Open House Update

Charles Kiser —  February 12, 2009 — 11 Comments

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:

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Gathering

In Storyline, Videos, Worship Gathering
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What are Leaders?

Charles Kiser —  February 4, 2009 — 7 Comments

I attended Leadership Network’s Innovation3 Conference last week in Carrollton.

I had the opportunity to share a table with Neil Cole at a luncheon he was hosting to talk about his book Organic Church.

The basic premise of the book is that church is most the church when it is small and highly reproductive. Cole focuses on making disciples who make disciples and start new churches – even in the confines of people’s homes or in coffee shops.

Cole is a part of a resource network called Church Multiplication Associates (CMA) and calculates that CMA on average sees two new churches planted every day (that’s right, it adds up to 730/year).

We’ve been facing leadership development challenges in the Storyline Community — in a good way. More people are participating than we have leaders to lead.

So, wondering what might be ahead for us, I asked Mr. Cole: “How long does it take before a person becomes a disciple and is able to lead and care for a house church?”

Cole said, “Well, that’s easy: 3 years, 6 months, 29 days, 8 hours, 22 seconds.”

And he stared at me.

Then he put his hand on my shoulder and said, “You know I’m making fun of you, right?”

I said, “Yeah, I got that.”

He went on to say that there’s no formula or identical pattern for developing leaders.

Then he said something very profound that I’ve been chewing on this week.

“In the institutional paradigm, leadership development is about getting people to do something for you (e.g., lead a group, teach a class, preach a sermon, develop curriculum, etc.).

“In an organic paradigm, leadership development is discipleship. Leadership is about following Jesus so closely that other people want to follow you because they think by doing so they might also be able to follow Jesus more closely. Skills and logistics flow out of a disciple’s relationship with Jesus.”

Then he put in a plug for his new book, Organic Leadership.

He’s right. The easy part is teaching people the skills of event planning, conversation facilitation and connecting with people.

The hard part is seeing passion for God cultivated in people such that it’s contagious and other people follow because they want that passion.

It challenges me as a leader, too. Am I contagious? Are people following because they see a passion for God in me that they want? Am I a person of character?

Those are much deeper questions than “Can I run a leadership development group well?”

I thanked Neil Cole for being patient with me. I’m still deprogramming from institutional ways of envisioning leadership.

In Leadership
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Open House

Charles Kiser —  January 26, 2009 — 3 Comments

open-house-invite

It’s hard to believe we’ve been at work in Uptown for almost a year. God has been more than good to us.

We want to invite all of you to join us for Storyline’s Open House event, a way we’re “opening our doors” to many of our friends.

We’ve intended for this event to serve a few purposes: to introduce Storyline in a more formal way to the broader Uptown community; to show our church partners and friends what we’ve been up to in the past year; and to announce that we’re here to serve alongside those who are already serving our area for the sake of justice.

Please make plans to join us on February 8th. We’d be honored by your presence.

In Church Planting, Storyline
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Financial Sustainability

Charles Kiser —  January 20, 2009 — 3 Comments

money2One of the biggest challenges we face in planting the Storyline Community concerns Storyline’s long-term financial sustainability.

Fund raising, budget planning, fostering generosity, you name it — it’s hard work. It’s been on my mind a lot lately because we’ve been planning the 2009 fiscal budget.

Don’t get me wrong: we’ve been blessed immensely. God has dropped more-than-adequate provision into our laps up to this point and used it to confirm the calling we’ve heard into church planting.

But it’s hard work discerning how to manage it well.

What’s particularly hard is the guesswork required in budget planning at these stages in the church’s life.

There are questions related to finances that we have no way to answer with certainty: How much will Storyline grow in the next year? How much will Storyline give? How much should we plan to spend in ministry as this community continues to grow? What will it take for Storyline to reach financial sustainability within 36 months of our start?

We’ve spent hours with projections, number crunching, charts and spreadsheets.

In the midst of it, it’s been tempting to think of ways to strong-arm the process and “do whatever it takes” to achieve financial sustainability.

But I’m convinced that we could concern ourselves so much with the financial sustainability of Storyline such that we neglect seeking the more important elements of spiritual sustainability — particularly in relation to Storyline’s mission of being the church for the sake of our broader community.

We want to be smart. We want to plan well. We want to make good financial decisions for Storyline.

But we will resist the urge to “get pragmatic,” in David Fitch’s words, for the sake of getting people “in the doors” (i.e., apartment home doors) so that they’ll give and we’ll be able to continue playing the church game. The day we stoop to such measures is the day we cease to be the church.

I’m also convinced that Storyline will never be self-sustaining.

Storyline will always be dependent upon God to sustain it.

I’m choosing to believe that if we concern ourselves with being the church God is calling Storyline to be — a community of dependence, mission, life change and genuine relationships — that God will see to it that we are financially sustained.

What challenges my faith is knowing that many new churches have set out on mission and not reached financial sustainability for whatever reason — and have, as a result, been forced to hang it up.

Only God can sustain us.

Please pray that God would give us wisdom and good stewardship. Pray that God would continue to sustain the Storyline Community in every way.

In Finances, Sustainability
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Friends on the Journey

Charles Kiser —  January 12, 2009 — Leave a comment

Storyline presented $1000 to Pam and Randy Cope, directors of Touch A Life, this weekend at our worship gathering. I’m so proud of the many people in the Storyline Community who gave generously for it to happen.

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I’m so glad we engage in God’s mission in the context of community. I’m thankful today for mentors in mission who have provided encouragement and counsel to me for the task of church planting.

Like Mission Alive, our church planting resource organization. I’m encouraged and challenged every month in our Church Planter Forums.

And Harold Shank, my church planting coach, who listens often to my struggles and worries and offers deep wisdom.

And Tim Lewis, an elder and staff person with South MacArthur Church (our primary partnering church). I look forward to my monthly breakfasts with him.

And Ryan and Claudia Porche, who with great flexibility work with my “on the fly” style of ministry.

And my wife, who – even while making great personal sacrifices for church planting – reminds me that we’re supposed to be doing what we’re doing.

And as of late, an unexpected blog mentor named David Fitch, whose posts have strengthened me and offered affirmation that we’re not crazy for seeking to be the church the way we are. Plus he had great instincts for naming a church (the church he planted is called Life on the Vine Christian Community).

For a good article of Fitch’s that I’ve appreciated, click here, where he debates the contention that missional churches don’t produce converts.

I believe that much of what we’re doing in the Storyline Community — though in Dallas, TX we may be — tracks with the kind of post-Christian realities of which Fitch speaks.

For you church planters who are reading and need a good dose of encouragement from Fitch about seeking financial sustainability in missional church planting, click here. You might even bookmark it and return to it from time to time, particularly after budget meetings! Okay, so that’s exactly what I’ve done.

Feel free to leave a comment on how Fitch’s articles encouraged or challenged you.

In Church Planting, Evangelism, Mentoring
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