I got my latest issue of Cutting Edge, Vineyard's church planting magazine, in the mail today. There is a good article about a church in Minneapolis called Solomon's Porch. The following are a few quotes I thought were pretty good. The magazine's not online yet. When it is, I'll add a link to it.
The congregation, which was planted five years ago, today numbers 300 and is thoughtfully engaged in what they call “experiments” in being a “holistic, missional, Christian community”.
Community is not the endgame for me. The endgame is for us to become a people who are able to live out the aspirations and hopes and dreams of God in the world. I don’t think that’s possible to do without being in community with each other, but “community” is not the goal. We think it’s essential for people to live harmoniously with each other and with God, but that’s not the end of the game.
In terms of living in missional ways together, we talk about wanting to become “kingdom of God horticulturalists” – people who look around and can see the kingdom of God growing in a variety of species, recognize it, describe it, participate with it, and join in helping it grow. Part of that means asking ourselves, “How have we been brought together? What gifts and abilities, opportunities, desires and skills do we have that God has orchestrated for some particular way in this world?”
Our primary supposition to everything we do is figuring out how we live as a good neighbor. Living as a good neighbor is, for me, the missional call of God embodied at a grassroots level in a people.
www.solomonsporch.com
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