Tomorrow is the last day of the year on the Church Calendar, which means Sunday begins the New Year! I am excited about this as the Church Year begins with the Season of Advent. Advent means “coming” and refers to the Coming of the Messiah.

On our regular calendars Advent is really the Christmas Season (which seems to start November 1st these days). So there is a close connection between Advent and Christmas. On the Church Calendar it is meant to lead us into the Christmas Season when we celebrate the fact that the Messiah already came to us 2000 years ago, born as a baby in a manger. And we can truly celebrate the First Coming of the Messiah because it means that God is with us: Emmanuael. But on the Church calendar, it is still over 4 weeks away; and in the meantime, we reflect upon the fact that our Messiah is Coming Again…with the clouds.

“He is Returning to Judge the Living and the Dead.” This is where the focus of the first part of the Advent Season most especially lies: on the Second Coming of the Messiah. Only this time when He returns, He will not be coming as meek and mild, as a babe in a manger. This time He is coming in glory and power as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And as we recite in the Creed…to judge the living and the dead.

So the question that most quickly rises when I contemplate this fact is, “am I ready?” Am I ready to meet the Lord when He returns? This is a question that we all have to ask ourselves. I want to encourage you to do so this Advent Season. We’ll be doing that on Sunday nights as St. George’s where I’ll be preaching on the line of the Creed, “From where He shall come again to judge the living and the dead.”

The first and most important question to answer is “do I have a relationship with God through Jesus the Messiah?” If not, then you can start by seeking Him in Faith. Jesus spoke  these words when He walked the earth.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 ESV).

Our relationship with God starts with His love for us in sending the Messiah. We respond with belief (faith). But that’s just the starting point. Faith is also the means by which we walk with God.

So for those of us who have already started the journey of faith, the next question we have to ask ourselves in Advent is, “am I continuing to walk by faith and love God with my whole being and my neighbor as myself?” Make room for God to enter your heart afresh as you ask this question and speak to you.

December can be a crazy, busy month that is sometimes overwhelming. Carve out time to spend with God and His Word this Advent Season. Do so knowing that He will meet with you. Do so knowing that one day, we will all meet Him face to face when He comes with the clouds.

Shane+

I grew up independent Bible and Baptist Churches that served communion once a month. I believe I was in sixth grade when I got to partake of communion the first time at Bethany Bible Church. I have distinct memories of holding on to the tiny bit of the pre-cut wafer bread and the little plastic cups filled with grape juice. We would wait until everyone in the church had a piece of bread and then we would all eat it at the same time. Likewise with the cup (me and my siblings always tried to drink down the last drop of the tasty juice in the cup). We’d then put the cups in the little holders on the back of the pew in front of us.

I also remember having discussions in my youth regarding Roman Catholics and others who took communion weekly. It seemed strange to me that they did it weekly and that we only did it once a month. The story I was given was along the lines that if communion was done weekly it would simply become a rote tradition and lose its meaning. We did not want that to happen to us. So this is what I carried into my adulthood.

In August of 1991, I returned home to Phoenix after 4 years in the Marines and 1 year at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. I was so happy to be home. I returned pretty broken and beat up spiritually (most of it my own doing). I immediately started attending Open Door Fellowship. It is a church that I had know since high school. I used to go to their youth group with a couple of my best friends. Open Door was like the Bible churches I grew up in a number of ways, but in other ways, very different. First of all, it started in 1973 as one of the original “Jesus People” churches in Phoenix. They were a bit more relaxed, people wore jeans to church! But there other things as well.

One of those is the fact that they practiced weekly communion. This immediately challenged what I had been taught in my youth. I had never gone to, or even heard of a “Bible Church” that did this. But, as God was working through them significantly in my life, I went along with it. And at first, it was the Bible teaching and the people God that used to bring me healing. But after a while, when I fully let my guard down, I began to experience something powerful during communion. I don’t think I was able to articulate it fully then, but I knew something was happening.

I also read through the Essentials of Open Door. In their Essential statement on Worship, they state this:

We observe the Lord’s Supper as a central part of our weekly worship, with all of the elements of the service leading to communion.

I gave that lots of thought and reflection. Open Door was a church that certainly enjoyed music. It was full of gifted musicians and singing was a key part of Corporate Worship. It also took preaching seriously. Sermons went a minimum of 30 minutes and often lasted 45. But according to their stated convictions, neither of these these were the “central part” of worship: it was Communion. And that is what I was experiencing. Communion became a powerful event for me in which I believed that I was meeting with Jesus…at the cross. As I ate the bread and drank the juice, reflecting upon Christ’s death and His shed blood for the sin, I felt the love and grace of God pouring upon me. I felt as I was truly communing with Jesus.

