So thanks everybody for being willing to have this conversation. I know it's a
little bit awkward because we have cameras all around us and that's okay,
but for sake of those who are going to be watching this video I thought it'd be
good for us to do some introductions so they know who we are and what some of
the things are that we have our time to okay. So I'll start. So my name is David
and I give a lot of my time to church planting and I'm specifically we're here
in San Clemente, California, beautiful San Clemente, California and I also give a
lot of my time to coaching business I have and where I coach executive leaders
and I run executive leadership off-sites for teams. So go ahead. My name is Shannon
and I give a lot of my time to my family, my children and I also spend a lot of
time working on my nonprofit and that is Small Steps for Compassion and it's an
orphanage we started in Tanzania, Africa and I feel very privileged every day to
serve there and it's definitely one of my passions and it's truly a privilege to
serve there. My name is Brandon. I am a student of San Clemente High School. I
study like crazy and I serve from my free time. So my name is Doug. I'm an
entrepreneur. I run several family businesses and one of my startup
companies is called Get My Talk and I also help with the Small Steps for
Compassion Orphanage. My name is Kayleen. I spend a lot of my time being a mom and
a wife and I also help with Small Steps for Compassion. I also spend a lot of my
time helping the elderly. My name is Amy and I am a wife and a mom and I spend a
lot of my time in those two roles but also volunteering at the local
elementary school. Great. Well thanks guys for those introductions. There's a lot
of people who aren't here tonight who normally do life with us so the
conversation that we're gonna have I just want you to apply it to us and we're
like us in the room and as a group but also as individuals. So I haven't told
you we're gonna talk about tonight because I want this to be a real
conversation. It's not staged. So I wanted to start out by acknowledging I've
heard a lot of people talking recently and asking questions when neighbors ask
them what kind of church you're a part of that almost everyone stumbles over how
to explain it and so I thought it would be good for us to start just a little
bit about explaining what kind of church that we are and from there to
talk about some practical ways we could walk out being that to our neighbors
and to our city okay. So just want to remind us that the kind of church that
we're a part of is about Jesus. You know it's like we talk a lot about
missional communities for instance and I want us to always be careful that we're
talking about Jesus. Like Jesus is the main thing. So the vision of our church
is in two words if you could sum it up I would call it gospel saturation and what
that means is that every man woman and child in our city we have 70,000 people
in our city. Every man woman and child would have a daily experience with Jesus
in word or indeed. So that's the vision. So when people ask like what kind of
church are you a part of? I'm a part of a church where we want to see everybody
have an experience with Jesus. So the way that we think that happens is by
making disciples of Jesus who make more disciples and the way that we feel
discipleship gets best worked out is in the context of missional communities. We
are doing life on life with each other. You're doing life in community together.
You're doing life on mission together. So the kind of church that we are is not
only about us you know but it's about the outsider and along the way we grow you
know so it is for us and it is for the world. So that's our vision is gospel
saturation when everybody have an experience with Jesus the way we want
to see that happen is by making disciples because it's disciples of Jesus
who are going to walk out the ways of Jesus which means that's how the world
is going to experience him and we feel that happens best in the context of
missional communities. So that's the vision that's the way it's going to
come about. Does that help? Okay so so with that kind of to set the stage what
we're going to talk about tonight. I wanted to talk also briefly about our
identity in Christ and who we are because of his work and how we might work
that out together okay. So you've heard me talk quite a bit about how because we
were once outsiders we were brought in. We had no family we were alienated from
the things of God but because of his grace he sends Jesus and he brings us
and he makes a place at the table so that we are part of the family of God
again and that's the reason why we would invite outsiders in it's because
that's what God did for us. So we're family we're the family of God but not
only are we the family of God but we're missionaries because scripture says we've
been given the spirit and the reason we have the spirit is yes it's for guidance
yes it's for assurance that we are sons and daughters of God but the spirit is
given to us we learn from scripture so that we'd be sent into all the world to
be missionaries for Jesus so we would speak of him in all things. So we're
family so we're missionaries and we're servants which means that we not only
serve the people we know our friends or family but we serve the least of these
because at one time we were also the least of these but Jesus served us
ultimately with his life and because of that that's why we would give our time
to say an orphanage for instance is because that's what Christ did for me. So
these are what we talk about our identity in Christ we talk about we're the
family of God we're missionaries and we're servants and so when you guys
hear those three ways to describe our identity in Christ family missionary
servant I love to hear some of your some of your perspective on where do you
think we're strong and then we'll follow that up with where you think we could
