Join us this Easter for some good times with good people and good discussion around scripture.
We’re gonna start with an egg hunt for the kids, have some good grub together, our annual egg hunt for the adults (12 & over? Oh, and it includes some gift cards and a 20 spot in the golden egg), and some discussion about our spiritual journeys and why Easter is important to those of us who are Christ followers.
Here’s the plan:

9:30 am: Kid’s egg hunt
10:00ish am: Brunch
11:00ish am: Adult egg hunt
11:30ish am: Scripture discussion (Kids have their own craft/Easter story time)
12:15ish: See ya!

For our scripture discussion, please don’t feel like you have to contribute if you aren’t comfortable with that or let that discourage you from being a part.  It will be a relaxed time for us to look at a passage of scripture and reflect upon the resurrection and it’s effect of our lives, regardless of where you are at in regard to your faith journey.  We’d love you to join us and you’re welcome to hang out and just take it all in.

We’d love for you to join us for the whole morning, but feel free to come a little late or leave a little early if you need to.
It’ll be a great morning of being family and celebrating together.  All are welcome!
Hope you can join us!
Feel free to comment below if you have any questions or wanna let us know you’re coming.

In January we spent our second MLK Day in a row helping to clean up at Evergreen Cemetery in Santa Cruz.  It’s owned by the Museum of Art & History, and along with the city, they have been working to clean it up in order to hold events there and share about the history of Santa Cruz.

It’s amazing to see how much has changed and how much better it looks after lots of work over the past year!  Volunteers from Homeless Services Center are there every Monday, and there have been several other work days throughout the year.  On one day up there we had the opportunity to literally uncover the Chinese section of the cemetery and learn a lot about the history of the Chinese immigrant population in Santa Cruz.

We had a great time working together and, as usual, getting to meet some others in the process.  Including Steve meeting/talking to KSBW about serving the community.

We did a lot of moving around cut brush, raking, cutting, digging, and putting in a retaining wall of cedar tree, which took more than a few people to move.

Here’s a note from a family who’s plot we specifically spent some time on last year:

I visited Evergreen Cemetery last Wednesday to see the work that your group did.  It is just wonderful.  Thank you so much for the great job on my familiy plot.  My son and I have worked on it in the past, but keeping up with the ivy and vinca is a never ending task.  Your work is greatly appreciated.  I hope that in the future I can come out and work with the volunteers.

In January, we hosted a conversation around the topic of holistic health.  Especially being not too far into the New Year, it’s something that has been on most of our minds to one degree or another.  It is a topic that has gained more and more popularity in our culture, and we think that’s a good thing.

After hanging 0ut for a few minutes over some healthy snacks (cause junk food at a conversation about health just seemed kinda wrong) and drinks, we started sharing some of our own stories about health in all areas of our lives and our understanding of what holistic health means.  Many of us tended to most often fall back on physical health, but also admitted that when we are healthy in particular areas of our life we could see the positive effect on other areas of discipline and health.  I know for myself, when I am disciplined in caring for my physical self, it tends to bleed over into caring more effectively for my soul as well.  For those of us who have been around the church world for a while, we have often heard the answer to most problems being to pray more and read the Bible more.  While these are both good things, we recognized that God has perhaps wired us to connect with him in a variety of ways, and sometimes what we really need may be a run, a surf session, or time with a good friend.

Below is a diagram that sums up how most of the stuff I looked up separated out the different aspects of health:

This was a great visual and starting point for us, but there was one thing that I took a little bit of issue with.  If we were to slightly tweak this model – well, we did – we think it should look a bit more like this:

Most of all, we wanted to remind ourselves that everything in life is ultimately spiritual.  So rather than allocate it to it’s own special area, let’s call that soul health and keep in mind that caring for our emotional, physical, mental, and social selves are all spiritual acts also.

The 2 biggest questions that arose: How do we assess our health, and what did we feel like we needed to do to be healthier?  So we whiteboarded some ideas on these topics and here’s what we came up with:

Ways we assess our health

• Models we see in others
• Listening to “experts”
• Our own intuition
• Times of reflection

Practices for fostering better health

• Reading/studying
  • Scripture
  • Info/knowledge
• Opening ourselves up to community
• Blogging (accountability, social aspects, emotional outlet)
• Journaling
• Physical exercise
• Yoga
• Meditation
• Getting healthier amounts of sleep
• Spending more time outdoors
• Solitude/reflection

How about you? What would you add to the list that you may want to do to become healthier as a person?
I know there are plenty more that we coud add.  These are just the ones that resonated with where those of us in the room were at.  Trying to do all of these things would be overwhelming and crazy, so we encouraged everyone to pick one that they could try focusing on for a couple of weeks to see whether it would make a difference.

Join us for our next conversation, tomorrow night (Sunday, Feb 24) where we’ll be talking about technology, connection, community, and isolation.

There’s a great passage in 1 John that says: “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”

Most all of us, regardless of our faith journeys or beliefs, would say that we are a work in progress.  What we will be has not yet appeared.  Every New Year there is a huge emphasis on wanting to change and become better people as the calendar turns.  As followers of Jesus, we believe we should always be changing, and ultimately this looks like becoming more and more like Christ.

