Chapel Hill Team

What a long weekend…I’m exhausted, so I’ll keep this short!

The preview assembly was a blessing to everyone there. We had about 40 people in attendance, including some friends from two of our supporting congregations, Harpeth Hills in the Nashville area and Cole Mill Road in Durham. I think the worship was inspirational and helped connect us to God.

We focused on the first part of our mission statement (a thirst for life; a heart for community; a quest for eternity), and talked about connecting our faith to real life, and embracing life. We heard from Jesus in John 10 about coming so that his followers could have “real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of”. Alfred Conteh, one of our team members, gave a moving testimony about how God has given him more and better life than he ever dreamed of.

The entire team pulled together and worked hard to help things go well technically - no techno-glitches! The facility was also excellent.

We had hoped for more guests, so the teaching point is that we need to work more diligently at bringing in folks from the community.

Please keep us in prayer as we connect with people and head toward our next preview, July 13, when we will focus on part 2 of the mission, “a heart for community”.

God bless you,
Matt

Extra prayers, please, especially 5-6:30 eastern time on Sunday, June 22. We’re having our first sneak peek, a time when we’ll give the community a taste of The Well Chapel Hill and give them an opportunity to express interest and needs. Please pray that God would send the people that He wants to be there (we’ve invited many people personally and through some mass communication) and that we would interact with them wisely.

We’re very pleased to have Clyde and Ted with us for the weekend. They are members of the Harpeth Hills Church of Christ, one of our supporting churches, and came to provide four more hands to work with us at the preview.

If you aren’t aware, you can keep up with the public face of the church at www.thewellchapelhill.org

Peace,
Matt

We had a beautiful day yesterday. At the potluck, there was no rain and the temperature was actually more moderate than it has been recently. I’d say it was one of the best potlucks we’ve had yet. We had a good crowd, and people stayed and ate and visited. We had a pretty diverse group. Thanks again to Great Harvest Bread Company for donating bread!

I had a terrific spiritual conversation with one man who is homeless and lives in the woods. He became a Christian years ago and supposes that he still is, but hasn’t been in church in a long time. At the end of our chat, he asked me to pray for him, and he was moved by our prayer time. I’m not sure how he knew I am a minister - we have not promoted the church at all with these potlucks, we’re promoting it as an opportunity to build community.

Babs’ husband Taz came. Continue to pray for him as he grieves for his wife.

You can find video of the potluck here

You can find photos of the potluck here

Peace,

Matt

Hey all,

I’m currently reading a book by Mike Yankoski called “Under The Overpass”. If you haven’t read it or heard of it, it is a book chronicaling a 5 month project by two college students who intentionally become homeless. Their three goals are to simply see what it is like to be homeless, how other people - especially the church - treat the homeless, and to see if their faith in God could remain as strong away from their normal, pampered lifestyle where all their needs are met. It is a great and interesting read with some wonderful insight into the world of homelessness. I read a particular excerpt this morning that just really struck me. So much so I wanted to share it with everyone. I hope you will read it.

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CHURCH LOCK DOWN

Early on Friday evening, just after the sun had set, Sam and I (Mike) were walking from the library back down to the Portland waterfront where we had decided the Friday night crowd would offer a prime panhandling opportunity. We didn’t say much as we walked until we passed a church.

“Oh, my gosh!” I exclaimed, stopping. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“What?” said Sam. Then he saw what I was looking at. “Oh,” he murmured.

A large gray church rose up behind a wrought iron fence in front of us. The building was old and weathered. Above the mahogany double doors hung a sign in red letters: “No Trespassing. Church Business Only.” A new chain and two huge padlocks secured the gate at the sidewalk.

“It would take bolt cutters and a battering ram to get into that church,” I said, suddenly angry. “‘Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden’? Yeah, and what, die on my front steps?”

We turned to keep walking toward the waterfront. Sure, a church needs to protect its property, but what we had just seen seemed excessive, and sent a negative, uncaring message.

Sam was having the same thoughts. “Let’s say your life is falling apart and you need help. Would you want to go there?”

“Nope,” I said. “Anywhere but there. But the world is the church’s business - and that’s exactly who they’re shutting out!”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” said Sam, “But aren’t the people in the sanctuary a whole lot more important than the sanctuary itself?”

We walked past a market that sold pop, beer, wine, cigarettes, pornography. The doors were wedged open. Ragged people came and went.

It was one of the places that never close.

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As we try to reach our homeless friends (and others), I hope we never have a “church lock down” and that our “doors” are always open because Satan’s doors are never closed. Take it for what it’s worth. Just thought I would share.

Tim

Yesterday we visited Evergreen Community Church in Raleigh (www.evergreench.org). This is a church that began as a plant in 2002, and just this month moved into their first building (after meeting in theaters for 5 years). One of our launch team members, Emily Faison, is a former member of Evergreen, so she connected us.

