And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge -- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. [Eph 3:18 ]

Surely, the Spirit of God is at work in our midst! And the kingdom of God is much wider and deeper than we imagine...

This was plainly evident as a group of eleven from our faith community experienced the presence, power and provocation of the Spirit last week at the Vineyard Northwest Regional Gathering. I was so thankful for Rose Swetman's leadership and to be a part of this Vineyard family. It was sooooo good!

As I have been thinking about how to distill the richness of teaching, stories, encouragement, and experiences of the presence of God, I have returned to three themes that seem to be at the very core of our community.

The Journey Inward. The Journey Outward. And how we are called to Journey Together.

[Elizabeth O'Connor wrote about these themes extensively as she shared the story of The Church of the Savior; and as The Practicing Church, we also use the language around practices of Formation, Mission and Community that lead us into Faithful Presence.]

I believe that the Spirit is prophetically and provocatively calling us to Journey Outward: to realize that the kingdom of God is much wider than we can fathom. To let go of our fear, denial, complacency and even our complicity -- and to follow Jesus to the edges. Ray Bakke opened up the scriptures the first night in a way I have rarely experienced as he spoke about the inclusiveness, scandal and diversity of the church. Jer Swigart followed the next morning with a compelling call to peacemaking and loving the "other" as the central movement of the gospel. And so we were invited to the edge of our comfort zones, our world views, our theology and our practice. To rethink what it means to follow Jesus through the lens of our sisters and our brothers who are oppressed, who are suffering, those who are facing the unimaginable -- misunderstood, feared, abused and hated. We were called to lay down a version of the gospel steeped in Western Imperialism and to reconvert to the gospel of Jesus. And the punches kept coming through the radical stories we listened to. Stories of saying yes to working with children with disabilities, walking alongside immigrants and refugees, the experiences of injustice of people of color to why the millennials don't think the church cares about what they deeply care about. So many stunning stories. And I believe the prophetic call of the Spirit is challenging and provoking us to awaken from our lethargic and comfortable brand of Christianity to the dare of the gospel.

At the same time, I believe that the Spirit is wooing us, inviting us into the Journey Inward: to realize that the kingdom of God is much deeper than we know. As we encountered the Spirit of God again and again ministering to us through the times of worship and prayer, one thing was clear to me. We need the Spirit so desperately. We need to be immersed and deepened in our experience of the presence of God in our lives and in our community. David Ruis modeled this so beautifully as he spoke and led us in the movement of the Holy Spirit. This is the union we are created for, the water our hearts thirst for, and the life that will sustain us. So we are invited. To sit in the loving gaze of God, to bask in the presence of the Spirit, to worship as we were created to, to practices of prayer, solitude, and stillness, to invitations to listen, reflect, heal, grow and repent. To be vulnerable, to come as we are - in all our glory and our shame. To be transformed, sustained and renewed in the presence of God in the rhythms of our ordinary lives and as we gather together as the beloved community.

Which brings me to the Journey Together: to realize that none of this makes sense without the deep commitment and sacrifice of shared life along with the wide, extravagant welcome that acknowledges that no one is outside God's love. We belong to one another. We are inextricably bound together. One of the really sweet parts about coming together as the people of God is the sense of being connected to a larger family, belonging to this beautifully diverse community and being a part of something bigger than ourselves. Not only did we experience this with our Vineyard family across the region, we also experienced this with each other as we shared our hearts, our laughter and our longings around the fire pit each night. And I believe that this is a work of the Spirit for our entire community. That the Spirit is knitting us together in deeper ways as we share our lives -- our fears and our dreams, our wounds and our desires -- and commit to one another for the long haul. And even this past Sunday as a dear sister walked through our doors, who come to find out had been a part of our Vineyard community in Kenya, I was struck with the beauty of being family, part of this beloved, diverse community that will one day gather around the throne worshipping with one song.

My heart is full of so much gratitude and hope for what the Spirit is doing in our midst. Let us continue to allow the Spirit of God to wake us, provoke us, and stir us that we may grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. That we would journey outward toward the "other" to love our neighbor as we journey inward deeper in our life and union with the Spirit, journeying together to learn what it means to see and be seen, to hear and be heard and to know and be known. That we would indeed know this love that surpasses knowledge -- that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

by Jessica Ketola

Resistencia Coffee. Resisting the forces of gentrification in South Park, replacing it with gente-fication by creating a place for the community. Cote, with sparkle in her eye and joy in her step believes. Anything is possible. Si se puede, for the Spirit is at work. Just ride the wave. Tim, also beaming with pride, offering pastries, welcome and hope. Colorful art painted on the wall, a welcoming play space for littles, the turquoise chairs on the patio, the open garage door that invites everyone in the neighborhood to come together, to share laughter and tears and stories, to resist empire and to live into a new way of love and community.