grow as a group together so what do you guys think so where do you think we're
strong when it comes to our identity in Christ family missionary servant I think
you've in a lot of our conversations you've been able to pull us together as
a family many of us coming from different paths different areas of the
country and to allow us to drop some of the barriers that we have up to drop
some of the facades that we like to put up in place to protect ourselves and
allow us to get authentic with each other. Thanks Doug what about the rest of you
where do you where do you think we're strong? I agree with Doug as well and the
first thing that came to my mind was family I think we're really strong and
I feel like we've developed an amazing family a family of God. Yeah I'm curious
what you think Brandon because you're a high school student and we have another
high school student who's does life with us it's not here tonight so I'm
really just said from your perspective as a high school student we're very
multigenerational we've got little kids all the way up to you know adults where
do you think we're strong from your perspective family missionary servant
what do you think? I think we're good at opening up with each other and then
bringing new people in with us and then becoming more really comfortable with
them and then opening up to them and learning off them from their stories. Yeah
and how do you see that in terms of identity do you see that more as a family
thing or a missionary or servant family family thing yeah that's awesome about it
yeah so what theme are you guys hearing as we talk this through yeah I think we
have strength and and I don't know if you would call it missionary or servants
but with orphanage is both
missionaries and servants and doing that here in our city as well I mean
obviously we can all grow in that you can always grow in that but I do see it
as a strength as well that so many people together are our service minded
yeah and it's really exciting to think about what God will do with that in the
future here as well as in Tanzania. Oh yeah I've thought about it quite a bit
how you know this stage that we're at whatever we do multiplies that's why
it's so important to deal with things that need to be dealt with because if we
don't then that's what's gonna multiply an environment where you don't deal with
things so that's why we do it but I also have thought about like the desire we
have among our group to really serve the least of these I just I wonder you know
in five or ten years like what's that what's that what might that grow to I
mean it's really exciting so the theme that we've heard is like we're pretty
good at family I love to hear from your perspective where do you think that we
could grow in at this phase of where we're at family missionary servant what do
you guys think maybe missionary because we really got up being like close with
each other but I think we need to like go out and explore that's what I would
have said it's exactly what I was gonna say yeah okay because we are very
service oriented we're I mean our individual passions are serving others
and that's what brought us all together and then we've all expressed the family
growth and strength but yeah I think it's time we're ready to get stronger and
getting out there and being missionaries to yeah yeah service I think would be
something that I would think we could grow into as a group a lot of our service
is outward is not local yeah and what I what I think as is an element that would
help to balance what our our group our family here is working towards is to
introduce a local service element you know the year works in seasons in most
places I mean here's something California the weather is nice most of the
time so it kind of looks like one season all the time but there are still
seasons you know there are things that happen in the winter right you see of
holidays are things that you have in the spring as things happen summer and in
the fall and the season we have ahead of us is kind of like the spring season
before summertime comes so we're looking at really about three months in
front of us 12 weeks it's not that much but that's really about how long we have
until summertime comes and so we've talked today about how we could grow as
missionaries and you grow as servants so if you were to say you know what in the
we got three months in front of us it's like it's not long what do you guys see
would be a good way that we could work one of those out together in the next
three months and which one will we focus on I mean because they do cross over a
bit but you know just for sake of clarity of what we're doing because
serving is about serving the least of these missionaries is about speaking of
Jesus and you would do both they again they cross over but they're just ways we
can understand who we are in Christ so which one of those you think we might
focus on in the next 12 weeks how it could grow in I think we can always be
very intense we need to be very intentional about everyone that we're
living near and aware and that's the way to reach out and a way to serve that I
also think it would be good for us as a group to choose a project that we can
jump in together I know you have what's his name that feeds the homeless feeds
kids and he needs help you know that we know there's people that need help in
this area so we can choose something but at the same time we need to just be
very intentional about everyone we come in contact with yeah well so so so we've
talked about a couple of different options we have you know finding someone
who's involved in some kind of mission opportunity in town that we could might
just join in on like they've already organized it we just connect with them
probably make some friends in the process we talked about also with like how
we connect with some of these military families here a lot of women whose
husbands are away because they're you know they're often whatever they need to
