Editor’s Note – the following is from the Green Church web site

+greenchurch

www.greenchurch.info www.coffeehousechurches.com

• Infectiously connecting a group of overlooked friends

• As the heart, hands, voice, and compassion of the Body of Christ

• In an essentials-only church that gathers right where they live

+The most life-changing ministry we can humanly provide a group of overlooked friends is a simple Body of Christ, a Church, planted among them, to be His Hands, His Heart, His Voice, His Compassion in their circle of relationships+

4. “Jay”: Christ-formed through orphans’ shoes.

Jay first showed up at the “green” church with an old friend who’d been a part of it for years. He was reluctant but searching for something deeper than he had experienced in the past.

A shoes-for-orphans project began just a couple of months after he’d started coming, and it really sparked something inside him. As a police officer he had led many drug abuse prevention assemblies and it gave him a soft spot for struggling kids. This compassion pushed him to shoe store “sales” and discount stores looking for sturdy but reasonably priced merchandise for the orphans. As a matter of fact, he was doing more than anybody else in the church, so they asked him to lead the whole effort. Wow, he took off with new zest once the group expressed that kind of confidence in him. They just followed his example in buying, tying, bagging, and delivering the shoes, and nearly every week he overflowed with personal gratitude about how much it meant to him!

He became passionate about helping others. The next year he not only led the shoe project again, but also wrangled up 1,000 pairs of socks. And, he didn’t just wait for this single endeavor. He started carrying food and toiletries in the trunk of his police car to give needy families he found in serving warrants.

Jay heard about an overlooked foster child sixty miles away and made sure the boy got a basketball for Christmas. He delivered cash from the church to a transplant patient to assist with the heavy medicine costs. When someone was needed to help purchase, bag, load, and deliver 3,000 pounds of rice to refugees in a nearby apartment complex guess who did it.

People began to see him in restaurants and say, “Hey, I’ve heard that you help people, and I want to give some money (or food or clothes) to help.” Even Walmart started giving Jay big boxes of clothes they couldn’t sell.

This man’s inner self was full and overflowing with helping the persons God brought his way. He says, “Nobody ever asked me to be more than a spectator in such endeavors…this has transformed my life!”

Everyone began to see him as a deacon in the green church. God just made him into “one who serves others eagerly” and a lot of people are grateful!

5. What does a “gathering” look like?

The Parking Lot church is not dependant on any external props, facilities, or permissions. It simply gathers to love God and love persons, without breaking any public rules or relying on any required set of circumstances. As people arrive in their vehicles, or by foot, the first ones there just settle in an open spot on the parking lot. Usually, they get near a shade tree in summer, or in a sunny spot in the winter. When it rains, the park pavilion nearby is always empty (who else would go to a park when it’s raining) so they cluster there. Most bring lawn chairs. A few sit on their vehicle or the curb. The church arrives in their hearts, and leaves in their hearts.

Someone usually brings a box and another brings a boot. As persons arrive they put small bags of groceries in the box, and offerings in the boot while others chat. One lady comes with her battery operated keyboard and guides the group through a few worship songs and scriptures. Or, sometimes she uses just a CD, or a testimony, or “nature” to inspire worship.

The volunteer leader almost always has a “Thank You” note to read from some recipient of the church’s ministry, and he always makes a big deal out of the box of food: who has a report on last week’s food recipient, who wants to take it today, do any kids have something to put into the box, what are some of the contents (he holds up tuna, rice, beans, mac & cheese, cereal, and toothpaste). It’s kind of their weekly way of living-out a deeply held value.

A prayer time is facilitated by another volunteer (sometimes they share and pray for special needs longer than any other activity during the gathering).

New needs or ministry projects come up often from whoever runs across it. The church values the idea of responding to whoever or whatever God brings across their path during the week. Always by the end of the month the offerings for that month are given away to a person in need, and a mission of some sort (often to multiple items that arise.) Some past examples include: shoes for orphans, Christmas gifts for prisoner families, supplies for hurricane victims, food and arrival kits for refugees entering the U.S., medicine for a transplant patient, clothes for homeless shelters, specific missionaries, cereal for a children’s home, cash for families whose homes have burned, or for expectant parents without insurance…you get the idea!

There is a Bible time during which the leader guides the group in discussing a few verses of scripture. He kind of keeps the discussion on track, but frequently a personal comment by someone about how the scripture fits their own current life circumstances becomes the real heart of the discipleship time. People respond well to this “shared dialogue” approach. They internalize the truth of scripture and grow in how they live with Christ during the week.

Then it’s over with a short prayer. No big fanfare. Someone gets the food box. Others pack up shoes, or toiletries, or coats, or kitchen utensils, or clothes that have been collected for a ministry project…which they will hand deliver during the week. One or two leave with checks to put in the hands of a needy family.