All of this was preparing me for the Canterbury Trail. In early 2000, a year or so before I was introduced to Robert Webber, I started worshiping at a Lutheran Church in our neighborhood. I have never forgotten the first time I took Communion there. I went forward and knelt at the altar rail, which was a first for me. Then the Lutheran Pastor came to hand me the wafer. As he did, he looked me in the eye and said, “This is the Body of Christ, given for you.” I came undone in that moment and tears streamed down my face. I truly felt like God Himself was speaking to me and telling me He loved me.

I eventually became Anglican and connected to the Reformed Anglican definition of Communion. The 39 Articles state that the Sacraments are indeed symbols, but not merely symbols.

Sacraments ordained of Christ be not only badges or tokens of Christian men’s profession, but rather they be certain sure witnesses and effectual signs of grace and God’s good will towards us, by the which He doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm, our faith in Him.

And Article 27 states:

The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves, one to another, but rather it is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ’s death: insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ, and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ.Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of bread and wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.

The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith

All of this to say that Communion is special and it is a mystery. And while I don’t believe that there is an actual change in the physical objects of bread and wine, I do believe that God uses them to impart grace to us, when we partake of those objects by faith. I am thankful for the gift of Holy Communion and that God has blessed me and the Church with this Sacrament.

Shane+

I read a great blog post a little while back on the late Dr. Robert Webber. Webber was hugely influential on my own personal journey to Anglicanism. His background was in Bible Church Fundamentalism (he went to Bob Jones University). He became a professor at Wheaton College and while there, became an Anglican in the early 70’s. He wrote a whole bunch of stuff on worship and coined the term: “Ancient-Future.” One of the books he wrote is called “Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail: Why Evangelicals are Attracted to the Liturgical Church.” It’s a wonderful book and pretty easy to read. I highly recommend it.

Nine years ago, a couple of things happened in my life that began to narrow the historical/liturgical journey that I had been on for several years. In the previous year, I had spent some time worshiping at a Lutheran  Church. It was my first touchpoint with liturgy. But then in the summer of 2001, I was introduced to an Anglican Minister in the Reformed Episcopal Church named Dennis Cagle (no connection to Gunny Cagle from Recon School!). I didn’t really quite know what Anglican was at this time. Dennis began meeting with me and mentoring me in the Anglican Way.

Soon after this, I was given a book to read by another friend, who was not Anglican. The book was “Ancient-Future Faith: Rethinking Evangelicalism for a Postmodern World” by Robert Webber. I had never heard of Webber before. In fact, at this point, I was feeling very alone and confused about my journey. I didn’t even know how to explain the things I was thinking and feeling to my longtime friends the non-denominational church I was a part of. Then I read Webber and I no longer felt so alone!

I found out that the things that God was doing in my heart, He had already been doing in many others.  So between Dennis Cagle and “Ancient-Future Faith,” I made a small step towards Anglicanism. I still had a long way to go, but the personal trail I was on was starting to merge into the larger Canterbury Trail, even if I was fighting it. I wrote these words in my journal around this time:

Hanging out with him (Dennis) and reading Robert Webber books and I was afraid I was supposed to become Anglican! While that isn’t the case, I am so amazed.

Those words came back to haunt me! And I’m glad they did.

So what was it about Webber and what he had to say that was so powerful. I’ll let you read the whole post that I read from the Internet Monk that tells the story well. But here are a couple of excerpts that I personally identified with back then, and still today. In “Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail,” Webber outlines these connection points with liturgy.

In the end, as Bob Webber tells his story, he found six areas of faith that were only satisfied by getting on the Ancient-Future path into a Christ-centered communion that was organically integrated with the ancient Great Tradition of evangelical Christianity.

1. Bowing before divine mystery
2. Participating in genuine worship
3. Experiencing sacramental reality
4. Embracing a fuller spiritual identity in the historic church
5. Accepting the unity of the catholic church
6. Finding a purposeful path for spiritual formation

You can read more of Webber’s story on the post here: Father of the Ancient-Future Path

In my next post, I delve into another part of my Canterbury Trail.

Shane+

Today’s Old Testament Lesson for Morning Prayer was Ezekiel 24:15-27. In my mind, it is one of the most stunning passages in all of Scripture. So before I make any comments on it, please just read it.

