Tuesday in the Fourth Week of Lent
I returned from my Florida travels late yesterday afternoon. Sunday was a wonderfully full day reconnecting with old friends and meeting some new ones. The St. Peter's community continues to seek ways in which it can offer a witness for the Gospel in an area that has changed dramatically demographically and economically over the past two decades. There is a great deal of positive energy in the place and I was honored to be a part of it again.
One key component to the Southern cultural experience is "church". I was reminded again just how central involvement with/in a congregation is in that part of the country, and how openly people talk about their particular community of faith. From what I could tell, most congregations were reaping the benefit of the growth in the area. But the congregation that seemed to be generating the most "buzz" around town is a new (around a year old) non-denominational church called "Journey Church" ( http://www.thejourneyfamily.com/ ).
This congregation, which meets in a former K-Mart store, is presently averaging somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 or so in attendance every weekend. One of my relatives visited there recently and took note of the fact that she was the only person in the congregation over the age of 55. Apparently the worship experience has a high production value and even at this stage of the congregation's development there is a full slate of programming for all ages. The focus of the congregation is relevance and mission. One of the stories about the congregation that was told to me by at least a half dozen people was the huge Christmas event they put together last year -- raising over $120,000 and providing Christmas gifts to around 300 families (800 children).
Granted, this church is in a part of the country where the soil is fertile for new congregations, but there seems to be a good deal of organizational momentum even at this early stage in its life. And even though I'm one of those staid, careful Episcopalians, I have to admit that I'm intrigued about the way in which this congregation has gone about engaging the community of which it is a part.
For what it's worth, I find myself praying that rather than dismissing efforts like "Journey Church" out of hand (or attempting to copy their programming with a mainline twist), those of us in more established denominational traditions would open ourselves to the possibility that the wind of God's Spirit continues to brood over the Church in all of its diversity, breathing new life and new energy into the proclamation of the Good News of the Gospel.
I returned from my Florida travels late yesterday afternoon. Sunday was a wonderfully full day reconnecting with old friends and meeting some new ones. The St. Peter's community continues to seek ways in which it can offer a witness for the Gospel in an area that has changed dramatically demographically and economically over the past two decades. There is a great deal of positive energy in the place and I was honored to be a part of it again.
One key component to the Southern cultural experience is "church". I was reminded again just how central involvement with/in a congregation is in that part of the country, and how openly people talk about their particular community of faith. From what I could tell, most congregations were reaping the benefit of the growth in the area. But the congregation that seemed to be generating the most "buzz" around town is a new (around a year old) non-denominational church called "Journey Church" ( http://www.thejourneyfamily.com/ ).
This congregation, which meets in a former K-Mart store, is presently averaging somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 or so in attendance every weekend. One of my relatives visited there recently and took note of the fact that she was the only person in the congregation over the age of 55. Apparently the worship experience has a high production value and even at this stage of the congregation's development there is a full slate of programming for all ages. The focus of the congregation is relevance and mission. One of the stories about the congregation that was told to me by at least a half dozen people was the huge Christmas event they put together last year -- raising over $120,000 and providing Christmas gifts to around 300 families (800 children).
Granted, this church is in a part of the country where the soil is fertile for new congregations, but there seems to be a good deal of organizational momentum even at this early stage in its life. And even though I'm one of those staid, careful Episcopalians, I have to admit that I'm intrigued about the way in which this congregation has gone about engaging the community of which it is a part.
For what it's worth, I find myself praying that rather than dismissing efforts like "Journey Church" out of hand (or attempting to copy their programming with a mainline twist), those of us in more established denominational traditions would open ourselves to the possibility that the wind of God's Spirit continues to brood over the Church in all of its diversity, breathing new life and new energy into the proclamation of the Good News of the Gospel.
posted by FrGaryB | 5:24 AM
2 Comments:
Hey Gary, welcome home. Did you actually visit Journey Church or just hear about it? Their web site fascinates me because you have to really dig a bit to recognize it is a church site and not a skate shop. What is the median age at that church, if you know?
I didn't go to a worship service at the Journey Church...I simply heard about it from a number of folks who had attended there. Based on what people told me, I would guess that the median age is in the upper 20's to lower 30's.
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