If someone becomes a new Christ-follower the church caravans to the nearest backyard pool to celebrate their baptism. Most hang around and talk in groups of two or three. And within 30 to 40 minutes it’s just an asphalt parking lot again. The church has filtered back into the community. They live-out their core values for another week:

Core Values

1. Share God’s love through kindness and prayer everyday.

2. Do everything a church should do, but keep it basic: worship God, learn & live the Bible, help hurting people, stand by each other, and graciously share Christ.

3. Give all offerings away…to missions and to persons God brings our way.

4. “Where two or three have gathered together in My name, there I am in their midst.” Matthew 18:20

The “green” church exemplifies the most elemental & Biblical definition of church I’ve ever heard:

“A group of Christ-followers who fully function, believe, and understand themselves to be the Body of Christ in their circles of influence”

The Bible doesn’t give us just one verse or passage that concisely defines “church”…..we have to read scripture and look for the recurring patterns or the Christ-like “rhythms of life” that Christians practiced and taught as they came together. How does God’s Spirit & Word guide you to define church?

6. Being the Body-of-Christ, the Church, on-site: “how to begin”

Passionate Christian friends (and their unreached relationships) can become a life changing “where-they-live” Body-of-Christ!

Don’t skip lightly over the Biblical ideas in these first four paragraphs:

Ask God to arrange encounters between you and the friends/acquaintances/strangers in whom He has been stirring up a deep spiritual yearning. This only happens through your praying & God’s connecting you to the person or persons HE has made spiritually hungry!

Pray about this everyday for 7 days. If no connections arise then have an hour long prayer retreat with God…read Acts 16:7-14…Lydia was a worshiper but not yet a Christ-follower…God knew how to connect Paul and her…ask Him to connect you with someone like that…the not-yet-Christian who is probably already hungry for God…..watch for the “Lydias”.

Though a few Christ-followers might become the core of the group, don’t let this become just a cozy club of Christians. Keep praying and sharing with whomever He brings your way until some are ready to journey with you in this group…it only takes a few. Trust His Spirit to connect you to the right ones, and to have their hearts open.

Don’t be overly anxious & substitute events or advertising to draw a crowd…just pray, seek, watch, and wait on HIM to connect you to the God-hungry persons! Their circle of relationships will be what draws more persons to the gathering!

1. Gather at a home, apartment, park, café….wherever its natural for the group to gather.
2. Seek to grow into a fully functioning Body of Christ. Without using “churchy terms” you can guide the group to experience the 5 basics (defining traits/recurring patterns/Biblical rhythms) of church life (see “practical ideas” below).
3. At every gathering ask God to continue arranging encounters between current participants and others in whom He has created a heart hunger for the person of Christ. Always be authentic, never false, in caring for another person. Be sensitive to their needs. Never manipulate. Include and value each one.
4. Personally pray for God to raise up an “intern” who will work with you and reproduce the gathering in another group. Also, seek out a “Paul” who will give you on-going wise counsel as you lead this group (2 Tim.2:2)

Practical Ideas for the basic functions or rhythms of the Body-of-Christ

A. supportive friendships…share life concerns and pray for each other (perhaps silently at first if some prefer). Take turns telling (a) what the world has been dumping on you, and (b) where you have seen God at work this week, or (c) what He has been doing in your life. Be authentic and “be there” for one another in the ups and downs of everyday living. Try this over a simple meal.

B. authentic worship…focus on getting in touch with God’s greatness using any combination of (a)music/guitar/CD/video, (b)art, (c) silence/awe, (d) nature, (e) sharing about God’s Hand in your journey, (f) scripture promises, etc.

C. obedience-based discipleship…apply a Bible passage to how you live. As a group discuss what it says about (a) God, (b) self, (c) others, and (d) life. Pick practical scriptures like: Psalms, Matt. 5-7, John 8, Gal. 6, Philippians, or James. The leader needs to guide, but not dominate the dialogue…just keep it on track . Shared leadership is the healthiest approach to growing Christ-followers and multiplying groups.

D. life-involvement evangelism……………include not-yet-Christians wholeheartedly and naturally, and allow them to hear/see how Christ is working in the lives of those present. Nurture everyone toward expressing their own “journey-with-God” during the gathering and in genuine relationships. Let people be drawn to God by all they hear and experience in the group….some are drawn toward becoming Christ-followers as they experience the fellowship of doing a servanthood project together and the joy of making a difference for others in the world! They become open to hearing the Biblical truths about how they can trust and follow Christ with their whole life!

E. Help others like Christ would (Matt. 25:35-36). Do a mission project. Help someone in a life crisis. Take a weekly offering (always let “giving” be an act of worship)… have the group decide on how to collect and use their gifts in meeting someone’s need..let them deliver it!

---