Pathways Church Blog

Postcard #2 is coming to a mailbox near you this week. Don’t miss it.

I’ve been reflecting on the past two weeks with a smile on my face. It is amazing how God brings things together. How God brings people together. Three weeks ago we sent out our first postcard. Two weeks ago we had our first Starbucks meeting, not really knowing what to expect. 53 people showed up. Since that time it has been a whirlwind of getting to know people and enjoying all that God has brought together. Our goal each Wednesday is to seek God’s heart, pour our hearts out and pray that God brings together a group of strangers into a family. What a ride!

Already relationships are developing. Already we are digging deep into the person of Jesus and what He said about His purpose here. This week we will be looking at what the purpose of the church is and how we, as a community, will live that out. The Scriptures are so challenging and we believe that you want to be challenged. We want to be challenged. This is bigger than we are.

I can’t wait to see what is next.

I don’t know why I doubt God’s presence, but any time that I do He seems to show up in big ways and gives me a knowing nod, like “I told you so.”

This past Wednesday we took a look at who Jesus claimed to be by looking at eight statemtents that He made in the Gospel of John. Eight times, Jesus uses the phrase, “I am”. These statements give us deep insight into Jesus’ claims about Himself. After examining these statements it was crystal clear that Jesus claimed equality with God. This was accentuated by the response of the religious establishment to His claims. They wanted to stone Him – kill Him because they understood even better than we do today, that He was claiming equality with God.

Why is this so important to us? Unless we have a right understanding of who Christ is, church becomes a social club or an activist organization. We must get Jesus right.

Next Wednesday we will be looking at the mission of Christ within the world. Unless we understand His purpose, we can not be clear about our own. The last thing we desire to be is a church without purpose.

Sunday night was marked by our first community informational meeting about the heart of Pathways Church. After sending out thousands of postcards to neighboring homes and apartments, we gathered with 53 people at Starbucks at Mill Creek Town Center. There is something about meeting people who are seeking God’s heart that makes me just want to explode inside (in a good way). Some were new to the area, others are feeling misplaced in their current community, while others have just never found that community. We were overwhelmed by the desire of so many to find “sameness” in their pursuit of Jesus and His teachings. Not a sameness that comes from demographic indicators, but a sameness of heart and spirit.

If you missed out on the “Starbucks Experience” we would still really like to meet you. Get in touch with us here. We’d be more than happy to touch base and share with you all that we shared with the group last night. We would also welcome any of you to our Wednesday Night Launch Meetings. These happen weekly at my house. The information is on the webpage under Weekly Gatherings. Consider yourself invited. We hope to see you there.

There is also going to be another “Starbucks Experience” in September, but we don’t want you to wait that long. :0)

Pathways Church grew by one more this morning when Ellie Grace Chandler was born in to the Chandler family at 12:50am. Ellie weighed in at 7 lbs 2 oz, and is 20 1/2 inches long.

When we told Ellie she would now be able to be a part of Pathways Church, she was speechless.

Both Sherri and Ellie are doing exceptionally well as you can see from the picture. (This picture was taken less than 12 hours after her birth, and mommy looks great!) We appreciate the prayers of all, and we look forward to introducing Ellie to the Pathways community soon.

Welcome to those of you who received our postcard in the mail and are checking things out. Before the postcards were even dropped in the mail, there were some questions about the picture from some who saw it. So, we thought it would be nice to have a little blogumentary on the story behind this photo, and answer some of those questions. (If you’re still reading, you obviously have an insatiable curiosity, or you’re really bored…either way, read on!)

No professional photographer – This picture was taken by Dean’s 12 year-old son, Kyle. He’s certainly not a professional, although I suppose you could argue that he works in exhcange for room and board. We do think he did a fine job snapping this photo.

No airbrushes or touch-ups – This is the one that has created a stir. Some who have seen the picture think it looks like we cut and pasted our pictures into this pathway image. Nope! It seems to look that way due to the lighting. The flash went off, so it lit Dean’s face up a bit more with some unnatural lighting that differed from the rest of the photo. Also, there is a light glow around my head and shoulder which gives that impression. In fact, that is simply a sunbeam (or perhaps an angelic glow?) shining through the trees onto my back. It also might appear to be cut and pasted because our bodies seem to be at odd angles to each other, but that’s probably because I just can’t stand up straight. We did adjust the brightness and contrast a little bit to help us stand out from the background a bit. You can see what the original photo looked like here.

