making friends with people that the Church has failed to make friends. It’s all about building bridges where the Church has burned them down. It’s all about a Church letting people know that no matter where you are in life or what you’re tangled up in or where you come from…GOD LOVES YOU!It’s exactly what Christ did. Today Donnie shared a story with you about a woman at a well. A woman that was one of the lowest people in her society. A woman that had messed up royally in her life. A woman that people shunned. A woman that people rejected. A woman that Church people thought God in the flesh should not take the time of day to acknowledge. What did God do? He acknowledged her. He gave her the time of day. He built a relationship with her. He told her God cared. He offered her living water. And guess what folks…out of that relationship came a new follower of Christ! LOVE WINS! God did what he tells us to do. Go into ALL the world. Not just the places we are comfortable but into ALL the world.That is what Trinity Family, through our Love Wins ministry is seeking to do. To go into ALL the world.The woman at the well is strikingly familiar isn’t she? The fact is…after 2000 years, still have those people that we say are just not worth the effort. They are identified by the names Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender. The LGBT. To those people Trinity Family has been called to go and we have answered that call because guess what folks…LOVE STILL WINS!Over the past few months, a group of people, of which I am a part, from Trinity Family have decided to become intentional about sharing Christ love with the LGBT community. We are not doing it by painting picket signs or handing out tracts, or by condemning anyone to hell. We are doing it by building relationships with people. We are intent on loving people where they are just like the God that we follow does because guess what folks…LOVE STILL WINS!Just as Christ did, we have a simple way of how we are going to reach the people that the Church has rejected but that God has called us to love. We will build friendships with members of the LGBT community. We will spend time with our friends showing Christ love to them and letting them know that we are not like all the others who reject them. We will be and are there simply to build bridges between God and the people that He loves... That’s it. It’s that simple. It’s about us being Christ presence in a community and a place where He longs for us to be. It’s all about loving people because guess what folks…LOVE STILL WINS!Got it? …GoodThat’s it folks. That’s what we wanted to share with you today. We wanted to share with you the direction where we firmly believe that Trinity Family is being called to go in.


Pastor Scott
Our small group is currently reading and discussing a book titled, Holy Fools: Following Jesus with Reckless Abandon by Matthew Woodley. In one of the recent chapters we spent time in titled, Demolishing Ghetto Walls, he describes what he calls Christian ghettos and our need to demolish the walls surrounding them. Let me explain.
By observing ghettos we find that they usually form when a minority group feels that it must band together and build walls around itself. A ghetto stems from some basic natural needs for a sense of community, survival and identity. They provide those inside it with security, comfort and a sense of belonging. That’s all good, but here’s the catch: They also tend to neatly divide the world into innies and outies. Ghettos tell us who to exclude.
Now if we’re honest, the Church (in general) has at times done a pretty good job of putting up walls and neatly dividing its world into innies and outies. In this book Woodley challenges this through pointing out that Jesus teaches us differently than what I just described. While it is a natural tendency for us to put up some sort of wall, Jesus teaches us to tear down those walls! Jesus didn’t wall himself in and hang around with people who were like him. Jesus sought after those on the outside. I’d like to read a quote from the book:
“[Jesus] subverted the entire structure of the religious establishment by changing the boundary markers. He essentially picked up the ghetto wall and moved it a few hundred miles down the street. In the process, Jesus blew apart our often rigid social categories of innies and outies.”
What Jesus did was straight up scandalous! Indeed, in many ways it remains scandalous today.
I believe in many ways our church follows Jesus’ model of loving those outside our normative boundaries. And for that I am proud to be a part of this church. This church loves people like no other church I have ever been a part of. But we’re not all the way there yet. We have some distance to travel. I have a passion and hunger for our church to continue to subvert “ghetto wall” mentalities that seek to exclude some people. God is challenging me to find new ways to reach people whom I normally wouldn’t find hanging around church (and as the youth pastor here, I suspect that may include teens). And as God is challenging me, I encourage you to ask God to show you some ways you can do the same. Because in large part, that is what kingdom living is about – loving the so-called unlovable. It is what Jesus did. So let’s do this thing. Let’s let God blow apart whatever amount of ghetto walls we have remaining, and look forward to seeing the amazing things God does in and through this church.

Pastor Donnie

TFC turns 4 years old next Sunday. These past 4 years have been quite a ride. At least for me personally. My understanding of church has changed so much over the past 4 years. I’ve matured, grown and stretched. And every positive that God has done in me as pastor has been the result of me screwing something up in the first place. The thrill of someone meeting Christ and experiencing life-change has been more than I’d imagined. So has the pain of someone walking away from Christ. We’ll keep having ups and downs, sometimes God will move in big ways, sometimes we’ll wonder what we missed.
But I know, in the bottom of my heart, that if we commit ourselves to hearing, obeying and then following the guidance of Jesus, we’ll continue to be amazed at where Jesus takes us.
With that in mind, I want to close with the Good News from Dr. Seuss.
Oh, the Places You’ll Go
It won’t be easy, we’ll get stuck, make mistakes along the way. But this journey of following Jesus is the most worthwhile and rewarding thing we could ever commit ourselves to.

