On Mission in El Paso/Juarez

by Jonathan Kindberg

As one of the largest Bi-national metropolises in the world, El Paso/Juarez is a region of contrasts and contradictions. While El Paso is the safest city of its size in the United States, Juarez, a mere stone’s throw across the dried up Rio Grande, is the most dangerous city on earth. This last weekend 37 people were murdered, the bloodiest three days in the city’s history. Furthermore, while El Paso is a modern city of considerable wealth, many areas in Juarez do not even have running water.
This last weekend myself and William and Anne Beasley of the  Greenhouse Regional Church Movement spent four days in El Paso/Juarez at the invitation of St. Clement’s Anglican Church presenting the Greenhouse model for the spontaneous expansion of the church.

Contrasted with traditional models of church planting that require ordained clergy and large amounts of planning and resources, the Greenhouse model uses lay pastors (known as Catechists), little to no resources and emphasizes that it is “the whole church raising up the whole church,” everyone using their Spirit given gifts and talents.

El Paso/Juarez is a region ripe for such spontaneous expansion.  El Paso is approximately 90% Hispanic and a thoroughly bicultural and bilingual city. Espanglish is the lingua franca. The city is a living example of what many think is the future of the United States. “We’re seeing the development of two populations groups in Texas: aging Anglos and young minorities. We’re seeing Hispanic growth not just deepen but become pervasive throughout the state. The Texas of today is the U.S. of tomorrow,” says Steve Murdock, former Census Bureau director and now a Rice University sociology professor, on the Latino population growth in Texas (quoted in USA Today).

While St. Clement’s is a generally wealthy congregation, the neighborhood surrounding their building is an economically depressed area.  Eight year ago, responding to the difficulties facing those living in the surrounding neighborhood, St. Clement’s started Ciudad Nueva, a community development corporation currently serving over 200 at risk children and youth in the surrounding community through after school programs and community outreach. It is a beautiful picture of the church at work in the “transformation of society,” one of the accountabilities that Archbishop Bob Duncan constantly reminds us of.

This demographic shift and the reality of injustice and poverty are realities that we as Anglicans have yet to grapple with in our church planting efforts. As a movement we are still primarily Anglo (as our name also seems to communicate) and primarily middle to upper class. I pray that as a movement we begin to plant churches that reflect our changing society: multi-lingual, multi-cultural, and messy. Churches of the kind we have never seen before. I pray that we not only plant many, many churches, but that we plant churches that have a deep impact on communities and neighborhoods, following in the example of Ciudad Nueva. I pray that we plant churches that welcome the stranger and that attack the root causes of poverty and injustice, churches that bring the good news of the Gospel. Let us all pray that this be the case in El Paso/Juarez.

Immigration as a Mission on Our Doorstep

by Jonathan Kindberg

The United States is changing at an unprecedented pace. According to current predictions by the US Census Bureau, by 2050 the United States will have a majority of ethnic minorities, and as soon as 2031 white, non-Hispanic children will become a minority.

These changes aren’t just impacting urban areas. With the increasing suburbanization of poverty and a growing percentage of immigrants moving directly to the suburbs, bypassing the urban areas all together, the suburbs are changing as well.

One example of this is DuPage County, Illinois, a county in the western suburbs of Chicago. According to the Billy Graham Center’s research, DuPage County will become a majority minority county by 2030, 20 years ahead of the national trend. Currently, nearly two out of every five residents are foreign born with the most common nationalities being Mexican and then Asian Indian.
Recognizing God’s hand in these changes in bringing the world to our doorstep, Mosaic DuPage is a movement of local churches, both immigrant and non-immigrant, working together for the sake of mission in our changing community. Each year, in partnership with World Relief, Mosaic hosts the Mission On Your Doorstep/La Mision En Tu Comunidad conference to equip and prepare the local church to reach its changing community.
The video below is preview of the longer video Mosaic is releasing at this year’s conference, which will take place March 4 and 5 in West Chicago, Illinois and which is focused on how to live as part of “God’s Kingdom without Borders.” This year, the conference will have a particular focus on undocumented immigrants and include talks by Dr. Daniel Carroll R., Stephan Bauman, Juan Ortiz, Matthew Soerens, Wayne “Coach” Gordon, and many others.  Please consider joining us!



