bob.blog: please God, no...

I'm going to tell you about a dream I had last night, and I swear to you right up front- I'm not kidding. If you read my blog much, about halfway in you'll be tempted to think I'm pulling your collective leg, but such is not the case.

I woke up last night sometime between 1 and 1:30 and was unable to get back to sleep. The dream I had been having just prior to waking up got my mind going, and there was no way I was going to be able to get back under...

The dream?

It all made sense in my head...

I dreamed that we had "re-planted" evergreen- That I had moved somewhere different and started fresh, but with basically all the same core folks. But the thing had exploded. In our first week we had 135 and the space we were in just couldn't fit that many. The problem was, as a new church, we just didn't have resources for anything much else...

So here's the part that got me.

I find myself at Mark Driscoll's ranch-like spread in the woods. I know Mark's got a normal house... I was there in late 2000, but in my dream it was more of Len Sweet/Orcas Island Retreat kind of thing. Anyway, I was there which a bunch of other guys being shown around the place and hearing about... Video Venues. (And hoping no one asked about our female elder)

Sigh. I think Darrin Patrick is praying that God messes with me. Or maybe even Driscoll!

Here's the thing. The last two Sundays we've seen record numbers. Last Sunday, so many people it was a bit scary. I don't anticipate they'll all be back, but we're really pushing it. We're bigger than we know how to be, are structured for, have space for...

And there are only a limited number of options.

We...

1. Do nothing. The problem will take care of itself when people come to the community on Sundays and find it too crowded or when people don't talk to them because it's too big to know who's new, and so they choose not to participate. They may or may not be a part of the community other times, but probably not.

2. Move. Find a different space. See if there's some space, maybe even around the Lab that would work. 24-7 space could be very cool for us in many ways, but the truth is, we just can't afford it right now.

3. Start something somewhere/somewhen else as a transitional step towards planting when the right leadership steps up. Over the course of a year-year and a half transition it to being it's own thing... basically, this would be a second service at a different time or place... but there are other reasons why I think that this would be a tough sell and a hard thing for our community to pull off...

4. Try to plant something now with less-than-optimal resources - which in my mind basically means cutting some people loose into a house church thing without a pastor. (Something I really don't want to do, and something I don't think evergreeners are interested in- if they wanted house church, why would they be at evergreen?)

See, none of the available options really sound good to me.

Feels like we've been here before... And as I thought about my dream today, I realized (as all dreams like this are) that this was about the feelings I was experiencing as I dreamed. For me, it was a deep and heavy sense of being caught betwixt and between. Not wanting to lose any opportunities, any chances with people, but also not wanting to sell out the deep philosophical commitments of our community. The dream told me I'm very afraid of having to do something because of the reality of the situation that I would never choose to do in an ideal situation... something that works but doesn't really match our core ethos... and so, in the final analysis is less than true to who we've been all along, and therefore negates much of what has come before.

Oh... and though I know that ultimately we do all this for the glory and fame of God and the good of the city of PDX and those who will come into relationship with God through evergreen, it is a bit of an added thing to know that people are watching...

Lord... please give us wisdom and unity even as you give us growth. Please...

2 Comments

I have been praying and I think you should do video venues in various bars throughout P-town with your female elder co-teaching on the screen with you. If you guys quoted, Driscoll, Rick Warren and Pagitt in every sermon you could effectively anger everyone in the blogosphere and your rankings would go up on your blog.

Won't heaven be great when we can laugh at all of this stuff.

Congrats on the growth and I sincerly am going to pray for wisdom for you and evergreen. You have a great heart for evergreen that convicts me everytime I read your blog.

peace and clarity to you and the elders,
darrin patrick

Posted by: | September 27, 2006 at 07:58 PM