A church cannot be a place where we are merely to come together once a week and enjoy our doctrine and congratulate ourselves that we have a faith free from superstition. We must do something for others, as well as for ourselves. And the more we have done for others, the more in the end, we shall find we have done for ourselves.
…Missional Church means relocating to abandoned places of empire but it’s something else altogether to see the empire abandoning them around you quite literally as you set up shop….
Missional Music
…I am open and I am willing
To be hopeless would seem so strange
It dishonors those who go before us
So lift me up to the light of change…
Missional Music
…Oh, I could choose
Not to move but I refuse
To stand and watch the weary and lost
Cry out for help
I refuse to turn my back
And try and act like all is well
I refuse to stay unchanged
To wait another day, to die to myself
I refuse to make one more excuse
‘Cause I don’t want to live like I don’t care
I don’t want to say another empty prayer
Oh, I refuse…
…The only way to welcome change is to have a strong understanding of the congregation’s mission, which is to say, that which commands its very existence. Without a dynamic mission that drives it, a congregation will drop to the de facto, implicit mission of having a community of like-minded people. If this is the goal, people will reject change, because as soon as they establish that community, they will focus on maintaining it, which automatically precludes transformation…
…The house sits on a quarter-acre corner lot in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood. The planning committee stipulated that they find a lot with outdoor gardening space and that it be accessible to public transportation. It’s a gritty neighborhood. Once grand, the area has fallen victim to urban blight, with its crime and unemployment rates among the city’s highest and its household income among the lowest. Next door to the Lucy Stone house is a boarded-up three-story mansion, which has been abandoned for decades….
Go here: http://www.communitiestakeroot.com/Plant/Index
Sign up
Click on “Leaders”
Find “A Third Place”
Vote.
Vote every day for the rest of May.
Help this wonderful UU Missional Community get an orchard.
“…These elements of social capital have long since been stripped from the Abandoned, and justice for the Abandoned requires substantial and personal reinvestment, family by family, block by block. I came away with a deepened attraction that Rev Ron Robinson is on the right path with his Third Place ministry in Turley, OK.
But there are two things about Ron’s ministry that fly in the face of our UU comfort. The first is our love of personal distance. We don’t even talk much about our own personal needs. Hitting a hard time is one of the sure prescriptions for leaving this religion, although the small group ministry movement and the growth of care networks are trying to find a compromise we can live with. And in fact, readers of Ron’s blogs and FB pages will note that his commitment to Turley is centered in lifelong ties, and his extended family is still there….”
“…Getting up and moving to abandoned places of empire is a radical idea. You’ve got to think Adin Ballou would have loved it. What places near you are abandoned? How can you engage them? What marks of the New Monastacism can you take up or take on?”
I believe…people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions.
Red Pill Brethren 