15 The word of the Lord came to me: 16 “Son of man, behold, I am about to take the delight of your eyes away from you at a stroke; yet you shall not mourn or weep, nor shall your tears run down. 17 Sigh, but not aloud; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban, and put your shoes on your feet; do not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men.” 18 So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died. And on the next morning I did as I was commanded.

19 And the people said to me, “Will you not tell us what these things mean for us, that you are acting thus?” 20 Then I said to them, “The word of the Lord came to me: 21 ‘Say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will profane my sanctuary, the pride of your power, the delight of your eyes, and the yearning of your soul, and your sons and your daughters whom you left behind shall fall by the sword. 22 And you shall do as I have done; you shall not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men. 23 Your turbans shall be on your heads and your shoes on your feet; you shall not mourn or weep, but you shall rot away in your iniquities and groan to one another. 24 Thus shall Ezekiel be to you a sign; according to all that he has done you shall do. When this comes, then you will know that I am the Lord God.’

25 “As for you, son of man, surely on the day when I take from them their stronghold, their joy and glory, the delight of their eyes and their soul’s desire, and also their sons and daughters, 26 on that day a fugitive will come to you to report to you the news. 27 On that day your mouth will be opened to the fugitive, and you shall speak and be no longer mute. So you will be a sign to them, and they will know that I am the Lord.” (ESV)

Ezekiel’s story is an amazing one to begin with. He was living in Babylon as a captive of war. Nebuchadnezzar had taken a number of Jerusalem’s leading citizens back to Babylon (like Daniel) on earlier campaigns to Judah. Ezekiel was a priest, who at the age of 30 became a prophet of God in exile. While Jeremiah was still in Jerusalem prophesying that Nebuchadnezzar would come back and destroy the city and the temple, Ezekiel was preaching the same message in Babylon.

But Ezekiel did more than simply stand and preach to the people, like other prophets, God used his life as a living object lesson for His people. In fact, God took away Ezekiel’s voice, except when God wanted to speak directly through him. Early into his prophetic ministry (Ezk. 4), he had to build a little city and lay on the ground all day to enact the actual siege that would be coming to Jerusalem. As part of this enactment, he had to eat a special bread baked over cow dung (This is where we get the modern day “Ezekiel Bread” you can buy at the grocery store today…which I think lacks the cow dung baking).

Some 5 years into his ministry, we get to today’s passage. God then requires something of Ezekiel that is simply stunning, and so is Ezekiel’s obedient response. God tells him that his wife is going to die. But the way God says it, make it even more poignant. God calls Ezekiel’s wife, “the delight of your eyes.” I don’t read this as a negative statement at all. Simply a statement of how much Ezekiel must have loved his wife.

After this statement comes the command from God that Ezekiel is not to mourn her death. And Ezekiel, in his own words, “did as I was commanded.” If that sounds shocking to us, it was no less to the people the Ezekiel was living with. They noticed and asked him why? His own life is to be an object lesson to the people of what is about to happen. The temple in Jerusalem was the delight of their eyes and it was about to be destroyed. And the surviving people would be taken away with no chance to mourn.

The reason given for all of this is stated twice, “then the people will know that the LORD is God.” This is God’s concern: His own glory. It is the dominant theme throughout the Book of Ezekiel (and the theme of all of Scripture). God acts for His glory. We exist to glorify Him. It is not the other way around.

I have to admit that what God required of His faithful servant Ezekiel is mind-boggling. I would not choose any of it for myself, to have my wife whom I love taken from me, and certainly commanded not to mourn her death. I would not choose to have God use my life as such an object lesson for others. But then none of us really gets to choose any of those kind of things. There are so many things like that that are truly out of our control.

All we can do is follow Ezekiel’s example, trust God and humbly obey. I am not suggesting this was easy for Ezekiel, or is easy for us. That is why we need the grace of God and the support of the Body of Christ in our lives of obedience.

I think that this week’s Collect for the 14th Sunday after Trinity is most appropriate.

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Shane+

Little did I know back in December of 1987 what I was getting myself into when I volunteered to go Recon. I had joined the Marine Corps with a guaranteed infantry contract. All I wanted to be was a rifleman. I got infantry, but the Corps made me a mortarman instead! So after a year of hiking around in the grunts with a 60mm mortar baseplate on my back I was ready for something else. First Recon Battalion needed more men, so on a whim, I volunteered.

