Partnering For Tomorrow

I've had two (seemingly) divergent threads of thought recently regarding the idea of partnering with other like-minded people in this geographic region for Kingdom purposes.

First, after the Non-Con I had a meeting with Tommy Nixon of Solidarity Rising and then an email from my friend Max McGee of Saddleback church regarding unrelated ideas of partnering together to achieve a common goal.

I began to wonder if all of us weren't after the same thing but pursuing different means to accomplish a small piece of the same plan.

Tommy was interested (as I have been) in finding ways to help local Orange County believers see the Kingdom and begin a lifestyle of mission and service to others (as opposed to undertaking occassional mission trips to serve for a day, etc.).

Max was interested in partnering together to find ways to train and inspire local churches and small group leaders to begin to adopt local poverty motels (as Max and I have done with our house churches/home groups).

My other friend, Jarred Rowland, is also interested in finding partners to help him raise awareness about poverty in Orange County but he wants to publish a subversive magazine that would provoke response and put a face to the invisible poor in this area.

My friend Scott Laumann and I had a similar idea about 4 years ago but never got the idea off the ground. Now that Jarred has started moving forward it appears that we've found our missing, catalytic piece of this puzzle.

Yesterday my wife and I took our boys to another house church to share about poverty in Orange County with them, and leaders from a second house church. Afterwards I shared with Marti Clark (my friend from ALPHA USA who also lead one of our Non-Con workshops) about the possibility of partnering together with her house church, and the one lead by Van and Joyce Pewthers in Placentia, for future ministry and service opportunities.

Somehow all of these open doors to partner with others is connected. I know it. I'm just not sure, exactly, yet how.

I keep hearing that verse in my head where Jesus says that he only does what he sees the Father doing. This feels a bit like that. I can see that the Father is up to something...but I'm not exactly sure what just yet.

In (seemingly) unrelated news, my friend and mentor (of sorts) Todd Hunter is in town next Thursday evening. Marti and I will be gathering our house churches, alongside Soul Survivor church and the Pewther's house church group to hear him share about his vision for helping followers in Orange County to un-learn how to be Christian.

Hmmm....maybe these things aren't so unrelated after all?

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