The sad truth is that it has been over a year since my last post.

Many things happened that caused me to abandon my blog for a time, and many have kept me from returning.

The first big change was taking a break from seminary, to pursue a Master of Arts in Non-Profit Organizational Administration.  It has been a great experience that continues to prepare me for work in faith communities and community organizations — both of which I want to be a part of.  Being removed from the daily conversation has been really hard, and for a long time it left me with nothing to say.  Additionally, the creation of this blog with the idea of talking about faith, practice, and all things ministerial left me feeling like I couldn’t blog about anything else.

The second issue has been the continual expansion of my workload and responsibilities with the Sullivan Center for Innovative Ministry.  In addition to all of the branding and design work for the website and print media, I have also been creating an (almost) bi-monthly newsletter and am now overseeing the planning for three big events that we are hosting on the MNU campus between now and June.

The busyness of work and study took me away from the blogosphere in general.  It also had a detrimental affect on the rhythm of my spiritual walk.  My Rule of Life fell to the wayside and my spiritual disciplines have been anything but.  Luckily, this is no longer true, as I have learned to find better balance in my new roles and responsibilities.

Lastly, I have been really burnt out in general.  I guess you could say that my spiritual journey has been in a valley for the past year.  It hasn’t been a crisis of faith or a whirlwind of doubt, but more the result of a shift in my views of ecclesiology and what it means to live as a follower of Christ.  This shift has been in the opposite direction of the shift in the church we are a part of, and I no longer feel like I have a place there.  There is a lot more to it, but I will save that for another day.

So where does all of this leave me now?  Drained!  That is why I am trying to get back into the things that kept me going, and this blog was one of them.

You will start to see some changes in the coming months, as I begin to tweak ogrepraxy.  I will still talk about faith and practice, but I will also talk about other things in my life.  My artistic side, and interests like photography and woodworking.  Things that are happening in my life.  My continuing transformation as a teacher and as a disciple.

These are all part of this orgre’s praxy (practice), so it is only fitting that they become part of ogrepraxy as well.

I look forward to continuing on this renewed journey, and the great conversation that is to come!

Peace,

Jason

The last few weeks I have been thinking about the transition from attractional to missional, and how best to help my church find its missional indentity. 

The attractional church makes decisions based on how they can attract more people into their building, to keep them coming back, and to officially join the membership & become financially involved.  This desire to attract & keep the attention of churchgoers affects the design of classes, sermon-series, worship services, architecture, branding & marketing, and extra activities of a church.

The missional church doesn’t look at attracting people into the church, but instead sees it’s own identity as a community of faith that exists to be a part of God’s mission to seek reconciliation with the people in the neighborhood/ city that they are in.  This focus is not inward (money & people serving programs), but outward (money & people used to meet the needs of people in their surrounding community).  People come into the church through the invitation of a friend.

My question is how do we seek this transition in local churches from the inwardly-focussed attractional church, to the outwardly-focussed missional church?

The church I am serving is attractional to the core.  Even our ‘evangelism’ efforts are dramatic extravaganzas at Christmas and Easter.  

I will be starting a new class in April, and my desire for this journey is to help people seek their missional identity.  I plan on utilizing the missional texts of scripture, as well as the writings of Newbigin, Guder, Frost, Hirsch, & Roxburgh.  I would love to know what you have done in seeking a missional identity in your community.  Thanks.