people, not place (or church planting in GREATER Salem)

SHORT VERSION:

As we were leaving Silverton the other day, a few things occurred to us. Germane to this post was a new understanding that our struggle with place was creating undue stress. We felt that perhaps our time of residency was not a time to focus so much on place, as upon people. Its a subtle but powerful shift. We talked with our church planting coach (Kurt) yesterday, and his experience and wisdom confirmed this approach (which was exciting to us).

So, its people, not place. The FHL Project is working to gather people who are willing to join us in this exciting (and ambiguous) time of seeing where God is working and determining location together. We'd love it if you'd consider joining us.

LONG VERSION (BACKGROUND):
Carmen and I, as you may already know, are preparing to co-pastor a church plant in the greater Salem area. Since we lived and studied in Chicago for ±4 years, one thing we wanted was an opportunity to reintegrate into Oregon. I'm from Montana, Carmen's from Oregon. MT and OR are actually quite similar (maybe not politically), and both are quite different than Chicago. Our denomination's (Evangelical Covenant Church, covchurch.org) department of Church Growth & Evangelism, and our conference (North Pacific, covchurch-npc.org) agreed a time of residency was appropriate. So, right now, we are preparing to plant. But our preparation is particularly dependent on how the Holy Spirit speaks to us over the next few months.

In our journey towards planting, we have held (okay, I'll be honest) pretty tightly to a particular location (Silverton) for planting. There are lots of good reasons for this, starting with a personal invitation from community residents. We prayed a lot about that, especially after we felt God calling us to church planting in a very particular and powerful way. We began to share what we were hearing, and later had the opportunity to visit 6 locations the NP Conference was exploring for planting and which also fit well with Carmen and I. Again, Silverton stood out. There are many more examples, but the point is that after 2 years of intense prayer and community conversation, considering other options is, well, new! We thought that when we arrived in the area, some of our questions would be answered, and that Silverton would be confirmed.

Instead, we have more questions!

Its not that Silverton is not confirmed. But we have been asked to consider, for example, Keizer, west Salem, and north east Salem. And we have tried hard to honor those requests. Now that we are here, and as we talk with people in the area, we are hearing about needs and places from people who actually live here. (One of our struggles has been balancing our opportunity to house-sit [economically beneficial] with the desire to get into a community [rent/buy] and become part of it [from within it]. How can we explore the options when we continue to travel in from the outside? ) (concludes with SHORT VERSION)