2515 WAUGH DR. - Beyond Sundays....

As +KINDRED, we are cultivating bold community that reveals God’s presence in the city.  THIS CITY.  Clutch City. Houston. HTX.  So when local teachers call you up looking for help, you say yes. God’s presence is revealed not only in prayers, but in dedicated teachers and parents who want to provide something meaningful for the next generation.  This week they’ve put together the Opt-Out Academy for families who want an alternative to standardized testing and its impacts on education.  Read more about it here - https://www.texasobserver.org/houston-opt-out-academy.

This week the halls are abuzz with young voices. Kids from 6 different schools have come together to learn, to explore local parks, and to dream big. The tables that +KINDRED uses for DINNER CHURCH on Sundays have become coloring tables, geometry projects, and more.  There’s no reason for the church building to sit dormant for most the week.  We’ve got fantastic community space, let’s share it! This provides a glimpse of what is possible when we get to know our neighbors, share our passions, and work together.  This is just the beginning.  This is the difference between hoarding our gifts and giving them away. This is the difference between a church that wants to better itself, and a church that wants to serve the city. And in that pursuit, I have no doubt that God is revealed in big bold ways.

why +KINDRED will never have a mission

Lots of communities, organizations, and churches talk about “being on a mission.”  Companies spend thousands on consultants to develop statements that are marketable.  Movements inevitably find a rallying cry or hashtag.  Our language matters.  Our words matter.  Words create worlds.  They shape our imaginations and cultivate our culture.  They have the power to ground us and inspire us….

…but we are mistaken if we claim them as “ours.”  +KINDRED does not have a mission.  God is the author of all things and is already present and on the move in Montrose, in Houston, and in all places.  We get to join in.  We are invited into God’s ongoing activity, GOD’S mission.  +KINDRED doesn’t have a mission, but GOD does.  We will never “have” a mission, we will be part of God’s mission. +KINDRED is a part, a particular part, but certainly not the whole. God is stirring us up and providing us with gifts and passions to be a part of it in a particular way.

The ReStart Team (Beth, Angela, John, Chris, Allison, and Kinnon) here has been praying and studying the early church in Acts, listening to community leaders and neighbors, learning what people are passionate about and how they are gifted.  This past Sunday, we put pencil to paper.  We’ve discerned that God’s vision for KINDRED is about:

CULTIVATING BOLD COMMUNITY

THAT REVEALS GOD’S PRESENCE IN THE CITY.

To prevent this from becoming a meaningless static statement, we identify these enduring values that guide our life together:

+    WORD OF GOD

as it is made known in the bible and the still-speaking Spirit that stirs us up. 

It anchors us in something bigger than ourselves and draws us into the fullness of our being.

+    BOLDNESS

that means being open to risk, to standing in vulnerable places,

to new ideas, to trying new things, to getting it wrong, to starting over. 

+    SIMPLICITY

the implications of following Christ are complex but the church doesn’t have to be complicated. Our structures, communication, and practices will always strive toward

simplicity that follows the organic movements of the community. 

We try to keep ourselves in check so we don’t get in the way of God being accessible to all.

+    EQUALITY

for the marginalized, the overlooked, the oppressed. In our neck of the woods,

that’s highlighted as (but not limited to) the LGBTQ community and people in poverty. 

So we’re keeping our eyes and ears open for opportunities to appreciate, advocate,

and celebrate alongside these folks from our community and beyond.

+    FAMILIES & FRAMILIES

whether you were born, adopted, surrogated, divorced, separated, or brunch-ed into it. 

Whether you share DNA or not. If you don’t have kids, and if you do.

But you should know, we honestly love kids, and so we respect and honor them.

Basically, we value all enduring relationships marked by love, challenge, and accountability.

+    OUR CITY - HTX

from our immediate neighbors in Hyde Park and Montrose, to City Hall, and the burbs…

 we love this city and we’re committed being a vital part of it.

+KINDRED, I ask you to join in the listening for God’s voice, to pray for wisdom and guidance, to be on the lookout for God in our midst.  This is what we’re lifting up as our way of being in the world.  Don’t let these words hang empty.  If you see an opportunity to be bold, invite your KINDRED to stand alongside you.  God is here in the city, point your KINDRED to where you witness that.  With overwhelming rain and floods, this week has been a rough one for many. Tell your KINDRED how we can help.

What is DINNER CHURCH?

The simple explanation is that it’s church, but over dinner.  As with many simple ideas, it also holds a broader significance. What seems like a radical departure from tradition is actually a return to our Christian roots...

From God’s provision of food to fleeing refugees of Exodus, to the celebratory feast of its remembrance, our food and our tables are marked as sacred.  The earliest church knew it too.  “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Acts 2:42)  The sharing of a sacred meal is the heritage of the church, not as an institution but as friends and followers of Jesus.  Jesus invited friends, strangers, and outcasts to sit around the same table and break bread together.  That kind of experience changes us by bringing us to recognize the face of God in the face of the person passing the potatoes. In two weeks, on Maundy Thursday, the church will recall the story of Jesus’ last Passover meal. We remind each other of the promise that in the breaking of bread and the sharing of the cup, God is re-membered, re-animated, re-creating. God is brought together in life again. This is true not only in history but in every single time we gather.

