bob.blog: Some community moments...

Some community moments/snapshots from evergreen

One:

We've had a number of cool evergreen weddings in our short history, but tomorrow marks a first: The first time two people who became a part of evergreen separately, met and courted as part of our community, and are now getting married!

I think this is amazingly cool- The couple put their wedding day on a Sunday afternoon, so they could be there at the gathering on Sunday morning and so we could all, as a community, do something special.

Towards the end of our gathering, we'll have a time for Sarah and Jonathan to say something to the community, and for the community to say something to them...
And, in a practice borrowed from Quaker communities, they'll ask everyone present to sign a special marriage certificate.
Very cool.

Two:

Two Evergreeners, Brian and Starla, have recently adopted three children... It's an amazing story, and if you haven't heard it, you should read this...

We had a shower for the Goffs a couple of weeks ago, and it was beautiful to see the response from our community- just a huge outpouring of clothes and toys and parenting equipment...

Here are some words from Starla:

Words just aren't enough to tell you guys how much this community has meant to us. Every piece of clothing pulled from the closet, every toy thrown across the room, cup used, video played, and game won or lost remind us how you guys came along side of us to help us love these kids. Yes the thank you notes are coming, slow but sure. But in the meantime, I just wanted to let you know that we are reminded of your generousity every moment. Thank you.

Three:

From nearly the beginning of evergreen's history, we have supported another church in town, The Bridge, in their efforts to reach homeless teens. Now, one of the pastors of the Bridge, Ken Loyd, is branching out to begin something new called HOMEpdx, specifically targeting being a church community for homeless teens. We'll continue to support Ken and his efforts financially, but even more so... We're sending at least one couple along on the adventure, Nathan and Jessi Willard. Here are their words:

"Ok Evergreenies-- It's time to officially let the cat out of the bag: Nathan and I have joined Ken Loyd, co-pastor at the Bridge, as part of a core team that will be planting a church in downtown Portland for homeless youth (as Ken would say, for our friends without houses). The church is called Home PDX, and our vision is to create just that-- a home for those that are lacking a home-- either physically, spiritually, or both. We are in the planning phase right now, meeting together on Sunday mornings to pray, plan, discuss, and get to know each other. We don't yet have a building, but we have some leads and our hope would be to have something up and running by the end of January. We have an eclectic mix of people on the core team, all with huge hearts and great vision and a desire to move in the direction God is moving us. And lots of tattoos and piercings... =) A little of our story on how we came to be here... for both of us, even before we were dating or married, we felt that God was putting the desire in our hearts for church planting, specifically with a goal to reach those who are not being reached by the traditional or quasi-traditional church (especially in Southern Oregon where there is nothing of the Evergreen sort). Finding Evergreen over a year ago excited us both a lot, as we saw the same desire in the hearts of many people who were actually reaching the kind of people that we were hoping the church would open its heart to. And we have loved being a part of this community. Long story short, we met a few people in the past 6 months who have been involved in church planting and have had opportunities to share ideas, get advice, and learn a lot ... we both came to a place recently where we felt that we were ready to jump in with both feet. We had no idea what this would look like or when it would be, but to be honest, we thought it would be part of an Evergreen plant. About a month ago, we were sharing these desires with our home group and prayed for specific direction... the very next day, Nathan got an e-mail from Ken that said "Bob said I should talk with you guys". We met with Ken soon after that and when we left our meeting, Nathan and I both knew that this is where God was leading (almost gently shoving) us to be. And there was no looking back from that point on. We were in with both feet."

Putting them together, bringing them into community, sending them out... The rythyms of comunity.

3 Comments

Thanks for posting this, Bob. But to clarify why this picture is so amazingly unflattering, we'd been up for nearly 20 hours and were sitting in the Prague airport waiting for hours for our ride on one of the most miserable days of our life...

Posted by: nathan | December 09, 2006 at 11:10 PM