in lieu of an engaging sunday morning service, i bring you an exclusive report on my sunday afternoon melancholy.

over the past year and a half i have been leading sinners and saints christian community and have been a part of the leadership team for city on a hill christian community. city on a hill is a small collective of christian communities (currently including 3 home churches--including s & S, one congregational church and a few affiliated christian workers) that is trying to effectively incarnate the gospel of Christ in the greater boston area. although we don't have a comprehensive vision statement, or the fancy powerpoint presentation that usually accompanies such vision, we are marked by a passion for: proclaiming the gospel in a relational manner, extending Christ's compassion to the weak in our communities (often through organizations like Beverly Bootstraps and doing life together in sacrificial community.

if my explanation of city on a hill seems underdeveloped, that is because our community has little understanding of our identity. for all of our idealism and passion for relational expressions of the church, our network is a mess. our founding pastor recently left in order to tend to the needs of his elderly parents, one of our homechurches has little desire to affiliate with the other two and our leadership currently consists of bi-vocational leaders who often find it difficult to lead a homechurch on a weekly basis, much less cast a vision and provide oversight for an entire network. thus, although i can readily identify signs of life in our little community, including a couple of new members in the past two months and the return of several leaders who have been on hiatus, most days i feel much more jaded than optimistic about our future.

today, has been one of those latter days. this morning, while half-heartedly participating in sunday morning chores, i tried to pray for our fragile little community. i prayed for my afternoon meeting with one of our newest members, i asked God to give me the passion and ability to lead and, mostly, asked God what the hell i am doing in this situation. my earliest ministry experiences were with rapidly developing willowish mega-churches. in those contexts i witnessed dozens of conversions, lived for the excitement of 'pulling off' engaging services and, at my first church, lived for the increasing challenges of growing responsibility. in my current context, i feel like i am failing to provide adequate leadership or helpful vision to a community full of individuals who seem more interested in fulfilling their narcissistic spiritual needs than sacrificially serving the poor or intentionally incarnating the gospel to this hope-less world. i worry that my full-time job is severely limiting my ability to serve and i wonder if i am wasting my gifts on a lark of a ministry.

perhaps these feelings are legitimate or perhaps i am merely afraid of the risks that relational ministry require. but...that's where i'm at right now.

by the way, when i provide such musings i am not begging for affirmation or sympathy, i'm merely sharing the load that is laying upon my chest. thanks for listening.