Seven Mile Road Blog Has Moved…

So we have moved our blog to the following place so that we can emply that cool Thesis theme…

http://sevenmileroad.org/blog/

Reflections on a Night at the Fens

On Sunday I got a text from one of my best friends that he had scored Red Sox/Yankee tickets. Sox were in line to sweep, for some reason I had zero Seven Mile Road commitments that night, it was 80 degrees out, he was buying… and so I was in.

Here are some reflections:

1, is there a more exhilarating athletic moment to catch live than a straight steal of home plate? I now think not. Bases loaded, tie score, Pettite on the mound, Ellsbury on third, and Ellsbury suddenly takes off. P$ (one of my buddies’ 5,200 nicknames)  let out what I can only describe as a surprised grunt/yell (something like uhohwoah) and pointed. I looked up and saw Ellsbury emerge from the left side of Pettite (we were in the right field bleachers)… dive, dirt, safe. Fenway exploded like a bottle rocket. 12 minute standing ovation with half drunk bleacher-creatures looking a weird mixture of really happy and really confused, as if a free beer announcement had just come over the loudspeakers. Did that just happen? Yep, it did, and it was wild. (Note – I’ve always kinda figured this must have been the kind of reaction Jesus’ disciples had once the fact that Jesus had just risen from the dead settled in – goofy, surprised, giddy, happy grins.)

2, Red Sox nation is absolutely a cult. All the markers of organized religion are there: you’ve got the gods worthy of our devotion and worship (Big Papi and the boys); the communal singing (Sweet Caroline), chanting (Yankees suck, Yooooouuuuk, etc.), and genuflecting (high fives for us, single fingahs for them); the religious attire (everybody decked out in one form of Sox garb or another… and yes, I was wearing my Nomar tee short from 1999); the ritual movements (the wave); the sacramental meal (hot dog/sausage and a beer); the temple and courtyard (Fenway Park and Landsdowne Street); and, of course, the financial giving ($26 a ticket minimum). It was was actually eerie how religious the experience was.

3, this is a slight exaggeration, but everybody at the game was white and between 20 and 40. Not sure if the lateness of the start (8:00) kept the kids away, or if the bleachers are for the 20-30 crowd, or what, but the crowd was really homogeneous.

4, if you are dating a gal who spends the whole game looking at her iPhone and constantly flailing her rear end around for half the stadium to unfortunately see, get out while you can, before it’s too late.

5, I had not previously realized that maximum capacity for a green line trolley/train is 12,245 people. We’ll just say it was an intimate ride home on the T. Thank God no one at Kenmore had the swine flu or we’d all be dead.

And 6, it is surreal to realize that the Red Sox have replaced the Yankees as the dominant team in the rivalry. I had read about how the day was coming, but it is still strange to live through it. Top to bottom, the BoSox are the better franchise. Strange.

Jesus, the Greater Samson

Ready to preach the biography of Samson on Sunday, and the many ways that his life was prepping us for Jesus’.

This week, as all other weeks of preaching this series, I am just marveling at Jesus, totally blown away.

See, Samson was a Spirit-empowered stud, but a sinful and immature one. In his case, that immaturity came out in his dealing with women.

In one sense, his sin was breaking covenant with God by making covenant with women from the other nations. And so, as with all sin, Samson’s sin was first and foremost against God. Even when Delilah seduces Samson, his primary sin is giving her ‘his heart’ instead of remaining true in his heart to Yahweh. (Ah, we are all idolaters, aren’t we? We love giving our souls to another.)

And yet all our Godward sin necessarily plays itself out earthward in some way, and for Samson that was most conspiciously against/with women.

Samson’s biography is littered with disastrous dealings with women. The gal in Timah, a prostitute, Delilah, his mom… nowhere does Samson treat women with godliness, respect, love, or honor. This sin ended up taking him down. The guy you figure was strong enough to deliver God’s people isn’t even strong enough to love God’s daughters.

But then there is Jesus. Jesus was like Samson, just without sin. He was Spirit-empowered and mature, godly, faithful. This primarily means perfect obedience Godward: Jesus obeyed the Father perfectly in all things. But, just like with sin, obedience always fleshes itself our earthward.

