Two days from now August Gate Church will have held its first service in our own space. For the past 26 months we have been meeting in a rented space which we transformed for our worship gathering and then put back into place each and every week. This Sunday, that all changes. Our sound and lights are set up...and will stay that way. Our Gospel Communities’ table and banner will be set up...and will stay that way. Our children’s ministry area will get put together...and will stay that way... at least for a while.

Because of all of these changes from chaos to order, there is a danger for those of us who have done the church planting thing for the past two years to slip back in to old rhetoric and old systems without even knowing it. So this is a friendly reminder to all of our August Gate peeps...and maybe even a little sharp humor to anyone who might read this:

Just because we have our own space does’t mean...

...that August Gate Church is now the name of a building. The church has never been, nor will it ever be a building. The church isn’t brick and mortar but flesh, blood and souls of the redeemed ones of Christ that are called out to gather and sent back in to tell.

...that you can become a consumer. At times we felt a bit nomadic without our own permanent space to meet. But this aspect of our church life allowed us call people to serve and not just attend a show. While it is true that weekly set-up and tear down is over (for a while...we are planting another gathering in the Metro East in 2012) the need for serving is not gone. It has just been transferred to other areas. Every attender, especially every covenant member, should set their hearts and their schedules to commit every Sunday morning from 9 am until 1pm to be available to serve in any way they are needed. Here are just a few possibilities: children’s, parking, hospitality, greeting, sound/video, worship band, snow removal, bathroom cleaning, security, vacuuming...just to name a few.

...that the Knot becomes “the bulletin”, greeters become “ushers”, pews get “reserved” for longtime members, or we can start complaining about the temperature of the room, the color of carpet or the song selection we sing. Since the inception of August Gate we have shed these Christian sub-cultural nuances for a reason. They are not who we are or want to be. Every member still needs to show up early, stay late and build relationships with people they don’t know (this isn’t the job of select group of people called “ushers” who pass out papers). Having our own building, complete with stained glass windows, a pipe organ and pews, can cause some people to have flashbacks to when Christianity, in their personal practice, was nothing more than dry, rote, religious ritual. We have to fight to not let that happen.

...the hard work is done. In my estimation, the hard work has yet to come. Things were easy in our small, secluded Sunday Night hipster enclave at the Lutheran Schoolhouse. Practically none of the neighborhood knew we were there because we had no permanent signage. We grew only by word of mouth. We had only a few guests at a time to get to know. But now, meeting at 10:30 on Sunday mornings in the midst of a neighborhood in an old historic church building means we will more than likely have people from different age demographics, ethnicities, socio-economics statuses and areas of the city coming to check things out on a consistent basis. We really have no idea what is in store for us as a church, but I know this much... it will mean everyone playing the role to fulfill their specific gifting and general call of a Christian God has given each of us.

...that we have to change for the worse. Change is inevitable. We got in this situation because of change. Life change. More and more people were drawn by God to be a part of this thing called August Gate. As we grew, we changed. And if we want to continue to grow, we have to continue to change. But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. We don’t have to lose the identity that we have worked hard for over 5 years to develop (we prayed and planned long before we launched). It also doesn’t mean that we have to adopt some new identity that we will all hate...like some bigger/older version of ourselves that our younger selves would beat up if they saw us in a dark alley. We can, and I pray that we would, change and morph into all God desires and designed for us to be...a better, more mature, more-like-Jesus version of who we are now. We have the ability to always be a people of love, truth, community, mission and progress...but we will have to fight for it.