Guadalupe House, the Tacoma Catholic Worker in the changing Hilltop neighborhood. Paul and Elizabeth’s warm welcome and commitment to this place. Nora’s wisdom. Tales of being with the vulnerable, being human, and being formed. Gus, living among, creating spaces for music and art and conversation. The Madrinas, offering their fierce and tender care for this community. Papusas, lumpia, the nourishing food from garden to table, the cozy living room with the shag carpet, the history of saints who have gone before − here in this place, a story of faithful presence over decades. It is stunning. The vibrant murals, the shelves of canned delights, the handsome chickens, the expansive gardens, the quiet spaces of reflection, the big, long tables on the patio, indicative of the wide welcome and hospitality of this place. The beams of wood that have been stretched and bent in the winter seasons just like the Catholic Workers who live here − to be a garden of peace and beauty, a place to sit down and rest, and a fountain of life. 

Trinity Presbyterian. Church of the Stranger. Matthew and Rod. Over a century of rootedness in the Bryant Neighborhood, like an ancient tree offering shelter and hospitality for all. The history of a dying congregation catching sight of a new vision to serve the community, tutor children, offer soup, relationship and hospitality. A brick and historic structure now falling down, a journey of deep listening, another big, bold and beautiful dream emerging for The Bryant Neighborhood Center. Stained glass windows in which the light of God shines through illuminating the paths of the neighborhood. Surely God is here. Here for good. 

Eloheh Village Farm in the quaint and rural community of Newberg, Oregon. Randy and Edith Woodley welcoming us around the fire. Hospitality is the new missiology. Bourbon and drinks, forgotten s’mores, a beautiful folk song, laughter and slumber parties. Traditional wisdom, shalom, the harmony way for the community of creation. The permaculture of indigenous wisdom enriching the soil, huckleberries, walnut trees, ancient squash, three sisters, a sweat lodge, the wonder of a greenhouse with tall artichokes, ancient watermelon and a new variety of tomato plants. Listen. I believe in the seed. Listen. We are family. Listen for the ancient wisdom. Honor the land. Look for what is invisible. God is vulnerable. To follow Jesus is to be vulnerable. The opposite is indifference and superficiality. Look for what is forgotten, for it is the wisdom needed.

The Oregon Public House in North Portland. Where everyone knows your name. The first nonprofit pub in the nation. Drink a pint and change the world. Local craft beer; tall, welcoming booths; delicious Reuben’s and sweet potato fries. A wall of pint glasses inscribed with the names of founders who had faith to see what was yet unseen. The Play and Swap Co-op. The Village Ballroom. Children’s concerts and community events. A center of life for the Woodlawn Neighborhood and The Oregon Community. Ryan Saari and his team, just foolish and audacious enough to imagine another way to be the people of God. Where neighbors living out the way of Jesus together are the sign of the kingdom -- no need for the A-Board. 

James Helm in the reclaimed Rocky Butte neighborhood of Northeast Portland. A fire in his belly to follow the way of Jesus and to love his neighbor. The scourge of 82nd reinterpreted through new eyes of hope. A Zen Garden that makes paths through the wilderness once deserted by the people of God. A slow work, a faithful work. Of front yard barbecues, a community garden, a street mural, a neighborhood newsletter, a farmer’s market, and a dream of a coffee shop. All on the streets once known for violence. Faithful presence that invites prayers with neighbors for peace, small dogs and the redemption of this place. 

I loved this article by Karina Kreminski, author of Urban Spirituality​, Embodying God's Mission In The Neighborhood, on a recent Missio Alliance Blog and asked her permission to repost it here. 

                        __________________________________________________________________________________

NT Wright has written:
Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord’s prayer is about.

We’ve just come throught the season of Eastertide in which we continue to think about what it means to “practice the resurrection” in our daily lives. What does it mean to live daily as people who are a foretaste of the kingdom? What does it look like to embody the fragrance of heaven here on earth as we wait for the consummation of the reign of God?

In my last article I wrote:
Instead of practicing a Gnostic Christianity, or holding to an eschatology that leads us to thinking that we will ultimately live a disembodied existence in a ghostly place called heaven, we must see this world as our home and engage in homemaking practices or habits that will help us work with God to bring his rule on earth. And we must do this locally because the local space is where God has placed us to be God’s shalom to our neighbors as we work together for God’s rule to manifest.