So what I have been reflecting on is how incredible Jesus was with women. Read the Gospels. Jesus’ words, actions, motives, reactions, care, love, tenderness, gentleness, concern, etc. toward every one of the woman he encountered is breathtaking, from his mom to his disciples to the well-woman to the adulteress-caught-in-the-act, even to the woman he tested by calling a ‘dog’…… Jesus never once uses women for personal pleasure or tramples upon them or discards them or demeans them.

Marvelous. Breathtaking. UnSamsonlike. Faithful.

One of our goals of this series was just to keep lifting Jesus high and allowing His glory to blaze. He is blazing this week for sure.

Big

Our friends at Mars Hill Church in Seattle are going global.

And I love it.

Incubating Nick and Jessi Connolly

Preface to this post: Please, please, please be in prayer as Kevin and I gear up this Spring for leading both the calling of pastors at Seven Mile Road and the calling of men into our Pastor Track. It is an intense burden to be the first voices for the congregation in affirming the calling, gifting, and qualification of those who will serve as undershepherds to Jesus.

—

One of the cool things that is happening at our Sunday night Track meeting is that we are Skyping in a brother from Seattle, by the name of Nick Connolly, to spend some time introducing himself to the crew. Nick feels called to plant a church here in Boston, and a recent Acts29 assessment strongly recommended that he land with a Gospel-centered, missional church in the Hub for 18-24 months to be loved, shaped, taught, smacked around, observed, incubated, etc. before assuming the million pound weight of being a lead church planter. And so we are pressing ahead with the idea of having Nick, his wife Jessi, and their 3 beautiful children land with us for a season before doing their own thang for Jesus.

Here is a picture of their family so far (new baby coming in June) and a bio I asked Nick to write up. And here is a link to a blog Nick runs. And one Jessi runs as well.

Enjoy reading, and begin praying with us now for grace, peace, and wisdom.

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Dear 7 Mile Road Church:

I am overwhelmed by God’s grace because He has placed a church in my family’s life that seeks to train pastors who are called to lead God’s people, as well as love on people who come into your community. I am very thankful.

My name is Nick Connolly. I am a 26 year old, husband of Jessica Connolly, father to two, soon to be three amazing children. Jess and I have been married for 3 years and 8 months. I love her so much and God could not have given me a better woman to follow hard after Jesus with. Elias Powell is 2 years old and is a true joy, and our Gloriana Eloise is 1 years old and is a true beauty like her mother. I cannot wait to meet Benjamin Haddon, two have been such a joy and I cannot imagine what joy number three will bring.

I was born in Charlotte, NC. I am a son of a carpenter (my father) and a banker (my mother). My mom died about 5 years ago and my father left my mother when I was five to follow other idols in his life that were far more important than us at that time. Because of this, I was raised by a single mother and it is by God’s grace and calling on my life that I am in a relationship with the Father through Jesus. I had no true father growing up and had no male influence in my life until I got involved in a youth group at the church I grew up in. It was there I met a dear friend and mentor named Robbi Fischer and it was on a mission trip to Pittsburg when I was in seventh grade that God made himself known to me through his Spirit convicting my heart.

From that moment on, my life changed. I did not have a gang banging, sexual, drug filled past, but I did know that without Christ in my life I was capable of taking the same path that my father did as well as everyone else on both sides of my family. My family lineage is full of unsaved divorcees, high school dropouts and by God’s grace, I will not walk the same paths by the power of the Gospel that has changed my life.

After receiving a degree in Religious Studies from the University of South Carolina, my wife and I moved back to Charlotte, NC to plant a church with a group of about 8 other people. It was there that I was introduced to church planting and was able to be involved in numerous parts of the church. I was able to be apart of starting a church from scratch, starting another campus from scratch, as well as starting and developing our student ministry. Though these experiences were very fruitful for leadership development, my wife and I soon discovered through reading scripture our convictions on how church should be done that we were a little different than this model. It was then that Jess and I began to pray for a new church to go to, to see how church should be done biblically.

After praying for a new learning experience, God opened the door for us to be house parents at a maternity home just outside of Seattle, WA. This was a perfect opportunity for our family. It was here that we would be able to strengthen the foundation of our family as well as be apart of Mars Hill church. We knew that God was calling us to make this move all the way across the country and we desired to do what he was calling us to do.

