Some of you may be wondering what was up with the tags on our last round of rosters. I have fielded a few questions and responses to the new tags and it seams that some clarification would be helpful. So let me lay out what we are doing, why we are doing it, and possibly the most important. what we are not doing.

What we are doing:
Lets start with what I am talking about. On the latest roster (Census) form there was a section called Tags, with following options:

Men Only
Women Only
Singles-college
Singles- career
married-young
married-seasoned
Kid Friendly
meals

With instruction to tag all that apply. The purpose is to describe your current group not define your current group. By describing the group you are merely saying this is who is here, you are not restricting it to other demographics. You may only check one box if that is all that applies, however most groups will be made up a mix of people from different life stages and will check multiple boxes. So of your group is ” women only”, you would check that box but also check the boxes that describe the women in that group, single, married, ect.

Why we are doing it:
Tags serve a couple of purposes. The first is to help us understand who is in groups and who is not. We can simply look at this information to determine what life stages are engaging in community.
The most significant reason however, is to help us to assimilate new people into groups. If a single mom with kids is looking for a group, the tags help us quickly identify what groups are set up to welcome kids. As well, if an older couple is looking to mentor young single folks they may look for groups that have those particular tags. The reality however is that most people are looking for a community of people feeling the same pressures and having the same interest as themselves. That is a reasonable desire and although we would love to see groups that are made up of folks that span across different life stages, we realize that is not always attainable.

What we are not doing:
We are not attempting to separate or define groups by these tags. If groups naturally develop an affinity identity we are not going spend energy trying to “diversify” that group, however, and our expectation is that any such group would still be open to people of any life stage.

So. please take the time to check the tags that apply to your group so we can better help plug people into the community of Mars Hill Church.

If you’re like me, there were moments in the How People Change conference, when you were tempted to dismiss the significance of some of the illustrations. “Yeah, like that’s a big deal: frustration in traffic, Paul arguing with his wife about the most direct route, Tim’s momentary reaction to his daughter’s disrespect. Hey, let’s not trivialize the depths of sin, here. Use some more shocking examples, please! You know, real sin…”

And then I caught myself coming to recognize these mundane moments for what they really are, unguarded moments that expose what’s really in the heart. I see that, actually, they show sin to be a much greater enemy than if we only paid attention to those BIG “sin moments”. That’s because those mundane moments happen all the time. Everywhere in life. So the battle against sin, and the “droppings of the heart”, are everywhere.

For those familiar with Grace Groups and S.A.L.T.S. groups, we call this “processing the here-and-now.” Those subtle interactions in the group that might seem disconnected from the members’ stories, but actually are vital clues to understanding what’s really going on in the gut.

Don’t believe that these moments really count? Then what did Jesus mean in Matthew 12 when he said, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks…I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak…”?

careless words? You’re telling me I have to give account for careless words?

Thankfully, Jesus has already paid the price for every careless word I speak. Now I can honor the costliness of the price he paid by paying attention to what those careless words say about what’s still in my heart, what work He still wants to do in me, and take seriously my responsibility for the harm I cause others around me by those careless words.

As I gave this blog entry some thought, I recalled writing something similar on my personal blog about a year ago: Words at the Tip of the Iceberg.

Has anyone else checked out the book “Relationships: A Mess Worth Making“? It’s a new one by Tim Lane and Paul Tripp, the guys who wrote How People Change and presented it at the training conference in Ballard this past weekend.

First thing I noticed about the Relationships book was its cover. Clearly they are trying to appeal to a younger and more street level audience.

Next, I flipped through the pages and noticed that they begin each chapter by quoting music lyrics. Not hymns. Not “Contemporary Christian” stuff. Legit stuff like Radiohead, U2, The Vines, Oasis, Wilco, and Bright Eyes! I just laughed out loud and said, “Who’d these guys get to do their research? Because they must have been listening to Seattle’s indie radio station, KEXP.”

Well, at dinner Friday night, I asked about this curiosity, expecting to hear their confession that they did a little “market research” for this one. Paul Tripp flatly replied, “yeah, Tim and I just pulled those out of our personal collections…” I thought he was being sarcastic, and I played along! To the point that I later apologized that I might have insulted him. He was serious! I back-pedalled :-)

He already knew the title of the new Wilco album, which was just released less than a week ago!

So anyway, I gotta hand it to them. They’re actually in touch. I don’t know why I’m so surprised. But it’s refreshing.

Oh, and Paul’s an abstract painter too. Check this out…

The How People Change conference at the Ballard campus was a blast this weekend. Energy was high. Lots of learning. Felt good.

In the closing comments, I challenged conference participants to commit to a “next action” with the curriculum, and I asked them to tell someone what that next action would be–before going to bed Saturday night.

“Will you work through the curriculum on your own? With your spouse? Informally with a group of friends? In an existing team meeting context? With your existing Community Group?”

I said, “you don’t have to eat the whole elephant at once, just eat the first bite tonight–commit to your next action.”

Well, I had my next action in mind on my way home from the conference. And I admit, I forgot to tell my wife before I fell asleep last night. But this morning, we nailed it down! We already have a bi-weekly time scheduled on the calendar for devotions together, and we’ve agreed to spend that time working through this curriculum as husband and wife. Having done that, my new next action is to increase that commitment from bi-weekly to weekly!

What’s your next action?

The Problem:

Your Community Group Pastors have been very concerned about a trend we’ve noticed lately. Some newcomers to Mars Hill are being shunned from the very community that we’re trying to call them to. We do sympathize with the pain that many groups feel when they’ve grown beyond a healthy size, and we want to offer help to address that pain. At the same time, it is crucial that amidst the pressure of dealing with such large groups, we do not lose sight of our call to biblical hospitality–loving the stranger.

Word on the street is that some newcomers will contact a Community Group to join, and are told that the group is too full and to look elsewhere. These newcomers become understandably frustrated and feel rejected rather than welcomed, and, at worst, may lose hope of getting plugged into the community altogether.

This is not fitting for God’s missional community. Your pastors are calling you to the attitude of hospitality that God intends his people to show, as an expression of his own heart of compassion, kindness, generosity, and sacrifice.

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