The Storyline sermon machine is up and running.
We’ve posted a couple of conversations from previous worship gatherings if you’re interested in listening to them sometime. The machine comes complete with a digital Bible for those who like to follow along.
There’s also an option to subscribe to the podcasts via iTunes.
Click here to see the new podcasts page at storylinecommunity.com.
You might also be interested to check out the photo and video galleries under the media menu.
What a great weekend! It’s almost surreal that Open House has come and gone. We had anticipated and planned for the day for many months.
120 people showed up to celebrate with us. Some came from our partnering churches and resource organization. Some responded to the postcard invitations we sent out into Uptown. Still others were friends who responded to various personal invitations.
The energy in the room was palpable.
We showed the new Storyline film, created by Patrick Cone, to kick off the morning. You can now see the film, as well as a new photo gallery, at the Storyline website.
Our framing story for the gathering was John 11:1-44, the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. We talked about the way God through Jesus desires to bring resurrection and life into our present circumstances.
One of my favorite segments of the day was at the very end of the gathering — we invited representatives to the stage from eight area organizations who serve the Dallas community: Addison Rotary, Apartment Life, Center for Nonprofit Management, Central Dallas Ministries, Dallas Junior Chamber of Commerce, North Texas Food Bank, SoupMobile and the Stewpot.
We committed to join them as they worked to “implement the resurrection of Jesus” in the city of Dallas. We told them we were proud of them and that we noticed the important work they were doing even if no one else did. Before we prayed for them, we read this blessing over them from N.T. Wright:
…What you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that’s about to roll over a cliff. You are not restoring a great painting that’s shortly going to be thrown on the fire. You are not planting roses in a garden that’s about to be dug up for a building site. You are — strange though it may seem, almost as hard to believe as the resurrection itself — accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God’s new world. Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and for that matter one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world — all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make. (Surprised by Hope, p. 208 )
I had a God moment after I was scurrying around trying to get ready for the concluding prayer segment. Others in the room were participating in different stations — communion, journaling, conversation and prayer.
Then in the midst of my busyness, a friend who we’d invited to come to the gathering approached me. He was weeping. He had encountered God. We prayed together and shared a special moment. He’d never been to a Storyline gathering before.
It was clear to me in that moment that the Holy Spirit was powerfully at work in his heart. It was as if God took me by the shoulders and shook me a little bit, saying, “Don’t miss it!”
Enjoy a few pictures from the day:
Yesterday was a wonderful day in the life of the Storyline Community. Our first worship gathering went off without a snag.
No explosions. No violence. No earthquakes. No fainting. It was great.
Thanks to all of you who have supported us in prayer as we prepared. I’m so proud of my team. All of us worked together with God to do something greater than ourselves.
We talked yesterday about the story of Zechariah and Mary (Luke 1:5-56). One doubted God’s promises; the other trusted. One decided it wasn’t worth the risk; the other decided it was.
Contemplative Stations
For all the challenge of planting a church, I’m sitting here this afternoon thinking: It’s worth the risk. God is worth the risk.
And of all the amazing ways to bring our gathering to conclusion – one of our Storyline people decided that yesterday was the day for him to declare that God is worth the risk of faith.
Sergio Sanchez doesn’t have much in terms of a spiritual/religious background. He grew up in Spain where most of the people he knew were atheists or agnostic. One of his parents is nominally Catholic; the other non-religious.
Sergio Sanchez
He’s always sensed that God was there. Sergio came to the US this past summer to teach Spanish in the Dallas Independent School District. We connected to him through a mutual friend and he began to explore the story of God more deeply.
Yesterday, Sergio made God’s story his own story and was baptized into Christ.
Sergio wore and old shirt that he used to wear for good luck and then threw it in the trash after he was baptized as a way of symbolizing that the new creation is here: the old has gone, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17).
What’s great is that Sergio’s parents were visiting from Spain and were able to see it. The don’t speak a lick of English, so our first baptism ceremony was bilingual. Sergio’s girlfriend, Kara, translated for us and did a marvelous job.
The Water Was Cold
Rejoice with us for the ways God is alive in the Storyline Community!
What we’ve been working toward for the last couple months is coming to fruition this weekend with the first monthly worship gathering of the Storyline Community.
Thanks to all of you who prayed that we’d find a venue to meet in — we did, and the doors opened for it in providential ways. Why did I doubt?
This is a new beginning for Storyline, though perhaps not in the same way the first worship gathering is for many new churches.
For many church plants, the launch of the worship gathering is a sort of grand opening — the birthday of the church.
When asked when they launched the new church, most church planters respond by mentioning the date of the grand opening worship gathering.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with that.
But Storyline’s worship gathering plays a different role. In the Storyline Community, the worship gathering demonstrates that we’ve succeeded in developing a network of house churches that now need a gathering in which they can come together for mutual support and celebration.
The launch of our worship gathering is not the launch of Storyline as much as it is an outgrowth of our house church network.
In fact, Storyline actually launched on May 4 when we started the first house church gathering. We launched again in the middle of October with the start of the second house church gathering.
And hopefully we’ll launch many more times in the future…one day sending teams of people who will go elsewhere to begin similar networks.
Rejoice with us as this community of house churches comes to life further through the advent of the first worship gathering. It is in a small way God’s own advent in Uptown (though he’s been here all along, of course).
On February 8th, we plan to host an “Open House” worship gathering where we’ll invite all our friends, partners in mission and the Uptown community to get a glimpse of what God is doing in the Storyline Community. The venue for the occasion will be one of Uptown’s coolest…we’ll keep you in suspense.
Everyone is invited.
We hope in that gathering to say thanks to our friends and supporters and also to pledge to our community friends that we are here to serve the cause of justice and mercy in our city. If Uptown Dallas is not a better place for Storyline having been here, then we are failing in God’s purposes for us.
Please pray for us as we continue to arrange the details for the weekend. We want more than anything for it to inspire people to trust God more deeply in their lives.
You can read more about our gathering at www.storylinecommunity.com/upcoming-worship-gathering.
In the Storyline 