Little Did I Know. . .

I had no idea last September when Rodger and I met how prophetic my statement would be.

Scene One: (a dusty basement in the heart of Elizabeth)
My first contact with The Portico was in the Charlotte Presbytery’s Weekly Update (which, ironically, I now produce) as a request for good used furniture. I went by to check out the space and introduce myself and although the place was a mess, the potential was evident. First I noticed the black ceiling, was subconsciously counting the 6” fresnels (stage lights) and then marking the probable sight lines for various events in the t-shaped space. You can take the gal out of the theater, but you can’t take the stage manager out of the gal- especially if she’s spent four years of college, two of grad school and several more in community theatre buried in the Prop Shop, snorting raw sawdust (I love that smell!) and hunched over a drafting table or make-up mirror.

As I walked through my first tour, it came to me that this was going to be MY church. Because Portico would meet in the evening, I would be able to continue working, fulfilling interims and preaching for friends on vacation, and have church for ME on Sunday nights. Sure, that might sound selfish, but no one is a bottomless well of inexhaustible spiritual resources. How could I continue to write and plan and preach and listen apart from regular worship that connected to me? (My beginning exposure to emergent church is described in earlier blog entries.)

And Kathy spake unto Rodger, “You know, I would not be surprised if other church professionals will come to Portico to have church for themselves: where they don’t have to worry about leadership and can just come to worship in a safe, relaxed atmosphere. This will be a wonderful place to come rejuvenate.”

And it has come to pass, just not in the way we expected. (That’s never surprising, especially when your group EXPECTS the Holy Spirit to be active in its midst.)

Scene Two: (the front walk of a PC(USA) church on the south side, toward the end of a presbytery meeting.)
I don’t remember exactly who said what first, but that’s the way revelation goes sometimes, so here is my memory of the conversation. Rodger told me he had been greeted at the meeting by another minister saying he’d heard Portico had been having 70, 80, 90 people at worship each week. That has not been the case and Rodger was surprised to hear such. We are very grateful for our humble core of thirty at the moment. Rodger went on to share the news that there were six couples, none of which lived in Charlotte, who send Portico money every month, mostly because they felt themselves being led by the Spirit to do so. Astounding!

I got my update on a couple of people in our extended Portico family, some folks that only Rodger and I have met at conventions, others we know only electronically. There are about thirty folks that fall into that category at this time. Another forty or fifty have shared their emails with us and consider themselves “Friends of Portico.” It amazes us how quickly and decidedly (not by us!) The Portico has become a community of intercession. Then out of the blue, Kathy spake unto Rodger: “But that means we really are involving 60 or more people each Sunday when we gather. The people just aren’t all physically THERE. By praying and giving and encouraging, they are behaving like members!” Rodger: “We really are an internet church!” Kathy: “OK all you folk who like to count things, there’s a number for ya, praise God!”

Oh- and who are these folk? For the most part, pastors and elders who are struggling to be emergent church or are trying to see how it may be done where they are, and they are looking to us to show them how it can be done. Pastors and spouses who have been wounded by Session or Committee or Presbytery and are searching for a way to live as the missional church they envision, and find healing. Who are these folk? Why, they are The Portico.

Entr’acte

Coming attraction: Wrestling with the idea of Membership

Time is Sticky OR How Do You Spell Murghatroyd?

Time. Chronos time. Time as we know it that is linear and once passed, gone forever. A commodity.

Time. Kairos time. God’s time, full of mystery, impossible to measure, quantify, anticipate or hurry.

John Ortberg talks about the Practice of Slowing. . . "It is because it kills love that hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life. Hurry lies behind much of the anger and frustration of modern life. Hurry prevents us from receiving love from the Father or giving it to His children. That’s why Jesus never hurried. If we are to follow Jesus, we must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our lives – because, by definition, we can’t move faster than the one we are following."

Someone asked me yesterday if I thought The Portico was going to “work.” I expressed my confidence that the Holy Spirit was doing something and that we were being observant. Visit The Portico website http://www.porticochurch.org/New%20Stuff.htm and see the Prayer Cove. As we gathered and blessed this new space, it came to me that there was still some maturing on our part for us to be “ready” for the folks who will come to us and to whom we will go. I am grateful that the Spirit is providing our learnings in bite-sized chunks for this fledgling group. We must understand what we have, in our combined gifts, in our resources and in our basement, such as our prayer cove, to be able to offer them to anyone.

Kairos time is not neat. It does not provide a deadline to meet. Kairos time is the habitation of the emerging Church. Chronos time displays a finished project that one caps off by washing hands. Kairos time is sticky-gritty-always-have-your-wipies-ready journeying. Just-add-boiling-water-instant-answers? Nope. We’re clearing a new path. Each emergent faith community has its own context as Stanly Grenz reminds us, and arrives at answers to its own questions in Kairos time. Questions from outside our community aren’t necessarily questions we’re asking ourselves because we’re not “there” yet (“Hurry up!”) or because they don’t arise from our context and therefore don’t necessarily apply.

The planting instructions that came with this Spring’s shipment for my flower beds say, “Be patient. Some of us take longer to show new growth than others.”

In the grand scheme of Church Development, we are not, after all, intended to become a traditional 1000-member church built in the midst of multiple-hundred-thousand dollar homes which have subdivided and covered up what was once woods and farmland to ultimately be a money-maker.

Heavens to Murghatroyd…