Now this was pre-internet and Discovery Channel days. I honestly had no real idea of what I was getting myself into. But off I went in February of 1988, reporting to 1st Recon at Camp Talega on Camp Pendleton. My life was about to change. It was there that I was introduced to some lovely men like Cpl. Joseph and Gunnery Sgt. Cagle (whom we not so affectionately called Gunny Kegdog!). Those men still haunt my dreams.

Here’s a picture of Camp Talega from around the time I was there:

As you can see, Discovery Channel has a brief inside look at Recon School this Wednesday night. I am not sure to this day how I survived the experience. All I knew, once I got there, is that I was NOT going to quit and go back to being a mortarman in the infantry. As our motto said, and which we had to repeat endlessly, I learned to “Drive on, Recon!” And so I did. And out of a class of some 35 men, 13 of us were left standing on graduation day.

It was on that day, after having gone through a graduation ceremony, Gunny Kegdog was marching us down to the beer garden at Talega, when he stopped us short. There was indeed a keg of cold beer awaiting us in our triumph, but we could have none of it until we paid off the Gunny 500 “12 count body builders” that we still owed him. He did not wait for us to finish before he started enjoying the beer himself!

Here is a picture of a couple of men who endured and stood with me on that day, Kris “Maddog” Moody and “Ranger” John Benish.

So what did I learn from my experience. I learned how to suffer and endure. It is something that I draw upon to this day. When things get hard or I find myself facing difficult circumstances, I look back and remember that I am a Recon Marine. I can “drive on.” I know how to relate to the words of St. Paul, who said to Timothy:

Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.  No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him (2 Timothy 2:1-4 ESV).

That the last thing I’ll share is The Recon Creed.

Realizing it is my choice and my choice alone
to be a Reconnaissance Marine,
I accept all challenges involved with this profession.
Forever shall I strive to maintain the tremendous reputation
of those who went before me.

Exceeding beyond the limitations
set down by others shall be my goal.
Sacrificing personal comforts and dedicating myself
to the completion of the reconnaissance mission shall be my life.
Physical fitness, mental attitude, and high ethics –

The title of Recon Marine is my honor.

Conquering all obstacles, both large and small,
I shall never quit.
To quit, to surrender, to give up is to fail.
To be a Recon Marine is to surpass failure;
To overcome, to adapt and to do whatever it takes
to complete the mission.

On the battlefield, as in all areas of life,
I shall stand tall above the competition.
Through professional pride, integrity, and teamwork,
I shall be the example
for all Marines to emulate.

Never shall I forget the principles
I accepted to become a Recon Marine.
Honor, Perseverance, Spirit and Heart.

A Recon Marine can speak without saying a word
and achieve what others can only imagine.

Semper Fi,

Shane+

Hard to believe its been over a month since I last posted. A lot has happened since then including our family vacation to California (friends, family, Disneyland, the beach, San Diego Zoo and the Mission at San Juan Capistrano). It was a wonderful trip. I followed that up by serving as a counselor at Open Door Fellowship Church’s Jr. High Camp. I spent a week sleeping in a tent with six 7th and 8th Grade boys, running around the woods, climbing in caves, jumping in creeks, teaching wilderness survival and killing a rattlesnake (too small to cook up). A personal highlight was being there with my daughter Rachel, and celebrating her 12th birthday during the week. I’m a blessed man.

Beyond all of that, God spoke powerfully and sweetly to me during the week. The theme of the camp was “Further Up and Farther In.” Nicole Hunter is Open Door’s Jr. High Director. She has an incredible heart for Jr. Higher’s and is gifted to teach them God’s truth and grace. The first night, in her opening talk to the camp, she told us that Jesus is inviting us to come “further up and father in.” She made the statement that it doesn’t matter if you haven’t started to journey with Jesus yet, been following him for 4 months, or 40 years, He’s inviting you to come “further up and father in” with Him.

In that unexpected moment, I knew my Savior and Lord was speaking directly to me. I have been following Jesus for 40 years. My grandparents brought me to Bethany Bible Church in 1971 when I was 3 years old, and Jesus began inviting me into His life. I responded at the age of 4, first trusting in Him, his death for the forgiveness of my sins and in His resurrection for eternal life. And what a journey it has been so far!

The rest of the week was a precious time of serving, playing and hearing His voice. Now I have to say that when I went to camp I did not feel particularly tired or disconnected from God. I didn’t go looking to be refreshed or hear from Him in a special way. So hearing Him just renew His invitation to me was a surprise. And I didn’t come home with some great revelation to do something different or accomplish something new. It was simply Jesus reminding me that He is infinite and that His love is incomprehensible. That is to say, that the life that Jesus invites us into is His. He just wants me to keep walking with Him in faith, loving Him with my whole heart, mind, soul and strength.

