In taking with Dustin about starting a new Evergreen Community gathering we began to ask some questions that are hard to answer within the context of the church, especially without losing focus on being the church or why we exist.
The language of these questions is not refined and raw. It expresses what were thinking, not any kind of sensitivity to culture within or without the church. I would like to wordsmith these when I get the chance.
Here are some of the questions:
As we lead this new community…
…how do we know we are “winning?”
…how do we know we have accomplished something?
…how do we know where we are deficient?
…how do we celebrate growth/wins.
We want to seek answers to these questions and not rely on just some visually perceptible answer like numbers. (e.g. If we are growing we are healthy and what we are doing is good.) Plain numbers are a hallow indicator of progress and growth. There are so many other things that could be going wrong or not happening at all that would indicate unhealth, but are not perceived with counting bodies or dollars.
1 comment:
A couple of thoughts...
Not so much a "new community", but that's just nit picky :)
Still part of the same evergreen community and so success will probably be what it always has been-
Do we love everyone God brings us to the best of our ability?
Are we communicating the Gospel?
Are we living the Gospel in our interactions with each other and with those who aren't a part of evergreen, particularly the poor?
That's how we defined success at the beginning- I think it's still a pretty good way to look at it...
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