cup a joe

Once upon a time, blogging was the cool thing to do. You weren't a post modern / gen x church planter unless you had a blog.  And so, twenty-one years ago, I started this.  This was my one of my first posts in early May, 2003:

Hi, my name is Joe Holda and this is my blog! My wife Cindy and I are simple church planters here in DeKalb, Illinois (actually, we live in Sycamore, but that’s another story). I thought I would start this blog to attempt to keep track of the trials and tribulations in the planting of a church. I hope that in time, this little bog will turn into God’s story of what he is doing with us, as well as miscellaneous thoughts and ramblings on what it means to be a Christ follower in the 21st century. Idle thoughts about community, leadership, church and relationships are sure to be plentiful.

So as the title of the blog goes, feel free to sit back and enjoy a cup a joe with me while, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we stumble through this thing called life. Enjoy!

Cindy and I were young, adventurous, and idealistic church planters. We felt we had a calling from God. And while we knew it would be challenging, we figured that since God had called us here, the challenges would be minimal, or at least easily overcome. Like I said, idealistic.

Saying the last twenty-one years have been challenging is an understatement. The challenges and issues that we've dealt with have been far greater - and more costly - then we could have ever imagined. But, we're still here.  I've been told that Cindy and I have the gift of perseverance. While I love all of the gifts God has given us, I wish he would have given that one to someone else.

Almost four years ago, I posted that I was going to start this blog up again. Four years ago we were in the early stages of COVID lock downs. We all though that we'd get through this - that we'd be at the other side of this after Easter. Or after the summer. Or after the second wave. Or after the election. Remember those days? God had just blessed us with a building. After wandering in the desert for nearly a decade, moving from one temporary location to another, we finally had a place to call home. God's hand had moved. There were prophetic words, and signs, and breakthroughs. We closed on the building on March 1, 2020. This was a new beginning. The church had momentum and was growing. This new space was going to re-launch us. And then - everything stopped.

We made it thought the first wave unscathed. But then, the bleeding started. People moved away. People got mad. People simply disappeared. We had an outbreak in our church right after we celebrated it's 25th birthday in late October, 2020. We were forced to shut down because all leadership team got sick. We didn't re-open until after Christmas. But very few returned.

How do you define the gift of perseverance? Simple: when God gives you lemons, you make lemon-aid. An opportunity presented itself to be apart of several learning cohorts sponsored by Multiply Vineyard and NewThing. We brought a team to the first meeting, only to discover that we were the smallest church in the cohort. At times I wondered why they let us in. We were small an inconsequential - barely on life-support. However, by that point we had nothing to lose. So we threw ourselves into it. We learned as much as we could and tried everything. We figured that God had given us a blank piece of paper and invited us to re-imagine with Him what the Vineyard in DeKalb could look like. We've been on this journey for over two years. And this Sunday, we rolling out and implementing much of what we discovered and learned.

Because of all that, it felt like this might be a good time to reboot this blog. I have absolutely no expectations that anyone will actually read it. Blogging is so early 2000's. But I felt like the Lord was challenging me to document what we're doing - and this seemed like as good of a place as any to do that. And so, it is my hope and prayer to start writing again and perhaps actually accomplish my original goal: to tell the story of what God is doing in and through us in the Vineyard Church DeKalb. 

If you've stumbled across this - welcome. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions. I don't consider us in any way to be experts in any of this. We're just trying to follow and obey the leading of Jesus.

It's been a week since I left the retreat.  Life is starting up and I'm beginning to enter my routine.  I didn't preach last week, so I'm trying to get re-engaged this week.  I left thinking about the importance of rhythm and how I needed to make sure that rhythm was still in my life.  One week later and I'm discovering that keeping rhythm is harder then I thought.

We did a Sabbath on Monday.  We turned off all of our devices - our phone, our computers and our TV.  It was a lot harder then I thought it would be (especially for the kids).  Doing the office this week has been spotty at best - mostly because our schedules as a family have not come into line.  I think my kids think mom and dad are just being weird and that we will get over it.  I'm hoping that we create something that will take them forward into the rest of their lives.  The true test of all this will be on Friday when Emily comes home from school.  I'm not sure how she is going to handle Mondays - her phone is permanently attached to her!

So I'm sitting here in Starbucks this morning thinking about where we go from here.  I have fresh vision for both the church and my family - but some of the same anxieties and insecurities are creeping back in.  I can see the long term plan, it's just how to get there that is frightening to me.  So what do I do next?  I need to preach this week, but it's not all there yet.  What do I say to them?  How do I articulate what God has done for me?  How does one explain rhythm?