When food is more than food.

God is abundant in love and the source of all goodness.  We experience the truth of that promise when we physically experience the abundance of a good meal.  Rich, sumptuous, and satisfying fare points us back to the character of God. One traditional invitation to Holy Communion comes from the pastor proclaiming, “taste and see the goodness of God.”  How much more does that take on when the bread is still warm from the oven and what you see are the eyes of a fellow child of God?  The table is a common language we can all relate to and everyone we can all contribute to.  We practice at the table, in this set apart space, the kind of rhythm and relationship that echo into our more hectic daily lives.  It gives us a glimpse of what is possible beyond the filtered light of stained glass windows, but also in our streets, our offices break rooms, our City Halls, and our homes.

But really, what does that look like?

We gather with heartfelt prayers, smoky incense, a centering song, and the lighting of candles. We sit down to eat family style with all generations and walks of life sharing the same sacred bread, a hearty meal, and meaningful conversation. We’ve got high chairs, couches, pews, “regular” chairs… whatever floats your boat.  We tell the old, old story and engage its significance for our lives.  Youth and adults have space to engage and young children have their own space to engage. We create intentional space for each, but are still within the same sacred sanctuary. We are moved into further prayer and song, the sharing of gifts, and finish with a cup of blessing.  You don’t have to know all the words, we teach them every week as we learn together. Everyone’s invited reset the table for the next person – to continue the connection through clearing carafes or doing the dishes. If you have to rush home one week to make sure homework is ready for the next day or the dogs get let out…we get it.  The work you do at home is holy too. Here’s the deal…we share our lives in their wholeness, their brokenness, and their hopefulness.  We create the community together. 

What's in a name?

You know how interior designers use inspiration boards to guide their creative endeavors? Swatches of fabric with texture, contrasting colors for interest, small samples of tile, rough artistic sketches that are only echoes of a whole thought, but reflective of the overall mood they want to create in a space?  That’s what it felt like to discern a name for the “Montrose Restart.” It started with raw words, hoped-for experiences, essential elements, half-dreams that held something holy on the tip of your tongue but just out of reach. 

rhythm. ritual.

Simple. Sacred. sacramental living.

bless. flame. Spirit. dust.

Connective. consequential. creative.

generate. revive. resurrection. Relationship.

desert blooms. bayou blessings.

Welcome. jubilee.

Intimate. challenging. vibrant.

circling. rippling.

font and table.

threshold.

Family.

Kin.

+KINDRED.

For 94 years this community had lived as Grace Lutheran church, but that life had come to an end and something new was emerging.  We must take a new name. Sarai becomes Sarah, Jacob becomes Israel, Saul becomes Paul.  Names have been changed throughout our history in order to mark the change God has made in us. I prayed, I listened, I pondered.  After months of relying on mostly my own cleverness, I sat in my car listening to the radio, stopped at the light at Montrose Blvd. and W. Gray.  As I zoned out to the radio host banter, suddenly someone uttered “KINDRED” and it struck my ear.  Kindred. Kindred? What does that remind me of?  Where have I heard that before?  Why is that clinging to my heart?

“how very good and pleasant it is when KINDRED dwell together in unity.” – Psalm 133:1

KINDRED are those connected in relationship, the bonds of kin-ship, familial intimacy.  Kindred spirits are understood as those that share likenesses, but on its own KINDRED is more expansive.  Just like I don’t always agree with my uncle at thanksgiving dinner, KINDRED means we are not all the same but we keep coming back to the table. We are connected to each other by holy relationship and inspired to dream big under God’s ever-widening tent.

the KIN-dom of God is near

Last Sunday I was at a friend’s house, watching the Super Bowl halftime show and doing my part to crash Beyonce’s website upon news of an upcoming tour, when I got the message that a beloved brother of our congregation had died.  He too was watching the game with friends when he suffered a sudden heart attack.  This past Sunday, we gathered together at the church for his Memorial Service.

Robert Wittliff had been a Catholic Priest in the Basilian Order, he had the sharpest wit, and he spent some of the best days of his life with his partner Danny and their dear friends.  He had gone blind later in life, and so had become active in various organizations and communities to advocate and empower others without sight. But I met Robert as a vibrant part of the church (then Grace Lutheran).  He had been a leader in the congregation for years and he moved mountains to get out of the hospital and speak at our final Legacy Service in January.  It was there that he spoke of the meaning and memories this community held for him.  He spoke of a church that challenged him to embrace expressions of church that had been foreign to him, cultivated a spirit of generosity in his soul, and embraced him fully as a beloved child of God.  This is the legacy we stand on.

