The Journey to My Living Room

It's been ten years this November since we left Missoula and moved to Austin.

The past decade marks the longest span Marilyn & I have lived any one place, and from the looks of it we won't be leaving any time soon. So I find it helpful to reflect what God has done during this season of our lives – in Lazarus, in the church, in us – and also, what he might still be doing...

Frankly, it feels like something is happening in our living room right now.

All Souls is still a tiny little church. We still fit in my house (barely). Each Sunday, we still gather to worship, pray, ask questions, share, and most importantly learn about the biblical Jesus. We share meals. We share life. It's not rocket science. Mostly it's just good ol' fashioned Christianity (circa the first few centuries AD).

Over time, some things have changed: people come and go (in any church), and Austin is a particularly transient place – so in terms of names and faces, All Souls has changed a lot. By my count, our little church has "turned over" at least three times over the past eight years. In 2019 we needed two different two houses on Sundays; then COVID happened and we pivoted to three+ houses meeting simultaneously over Zoom (ugh!); then we shrank by 30% by the time it was over; and now we all fit in a single house again. That's a lot of change.

But mostly we are still the same. We still exist to help ordinary people learn to read, pray, hear God speak – and then respond to what he is saying by stepping out in faith. I still think this house-church / bi-vocational approach – this "dual calling" in the direction of work, and also ministry – is the best thing that's ever happened to me as a pastor. (And I still believe ordinary Christians ought to see themselves as bi-vocational, too.) Most importantly, I remain increasingly convinced that homes are one of the most cost-effective, culturally-effective ways to be a part of what Jesus is up to in post-Christian America.

(I'm not sure how many church-folks are ready for this house-church thing yet – after all, it requires giving up on "the show": the staff, the buildings, the programming, the packed auditoriums, the comfort of being part of a crowd – but plenty of un-churched, de-churched, post-church folks are interested enough to invest 3+ hours every Sunday to be a part of it... I find that fascinating!)

Like I said, it feels like something new is happening at All Souls right now.

Historically, we have always grown very, very slowly. But over the past year, a curious cast of characters has found their way through our door. We've got a handful of people who are (or until recently, were) non-Christians – we baptized one of them back in June. Last month, I wrote about Maria (a troubled young woman with a lot of baggage – she's asking you to pray for her, by the way, as she seeks to be obedient to Jesus in regards to her relationships.) Maria is coming regularly now, and she recently brought a Hispanic family along with her, refugees from Honduras (with zero English), who need lots of help. She herself is getting involved. ("I've never done anything like this before," she told me recently.)

In the last month, we've met a handful of "poor and broken" folks who live right here in our neighborhood – guys who have spent time on the streets and in prison, and now they're living in halfway houses and looking for community (and we get to help with both of those things). We've had a lot of new faces recently, coming from unexpected places, and a lot of them look like they might stick.

I had an email the other day from a young guy who lives 35 minutes away. He was raised Christian, but walked away from his faith years ago. Now he's trying to find his way back. His wife (raised Jewish) does not believe at all, but she has lots of questions. They have a 3 year old daughter. They want to figure things out.

I think All Souls is a good place for all these people.

But (once again), we have a growing problem: Where to put them all?

For three of the past four Sundays, we've had almost 40 people in our living room. (If you've ever been in our little house, you're probably laughing at the thought!)

At this point, conventional wisdom says, "Time to rent space!" (Grow, grow, grow!) For a variety of reasons, I think God might be inviting us to avoid that option.

[Note: I'm not suggesting the conventional path is wrong per se, or wrong for everyone; I'm just saying that I don't think it's right for us. Why? Here's one simple reason – our little church generates about $50-60K in giving each year, 70% of which goes to meeting practical needs in our community; this is good, but we'd like to see mercy expenditures grow to 80% of our budget this coming year. The simple reality is this: renting any kind of space for worship would eliminate most (if not all) of our resources for meeting needs in our community... and that would change us deeply as a church! I am unwilling to make that concession.]

In the past, I led multiple services in different homes. But I don't think I have enough "gas in the tank" to do that now.

Of course, we led multiple houses simultaneously (via Zoom) during COVID. But there are some drawbacks to that too – the largest being, you need strong leaders to guide a house. And right now, we are still sorely lacking leadership.

If there's anything I am certain of right now, it's this:

1. We need more space
2. We need more leadership
3. We need to continue to make room for the poor and broken (people in need, people who are searching, people who are not your typical church people)

(For those of you who pray – that's your list of things of talking points, and we'd appreciate it if you'd get after it. Also, ask God to give us eyes to see and ears to hear – we humans can be pretty thickheaded some times, so what we really want more than anything is for him to make our path clear...)

I have a couple of ideas about possible solutions. One is this: I find myself wondering what it would be like to have a second house within fifty yards (easy walking distance) of our current one. There's one for rent just a few houses up. And there are a dozen new condos for sale just past that (they'll hit the market in December).

So I wonder what it would be like to have a neighboring living room for overflow worship, or as space to host a second lunch conversation. I wonder what it would be like to rent rooms to people like Maria, or the Honduran family, or they guy who just got out of jail who is trying to get back on his feet. We could do all of those things and more if we had a second home.

But I don't think Marilyn & I are in a position to take on a second mortgage right now. I'm not sure anyone in our church is either. And I'm not sure if that's what God is up to.

But I know this: at the rate we're growing right now, we are going to need to find a way to start worshipping in a second house again, probably within the next six months. And that's a great problem to have.

Now we just need to see what God wants us to do next...

Appreciate your prayers.

Christian