Roxburgh Missional Network

I spent last Thursday evening and Friday in Edmonton, Canada at the annual Breakforth Canada Conference. I hadn’t been to this event before but was invited to do a one day workshop with the generic title of “Missional” with no modifiers attached. This was a delightful change from other events where the missional language has some modifier, such as ‘church’ attached to it and one has to spend a lot of time explaining why missional isn’t primarily about church.

The hosts at the event were great ensuring everything was working well even to the point of going out to get a coffee addict some decent drinks. I always love Edmonton because I connect with two good friends who I respect so much, Howard Lawrence and Greg Brandenburg. I’ve written before about the ways these two friends and their families have moved into the neighborhoods as the centers of God’s activities and the place where church is first and foremost experienced in and a among a community of people. It was a privilege to listen in again on some of the stories of neighborhood shaping their community.

Howard pulled out his iPhone to show us pictures of a particular person on the street who tended to live apart and how they had created a Christmas party in her home much to her bemused delight. Doesn’t sound like much but this is about welcoming and building bonds of love and commitment in the suburbs.

I recently came away from a couple of weeks with some students who observed that most of the stories we told came from urban life. I wished these pastors could have been with me in Edmonton to hear about the ways God’s big dream for the world is being worked out in the midst of ordinary people in an Edmonton suburb. The Spirit is up to something so wonderful and important in ordinary neighborhoods in the suburbs. I’m not a romantic nor am I naive about what happens in life, so this is no glamorizing something for the sake of a story - I was given such a time of care, hospitality and delight. Moving back into the neighborhood isn’t a silly idea; it’s a part of the strange future the Spirit is creating in the midst of declining Euro-tribal churches.

David Fitch and I managed to connect with each for a couple of hours in Edmonton thanks to Howard’s persistence. So good to connect with Dave and listen to his stories of being the church in his neighborhood in Chicago. There we sat - the four of us representing Chicago, Edmonton and Vancouver. You couldn’t get such different cities and places. Yet there we were sharing these amazing stories about the ways God is creating new forms of mission-shaped life in local neighborhoods.

I was struck at how natural it was for Howard and Greg and Dave. We weren’t talking about starting movements or creating new vision statements or transferring our particular set of ‘value statements’ on others. It was about being present in the neighborhood, experimenting and trying things in the local because we love the people in our neighborhoods and we really do believe God is ahead of us and up to something in the ordinariness of it all.

I am so privileged and honored to count these three as friends in the journey. Thank you, so much.