do for their job with the military the third one we talked about was we have
Easter coming up in just a few weeks so you know as we look at the short term
which one of those options would you guys like to focus on something that is
attainable that we could put time in in just the next few weeks and we can
develop a plan as a way we can work out our identity based on you know that the
best option that we think but what do you guys think is the is a good one
between the ones we just talked about well I mean for something obviously I'm
the one who said Easter something about that that's really beautiful to me is
first of all the whole message of what Easter is and if our focus is Jesus and
we're trying to give everyone in our community an opportunity to be
saturated with Jesus that seems like to me and a really great opportunity to
share what not only what that day represents but to put it into practice
real life how do we love you how do we show you Jesus and let you catch a
glimpse of what this day represents and the beauty in it so to me it's a really
easy opportunity to shine a light on Jesus and what he's done along with
giving people a family loving them feeding them we're all doing it we're
gonna be doing that anyway yeah why not yeah why not include people that may
have nowhere to go that feel alone have lost people so to me that's an easy one
what do you guys think about that suggestion that's exactly what I was
thinking we need to find it's not hard to find people that need family and a
place and are all alone yeah and give them what they're missing well so let's
do just a little bit of dreaming if you were to envision something that could
happen around that Easter time frame some that would really serve people they'd
feel loved like they're a family they'd feel served like Jesus they would like
Jesus had served they would but they would also hear the gospel message tell
me how you guys envision that might work itself out for Easter coming up in just
a few weeks something sustainable that we could put our time in together like how
that might look I mean I grew up in my home doing meals Easter we always do a
big family meal and so it's an easy way to invite people to feed them people
need to eat anyway so it's a way to welcome them into our home and from
there let the Lord do his work whatever he wants to do through us but saying
we're gonna all be available we're gonna say on Easter we're going to be
available as a family as a missional community we're gonna open our home and
we're gonna be here for people and we're gonna invite them and when they come
we're here to be available to them and we're not gonna busy ourselves but we're
gonna be readily available to love them and to love each other and be an example
that yeah I don't think it's hard to find the people yeah I think you just have
to be paying attention and be willing to have a conversation well so the next
question is like where's the right place to do that Amy and I have a mansion
840 square feet but we do have it but we do have we do have a driveway and we do
have a backyard so you know like we've had a lot of people there before we're
happy to have it here yeah it's easy so as far as logistics about food and you
know how you might supply that we could probably discuss that later and just
because for a lack of time for this particular discussion tonight but one
thing I am curious about is so I love the idea that like the value is in the
short term we've got Easter coming up a lot of people are on holiday like let's
somebody man let's eat with them and we know coming into it the reason we're
here is we're servants we're family or missionaries how do you guys envision we
might use that setting to be able to like I think we'd be family will hug in
each other and you know just being open and asking questions I think we could be
servants just by getting people food take care little kids and that kind of
thing but tell me how do you guys see that we might also use this as an
opportunity to speak about Jesus with our mouths as a missionary opportunity
how do you guys envision that happening around a meal with friends with some
strangers on home Easter holiday like how do you think we could use that to
speak of Jesus in a way that is like family you know what do you guys think
of when you hear that I think it'd be really easy to even just ask people so
what did you have special Easter traditions growing up what did your
family do yeah because I mean it like I said I feel like it's a spotlight it's
Easter everyone knows what Easter represents even though we do the bunnies
and the eggs and all that people know what it's the true representation of
what the day is supposed to be so even asking that so what do you think about
you know what does your family celebrate do you do the Easter bunny or do you
focus on I mean it's easy just to find out what people do because it's a
perfect time and that's that's an easy conversation to have because so many
people have transitioned in from some other area of the country or even the
world it's how did how did you grow up what were your traditions as a family
growing up with Easter or any any a holiday religious holiday or whatever
the case may be how did you grow up and it opens a piece for us to tell our
story of how we feel and we're raised to you know believe or celebrate Easter
well I think it'd be cool even is like with our kids you know the little ones
to give them an opportunity to even say so what does Easter mean to you how
sweet it would be I mean just hear our little kids say well to me it means yeah
so we can even include the kids in on the conversations what you know what I'm
saying so we're gonna do this thing here late late afternoon we're gonna eat be
good family take care of each other but also use as an opportunity to have a
discussion among everyone what you do growing up what does Easter mean to you
and how does it sound to you guys when you hear that exciting really good yeah
