In deciding what my aims are here, I am already defeating part of the object of the experiment. It's been my experience that some Christian leaders seem to mess up people's lives rather than help them on their way, so my aim is to steer people to what God is already doing in their lives, which means a differnt type of leadership. My hope is that in all of this, God meets us in the everyday events of life and in each other's lives. A personal text for me here is John 4 - meeting Jesus at the well.

So far we have a wide range of people interested and what was originally intended for busy people has attracted those for whom conventional church does not always currently provide the answers to questions, so before we begin, we have changed a little from the original plan - I will have to expect that if I am holding this loosely.

Objectives:

1. Try to establish a living community 7 days per week that doesn't have to meet weekly


2. Consider an embryonic dispersed monastic community with a rhythm of life


3. Become missional, incarnational, and discover Christian spirituality


4. Be as leaderless as possible


5. Encourage everyone to participate with the Starbucks mantra, 'The Way I See It'


6. To discover that God is active by seeing Him at work in others

There are alot of objectives here and I do not anticipate that they will be met in everyone, but rather that everyone can access them if that is their need. Some of us have been Christians for a long time and others of us would not consider ourselves Christian at all but are critical of Church. We are a broad group but if God is real, then He is active in us all - right here, right now at this time.

Not long now

Just a few weeks away now. I don't think I've had any response to the advertising in the village magazines (with the exception below) nor to the ad in the library. What I did was to leaflet houses in a particular village and now I have had two firm responses. Someone from the other side of the world (literally) phoned me as they had received the village magazine and wanted my e mail address, but I haven't heard from them as yet.

My hope was not to get people who are already active in churches as they bring with them lots of preconceived ideas of who God is/isn't. My hope is to get people who are interested in (re)discovering God in a fresh new way. In fact, I want to do that too. This means that we will be relying on God to lead and direct us in a new way. In the next post I'll outline what I want to achieve, but it really is up to God.

Can I do this with two people? Is this Church? Can it survive with so few people? I hope we will have two more people to start with, but I'm not in charge here.