But something interesting came out as we discussed.  The reality is, many of us know that we should change, but if we’re being honest, we still want to want to change.  Or perhaps we really do want to, but we aren’t willing to do the things necessary to make it happen.  It’s really Christ who ultimately does the changing in us, but he wants us to partner with him and respond to what he’s doing in our lives.  Until the pain of not changing becomes greater than the pain of making the changes, many of us aren’t going to make sacrifices to grow.  We say it’s something we value, but we don’t actually do anything to create an environment where transformation can happen.

So what would it look like to create that climate in our lives?  What are some things we can do to put ourselves in a position to allow God to change us for the better, deep down inside.  We pulled out the whiteboard to process some of the practices we could try implementing if we wanted to.  Here’s a start that we came up with:

• Scripture/memorization
• Creative worship experience
• Reading/learning
• Listening – podcasts, etc.
• Prayer
• Accountability
• Journaling or blogging
• New experiences/intentionally getting out of our comfort zones
• Exercise/nutrition

By no means is the list exhaustive, thus “a start.”
What else could go on the list?
How else can we position ourselves for transformation?

This coming Sunday, we will continue in a similar vein at our monthly “Spiritual Conversation” where we’ll be discussing holistic health.
We’re looking forward to talking about how each part of our lives affects the others and how we can be whole, healthy individuals.

For myself this year in ministry has been marked by mentorship and coaching. In addition to some great mentors that God has brought into my like who are like-minded and able to help Rachel and I process are faith journey, I have been able to spend most of the year receiving one on one coaching from Matt Smay, co-author of Tangible Kingdom. It has been invaluable being able to hear more about the beginnings of their community, study some materials to help guide our story, and get some direction from Matt to continue propelling us forward.

This past year we have had numerous exciting and faith filled experiences:

• Helping revitalize a historic cemetery at a downtown park
• Eater brunch and egg hunt at the Boys & Girls club
• Multiple potlucks throughout Santa Cruz County
• Volunteering to help pull weeds at a local state park
• Encouraging each other in our faith and praying for one another
• Painting a 1917 Steam Engine for the city at that same downtown park
• Various conversations about Jesus with friends and neighbors
• A vision dessert, inviting in some more local partners in finances and mission
• Guys and girls meeting together for spiritual formation

We want to say thank you SO much for partnering with us and being a part of God’s mission here in Santa Cruz.
God has continued to astound us with his faithfulness and direction.  He is constantly teaching us and changing our paradigms for what ministry looks like and how he is building this particular expression of faith.
Having spent a lot of time in the last couple years learning to be on mission and investing in the lives of those around us, I sense we’re moving into a season of building the structure of the ministry in the coming year.  We are excited to see what that looks like as we launch into 2013 with dreams of how we can join God in the work He is already doing in Santa Cruz.  Thanks again for being a part of making it all possible and we can’t wait to take you on the journey with us even more in 2013.

God Bless.

Bobby Marchessault and Missio Dei Community

At a traditional church you have a weekly service that people show up to where they can be counted.
You have events that are church sponsored. And of course, you count to know if you are “effective.”
People come to events because they identify with the church, and if they aren’t interested, they don’t come.

But I’ve found something interesting happening as we do faith the way we have chosen to as a community.
We aim to do life and faith together daily, and invite others in to be a part of the rhythms that we believe are shaping us.
At times, as we plan a potluck or a service opportunity, this has led to the question, “Do we call this a ‘church’ event? or even a Missio Dei event? Am I creating the Facebook event or is Missio Dei Community?”

In The Shaping of Things To Come, Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost talk about bounded sets and centered sets. In America, ranchers build a fence to keep all of their cattle in. It’s very clear which animals are in and which ones are out. A lot like the way traditional church operates. Alan, being from Australia, points out that in his homeland it is too expansive to build fences. Instead, a well is bored in the middle of the property. Ranchers know that the animals will want to drink and will stay within a reasonable vicinity of the well.
In the bounded set, there is a clear boundary without a particular center. In the centered set, the edges are fuzzy, but the center is clearly defined. They suggest our churches spend less energy determining who is in and who is out, and rather think of Christ as the center. Everybody is in some proximity to Christ. It’s not always clear who’s in and who’s out, but what’s more important is where are they in relation to the community’s center, Christ.

You see, I’ve discovered that there are people who we love, and who love us, and who spend time with us on a regular basis. There are people who show up to our potlucks and who serve alongside us in the community, and they know exactly who we are and what we’re about. Many of them wouldn’t say that they’re a part of “Missio Dei Community,” yet at the same time, they are very much a part of the life of our community. An important, vital part.  They come and go as they please, and they are engaging, right alongside us, in the practices that change us and make us more like Christ.

It’s a different way of doing church than what I learned. Subtle, but very different.
It’s uncomfortable at times.
We don’t have a typical weekly gathering.
Do you count only the people who profess belief?
Do you count anyone who comes to join us for a spiritual discussion?
Do we count everyone who shows up at a barbeque we might be throwing?
(Should we even be counting people?)
It makes it harder to put a metric to what God is doing.
It gets messy at times.