I feel like we have a planning in my head yeah yeah Easter's coming we have
something to do yeah we have a job yeah yeah yeah do you guys so knowing this
knowing what we have coming up is there anything that could potentially get in
our way from actually making this thing happen at four o'clock on Easter Sunday
and you got any commitments you guys have or anything else it might get in
the way from us no I don't I don't make any commitment well just picking my
daughter up at the airport yes her flight could be delayed but you guys
could carry on yeah well let's talk about then specifically what are some
things that we need to do in the future the soon future to plan this well and to
I mean in some ways kind of have a game plan to have people to invite to have the
food to have all those things like where's some things that we need to do
then from here on out based on the conversation we just had well my first
thought is to really pray and ask the spirit who to invite because potentially
in this group there are so many people that we could invite that's right so it
could easily explode so too big may not be good family sorry cut you off but I
just wanted to slide that in so yeah I that was my first thought was like we
need to pray about who we really should invite yeah and who really needs to come
needs to be here because maybe I mean yes it might be the person that I'm
thinking of but it might be somebody else that I'm not thinking of it's great
most what else do you guys see we need to do from here on out be intentional
about who we're talking to and just being aware of what's going on and in the
needs okay anything else we need to do in order to help this thing get pulled off
in a clear you know healthy way like you touched on before the food I mean we
need to which we all do that well is just we start dividing up and people the
dialogue we'll get that going emails people start signing up I'm potluck
style to make sure we're covered and when people come they have plenty of food
and enjoy I guess we'll establish that that you know in the past we've said
yeah what what are we having and our people bringing anything I'd say
besides us no I think Easter is a great time to serve and let us be the ones
providing food I don't think people should feel I don't think they should
bring anything and that's our chance to give to our community the people that
we've been called to serve other than that and the time and be available and
be committed that's the big one we're all committed then like you said we're
gonna do it so it'll all come together I think too as it gets closer and we
decide who is coming and think about the number of kids that we have and what
ages they are what activities we might have for them and somebody or more than
one somebody who can say yes I am I'll participate with this I'll play this
game with them or I'll do this activity well that's a good point actually and we
could talk about which I think would be fun yeah exactly I actually think it'd
be really fun to do an Easter egg hunt that's so easy and a lot of kids all
kids love it and if we could do a fun Easter egg and that turns into people
start looking forward to that and they know that in our community that's what
they can count on every year a fun Easter egg hunt I think that'd be a great
idea easy to put together yeah yeah even hide it yeah down at
Wesley Park use our local community down there yeah but it's an easy opportunity
to to talk to kids about what what it's what it what we're doing why we're here
what what is so special about this day I mean I've always thought that it was
interesting growing up as a Christian but that the biggest holiday is Christmas
and that's great I'm not saying that it's not good to celebrate Christ's birth
but like the actually the most amazing part was his resurrection from the dead
and that's the victory over sin and what that means and how it gets turned into
this silly little plastic egg and candy day like what you know just so we have
an opportunity with the younger generation to change that story yeah
it's great so we've got a couple things I just want to recap just you know for
sake of us remembering prayerfully take time away with the spirit to say who's
the right person for me to connect with on this holiday second here location we
at the time all that Shannon would you be okay to to take charge of sending out
like you can bring what yeah okay so what's the big takeaway you guys have
had from us just having this interaction together we planned an amazing event for
Easter mmm yeah well how did it happen though how did it happen communication
conversation yeah commitment yeah conversation yeah exploring yeah
available yeah it's great well thanks guys I'm looking forward to having an
awesome Easter event and let's do this he wants to let's have some I pray for us
like like forgot to bless this and the planning going into it anybody want to
pray for us thank you so much for all that you've done for us I could sit here
and say thank you all night I'm so grateful for everyone around this table
and everyone who is not able to be here with us it's in our community that has
a heart to serve you and to be family to each other and to be missionaries
together that's such a blessing and I want to pray specifically for our Easter
event our planning that we will be prayerful and considerate of you and
and your desires and wishes and guiding us and we know that you have the right
people in mind for us to invite so please speak to us and just thank you
for this opportunity that we have to celebrate you and to celebrate your
sacrifice for us and your triumph over death and sin and what a day of
rejoicing and worship and praise that it will be so thank you so once you notice
that what happened in the session we just finished was that I spent a good
amount of time setting the foundation for what we were going to work on the