If we are to work with God’s mission to proclaim and embody his shalom in our world, then we must see this world as our ultimate home that God is bringing to restoration. This means that instead of primarily seeing this earth as our place of exile, which is a popular Christian metaphor for our relationship to the world, we see ourselves as homemakers in a reconstruction plan that is God inspired and designed.
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If we are to work with God's mission to proclaim and embody his shalom in our world, then we must see this world as our ultimate home that God is bringing to restoration.

To Join God’s Mission is to Be a Homemaker

To be a homemaker does not mean that we can become comfortable. In our culture, homemaking can have connotations of settling down, insularity, and becoming complacent. Rather, homemaking from a missional perspective means that we discern the Spirit of God who is on mission in our neighborhoods where God has placed us. We bring affirmation to the places that represent the shalom of God. We disrupt and subvert the places that do not.

So what are some homemaking practices that we can be engaging today in our local neighborhoods? Here are three of them: celebration, re-enchantment, and placemaking.

1. Celebration

When we celebrate, we challenge the status quo which mocks us by saying “This is all there is.” When we celebrate, we embody hope—which is a subversion of our culture of despair.

Everyone on earth is acquainted with death, grief, and despair. We live in the “in-between times” where we wait for the consummation of the reign of God. There must be more room in Christian worship for lament, solidarity with those who suffer, and righteous anger towards the dark powers in our world.

However, we must not forget that our ultimate posture is joy because of the victory of Jesus Christ over those dark powers which cause such despair. As the authors of Slow Church write:

The resurrection of Jesus relieves us of the fear of death. ‘Where oh death, is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?’ (1 Cor 15:55). But the fuller story of the New Testament is that God’s people have been resurrected as the body of Christ. Just as Jesus is the embodiment of the shalom that God intends for creation, the church’s role in the drama of creation is likewise to be the embodiment of God’s shalom, albeit in a form that hasn’t yet been fully realized.

A characteristic of this shalom? Joy and celebration. These are foundational for God’s people as we make our pilgrim journey in our ultimate homeland.

As we work among the poor and the marginalized, we will often be plagued with feelings of inadequacy. The challenges of ministry in these broken places can be overwhelming. Most missionaries in these grief-filled contexts also make a habit to practice celebration—not only to create a positive atmosphere, but to prophetically embody the coming kingdom when we will see the death of death.

We can celebrate the progress that our neighborhoods are making towards God’s shalom. We can affirm people when they take small steps towards healing and breakthrough. We can celebrate community groups as they work to relieve inadequacies such as homelessness.

What if Christians were known for hosting and attending the most parties and events that celebrate the life of your community?

Where can you see God’s shalom peeping through the darkness in your neighborhood—and how can you then celebrate that?

2. Re-enchantment

In his book A Secular Age, Charles Taylor writes that the sacred has been stripped from the daily stuff of life. Contrary to Christendom—where church bells rang to call the faithful to prayer and buildings were designed to inspire awe of the merged power of state and Church—today we have no daily reminders of the sacred in our public life.

However, there are still traces of the sacred in the midst of a secular society.

People in our neighborhoods may not find these sacred spaces in churches or liturgy, but there are places in our neighborhoods that can provide context for the sacred.

Madeleine L’Engle has said in her book Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art:
There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation.
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If we believe that our neighborhoods are sacred in that they are places where God’s Spirit is at work, then what does it mean to bring about “re-enchantment”? Phillip Sheldrake in The Spiritual City: Theology, Spirituality and the Urban says:

Re-enchantment seeks to make public space more than a context for human socialization created purely by consumerism or tourism. Rather, we should work imaginatively and experimentally with public space to make it the medium for a transformation of imagination and behavior through protest gatherings (non-legislative politics), art, education, and entertainment.

This means paying detailed attention to our place. It means working to redeem broken spaces in our communities. It means creating objects, activities, and gatherings that are helpful for people to connect with a sense of their own spirituality.

What does it mean for you to “re-enchant” your neighborhood?

How can a sense of the “sacred” be made visible for your community?

3. Placemaking

​Re-enchantment leads to placemaking as a homemaking practice.

Again, this is about the practice of an embodied, deeply incarnational theology that understands that this world is our ultimate home.

Placemaking relates to the humanizing of a city or a community. Often designers plan cities with technology, cars, and production in mind.