When I got home I reopened an old book, The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer. In it, Tozer makes this crazy statement:

To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul’s paradox of love.

I believe this what God was reminding me of during my week in the woods. I have been following Jesus for 40 years. Not perfectly by any means, and with a couple of years as a young man where I actively tried to go another direction. He wouldn’t let me go. But those 40 years are just the beginning of the rest of the time He gives me here on this earth, and then on into eternity. Where as the last verse of “Amazing Grace” states:

When we’ve been ten thousand years, We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise then when we first begun!

So I give thanks to God for Nicole for using her to speak mightily to a bunch of Jr. Higher’s, and to me. I now encourage you to hear His voice. Jesus is inviting you to come “further up and father in.”

Shane+

“The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch…for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith” (Acts 11:22-24 ESV).

Today is the Feast of St. Barnabas. As a Christian, I don’t think you could ask for a better description that what Luke writes of Barnabas in the above passage. Barnabas was truly a mighty man of God. We are the beneficiaries of his work 2000 years ago. His name literally means “son of encouragement” and he lived up to it.

It was Barnabas who went all the way to Tarsus just to find  the Apostle Paul. He brought him to the Church in Antioch, and because of Barnabas, the Church received Paul. The Church then laid hands on them and sent them out on Paul’s  first Missionary Journey to Asia Minor. Also on this journey was the young man Mark. He left Paul and Barnabas. This led to a split between Paul and Barnabas when the time came for the Second Journey. Barnabas wanted to bring Mark again, but Paul would not consent. So they departed paths with Paul taking Silas instead.

Who can make a judgement on this 2000 years later? What we do know is that Barnabas’ investment in Mark bore fruit. Paul, many years later, and late in his life, noted Mark’s usefulness when he requested, “Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry” (2 Timothy 4:11 ESV). And of course, Mark became a disciple of St. Peter as well, writing the Gospel of Mark.

Barnabas was a man who took both Paul and Mark under his wing at different times. His life and example gives us pause to reflect upon our lives and the people in them.  There might be someone that God has put in our path, of whom He is saying, “spend time with him or her. Maybe others have given up on them, but I haven’t.”

Here are the Scirpture Lessons for Today. Epistle: Acts 11:22-30;  Gospel: John 15:12-16

The Collect (Prayer) for the Feast of St. Barnabas:

O LORD God Almighty, who didst endue thy holy Apostle Barnabas with singular gifts of the Holy Spirit: Leave us not, we beseech thee, destitute of thy manifold gifts, nor yet of grace to use them alway to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Shane+

I was privileged to get my picture taken with JI Packer at the AMiA Winter Conference a couple of months ago. He even printed his name in my ESV Bible (he wouldn’t sign it as if he had written it!). The good Rev. Dr. Packer has a new book out that he wrote with another professor, Dr. Gary Parrett of Gordon-Conwell Seminary. The book is called “Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old-Fashioned Way.” In addition to the book, which I have yet to read, Packer and Parrett did an interview with Dr. Michael Horton about the book and the need for catechism in the church.

Take 30 minutes of your time and listen to the interview. It is very good and insightful about the state of what we might call discipleship in the church today. Packer and Parrett are looking to the ancient practice of discipleship called “catechism.” There is great need for new Christians to get “grounded in the Gospel!” The introduction to the interview states:

Throughout the history of the church, young believers and new converts to the faith went through a process called “catechism.” What are the roots of this ancient practice, and why has it fallen out of use in contemporary Christianity?

Listen to the Grounded in the Gospel Interview.

Shane+

A term that has been fairly hot in the evangelical world is “Missional Church.” Now you may be asking yourself, “what is a missional church?” Now that’s a great question and there a lot of people talking about what it means, or doesn’t mean. We haven’t used the exact term “missional church” a lot here at St. George’s, rather we have simply been trying to be one. The fact that we are truly a mission church from Rwanda to reach the unchurched in Downtown Phoenix helps.

So one way we have been trying to be a missional church is in not using an “attraction model” for our Worship service. We see our Sunday night, corporate worship as primarily a time for the beliveing family to gather and worship God through the Word, the prayers, songs and Communion. The family is then sent out from the Worship service to be Christ in our community.