reason I did that is because I'm not in pure coaching mode remember I'm the
leader here in this missional community so I need to set the foundation for what
we're going to talk about and why we're going to talk about it but then I want
you to notice what I didn't do is I didn't say what people needed to do
next instead I set the foundation for a real issue that we've been going through
where people are asking what kind of church are you a part of and and as
people want to share they don't know what to say so I thought you know this
would be a great opportunity for us to talk about the vision and how we're
going to carry that vision out but I want you to notice next what I did from
there was I had a conversation with them about our identity in Christ if you're
ever wondering like how you could make a plan with your missional community it's
so easy just come back to who you are in Christ and ask people what I did in
this conversation was where are we strong and where do you think we could grow
what was interesting I thought in this particular conversation was it was
unanimous we're strong at being family something else happened along the way I
want to point point out to you there are some people who are in the room who
wouldn't have talked as much had not called on them a general rule I try to
operate by when dealing with anybody is to assess who reacts in response quicker
to the questions I might ask those are generally the extroverted people takes
them only about a second or two to respond whereas you have a whole other
group of people in the room that actually think more than they speak those
are probably your more introverted people Brandon as an example more introverted
guy teenager he's got some things to offer but he probably wouldn't have
offered it unless I asked him so it's fun for me to just say hey Brandon what do
you think where are we strong he said yeah I think we are strong and family it
was really cool to hear the themes like everybody said yeah I think that well I
also want you to notice that what would happen next was I tried to get us to get
some focus on like where we're going to talk about missionary or servant I just
want to let the conversation go for a little bit to see where it was going to
go to make sure everybody was heard I want you to notice that there was all
these other options so remember the goal I set out for us was how are we going to
grow as disciples who make disciples in what area of our identity that we talked
about do we need to grow people almost unanimously said we need to grow as
missionaries we talked a little bit about servants and all the different
things that are happening but where we ended up landing was we ended up landing
on missionary and it wasn't super clear landing but it was nevertheless a kind
of a landing like man we need to use Easter as an example as a way to talk
about Jesus and so I wanted to make sure that I acknowledged everybody's options
so we have this option on the table we have that option on the table like what
do you guys think it might be the best way to move forward another thing I did
during that time was I made sure that every everybody knew that we had a
limited time frame to work with and this is another great way that you can use
your seasons together I want to try to bring us together because if you notice
earlier on people were saying man we have all these relationships I could do
this we could do that here's what I've been doing we've been and it was really
like all over the place and so I was really pleased with how after just
making space to ask questions people began to come together and say you know
what like we could bring some of these people together and they just for a meal
but then as I began to ask more about well how do you guys envision this might
look it was fun to see the really great ideas that people came up with honestly
I wouldn't have come up with all those ideas by myself so you had Shannon saying
hey let's use our home because I was trying to find like what's the best
option for a place to live let's use ours okay so how do you envision that time
might look why don't we just eat together okay but what what are we trying to
work out together we're trying to work out our missionary identity so how are
we gonna speak of Jesus I love that you know let's come to a place where we let
everybody talk about like what was good for them about their Easter growing up
how did they use it and we could use as a way to facilitate conversation and
ultimately where it went to was hey let's do something for the kids to aim you
through that one and I had to ask her some things sometimes so we got an
Easter egg hunt now I would have never thought to do an Easter egg on with the
kids I love the idea of bringing people to get to eat to talk I would never
thought of an Easter egg hunt but my wife is a gifted shepherd she's thinking
about taking care of the little kids and so that's what happened and I also want
you to notice at the very end what happened I reviewed so what have we
learned today what are some specific things that we're gonna do how are we
gonna work this out and who's gonna do what and then once we got to the end of
that I asked so what's been a takeaway from this conversation because of what
I want to be doing is I want to be training my missional community to have
those conversations on the back end of something that's happened so there are
lessons learned and ultimately that solidifies the things that we decided in
the hearts of our people so this is what it looks like to find safety and the
abundance of counselors an amazing plan was thought up tonight that's not
complete but it's well in its way with a lot of specifics but the reason it was
thought up was that because I told people what to do what happened was I
simply asked them questions and I made this space for them to contribute to
create that safe environment to develop something that's going to be a really
amazing Easter experience