But placemaking seeks the betterment of the city by advocating a more humane approach to design and planning—through mediums such as art, community consultation, and even action-research.

There is continuity between this world and the next. It is our responsibility and privilege to be placemakers in our local neighborhoods, redeeming what is needed and affirming what already exists that is good, just, and true.

In every sense, place-making is about beautifying, engaging with, and contributing to the local city neighborhood for its good. We can do this by engaging with local community groups involved in the design of our neighborhoods. We can also do this by making friends with local artists who work to bring beauty to the places where we live.

Making A Home in Your Neighborhood

What is the vision of “the good neighborhood” God would have for your community once you tell and embody the story of the reign of God in that place?

If we engage in homemaking practices, then we will be at work with God on his mission to bring his shalom into our world. We will then be the fragrance of another reality in a world that longs for the manifestation of a hope that can truly be trusted.

Homemaking from a missional perspective means that we discern the Spirit of God who is on mission in our neighborhoods where God has placed us. Here’s three practical ways we can enter into that work.

Last weekend, we celebrated Pentecost as we gathered for our Community Creativity Session to dream together and reimagine what it means to live out the gospel together in our neighborhoods. We took inventory of all the gifts within our faith community and our neighborhoods and we were overwhelmed with the abundance of what is possible. And the Spirit began to breathe on some collective ideas and there was some good energy around continuing to explore where the Spirit is leading us.

And then as we gathered for worship on Sunday, Carrie Cates spoke so eloquently to us about the gift and the wonder of the Spirit -- and how we as followers of Jesus and as part of His body are filled with the Spirit. And one line that keeps reverberating within me is this.

Through the work of the Spirit, we have enough.

We have everything we need to be faithfully present to God and to our neighbors. We have everything we need to live into God's Dream. We have enough. We are enough. We don't have to wait until.... when.... if.... this and that happens... when we get healed or free or trained or we get a different job or our kids grow up or we win the lottery.

The Spirit within us is enough.

And this seemed to coalesce so beautifully with Saturday's Creativity Session. As we did our asset mapping, we experienced an epiphany together.

There is more than enough.

There is an abundance of riches. And anything is possible.

For with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. -Matt 19:26

And what you or me on our own could never accomplish, WE can. What we would never have the bandwidth or skills or energy to do on our own becomes possible with the power of the collective WE.

Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much. -Helen Keller

And not only possible -- FUN! You could feel it palpably in the room! To begin to realize that all the dreams that seem so far out of reach are actually possible! And that there is deep meaning, connection and joy found in the discovery of abundance, creativity and shared gifts.

For me, this is the dream. When we all come together in the community to share our small gifts, a few fish, a couple of loaves, a gift of finance, a gift of cooking, a gift of gardening, a gift of therapy, a gift of wood working to experience the miracle. To bear witness to what happens when the same Spirit that multiplied the fish and the loaves for the multitudes breathes on our humble offerings.

And so I believe that the Spirit is inviting us to dream big.

​This was something that was discerned in our time together. That if we shoot for Mars, we just might end up on the Moon. And so I believe that the Spirit is inviting us to leave behind our worldview of scarcity and all the reasons why we simply cannot live into the dream to turn towards a worldview of the kingdom that says...

There is more than enough.

In fact, there is an abundance. And all thing are possible with God. And it's going to more wild and challenging and joyful and meaningful than we could ever imagine.

Those who sign on and depart the system of anxious scarcity become the historymakers in the neighborhood. -Walter Brueggemann

The Spirit is here. Pouring out dreams and visions and fresh revelation and imagination that are prophetic invitations to us in our day and in our time. And these dreams are for everyone, regardless of gender, class, age and race. This big and beautiful Dream of God is for everyone!

So go ahead.

Dream big.

‘In the last days,’ God says, 
‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. 
Your sons and daughters will prophesy. 
Your young men will see visions, 
and your old men will dream dreams. 
In those days I will pour out my Spirit 
even on my servants–men and women alike– 
and they will prophesy. (Acts 2:17-18; Joel 2:28-29)

​by Jessica Ketola

This Sunday we will celebrate Pentecost, the birth of the church and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles even as we come together for our Community Creativity Session in our own holy huddle to wait for the inspiration and empowerment of the Spirit. We will commemorate the bestowal of the Spirit’s gifts that enabled the apostles to leave the Upper Room and preach the Gospel just as we will wait for the Spirit to enable us also to leave our safe and silo'd lives to be good news to our neighbors. And we will remember that God is with us, from Creation to Mount Sinai to Pentecost to today, the presence of God upon God's people, revealed in wind and fire is our beautiful Holy Spirit who is continuing to lead us just as the cloud of shekinah glory led the Israelites through the wilderness. 

