Category: tapestry

right now i feel like i’m in a peculiar situation with the birth of tapestry. the issue is that i have been dreaming about this for quite some time, where as the people i have been meeting with are just now beginning to consider it as an option. so i’m at the point of slowly moving from the dream of tapestry to the reality of it. yet i can’t really start moving too fast until others are on board with the church. so what i get to continue doing is dreaming and hoping for other people to join in on the dream.

so today just for the fun of it i went to view some leasing property in downtown stevens point. i have mixed feelings concerning leasing property. on one side i would prefer to be rather nomadic. i think it sends a powerful message when a church decides to place it’s resources towards priorities other than a building. on the other side of the coin i think store front churches send a powerful message also. for me it connects very strongly with the original concept of the “ecclesia” being a body of those called out from within the city. there is something amazing symbolic in a church building that is completely physically connected with the other buildings of the city around it, rather than a church building that is a separate little fortress from the other buildings within it’s community. i also think it is just plain cool that anyone walking by a store front church building can look in and see what the people of GOD are doing in the room (hopefully they will be able to see the people of GOD doing many other things all around the community). it’s open and inviting. i’m ready for some other people to start joining the dream of tapestry so we can start deciding what messages are most important to us.

so without any real agenda, other than curiosity, i went downtown today to look at a few of the buildings currently available for lease. after looking at three buildings (one of which had a large side room that could be separated off from it and would work perfectly for what who i believe we will be in a year and a half). it was so cool to walk into a room and imagine a group of people dreaming about and living out the life GOD wants for them. of course, we’re a long ways from being in any type of building. still it was nice.

SIDE NOTE – i presently have a huge scab on my forehead from hitting the exhaust pipe of pam’s minivan saturday. from a distance it looks like a large “mole” on my forehead. because of this “mole” i battled in my mind over whether or not i should get my wisconsin driver’s license today. i finally came down on the side of getting it today because i thought it would be funny to see an chasier’s, security agent’s, or officer’s response (hopefully it will never be an officer’s) when he/she looks at my license and sees a huge “mole” on my photo forehead but not on my present head. it made me laugh continually while i was in the dmv waiting for my photo. i’ll post the photo when i receive my license in the mail.

first, it’s really fun being a packers fan this year for two reasons 1) even though i have been a packers fan since 1978, until this year i had never been a packers fan in packers’ country – oh it’s fun, and 2) the packers are kicking butt! (of course, we just lost to the bears.)

second, i have an inch long burn on my forehead now. i went under pam’s minivan to check out something and bumped my head on the exhaust pipe. it instantly burned the first layer of skin off of my forehead. i feel pretty stupid.

third, the nekoosa giant pumpkin festival was a blast. they hollowed out 1000 pound pumpkins and used them for a pumpkin/boat race up the wisconsin river. not something that i ever thought i would see in my life but it was a lot of fun.

fourth, i spent monday through wesdnesday at a pastors’ conference at green lake conference center (which was gorgeous). during the conference i was involved in a couple of conversations concerning what type of marketing i would do to start tapestry and what type of marketing had been done to start various other churches. while i’m not the biggest fan of marketing in general (we have taught our kids to shout “that’s a lie” when certain television commercials come on), i do realize that there is a need for a little. still, i have no interest in “marketing” tapestry. JESUS said “and I, as I am lifted up from the earth, will attract everyone to me and gather them around me.” that’s how i would like to draw people into the community of tapestry – lift JESUS up. i would like us to be involved in doing some things where only JESUS can get the glory and then let HIM decide if he wants to get any of these people involved in tapestry or not. i picture this being something like the commercial where the guy says he found the internet in a swamp. i like to think of a guy or girl seeing what we are doing one day and thinking “well there’s where JESUS is.” i guess this means i need to find out who the “lepers” and “sinners” are within our community and do something JESUS would do with them.