We were blessed to share in their worship assembly. They invited some of our folks to help lead in worship, and me to say a few words about The Well. Then, to our surprise, they had published our equipment wanted list to their members, and the members had brought various items from the list as a gift to support The Well. One member bought a new laptop for us, another a DVD player. The church had some electronic equipment they used while they were portable that they passed on to us now that they are in a permanent home.

I am very humbled and appreciative. It’s exciting to be encouraged, especially by people who have traveled the path that we are on. Several people at the church said that having Emily on our team gives them great confidence that Christ is at work in us - she was all the reference we needed. Thanks, Emily!

We’re still working to get equipment and funds for equipment and marketing, but this was a huge boost for us. Thank you, God, for the Evergreen church and the blessing that you gave us through them. Please bless their ministry as well!

God bless you all,

Matt

Barbara Sims was remembered and honored Saturday afternoon by a wide cross-section of Chapel Hill residents. Among attendees were homeless people, formerly homeless people, a local politician, several police officers, and folks from The Well and other churches. Taz (Babs’ husband) told us that she had been blessed Catholic, and a deacon spoke representing the Catholic church.

As people shared their memories, it was obvious that Babs was a person who touched the lives of everyone around her. One man said that she and Taz had been like a mother and father to him when he came to Chapel Hill as a homeless person. It was humbling to see the sense of community and mutual support among the homeless folks as they comforted Taz and challenged him to celebrate her memory.

But, Babs legacy may go beyond the people who know her here. There was an article in the paper Saturday about some changing policies in local law enforcement regarding respecting the property of homeless people.

So a huge lesson for me here is that a life well-lived, even if not impressive by society standards, matters. You may not see the influence and impact you have on others, but that impact may directly change the lives of the next generation. From touching stories of community on the street to potential changes in government policy, Babs made a difference.

This reminds me of a story that Jesus told to describe God’s community (Matthew 13.33): he said that God’s community is like a woman making bread. Even though she only put a little bit of yeast in a bunch of dough, all of the bread rises. Let’s commit to being a little bit of yeast in the world around us - and make a lasting impact far beyond what we see or imagine.

Peace,

Matt

Hi, Friends,

Thanks for all of your concern for honoring and remembering Babs. She has touched a lot of people in different ways, and I’ve enjoyed hearing some of your stories. As of now, we are tentatively planning a memorial service for Saturday, 5 pm, in the amphitheater in the plaza on top of the parking deck downtown.

Watch this space for news or updates.

Peace,
Matt

One of our friends from Potluck in the Park died Saturday evening. Barbara (Babs) was hit by a truck while crossing the street on foot, and was pronounced dead at the scene. You may read about the accident here . Babs and her friend Taz have been a great help in spreading the word to the homeless community about these Potlucks. This picture of Babs with Ainsley Crump reminded me of Babs telling me in her own special way, “I love that little girl!”

I’m trying to find out how we can help in this situation; how we can honor her memory, what we can do to help with a memorial service. I’ll keep you updated when we know more.

God bless you,
Matt

Sunday marked the third Potluck in the Park. Again we had a torrential downpour, but it didn’t start coming down until after we had started, and it let up considerably before we ended, so it didn’t disrupt us too much. I didn’t really count, but I’d say we topped 50 easily including the hosts, and it was a better mix than we’ve had in the past of homeless folks, working people in the neighborhood, and community folks who brought food to share.

The director of the community center happened to be working, and he dropped in and told us two pieces of good news. First, grills are coming soon, so we won’t have to bring ours in. Second, he said that he would help us make arrangements to move inside in case of inclement weather in the future. He was quite encouraging and made sure to tell us that what we were doing was good for the neighborhood.

I met quite a few people for the first time, including a young couple who came and ate, then stuck around to join some of us in an impromptu jam session. I’m going to brush up on my tambourine playing for next month!

Our goal is to build community in our community, and I think God is blessing us in that direction. We’ll keep you posted…

Peace,
Matt

Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama? George Bush and Sun Myung Moon? What’s the connection between politicians and religious leaders? What’s the connection between churches and politics? As I continue to hear these reports about Wright and Obama, I keep thinking about these questions. These are certainly questions that we need to answer for ourselves as a new church launching this fall.

A couple of Scriptures:

Philippians 3.17-20: says we are citizens of heaven, so how does that relate to our earthly citizenship?

1 Peter 2.11-17 says we should submit to human government, so how does that relate to our heavenly citizenship?

I also think about the various religious traditions in the US that have more or less involvement in politics: African-American ministers, for example, seem to be more involved in political activism than their white counterparts.

Then I ask myself, is there a different answer to these questions in the US than there would be in totalitarian regimes, such as Nazi Germany or the former Soviet Union? Remember, Paul and Peter wrote the above words as Christians living in the Roman Empire, which was a pretty bloodthirsty empire.

Our religious heritage in the Church of Christ was to abstain completely from any involvement with human government, but we seem to have left that far behind.

What do you think about these things?

Peace,
Matt