No perfect looking models – That’s not to say that Dean and I haven’t had lots of talent scouts approach us about being professional models!

No image consultants – There might be a bit of a stretch to this one. Both of our wives have a lot of input on the clothes hanging in our closets, and have been known to encourage us to change our clothes before leaving the house. Let’s just put it this way: Anything that looks at all right or normal about us, give the credit to our wives. Anything that looks like we really didn’t have professional image consultants, just chalk that up to the imperfect people that we are.

If you’re still reading this, you seem to have some free time. We hope you will use some of it to come and meet us at Starbucks on the 14th.

Last night, at our home gathering, we watched Nooma#5: Noise. This led us to a pretty extensive discussion about the unhealthy pace of our culture. There is no way I can share all of the insights that were raised, but I thought I’d share a few of the thoughts that I have reflected on as a result of the discussion.

It seems that much, if not all, of our nonstop pace is driven by our consumer culture. We are always wanting more, so we need to keep going in order to get it. The thought of slowing down to just reflect or rest is often troubling to us. When we do rest our bodies, we seldom rest our minds. Instead we just occupy them with elsewhere, whisking them away into another world through music or TV. There is nothing inherently wrong with either of these things, but there is something wrong when we do whatever we can to keep our minds occupied all the time. I think this speaks to a much deeper issue of consumerism. It is more than what we see on the surface. It is more than just an ongoing desire to get more.

I think we run from silence, and our thoughts, because often we don’t want to deal with them. Perhaps the reason we most fear silence is that our disatisfaction with our life will scream to us from the silence. We are forced to hear the things we don’t want to hear. When we buy into the lie of consumerism, we buy into a system that, by design, never satisfies us. Pepsi convinces us not to buy one Pepsi that will be the ultimate and final refreshing beverage. They market it to us, instead, so that we will be perpetual Pepsi drinkers — always needing more. That’s the simple version of it. The very nature of a consumer culture is that it is not meant to satisfy.

The challenge of following Jesus is one of pursing a full life. We explore his teachings to see if what he says is really true. Is there really more satisfaction in giving than in getting? I propose that none of us will know for sure until we experience that way of living for ourselves. And you can start, and I can start, by sitting in stillness and hearing his gentle whisper speak the truth to us.

We have been sorting through the values that will shape what Pathways will look like. Here they are — open for feedback. If there is any language that is unclear or anything like that, please let us know.

Struggle
Depth of life is developed through asking tough questions – through struggle. Those who quit the struggle either come to believe they now have all of the answers or quit caring about the answers all together. Life is not meant to be lived in either of these extremes. Life is a struggle. Following Jesus does not alleviate the struggle. It does not give us the answer to every question or enable us to conquer every life difficulty. But it does make the struggle worth facing as it ties it to something greater than ourselves. It is in the wrestling that we learn to trust and draw closer to God’s heart.

Meaning
We have been created with purpose. That is why everyone seeks meaning and truth. It is built into us as humans. Satisfaction of that inner hunger will only be found when we explore why we were created. The Scriptures open up our eyes to the ultimate meaning of life as we understand the teachings of Jesus, who claimed to give “life to the full.” This full life is not only found in where we spend our eternity, but in how we live life everyday.

Redemption
To redeem something is to buy back what you originally owned. God owns all truth and all beauty. Unfortunately, some of that truth and beauty has been marred and twisted by selfishness, pride, and hatred. Christ came not only to reclaim individual lives, but all of creation as well. Redemption can take place through something as simple as the beauty of art and creativity, as profound as the redirection of a life consumed by self, or as overwhelming as tackling issues of poverty, hunger, and sanitation in third world countries. We partner with Him to recover the sense of beauty, renewal and justice that He intended for this earth.

Sacrifice
This is where the teachings of Jesus get unpopular. Love must go beyond self and beyond ease. True love requires sacrifice. God first demonstrated that love to us through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. As an act of worship and response, we give our lives sacrificially to Him and those around us. To follow Jesus is to reflect His giving nature — taking more interest in the needs of others than our own.

Community
We struggle, but not alone. We search for meaning, but others walk the path alongside us. We partner with God to redeem creation, but we do it in conjunction with others. We sacrifice of ourselves, but must have others to give ourselves to. The New Testament is filled with teachings on how we are to live with “one another”. We laugh together. We cry together. We celebrate together. We grieve together. We were not meant to journey alone.