For the past month since that last service, the church has been transitioning to life as a Restart Congregation.  The Restart Team has been meeting neighbors, studying scripture, and discerning God’s hope for this people. Now, we are +KINDRED – exploring and experimenting with what church can be.  Still Lutheran, still at 2515 Waugh, still embracing people of all sexual orientations and identities, of all family structures, of all income levels and housing status.  We have this beautiful legacy, but we are becoming something entirely new.  How do we honor both while leaning into this new way?

Yesterday we entered the church building for the first time since that Legacy Service, for the first time as +KINDRED.  The worship space will soon change, removing pews for tables and chairs, but the old pews are still there.  This could have easily been a divisive experience with long-time members of the predecessor community on one side and newer faces on the other.  Rather, this moment was a unifying one.  Indeed, “how very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity.” (Psalm 133)  In this moment I saw people coming together to lend their experience, their hospitality, and their passion to help so that all Robert’s friends might know welcome and peace on such a day.  The folks that know the church kitchen backwards and forwards made room for the contributions of those who struggle to find the silverware drawer.  We had a full house and many of us are still learning our way around, but we learned as we went along.  Almost a third of the folks who came were blind with varying mobility, but their cabs and metro lifts were met at the curb with an eager hand to guide them as needed.  Two young boys offered communion cups into their hands, and those cups were filled by a woman who had never served the sacrament before. One man who sleeps on the streets nearby was outside with a broom and dustbin, cleaning up cigarette butts before the guests came and he was still helping clear empty plates from tables at the end of the day. 

I had to take a step back to witness the beauty of it all.  It could have been chaos, but God was stirring up new life out of the dust.  There were certainly imperfections – I plowed right through the timing for someone’s solo and a few things were clumsy, but the presence of the holy was unmistakable. During this season of lent, we pare our lives down to clear space so that we might notice what could otherwise be overlooked.  We simplify so that we can recognize the richness of the ordinary.  This is what the Kingdom of God looks like.  It’s not all splendid temples of gold, but a community of diverse people that come together to care for one another in practical yet profound ways. It is the Spirit’s work connecting millennials, retirees, and strangers in divine relationship to one another.  It’s the relationship that reveals the sacred.  This is what makes up the Kingdom…the Kin-dom that is drawing near.​

Re-Start

I arrived at the church early on a Sunday morning while the streets were quiet and still.  I didn’t even have keys yet, but this would be my first day as Restart Pastor here.  I waited on the front porch with others who were looking for food and warmth and with those who would provide it.  I walked in through the stone arches and open doors of Grace Lutheran Church to discover the courageous, wounded, and hopeful people who have called this place home.  I was struck by the diversity of those gathered.  The homeless sat in the same pews as those who were moving into the luxury condos around us, the blind sat next to me in the front, and the republican shared the peace with the woman wearing a t-shirt that read “Transgender Veteran.”  This is evidence of God’s presence here.  These are my people.  This is the legacy of 94 years of ministry.

Months ago, with the support of their interim Pastor, they made the bold decision to become a Restart Church.  Like many mainline churches, they experienced shrinking numbers and challenges greater than their current resources.  At the same time they recognized the continued promise and potential of God’s activity in the area.  So….a Restart Church.  It’s a pretty new model in the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, our denomination).  In fact, we don’t really know of any others doing this yet.  It’s basically the gutsy move to take a church back to ground zero and start over. It take hutzpah and humility. And it poses the intriguing question, “if you had a blank slate to create a community of faith, what would you do? What would it look like?”

This past Sunday, the congregation of Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church was closed.  In the same moment, new life began to emerge.  +Kindred is its name. The beautiful building with its stained glass windows and its vaulted wooden beams remains, but it is witness to a new thing.  It is the tomb where Grace was laid to rest, but we return to find the tomb empty and God on the loose again.  We proclaim the Gospel, the Good News of the Resurrection, of new life not just with our words but in the way we embody these things in our structures and our relationships.  Don’t just talk about it, be about it!  This new way is so much more than a church that is “new and improved,” “Grace 2.0,” or “the faith force awakens.” It stands on the legacy of this beautifully rich community to respond to God’s call in an altogether new way.  In Christ, we are a new creation. 

As of today, I have been an ordained Pastor for two months.  I was invited into this particularly interesting call as Restart Pastor, not really knowing what I’d agreed to.  I have had the opportunity to lead this community in its final months of worship, rediscover the vibrant neighborhood of Montrose, and witness the heart of God who stirs up in us a love for this city and for each other.  We get to experiment with how that all converges.  We get to practice being faithful and playful at the same time.  We have the chance to explore what church might be, given a firm foundation and the freedom to try new things.  How do we create a church that isn’t just something you “go to,” but is something you’re apart of?  That actually means something when we’re at our desks, walking down the sidewalk, or out for drinks?  That’s the kind of church I’ve always wanted to be a part of.