And we love it.
We wouldn’t have it any other way.

Sun 29 – Memorial Day BBQ

June

Sun 5 – Sabbath

Sun 12 – Communion (Matt. 6:19-33)

Sun 19 – Father’s Day / Mission TBD

Mon 20 – Hivemind (AND – ch1-3)

Sun 26 – Communion (Matthew 7:1-6)

July

Sun 3/Mon 4 – Community

Sun 10 – Communion (Matthew 7:7-12)

Sun 17 – On Bike With Love

Sun 24 – Communion (Matthew 7:13-29)

Wed 27 – Hivemind (AND – ch4-6)

Sun 31 – Pong and Top-a-Lot! (Bring your kids)

August

Sun 7 – Mission TBD

Sun 14 – Communion (Matthew 8:1-17)

Fri 19 – Mon 22 – TAHOE! ($35-More info coming soon)

Wed 24 – TK Primer group starts (Weekly – 8 weeks)

Sun 28 – Communion (Matthew 8:18-34)

September

Mon 5 – Labor Day BBQ @ Harvey West

Wed 21 – Hivemind (AND – ch7-8)

Come join us to celebrate Easter together over brunch at Harvey West Park.

You’re also welcome to join us if you’d like beforehand to talk about Easter, resurrection, and what it means today.

9:30-10:15 – Village Gathering
Come have some Noah’s Bagels and coffee before brunch.
We’ll be looking at scriptures, discussing Easter and the Resurrection, and reading some of Matthew to see how the Resurrection impacts the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

There will be activities and learning for the kids at the same time.

10:30 – Kids Easter Egg Hunt!!
We’ll have an Easter Egg hunt for all the kidlets at 10:30, so if you have some little one’s be sure to come and let em find some treats. We’ll be hiding stuff in and around the clubhouse for them to hunt down.

11:00ish – BRUNCH!
Let’s celebrate the day by eating together.
We’ll be providing all the food…quiche, ham, waffles (at least we’re working on having all those things there!) and whatever else we can conjure up. We’ll be finishing the cooking while the kids hunt, so when it’s ready we’ll eat. If you have special food requests, let it be known, but no guarantees!

Sometime later – Adult Egg Hunt!
We’re working on the idea of throwing together a fun Egg Hunt for the adults, too. Still not sure what all it will look like, but why should the kid’s get all the fun!

Join us Saturday, Dec. 11th
7 p.m. @ Kuumbwa Jazz Center

Come join us for an evening of comedy, music, visual art, and drinks during the holiday season to support a great cause in Santa Cruz County.
All proceeds from the night will go to benefit Santa Cruz AIDS Project.

With comedy by Jon Talbert

And music from local Irish folk band, The Wild Rovers

More artists to be announced soon.

Tickets on sale NOW.
$15.00 presale / $20.00 @ the door
Click here to buy tickets.

Please subscribe to our email list below for more info as it becomes available.

Event hosted by Missio Dei Community

See you there!

We took some time to read and discuss Joshua 1.  We openly shared some of our own fears as we try to live out Christian spirituality and join God on mission in Santa Cruz, as a community.  We reflected on and discussed God’s encouragement to Joshus to be “strong and courageous.”

And then we turned from fears to dreaming.
We began to ask the question, what if…?
Back in April a few of us were at Catalyst West Coast and heard Donald Miller talk about a blog post he had written on the subject.
Go check out the post here, and then read on.

There is a story that we are writing along with God as a community.
What are some of the “what ifs” that could help to unlock the exciting and meaningful chapters of our journey that lies ahead?

We all got a 3×5 card and wrote down 5 “what ifs” for Missio Dei Community.
We shared them with each other and put them on a whiteboard to get em out there so we can see what seems to stick over time.
Here’s what we came up with as a group…some just for fun, some in progress, some way beyond our abilities, but not God’s.

What if…

• we get Dan & Katie to do triathlons?
• we never have a building?
• we met in some other space (bar, pub, unusual)?
• we had more people than space?
• we started a business in Santa Cruz?
• we gave away more than we kept?
• we shared our financial issues with each other?
• we impacted the community so much that people looked for us before we even invited them?
• famous people played at our benefit concerts? (we have our first one coming up 12/11…more on that later)
• we hosted a film festival?
• we started a separate non-profit to serve the community?
• we experienced true, loving, transparent accountability?
• this thing actually works?!

There was definitely some discussion and unpacking of some of those.
But that’s a glimpse into the heart of Missio Dei Community for you.

2 things that excited me…

1. We consistently had matching ideas and thoughts.  Good to know the Spirit is working the same way in our hearts.
2. It’s just exciting to think about the future and what God could have in store for us…and see what he is doing RIGHT NOW with us to prepare us for that.

How about you?
Specifically, we’d love to hear, what are some of the “what ifs” that you think could radically change your church for the better, if you attend one?
Or if you don’t, what sort of questions would you want to see a community of faith asking to peak your interest?