Pentecost derives its origin from a Jewish Festival called the “Feast of Weeks,” otherwise known as the Shavu’ot, which celebrated God's providence and the harvest of wheat. The Feast of Weeks, deriving from the Greek word Pentekostos (meaning “fifty”) occurs fifty days after the Passover. Shavu'ot soon came to commemorate the covenant God established with his people through Moses on Mount Sinai as many believe that Moses received the Law on Sinai during the Feast of the Weeks. And so just as the shekinah glory descended on the mountain as God bestowed a covenant with God's people, so the Holy Spirit descended in the upper room as God bestowed a new covenant of his blood. And gifts were poured out in abundance, hearts were emboldened, and the all inclusive sweeping nature of the gospel was made known as a multicultural crowd heard this revolutionary message in their own language. And the Church was birthed as three thousand hearts were compelled to join God's dream in the world, fulfilling the words of the prophet Joel.

‘In the last days,’ God says,
‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
Your young men will see visions,
and your old men will dream dreams.
In those days I will pour out my Spirit
even on my servants–men and women alike–
and they will prophesy. (Acts 2:17-18; Joel 2:28-29)

This Saturday, as The Feast of Weeks begins, we will meet for our Community Creativity Session to celebrate that God's Spirit has been poured out upon all people. And we will remember that we are a part of this sweeping story of God that is so much bigger than ourselves and includes everything and everyone! We will pray for the Spirit to move upon us so that every man, woman and child regardless of race, class, gender or difference can hear the good news in a way that makes sense to them. And as we stir up creativity and imagination, we will pray for the gifts of the Spirit to be poured out upon us propelling us into God's Dream for our neighborhoods. And we will prophetically call forth that which is unseen. We will share visions and dreams. And we will pray for the Spirit to continue to birth her work among us.

​by Jessica Ketola

I was recently asked to share my story at the Inhabit Conference on April 27-28, 2018 in Seattle and so thought I'd share it here as well.

This is my story of the foolish and audacious yes -- a glorious and daunting tale of saying yes to what the Spirit is birthing in our community. And it is not for the faint of heart. But I believe that this is what the Spirit is up to today. Beckoning us to leave behind what is familiar, we are being asked to cross the threshold into the wilderness. To leave behind what is dead and lifeless and the systems of oppression to step into the new, into life and into freedom. To let go of our own small, individual stories to be invited into a much larger story that is so compelling, it is worth giving our lives to.
 
foolish and audacious yes #1
Five years ago, my first foolish and audacious yes was to sign myself up for a program called Leadership in the New Parish. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had never attended the Inhabit Conference. I didn’t really know much about the Parish Collective. All I knew was that I was desperate to find a way forward and to explore new practices and paradigms for church.
 
For I was well aware that our current models were for the most part failing us, and yet I was still very much immersed in them. At the time, I was the associate pastor of a small but vibrant Vineyard community church in Shoreline, Washington, where I also served as the director our local nonprofit, Turning Point. But while there were only a few of us who lived in the community where our church building was located, we had intentioned to be a presence for good in our neighborhood. We were following the missional conversation and longing to practice the way of Jesus. And so we did a lot of listening -- opening up our building to be a cold weather shelter, being a part of community round tables, starting a food bank giving garden, birthing a nonprofit, and investing in immigrant youth and families in the neighborhood. And yet in spite of all of this, we began to see that our model of church was actually at times working against us - working against the embodiment of our faith to live into the teachings of Jesus in a transformative way.
 
And so over the course of that year, I began to have a new imagination for what the kingdom could look like in my community and in my neighborhood and it set me on a trajectory that has forever changed the course of my life and of our faith community.
 
foolish and audacious yes #2
And so my second foolish and audacious yes was to the invitation of the Spirit to move into the neighborhood. We sold our home. We uprooted our family of 6. And we took some huge risks. Because we weren’t entirely convinced that this neighborhood stuff would really work in our suburban/semi-urban context. We didn’t look like many of the neighborhoods that were having success in more urban and walkable neighborhoods. But would it work here? And would we be able to transition our commuter church to have an imagination to root in our neighborhoods? Was this even possible?

Now I wish I could tell you that it all went glowingly after this. But as we journeyed to follow the Spirit into the unknown, we found that often life comes out of death. New paradigms are birthed out of disorientation. New assignments are born out of scattering and wilderness. This is the way of the Spirit, of transformation, of death and of birth.
 