The Mission On Your Doorstep Video Teaser from Mosaic DuPage on Vimeo.

Apprenticeship

by Jonathan Kindberg

This last week I went with several of my leaders to the Anglican 1000 conference in Plano, Texas (http://anglican1000.org/). This conference was birthed out of Archbishop Duncan’s call just over a year ago to plant 1000 new Anglican churches in the next 5 years. So far, we have planted 100. This is a great start, but much work remains.

This year my leaders and I assisted Fr. William in a workshop he gave on the topic of a “Lay church planting movement.” In essence he said that a movement starts with one on one apprenticeship: Jesus and Peter, Barnabas and Paul, Paul and Timothy. Apprenticeship, rather than a curriculum or a program, is organic; it’s life on life. It can be boiled down to 5 steps (as taught by the Furgeson brothers): 1) I do, you watch, we talk. 2) I do, you help, we talk.  3) You do, I help, we talk. 4) You do, I watch, we talk. 5) You do, third person watches, you talk….and so on. Pretty simple, hu?
It’s been my aim, and I’ve challenged all my leaders to do so as well, to always be doing this with someone else in every aspect of my ministry. Apprenticeship….a key ingredient in starting a movement.

The Seed of a Movement: Part 2

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The Seed of a Movement

By Jonathan Kindberg

I have been reading Neil Cole’s “Church 3.0.” While I find the title a turn-off, the book itself has been inmensely challenging and thought provoking. Each time I put it down, I find myself with this great desire to go out and change the world. The quote that has had me thinking and rolling over in bed at night: “The kingdom of God expands on the shoulders of a changed life.” Neil Cole basically is saying that all you need in order to start a movement is a changed life. But if you don’t start at this basic level, you can’t go back.

In reflecting on my own ministry in light of this I have begun to see how easy it is (and how I have in actuality) put the cart before the horse. Churchplanting should begin with simple evangelism and simple evangelism only. Instead, we start a church (gather a lot of Christians from other churches) so that we can invite non-Christians to it and evangelize them. This is just reshuffling the deck. It is event organizing. Being a decent gatherer I can get usually get people in a room, but then I have somehow expected a “service” (which from to an outsider can easily look like a performance) to change someone. Of course, God can use anything and he often has used a church service to change someone’s life, but this was not Jesus’ method or Paul’s. The Bible doesn’t command us to start churches so that we can invite people, it commands us to evangelize, to “goodnewsize” people so that new churches can start.

I have realized that in all honesty I haven’t done much of this recently. Over the last two years, I have built relationships with probably a hundred different unchurched hispanics in the Chicagoland area and I have shown love and compassion through hours of service and practical help. I have probably even invited (at least twice) each of these one hundred people to my church. These are all good things. These are all gospel acts. But they aren’t evangelism!

So this week I have gone all out.  I am working on verbally sharing the gospel every opportunity I get. This week I have done so in some way or another 4 times in 3 days: With a janitor in the building where I work, with one of my soccer team fellow players, over dinner with one of the husbands of one of my congregants and with a family I recently met. All friends of mine who I have known, but have not overtly talked about Jesus with, though I have invited them all to church.

In all this I am praying for just one. For just one radical commitment to faith. Just one person to rekindly my own passion and belief in the transformative power of Christ. For just one person to believe in Christ in the old fashioned and good old evangelical way of confession and commitment. I am praying for just one person to say their “yes” to Jesus outside of a church building and service, thanks in minimal part, to my bold sharing of Jesus with them. Just one changed life… the seed of a movement.