When we moved across the country, we begin to serve in our ministry as well as become apart of the Mars Hill community. It was through these circumstances and what I was learning in my seminary classes, I knew God was really shaping us for our next season. While being at Mars Hill, I quickly became friends with our campus pastor, Pastor Jesse. He knew my heart for the church and encouraged me to take a class that was going to be offered through our campus. When he asked me I said ‘yes’ because I enjoy talking about the church and leadership with other men who are passionate about the same things. When saying yes to this class, I thought it was a leadership class. It turns out that this class was for church planters. It was a class that taught the planting methods of the early church. It was through this class and my solitude time with God that I knew God was doing something in my heart and life.

In order to take my seminary classes, I had to drive to Portland, OR every Monday. It was three hours of prayer to Portland and three hours of prayer to get back home. It was an amazing time of worship and petition for my life to be conformed to God’s will in my life. One night I remember praying on the way back, asking God what he wanted me to do with my life. I knew I was called to be a pastor but I always thought that I would just pastor a small church somewhere as long as he would allow. One night driving back, I knew clearly what he was calling me to. He was calling me to plant a church in an area that needs more churches than anywhere else in the US. It was then I knew He was asking me to move my family to Boston, MA and plant a church called Gospel Community Church. After planting Gospel Community Church, He was calling me to plant other Gospel Communities throughout the city of Boston – as well as the world.

It is this calling that will propel me through many fruitful seasons as the Pastor of Gospel Community Church but more importantly, it is this call that will propel me through many difficult season as one of the pastors of Gospel Community church. My passion is for the church, to proclaim Jesus and to teach people biblical living through the Gospel. It is my heart that our church will be Jesus focused, Scripture focused, Worship focused, Mission focused, Church planting focused, as we are empowered by the Holy Spirit.

I would like to conclude with a grateful ‘thank you’ to the 7 Mile road family. I am grateful that you would consider the option of training other pastors on top of training your own pastors. Thank you again.

God Does Save Thessalonians

The A29 network has a sick networking site where lead planters from across the country/planet can dialog with each other as they take their local hills for Jesus. I recently posted this confession/joy on the prayer requests thread and wanted to post it here as well.

Guys, a confession… I have definitely been recently doubting that God can, and intends to, redeem many in my just-north-of-Boston culture.

The huge majority of our growth/fruit in recent months has been folks who were predisposed to finding a church and pressing into the Gospel there. I do get that the work we are doing in their souls is legit, but they are folks who come ‘with a Bible’ and some kind of a Christian past/clue.

We have had a total dearth of ‘off-Causeway-Street’ conversions though. And most of the not-believers I have missionally marriage-prepped sat through the whole prep with the Gospel pinging off their hearts like seed off concrete… few are tracking with Jesus or our church at this point. No matter how I unpack Jesus and sin and the need for heart change and repentance and new birth, they just nod their heads like deers in headlights. We have zero folks lined up for baptism this year. Many people come, are welcomed warmly, love the people/music, even say how they love the preaching, but have zippo interest in the Gospel and then float away.

In addition to all of this causing me to prayerfully press into questions about our approach to mission, etc. it has also triggered frustration/unbelief in me. Thoughts like “these folks are way too far gone to ever function as members of Jesus’ church” and “I cannot overcome their godless childhood and lifetime of idolatry” and “let’s just focus on our kids because at least with them we have some promises and are starting from a clean slate” and “there is no way a bunch of people are coming to repentance and faith here” and “if an angel doesn’t show up and tell me audibly that God has many in this city I am moving” and “God has clearly chosen to Sodom and Gomorrah this place, just without the flames.” I am not defending any of those thoughts at all, just confessing them. They lead to working out of either despair/duty or anger, and both rot as pastoral motivations.

Anyway, we are heading to preach through Thessalonians in the fall and as I have begun reading, reflecting, studying, I have been gently corrected by our Father. I know this is basic, but my first pass through was a reminder that those Thessalonians were totally pagan, totally Gentile, totally freaked out in every moral category, no idea who Moses was or what holiness looked like, not Biblically literate or anything… and yet reading that letter you can see that God did, did, did, did pour out grace through the proclaiming of the Gospel and planting of churches and that totally lost people did, did, did become beautifully functioning, redeemed members of Jesus’ church. They did not need to be bridged to Judaism but to Jesus, and it happened. Paul ‘sounds’ like he is writing to some people who were raised from birth in the reality of the Gospel, and yet these are folks who had just turned from idols ten minutes ago.