And so our first attempts at neighboring were pretty much a flop. Who knew it was so hard to get to know your neighbors? We held barbecues in our front yard that no one came to. We baked cookies as offerings of friendship that were never returned. I have vivid images of my husband who would literally run after the neighbor’s car down our driveway just to say hello.
 
foolish and audacious yes #3
Our third foolish and audacious yes was to disrupt the status quo in our faith community. And this is where it got real. We were growing increasingly discontent with the way that our lived experience as the church was forming us and how irrelevant we seemed to our neighbors. So we entered a community discernment process and made the decision to move our regular Sunday service to a Sunday night dinner church and the whole thing blew up. I mean, for real. The ugly church stuff that those of you who have lived through are now having PTS symptoms just thinking of it, and half of our community left. I know this may not be exactly heartening to you. But it is what happened. It was horrible. Awful. I cried every day and at times, our lead pastor and I considered just giving up, throwing in the towel and going to work for Amazon. We felt disillusioned and disoriented, and yet somehow through it all, the Spirit sustained us.
 
foolish and audacious yes #4
It was less than a year later when I said my fourth foolish and audacious yes -- which was the biggest yet (you think I would have learned my lesson by now) -- but I said yes to step in as lead pastor. Utterly foolish after our beloved pastor of 20 years was forced to resign suffering from congestive heart failure. This was another huge blow. Utterly audacious to believe that there was still hope for our struggling and now traumatized congregation.
 
But I had this crazy good dream, this fire in my belly. You see I had no interest in doing church if it meant more of the same religious activity. In fact, I wanted nothing to do with it. But this dream. Where our neighborhoods are pulled into shalom, seeking justice for those without power and privilege, where everyone across difference, race and class are coming together to seek the flourishing of our communities. The hope of seeing God revealed here in us, the body of Christ - where our neighbors begin to see that God is for them, where church is experienced around the table, and hopes are shared on the bus and the coffee shop and the community forums. This, this was compelling.

And so this is where the story gets crazy good. For we as the church are celebrating Eastertide and we know that there is life after death. And I have seen miracle upon miracle of this spirit of resurrection at work in our church and in our neighborhood. It has been just over one year since we re-launched The Practicing Church in our living room and I’m beginning to believe that this dream is actually possible. We have seen many miracles of the Spirit: sending us people across the country to join us; opening up housing so that we could live in proximity; miracles of finances and jobs in the neighborhood; miracles of friendships and shared life with our neighbors as we share a weekly meal together and connect over parties, fire pits and summer bbq's. And we are beginning to be a part of the fabric of care here, active in our neighborhood associations and schools, hosting a social justice book club, participating on diversity and equity task forces, breaking bread with our immigrant neighbors and continuing to be faithfully present to children and families through our after school tutoring program.  
 
And I feel like I’m home. I no longer feel the incongruence and disconnects of my former church experience. And while we are only just beginning to live into God’s dream, learning what it means to be faithfully present, it feels resonate and integrated in a way that I have never experienced before. And yet we still don’t know what it’s going to look like. We are staring into the darkness of the unknown, waiting for the Spirit to lead us on. But we believe with all of our hearts that the Spirit is birthing something new in the church, inviting us to believe that there is a better way - to live as a beautifully diverse beloved community into the dare of the gospel.

And so the question remains.
 
Will we be just foolish enough?

Just audacious enough?
​
To say yes?
 
“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied: ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’” -God Knows by Minnie Haskins

by Jessica Ketola

We continue to celebrate the joy of Easter, new creation and life bursting into our lives and our community. For we truly believe that God has a big, beautiful Dream to bring shalom, justice and love to our neighborhoods, and that we are to be a part of it!

And as we talked about last Sunday, if our WHY as The Practicing Church is this Dream of God, the renewal of all things, then our HOW is the stunning work of the Holy Spirit present and active among us.

I'm very excited for this Sunday as Rose Swetman will be with us speaking about the very real and active presence of the Holy Spirit among us. For we want to be a people of God's presence, filled with the power of the Spirit. This same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. [For a deeper dive, check out these short videos from Vineyard USA about the Holy Spirit.]

And while we love the Spirit of God, the work and the empowerment of the Divine in our midst, we know we are to live this out in an embodied way. We see this model beautifully in the life of Jesus. We want to be a people grounded in the love of God and love of neighbor. And we will hold fiercely to the tension of being a people of God's presence and power while being rooted and grounded in love in an embodied way in our neighborhoods.