A Letter From Guido

As I get older I realize that a lot of my views on life seem to change. One of them is the subject of religion. I grew up thinking that religion was all about control of the people and if you didn’t fit the mold you were thrown to the other side of the line. Either you’re a good person or a bad person. Most of my experiences with churches have been bad ones. I believed you don’t bother me and I won’t bother you. They criticize you if you don’t follow their rules even if you didn’t know the rules. From what I know of Jesus I thought he talked to all people and did not judge them but explained what they should be doing and let them figure out what they needed to change.
My opinion has changed over time but more in the past couple years. A big influence in my thought change has come about because of a couple, who years ago I would have judged as those church people and avoided like the plague. It all started one day when my door staff guy at work called me and said some church ladies were there I thought “Oh NO here we go again”. (Several years before some church ladies had been in our parking lot picketing and handing out negative brochures.) He said they were leaving some gifts for the girls. I think he asked them if they had paint bombs in them because he was also leery. After talking to the employees and the staff I found it odd they would bring stuff to dancers and thought what’s their angle? So this happened again the ladies came to the door dropped off gifts, smiled then left. I thought that’s nice so I had my bartender put together a basket of nice things for the ladies and drop it off. I later thought to myself “wow I’m interacting with church people”.
As time went on our opinion of religious people changed. We discussed a volunteer project at Our Fathers House in Paola. When we showed up I think Donnie and Erin were shocked not only that we showed up but in good numbers also. Now I’m a big burly guy who is not intimidated easily but I will tell you this was a situation that I’m not accustomed to. I thought wonder what all these other church people think of working beside strippers and people of our sort? Well the answer to that is everything went fine. I actually talked to Donnie for a long time and it was a comfortable conversation and one of the best I’ve had in a long time I really enjoyed our discussions. And I think it opened each other’s eyes a little I know it did mine. I like that Donnie and his group do things more like how I thought JESUS did things. We have done another day at Our Fathers House and hope we can do another one soon.
I have read the church blog and find it interesting that they were as leery of us as we were of them. The staff and the dancers have responded to the ladies in a great manor and we all were happy to find someone to take our Christmas family donations because in the past we have been denied by other religious organizations’ because of what we do for a living. Also we felt the love enough the girls felt they should return the love with baby gifts for Donnie and Erin.
I think this program has even worked on me. One day Erin and the ladies came in and when they left a new girl came up and said “why were they here they’re just here to condemn us for what we do”. I told her that’s not true I told her not to be so judgmental now she’s judging them like she thinks all churches do us. That they are the nicest people you will ever meet. Since then I have had two people ask me what I know about religion and that they were never taught anything about god. So I told both they could call and these people would be glad to help with their questions without judging. Not in a million years would I have thought I would be sending friends to church people to learn about GOD.
So my opinion has changed a lot over the past couple years due to some very different people. So I guess the Love Wins works and I hope more churches learn from your great example. Thanks for giving us a chance to see another side of religion. Keep up the great work
GUIDO

Salvation on the Strip

Check out this article from Craig Gross of xxxchurch, Salvation on the Strip. The way xxxchurch does ministry has really impacted me and has obviously been a huge impact on how we do our Love Wins ministry. XXXchurch is all about taking Jesus to people who would never step inside a church; being the church in culture rather than asking the culture to come to church. I love how Craig is referred to as a "chaplain to the porn industry" and how he's good friends with a guy who is basically a hall-of-famer in the adult film industry.

I also love how xxxchurch isn't afraid to talk about the junk we struggle with, pornography or any other addiction. They're honest unlike a lot of churches. I've been thinking about how we could minister to people struggling with addiction, so I was intrigued by their new ministry Heart Support.

Thank You

Tonight was an amazing, amazing evening. We got a call from Bonita Flats earlier this week, wanting us to come over so they could give us the "gift bag for your baby." Since they'd been so generous at Christmas, I figured this might be a pretty good haul but I was still completely blow away. Between the stuff they bought off our registry, the cash and the gift card, we were given hundreds of dollars worth of stuff! Erin was crying, some of the bartenders were crying, it was a beautiful moment. Guido, the owner said, "no one's ever loved us the way you love us." Guido was also talking about the ways the club has been helping My Father's House since the day we served there last month.

We started Love Wins to share Jesus' love. I had no idea however, how much love we'd be given in return. Had I thought about it though, I shouldn't have been surprised because in the Kingdom of God, Love Wins!!!