Of course this doesn’t mean that we don’t invite and welcome all people into our Worship time. We just believe that where the unchurched will most likely meet Jesus is with us in the context of our homes, work, school, pubs, coffee shops, etc.

Here is a video that gives a great description of what of what I’m trying to articulate. Are we there yet? No, but we continue to grow and take steps in this direction.

The Missional Church… Simple from jeff maguire on Vimeo.

It’s hard to believe St. George’s Anglican Community has been worshipping on Sunday nights for 2 years. On one hand it seems as if we just started yesterday, and on the other hand, it seems as if we’ve been together for much longer. It’s funny how life seems to be like that in so many areas.

On Sunday night I used Mark 4:26-29 as my text. It reads:

And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.” (ESV)

I believe this is gives a good picture of who we are and what we are doing. We’re farmers! That is, we’re working the ground, planting seed and at the end of the day, getting some hard earned sleep. But all the farming we are do, doesn’t make the seeds grow, that is a miracle of God. We are called to farm, God is the life-giver.

Looking ahead, I am excited and encouraged about a new work called the “Anglican Mission Urban Initiative.” Bishop Doc Loomis is spearheading this. If you look at this map below, you’ll find St. George’s already represented. Doc is bringing together similar Urban works across North America for what he calls FUNC. Please read his words about what is going on:

Dear fellow laborers                                                                                         03.01.2010

Greetings in Christ to you all!

You’re receiving this email as a follow-up to our recent break-out session at theAM winter conference. First, let me say thank you for being with us at our Urban Initiative session. Shane, Dale, and Ben did a fantastic job helping us to get a taste of what urban ministry feels like. I really appreciate these urban heroes.

I had hoped to be corresponding with you a few weeks back, but it has taken me this long to get some ducks in a row. I know we all want to start getting connected and supported soon, but before we get too far along, let me remind you that the Urban Initiative (which, incidentally, we’re calling U&I) has four main goals. Together, we call these goals FUNC: Mainly because it’s easy to remember.

Almost as soon as our AM church planters started moving into the cities they recognized that there just wasn’t enough FUNC.

What were they missing? Funding, Understanding, Networking and Coaching…FUNC.

Our goal is to put the FUNC back into urban ministry by working with missionaries to raise money, increase understanding among kingdom partners, develop networks of likeminded missionaries, and get connected with the very best urban ministry coaches.

So, let me tell you what we’re up to on this end:

1.    We’ve built a BETA website with basic information about U&I. You can find it at http://UandIAM.com (or just click any link on the menu bar of this email)

We’ll fill this out a good bit more in the coming weeks. Right now we’re looking for a real web pro to take it to the next level of design and accessibility. If you know someone, or want to take on the task, please let me know. This site will then be linked to the Anglican 1000 church plant website as well as theAM site as a resource. Love to link to a few more blogs too. If you are blogging urban, send me a link and a photo and we’ll get you added to our blog page.

We’ve also added a Facebook group to allow conversations among planters to begin quickly. Our new website will host its own community one day. For now, Facebook is at: http://tinyurl.com/ylh4qpf

There is another Facebook group called Anglican Urban Initiative…that is something else (but good to see so many are interested, eh?

2.    I’ve been meeting with professional fundraising and business strategists in CHI since winter conference. I’m encouraged by their interest and support for this work. In the next month, we hope to launch a long-term fundraising campaign designed to put some serious money into our bank account.

3.      We’re in conversation with some major urban ministries and are in hot pursuit of a champion-style leader for U&I. If you would like to recommend someone, drop me a line. While I am an enthusiastic cheerleader for urban ministry, my schedule will not allow me to manage the day-to-day interests of a missionary movement. We’re also interviewing coaches with urban experience to join our team.

4.      We’re connected with theAM intercessors now, and will be greatly blessed to have their support as we begin and grow.

5.      Finally, we’ll be scheduling a full-blown Urban Mini Conference just ahead of next January’s AM winter conference. The conference dates are Feb 9-12, 2011. We will meet on the 8^th beginning at noon and conclude by 2PM on the 9^th. There should not be any charge for this pre-conference event. (exception, lodging)

Once again, thank you for your interest in and support of our urban initiative. Needless to say, you’re in on the ground floor…and we’ve nowhere to go but up. So turn those heads upward and ask God to bless us all.

Praying for you and your ministry,

Doc Loomis

Missionary Bishop, AMiA

As you can see, God is still alive and well, doing what He does in growing His kingdom. We just to stay focused on keeping the plow in the ground.

Shane+