Important News from the Swain Family

 About a year ago Lori and I took a vacation to go to the Pacific NW and visit our friends Jacob and Tania Bailey. We lived and worked side by side with the Baileys during our time in Spain and upon returning to the states they moved to Salem, OR. Their plan was simple, get a job and pour yourself into loving your neighbors in the local community.

After visiting Lori and I felt a strong desire to move right away to Oregon and join them, but that didn’t seem prudent and we figured it was just a passing whim. However, during the following weeks and months we continued to feel drawn the Pacific NW and I began to hear Oregon talked about everywhere (books, the TV, movies, movies, you name it). Still not wanting to be rash, Lori and I began talking with friends and mentors and as a family we began to pray about what our next steps should be.

So, to make a long story short we have come to the decision to move to Salem, Oregon. In our quest to live out our faith missionally and incarnationally in the community (These two words simply refer to the concept of Life is Ministry) it is our desire to find gainful employment in the Salem/Portland area that will afford us the ability to connect with the local community in Salem. In ministry terminology this is referred to as tent-making (the term comes from the Apostle Paul and his ability to pay the bills by making tents).

We have been very blessed, honored and thankful for our time at Harvest Community Church over the past three years. This time has been extremely valuable and formative in our lives and we have so many great friends at HCC that it has been very difficult decision for us to make. We have felt fully supported and encouraged by Harvest Community Church and its leadership throughout this entire process. We only hope that we have been as much of a blessing to our friends at Harvest, as they have been to us!

Three ways we could use your help at this time:

1) Networking

I just arrived in Portland this morning on a networking trip to Salem and the surrounding areas. I have scheduled some interviews and several meetings over the next couple of days with local business and ministry leaders, but I don’t want my time to go to waste while I am here. If you have in friends in the Salem/Portland area that you feel comfortable connecting me to, then drop me a comment in this post. I would love to connect with as many people as possible while I am on this trip.

2) House for Sale

We have a beautiful 3 bedroom ranch in the Hoffman/Schaumburg area that is for sale. If you or anyone you know is in the market to buy, Cornerstone Reality will be hosting an open house this Saturday from 1-3pm at 605 Mohave St. Hoffman Estates, IL.

3) Prayer

We cannot tell you how much we appreciate your prayers! Moving is never a simple or easy task. We would just ask for your prayers for our family as we plan to make this move. 

Innovation3 Follow Up

Ok, so it was very silly of me to think that I could possibly unpack what I heard in the last 24 hours on a blog. It is just not possible. What I will do is try to write out some very brief and pithy main ideas that I am taking away from from specific people who I heard at this conference.

Gary Gaddini- "A missional focus is the greatest discipleship tool for the church."
Brian Mills- God is at always at work everywhere, we must seek him and join him."
Reggie McNeal- "Church is not a "what", church is a "who".
John Jenkins- "The greatest hindrance to the next move of God is the last move of God."
Ed Stetzer- Talked way to fast and said way too much to take away any one thing. He posted his entire notes from his talk at Ed Stetzer.com
Nancy Ortberg- "Innovators should have a great list of failures. We must be cautious not to criticise new ideas too soon or too quickly."
Bob Roberts- "Where Hell is breaking loose, God is already there, so let's join Him."
Kent Schaffer- Regarding the use of technology: "At the end of the day the thing that matters is relationship."
Mark DeYmaz- "1 in 2 people in the United States will not be White by 2047 (this according to the US Census Bureau)."
John Bishop- "87% of churches in the USA have plateaued or are declining in members"
Greg Surrat- "How will the attractional model of church hold up in a resource poor environment?"

Sub*Text Forum

I just got back form the Sub*Text forum in St. Charles, IL. Al Hsu who is the author of The Suburban Christian was the keynote speaker. I also had the privilege of meeting Steve McCoy and Joe Thorn, whose blogs that I follow.

Anyway, here are a few of the things that Al shared which stuck out to me as we thought about and discussed missional living in Suburbia.

Suburbia

• Multi-faceted and complex
• Suburbia is a significant mission field
• USA is third largest mission field in the world.
• 150,000,000 live in Suburbia (This is equivalent to the size of 7th largest country in the world)
• Suburbia is now the center of technology, factories and major employment companies
  
• More people in the USA live and shop in the suburbs than in the cities.
• Reverse commuting is very common phenomenon.
• The suburbs are rapidly diversifying.
• The world is coming to Suburbia.
• The suburban life is a spiritual quest. People move to Suburbia for the promise of what will be.

Some questions for Churches to ask themselves

• How can you church be a gift to your community?
• When we practice hospitality what does that look like?
• What is our church called to do in our community? What is our niche?
• What first drew members to this church?

Ed Stetzer and David Fitch Discuss Missional

Last week at the Seeding Missional Communities (non)Conference David Fitch was one of the speakers. This video is a discussion between him and Ed Stetzer as they unpack the current Missonal Movement in Christianity. It is great discussion, however I must warn you that if you are not a ministry leader this may not excite you at all. Also, the intro is pretty long so skip to one minute and thirty seconds to get to the good stuff.


Ed Stetzer & David Fitch - a missional conversation from Missional Tribe on Vimeo.

Seeding Missional Communities Conference

This coming weekend I am heading to a seeding missional communities conference. It's a free one day conference and if you are interested in finding out more go here.

Emerging, Missional, Mosaic, and Monastic

Tom Sine does a great job identifying and giving brief descriptions of these four different kinds of activists and innovators within the church in his article Joining the Anabaptist conspirators. It is a good read especially if you have been hearing some of these terms thrown around and wondering what people are talking about.


Thanks to TSK for posting on this.