Here is a beautiful story of presence and place from some folks in our Vineyard family in Campbellsville, KY.
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Coffee That Cultivates Community

For what happens when we combine the divine resolve and power with human, embodied agency? Walter Brueggemann would say, "The outcome is a human agent who can act and dream outside imperial reality. And dreaming outside imperial reality, that human agent can begin the daring extrication of this people from the imperial system."

Agency Plus Resolve, Walter Brueggemann, Journey to the Common Good

In other words, freedom, shalom, and renewal happens. Resurrection happens. And we see the movement of the gospel story, of Exodus, of a people leaving empire and slavery to step into human agency as people of God's presence. God's dream is realized when we join God's plan, purposes and presence with our human embodiment to be the hands and feet of Jesus here on the earth. Here in our homes, our neighborhoods, our schools and our work places.

My prayer for you this week is that you would be filled with the presence of the Spirit everywhere your feet walk this blessed earth and every time your hands touch the stranger, your neighbor and those you love. May you feel the life-giving, creative breath of God bringing you and your neighbor to life, awakening dreams and desires, and renewing and redeeming everything and everyone.

Be filled with the Divine Spirit and be embodied and present in your places!

by Jessica Ketola

This is Holy Week. A week full of table turnings, parables that point towards a reckoning of some sort, and an unnerving and poignant last supper where Jesus washes the feet of his followers and redefines what power looks like. And of course, the passion of Christ. The one who had all power and might, who had all things at his disposal, who chose to give up all power and humble himself to die a death of thieves. A king who suffered the injustice of accusation, mockery, betrayal, torment, beatings and indignities until his ultimate humiliation and anguish on the cross.

All this for LOVE. Love that conquered evil. Love that conquered death. Love that has the power to redeem and reconcile everything and everyone.

Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. [John 15:13]

All this for US. The objects of God's love and affection. The friends of God. The recipients of this abundant new life and freedom. Awakened now to our true vocation to co-create healing and renewal in the world.

This is the redeeming work of God. This is the ministry of Jesus. This is what the Spirit is all about in the world. Calling us out of death into life. Calling us out of darkness into light. Redeeming the most twisted and painful stories of heartbreak into something so achingly beautiful that we are overcome. Compelled like Mary to fall down at the feet of Jesus and to break open the alabaster jar as the tears fall freely.

There is something so cosmic and yet so personal about his death. Redeemer of all creation who subversively conquers evil for all people and for all time.

And my friend. I imagine having dinner with Jesus in his final week. The richness of friendship as he ate at Lazarus' home. The shocking intimacy of Mary anointing Jesus' feet. And the even more scandalous act of Jesus' washing the feet of his disciples, of washing my feet.

And it is hard to wrap my head around Jesus' passion and humiliation on the cross.

As I consider the cross, it invites me to an extravagance of worship and to a deeper surrender of all I hold dear. Jesus gave His all for LOVE. And this love invites and compels me to do the same.

My prayer as we journey through Holy Week is that we will encounter the extraordinary love and grace of God and hear the invitation of the cross. To die so that we might live.

This extraordinary love and grace that means nothing until it becomes an embodied experience. Until it fills flesh and bones til they tremble. Until it is shared around dinner tables and community forums and across socioeconomic and racial divides. Until it humbles us, enlarges us, and transforms us to be more fully human. Until we grasp that this divine love is both profoundly cosmic, larger that we can comprehend, and yet deeply personal and more intimate than we want to believe. 

As I consider my neighborhood, this holy ground, this patch of the earth where God has placed me, the neighbors I know, the neighbors I don't know, the needs, the gifts, the inequities, the dreams and the struggles -- I want to be a part of the ache and the beauty here, to give up my small and piecemeal life to enter into the much larger story of redemption and renewal that includes all of us. To bear witness to the creative life of the Spirit that is making all things new, even me.

by Jessica Ketola

Join Us For Easter!
We will celebrate this new, abundant life, this creative, energizing spirit bursting into the world, and the power of love. Join us for a service, easter egg hunt and a brunch as we put on our dancing shoes, throw our heads back and proclaim that LOVE WINS!

The thing about fasting is hunger.
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I'm hungry today. For food, yes. But even more, for the Spirit to birth God's purposes in us. Whatever this is. This big beautiful dream to share life together as followers of Jesus embodying love in our neighborhoods -- so that our neighbors can actually taste and see that God is good and begin to experience the grace and shalom of the kingdom. This is what I'm hungry for.