Ponder this for a moment:

Nonetheless, when we say it is a flaw for the church to be attractional, we refer more to the stance the church takes in its community.  By anticipation that if they get their internal features right, people will flock to the services, the church betrays its belief in attractionalism.  It's like the Kevin Costner character in the film Field of Dreams being told by the disembodied voice, "If you build it, they will come."  How much of the traditional church's energy goes into adjusting their programs and their public meetings to cater to an unseen constituency?  If we get our seating, our parking, our children's program, our preaching, and our music right, they will come.  This assumes that we have a place in our society and that people don't join our churches because, though they want to be Christians, they're unhappy with the product.  The missional church recognizes that it does not hold a place of honor in its host community and that its missional imperative compels it to move out from itself into the host community as salt and light. (Shaping of Things to Come, The Innovation and Mission for the 21st-Century Church.  Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch)

I've been told that if I only get my systems right, we would grow and be relevant.  The assumption is that we are small because we don't know what we are doing.  The reality is that we are small because we do not have the budget / staff / facility / programs that the one large church in our town has so as to successfully compete for the discerning Christian consumer.  But is that who we are supposed to grow a church with?  My soccer friends don't care about our systems.  They think the church is hypocritical and bigoted.  So to reach them do I need to do the same thing that all the churches do - the things that they don't care about?  Or instead, do I need to figure out a way to be salt and light to them?  The same hard truth hits us here in DeKalb.  Most of the people in this town don't care for anything that the church has to offer.  If they did, then they would be in church.  Our witness is irrelevant to them.  Because of that, we have made Jesus irrelevant to them.  An irrelevant Jesus - that is a pretty scary thought.

If we really wanted to be followers of Jesus, we would go to the place that he hung out at.  We would do the things that he did.  Jesus went to where the people were - he didn't wait for them to come to him.  Think about how Paul describes Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage  rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death - even death on a cross!  (Philippians 2:6-8 NIV)

So what would it look like if we took the same attitude about the lost?  We find comfort in the church.  We like the safe comfortable culture that we are apart of.  But what if we were willing to become uncomfortable so that others might find Jesus.  What if we became uncomfortable so as to became salt and light?  What would our lives look like?  What who the church look like?  Now that's something to really ponder...

It's been quiet around here for the past two weeks.  Cindy and I have been away on retreat.  We spent ten days in the Texas hill country at a retreat center with several other Vineyard pastors and leaders.  The place was remote - so remote that the nearest "town" was about 20 miles away.  So remote that we were about an hour away form the nearest cell tower.  Talk about unplugging.  Ten days without a phone.  Ten days with limited e-mail.  Ten days with little contact to the outside world.  In an environment like that, things finally start to quiet down in your mind and you can start to hear God again.

The days were simple.  Wake up at seven.  Get showered and dressed.  Grab a cup of coffee and head to morning prayer.  A small group of us would pray the office every morning at eight.  At eight fifteen, the bell would ring and we would eat breakfast as a community.  Worship at nine, a teaching and then a story.  The bell would ring at noon - lunch as a community.  A time of solitude and silence from one till one thirty.  The rest of the afternoon was free - meet with someone or not.  Read, walk, canoe, sleep... whatever.  At Five forty five the bell would ring again - dinner as a community.  Another story at seven and then evening prayer at nine thirty with the same small group as in the morning.  After that - perhaps a fire, or to sleep.  Then repeat.  Sunday was free to do whatever.

After a while, a rhythm begins.  And within that rhythm God speaks, ministers and heals.  As the week went on I began to realize how out of rhythm I had become and that it was affecting every area of my life. My marriage, my family, my ministry....my entire life.  Ten days later and the rhythm seems to be back, at least in Cindy and I.

We picked the kids up yesterday.  By the end of the day I was longing for that thirty minutes of solitude and silence.  They are not in rhythm.  I'm guessing that the church isn't in rhythm either.  I figure I have a choice.  I can either throw away these past ten days and return to what I was or I can teach what I have learned and try to get the other areas in my life into God's rhythm.  Needless to say, I'm going to do the later.

So what is that going to look like?  Our family is going to start praying the office together daily - morning and evening.  We will do times of silence and solitude.  And we will keep a true Sabbath (Mondays).  No phones, no computers.  Some time with God in the morning and then time together as a family.  Extended time off once a year and a true short retreat for Cindy and I once a year as well.  The church is a little more complicated - but God is faithful.  I figure it will take some time, but I think it will be well worth it.

I'm going to try and journal this journey into rhythm here.  I know that part of the temptation as a reader of blogs is to read and move on. I want to challenge all of you out there to take some time and find God's rhythm in your life.  Stop everything for a moment and be still - you will be amazed and what God wants to say.

A Thanksgiving gift for you.....

Labels: Video

Couple of interesting computer articles in New Zealand PC World this evening:

First, 28 pieces of computing advice that stands the test of time:

But just because computers are one big exercise in evolutionary progress, that doesn't mean certain computing maxims ever go out of style. Take, for example, the nuggets of wisdom in the following list. All of these things are as true today as they were 2, 5, and in some cases even 10 or 20 years ago.

Second, How (and why) to surf the web in secret:

They say no one can hear you scream in space, but if you so much as whisper on the web, you can be tracked by a dozen different organisations and recorded for posterity. Simply visiting a website can allow its operators to figure out your general physical location, identify details about your device information, and install advertising cookies that can track your movements around the web. (Don't believe me? Check this out.)

Labels: Computers

I'm thinking about starting a new feature here on this blog celebrating (well, perhaps not celebrating) Pop Christianity.

So, what do you do when the you know that the tithe is down and you need to preach on giving?  You make a video!


Hmmmm...words really can't describe it....

Labels: Pop Christian, Video