Battle Creek/Kalamazoo, MI

Restoration . Community

1. Do we show that we are thankfull?
   "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just." -Jesus
   
   
   We have committed to serving the "the least of these brothers of mine" (Matt 25). As part 0f this some of the folks we are in community with, poked around and discovered that of all the soup kitchens and places that serve meals no one serves any food on Thursdays. And so we agreed to serve the homeless and nearly homeless dinner every Thursday. Its a small thing to us but we found it to be huge to others.
   
   
   Folks came prepared to serve, but soon found themselves being served. One man took time to listen to a homeless man and was blown away as the second man described his life and explained that this was the first hot meal he had had in days. A woman was moved to tears as people gratefully accepted her home-made meatloaf. Another woman found herself so identifying with these brothers and sisters that she felt offended when she perceived that someone had offended one of them.
   
   
   When it comes to Thanksgiving...
   
   Almost all of us "give a dinner or a banquet" each year on a Thursday in November.
   
   How can we really say we love others if we are unable, or unwilling, to interrupt our comfortable lives to be with them?
   
   How could we refuse to eat with them on this Holiday?
   
   How can we call ourselves followers of Jesus and yet ignore his instructions on this?
   
   
   And so if you are looking for our community this Thursday you will find us with turkey, pie, and everything in between eating together with our brothers and sisters who don't have as much as we do.
   
   **Christmas eve also falls on a Thursday** ;-)
   
2. new format/purpose
   The format/propose of this blog to date has served its purpose... That was to communicate the radical actions that have sprung from the dreams God has layed out before us.
   
   But
   
   We feel that we NEED begin new conversations (or perhaps join others in very old ones) in our city/area/world.
   
   I resonate with several others in our community as they express the calling they feel that this the time is ripe. I have had that same thing breathed in to my soul, and we have had it reinforced over and over in the last couple of months. Forming an alternative community has been a burning desire that has now reached a boiling point for us. We can no longer wait around, for what has become the institution, while our generation and the next stumbles through the darkness.
   
   We do not think we are ready, we have not arrived. But I once heard it said that if your vision can be done with out God's intervention, that is if you can do it on your own, then it's not big enough. I have also heard it said that you should look for where you see God at work and and join him there. Well we see God at work in the hearts of our generation, but that has not yet translated into a substantial local manifestation of the body.
   
   SO
   
   We seek to become a body that will allow us to gather and organize in ways that are new (or ancient), worship, teach, and live in ways that are different than the way the local church meets currently.
   
   We also seek the guidance and wisdom that we have yet to gain, that we believe only a our elders and those of past generations who have walked this path before community can provide for us.
   
   We will hold all of that in tension as we move forward.
   
   We are now one part cohort (hosting monthly open-source conversations in the community), one part church (living and serving together).
   
   How does all of that hit ya?
   
   At the end of the day we cannot ignore what we believe to be the call of our King, to gather and begin the conversation.
   
   And so this blog will henceforth be the official web presence (at least until further notice) for the restoration.community Emergent village cohort. We are glad to be called a friend of emergent village, and look forward to living the dream God has inspired for us.
   
   Grace and Peace
   Tom
   
3. The new house
   

   So it has been a while since I posted, because of all that has happened, so I will try to recount what has been developing.

   After much searching, we found a house a block and a half away(perfect location). We put in an offer and negotiated a deal with the bank that owned the property. It was a long and difficult process... I was often reminded that I was to act like Christ even in the face of the junk the world throws at us.

   My parents used a vacation , and then all of their time too (no seriousul they worked every day all day) and my wife's parents loaned us the money so we could fix the house up. Once again My Dad proved to be the most resourceful and able handyman the world has ever seen.

   We prayed and prayed that God would prepair the "road" ahead of us so that we could transform the lives to our new neighbors. As we began conversations with the neighbors we learned that most of them didn't even know the house was empty. There had been no sign in the front yard, even though the house had been empty for almost a year. That tells you how many people in this area know their neighbors.

   There has been much copper thevery in our city in recient times, yet this house remained untouched. The roof had alot of damage, yet the leeking inside had caused minamal damage. I get the feeling that God had placed a sort of vale or protection over the house, because it's where he wanted us to be.

   So we spent about a month and a half, renovating almost every room in the house. We found mold in a bedroom wall and in the basement. We fixed some plumbing and electrical issues. We had a roofer reshingle the roof.

   And then moved...

   All of our students came out to help. The realestate agent gave us a moving van for two days. And God provided clear weather. No seriously it poured the minute I shut the back door of the moving truck. And not like a little sprinkle eather, it was the long torent of an angry storm that has been pent up waiting to rain for two days. It caused big time flooding all over our city ( I was ready to build a boat and start looking for animals).

   So far the house has been wonderful, providing us with more room, and it has solar heat and room for a garden :)

   I'll write more as I am able.

   Grace and Peace

   
4. endings and new begginings...
   We have made the decision to buy a house... This was a tough decision but after careful consideration we have decided to find a space a little more suited to our family.
   
   We will limit our search to the surrounding few blocks, because we have already started to cultivate community here.
   We will also prepare the Bryant street house to be a blessing to someone else...
   
5. Has the church (body of believers) traded its effectiveness for a few cattle?
   In the year 1519 the Aztec empire was at is peak. It had beautiful highways, huge temples, & pyramids, and extensive aqueducts. It had a population of over 15 million, its own language and an advanced calendar.When the legendary explorer Hernando Cortes arrived there he expected to see savages. Instead he was taken to a metropolis then called Tenochtitlan. “The City” He marveled “is as large as Seville or Cordoba.”By 1521, just two years after Cortes first arrived there, the Aztec empire which traced its roots to centuries before the time of Christ had collapsed. A similar fate befell the Incas. The Spanish army captured the Inca leader in 1532. Again the animation of an entire society took just two years.The Spanish armies seemed unstoppable. With the winds of victory at their backs the headed north. It was there that they encountered the apaches. The Apaches who hadn't put up a single town or pyramid seemed primitive. The Spanish were unable to tame or control the apaches. They had no centralized government to take out, and no buildings to destroy. The Apaches however were able to actively resist the Spanish. The raided every thing in sight that was even remotely Spanish. You'd think that to an army like the Spanish the Apaches wouldn't stand a chance. But the Apaches were able to wrestle effective control of northern Mexico away from the Spanish. This wasn't an single accidental victory. The Apaches were able to hold off the Spanish for over TWO HUNDRED years!How did they do it? The Apaches won because the distributed political power. They were decentralized as a society. Basically there is no Montezuma (the emperor of the Aztecs) and no Tenochtitlan. The Apaches had a Nant'an, a spiritual and cultural leader. The Nant'an lead by example and had no coercive power. Tribe members followed the Nant'an because they wanted to not because they had to. Now the very bad ending...The Americans (of European descent) entered the picture. They too found it impossible to defeat the Apaches. Until they decided to give them some land and a few cattle. And with in a few years the Apache society had fallen apart.
   
   **These thoughts were inspired by the book “the spider and the star fish, the unstoppable power of leaderless organizations” If you want an in depth look at this kind of stuff I suggest you check it out.**
   
   Has the church (body of believers) traded its effectiveness for a few cattle? How so?What's next?