Wow. It can happen. God did it.

And so I repent of my unbelief and am seeking to continue to do this work out of faith that He digs doing it and intends to do it here.

If you are struggling like that with doubt that God can save the grown-up & super-lost people in your zip, a read through 1 Thessalonians might do your soul some good.

Praying for you guys weekly, especially for your holiness. “God keep my brothers far from evil.” And your families.

Another Seed Being Planted

Really jacked about a gathering we are having tonight.

See, one of our commitments at Seven Mile Road is to keep it simple. Center on Jesus and His Gospel, give our best effort at gathered, Biblical Trinitarian worship, make disciples through our soulcare communities, and pretty much let people live life missionally from there. This means no covered dish dinners, rummage sales, velcro-Sumo-wrestler youth group events, group visits to see Fireproof (nothing against the movie’s basic permise, love anything that shouts a high view of marriage in this jacked culture), or programmatic, insular, therapeutic, another-church-activity-on-the-calendar type stuff.

However, as we have grown, the need for more intentional ministry has exceeded what can happen on Sundays and in soulcare communities alone. And so we are, one by one, slowly, trying to mobilize teams that can do the work of the Gospel among different tribes at Seven Mile and just north of Boston.

Tonight we rock out a brainstorming session of what a team that is prayerfully ministering to our women might look like. It’s just a first meeting, but from here we hope to quickly move ahead.

Here is the basic premise for the get-together. (If you are a Seven Mile woman and want in on this kind of a team, stay tuned.)

One of the ways that Kevin and I are hoping that we will mature this year is in the manner in which we are caring for our women at Seven Mile Road .

Our unabashed commitment to fostering an environment where men are called to fulfill their God-given responsibility to lead in home and church has led to an emphasis on ‘men’s ministry’ here for sure. This is a good thing, and you will not find our women complaining about this aspect of our DNA.

However, what has received less attention is the concordant need for healthy ministry to women at our church. As we have grown, and the number of women has grown, so has the amount of care that is needed. For those involved in soulcare communities, this is happening beautifully, of course. But there is also a need for a broader vision for how women are being ministered to here in Gospel-centered and missional ways.

With all that in mind, we would love to set a team of godly ‘Titus 2′ women free to be doing ministry to our women.
So we need a night of prayer and conversation about how such a team can come together, be led, and be doing the work of the Gospel with women in our church and our city.

3000 Days

This April marks the completion of eight years working the soil here, just north of Boston. As I often say, you could call it five, because the first three were a confused muddling as we (me mostly) circled around for a while until finally orienting ourselves to a clear future as a Gospel-centered and missional community. Plus, we began public worship services way too early. Nevertheless, nearly 3000 days have passed since Seven Mile Road was birthed. It’s been a long, joyful, tough, rewarding, frustrating, life-giving, like-taking, glorious run. Whenever I meet folks who are new, I inevitably inform them that the giddiest person in the life of the church is still me. The grace and joy that have flooded my soul in being forced (called) to lead a local community of saints is inexpressible. What an undeserved gift. Wouldn’t trade it for anything else. Still learning what a pastor is, what the Gospel is, and what a church is. But loving it.

Race and Seven Mile Road

The racial demographics of those attending Seven Mile Road on a Sunday morning is not representative of the racial demographics of Malden/just north of Boston.

True.

Seven Mile Road is the most diverse congregation in Malden.

This is quite possibly true as well.

Say what?

I will explain.

But first, the stats.

As the chart shows out of 115 adults currently banging with us at Seven Mile, most are ‘white.’ (I hate that blanket category. My mom is Puerto Rican, my dad is German-English. And yet I am ‘white’. Why? I am as hispanic as I am white technically. But I digress.) 13% are Hispanic. (Puerto Rican, Dominican, Guatemalan, El Salvadorian, Brazlian.) 7% are Asian. (Indian, Korean.) 2% are African (Gordon and Ilsa in the house.) Others come and go, but this is a decent snapshot.

Malden demographics are quite different. A little over half of Malden is ‘white’. (Again, an almost meaningless category at this point.) Over 20% are Chinese. 10% or so are black. And the rest are a veritable United Nations, it’s awesome. The surrounding just-north-of-Boston cities are similar, only instead of being 20% Chinese the various ethnic groups congregate in the same neighborhoods/zip codes. But diversity reigns, with ‘whites’ constantly shrinking in numbers.

