Reality is Beautiful

It is 5:27 am and winter is definitely creeping into the bones. Of course that is as a Southern Californian speaking. Yesterday it was 64 degrees down at the beach where I took 2 young Brits for a Wahoos meal before a walk down the Huntington Beach pier.

The older one gets, the less one should caught up in the applause of men [Van Morrison sings that that is 'the sound of one hand clapping'] and more preoccupied by a call to divine obedience. We are so vulnerable to, so easily impressed by the big, the many, the large.

Jesus seemed to go there reluctantly, the crowds that is. He was filled with compassion when he saw them. He healed them, fed them, taught them, loved them, but then invested in the 12 intentionally and consistently. He simply would not deviate from that path. In good old fashioned English he 'put all his eggs in one basket'. His success, legacy and the future of Christianity, lay in the evidence of his investment in but 12 men.

Everywhere I go, I am surrounded by the voices of impersonal imperialism. So few leaders are obsessed with the "Story of 12". In spite of the clear Jesus model, this evidence in Paul's life, of Billy Graham saying, if he had his life again he would have taken 12 men... It is the shotgun approach to life, to scatter ourselves over many horizons in many contexts, growing to be a voice in many stories, growing our churches, multi-sites, churches that relate, organizations that grow, movements that spread...

And, to be honest, I guess I have heard enough planters / pastors who have bought into a dream, say that they're tired of the unreality so easily found in the quest for many. Fathers are replaced by co-ordinators, apostles are replaced by generic teams, prophets are replaced by PC's, pioneers are replaced by loyal subjects - and it happens very quickly.

As 'for me and my house', we are embarking this new year - 2012 [ironically] with a simple vision of 12... 12... 12. We want to do this new chapter with focussed apostolic reality. Investing our lives intentionally into:

*'12' base churches that are catalysts for becoming movements through planting, replanting, multi-siting and drawing in orphan churches - empowering them on their journey...

*'12' plants / replants helping lay foundations, establishing them in their story...

*'12' key leaders whether their call is to E4 gifts, marketplace leadership or planters...

for a 2 year cycle of priority and partnership. Then reconsider if the job is done and start working with the next crew. I don't profess to have all the admin and logistics sorted out but I can't escape the call.

I will write about this some more later. I guess my passionate apo heart wants a whole lot more of Jesus in my story - even if it means that "reality is beautiful".