As we were praying this morning, I was overwhelmed by this. I could feel the tears of intercession and the fire in my belly. Oh, how I long for us to see the truth of who God is. Not the monster gods of our own shame-laden and fearful imaginations. Punitive, unyielding kill-joys bent on moral policing and who's in and who's out. This is not the God I know. Nor is it the God portrayed in Jesus.

If there is one reason that makes me just crazy enough to attempt pastoring a church, this is it. The glaring discrepancy between how most of my neighbors perceive God and the truth of who God is. I grieve over this. I grieve over the ways that I still don't get it. I grieve over the layers of bad news that the church has propagated that actually serve as barriers to the grace of God.

This beautiful, extravagant, abundant, scandalous grace.

If ever there was a time for good news in the world, this would be it. Jesus came at such a time too. And he proclaimed and demonstrated a new day of grace and the end of religion. This is something I can get behind -- something I don't mind getting on my soapbox for. God's kingdom of love is the best news in town.

But words mean nothing if we are not living out this way of love in an embodied way, sharing life together where the rubber hits the road. All these scriptures we know and yet struggle to live into in any substantiative way.

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” [John 13:35]

"No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. [I John 4:12]

"No one has ever seen God, not so much as a glimpse. This one-of-a-kind God-Expression, who exists at the very heart of the Father, has made him plain as day. [John 1:18]

And so today, this is my prayer. That Jesus would be revealed through us as his body fashioned together to be a home for the presence of God and to be his hands and feet in the world.
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That we would know the breadth and length, the depth and height of God's extravagant love.

And that our neighbors would know it too. That they could see what God is like.

This is my deepest hunger and desire.

You see, the thing about fasting is hunger.

by Jessica Ketola

I talk about the neighborhood a lot. About reimagining what it means to be the church today. About finding both new and ancient paths to co-create and partner with the work of the Spirit in our everyday realities.

You may sigh a little. You may tire of the redundancy. But I am unapologetic. The modern form of church now prevalent for the past 70 years is on life support. We are in the midst of unprecedented tectonic shifts, which history tells us are presently due 500 years post the Reformation. And so we must become midwives to what the Spirit is birthing. We must rethink, innovate and co-create something new.

And yet all transformation requires a death, a loss of what has been, a letting go. This is not easy work. This is not comfortable work. This is neither for the faint of heart or the indifferent. Rather, it requires a daring tenacity and a robust faith. A willingness to risk and to fail and to iterate.

It is for the bold and the audacious who are just foolish enough to believe that there is a better way--

To live as a beloved community into the dare of the gospel.

And yet, this is anything but idyllic. Rather, it is mundane. It is gritty. It is sometimes so unspectacular that we wonder if anything worthwhile is happening at all. There are conflicts and offenses, differences and apathies, disappointments and betrayals. We grow weary, disheartened, sure that we are being taken advantage of, sure of the futility of our endeavors. We are human, both glorious and inane.

And yet death comes before life. The seed dies before the new tender shoot emerges from the earth. This is the way of Lent. This is the way of the cross. This is the way of birthing. This is the way of dying.

This is where the mystery of the tomb coalesces with the miracle of the womb.

And so as we consider our impending death, what is it that we need to surrender? What is it that needs to die? What is it that we need to let go of? And as we journey together with community fasting and prayer, what collectively is it that we need to give up?

Is it our comfort? Our need for success? The ways in which we want what we want when we want it? Our individualism and our independence?

Is it our reluctance to commit or to be inconvenienced? Our prejudices? Our resentments? Our fear? Our jealousies? Our insecurities? Our wounds? Our self-hate?

Or is it our need to please others? Our need to be validated? Our need to be important? Our security? Our need for control? Our power? Our privilege? Our possessions?

What is it that needs to die?

Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die. So the saying goes. But Jesus promises us that as we lose the striving and scarcity of our own small lives, we will enter the expansiveness of His full and abundant life. [Matthew 16:25]

And as a faith community, I believe this is also true. Though we must not diminish the cost, the dream awaits us. For as we die to our independence and the comfort of our default ways of "going" to church, we will enter the extravagance of the beautifully diverse community living together to "be" the church, rooted in God's Dream for us and our neighborhoods.

And so my prayer this week is that we would sit with the question, What is it that needs to die? And that we would enter the paradox of the tomb, of death, surrender, and letting go, hopeful that in time from the womb of our deepest desires, new life will emerge.

By Jessica Ketola