If you hang at the YMCA, as the Kruses often do, you will right away notice the melting pot going on.

And so naturally there is a periodic rumbling/uncertainty/discontentment/questioning/frustration with our ‘whiteness’. Why doesn’t our church look more like the gym at the Y or the caf at Malden High or the Celebrate Malden parade? Is Seven Mile Road doing church in a way that excludes those of others ethnicities? Are we failing to be missional because we are not diverse enough? Are we doing something sinful/selfish/wrong that is resulting in our ‘whiteness’?

They are important questions.

And so, a few thoughts.

1, if the answers to any of those questions is yes, the other churches in Malden are in really bad shape. We are a bastion of multi-ethnicity for a Sunday worship gathering here in town. The ethnic churches in Malden are almost exclusively ethnic. Their pie charts would look much worse than ours, with the majority making up 95%+. The Vietnamese Church is all Vietnamese, Chinese all Chinese, Hatian all Hatian, Black all Black (Ferryway School), Brazilian all Brazlian, you get the point. And the white churches are way more white than we are. None of this justifies us in anything, and I am not ripping any of them, but the point not to miss is that multi-ethnic church is not happening anywhere in Malden. And if it is happening anywhere, it is with us and some others with similar pie charts.

2, comparing our Sunday gathering to the gym at the Y is comparing apples and oranges. Folks who can swim together at the Y, go to public school together, recycle their trash together, etc., have a much harder time worshiping together. There are language barriers for one. Huge cultural barriers exist as well. And while I gladly play ball with Morrocans, for example, they are not coming anywhere near our Sunday gathering. This is true across the globe, not just here. I am not saying I like it. I am saying that the reality is that, except in cases where there is a massive move of God’s Spirit and grace, Sunday worship services necessarily tend toward homogeneousness (is that a word?). Multi-ethnic church is a beautiful exception. For example, Christ the King in Cambridge tried its hardest upon its founding to say ‘we are going to be a Brazilian-White church!’ but couldn’t pull it off and so have moved over the years to 2 congregations, morning and evening. Is this necessarily sinful? They would say no. I would agree.

3, making judgments on a church’s commitment to racial diversity by counting ethnic heads on a Sunday morning is unfair. Sunday gathering is one part of a much bigger life of Jesus’ church. The bigger questions here need to be: are the people of Seven Mile Road daily loving their neighbors of different races? One gander at our people and the answer is yes. We have people who have given their lives for North Africans. We have teachers and principals and nurses working daily with minority populations, loving them in the name of Christ. We ave served minorities through mercy ministry many times. We need to keep that central to our life together, realizing that even if those folks never worship Jesus on a Sunday at Seven Mile, it’s ok.

Anyway, I am in prayer that God would help us redeem just-north-of-Boston in whatever ways he intends, and would love for that to be a broadening of not only who we are serving but who is worshiping with us.

Wisconsin Woods

With preacher buddy Ajay yelling at folk a few hours down I-95 in Philly these days, we weren’t sure just how preaching was going to roll at Seven Mile this year. We’ve settled into a very cool pace as roughly once a month a different Track guy is trotting in from the bullpen taking the mound. February was Sergio rocking Noah. I’ve got April to myself thanks to Easter. Justin (Ruth) and John  (Jonah) have May and June respectively.

This week Brent throws, with The Moses Biography as his topic. I handed this one off not because it would be tough to connect Moses to Jesus, but because it seemed intimidating to do it in one sermon. Jesus it totally the Moses to come in a bunch of ways, can’t wait to hear Brent unfold one or more for me this week.

My first memory of Brent watching him listening while I preached. I didn’t know him yet, but his face betrayed a heart that was soft and intent of receiving from and responding to the Word. I remember thinking “God has brought that dude’s heart alive. What grace.”

Then I found out he was raised in the Wisconsin woods (by human parents,  not wolves, I think) and consciously selects to spend time fishing, and so naturally I figured I was wrong about him.

But I wasn’t. One of the joys of my year has been running real close with Brent and Jessie as we work with them in discerning call and what it could look like here for at least a while. I have received a ton from his spirit, his story, his passion, his way, and hope to do the same from his preaching. Excited.