Welcome to my SPIRITUAL PIONEER blog which is all about us sharing a journey together about what it is to pioneer and rebrand Christianity. I am going to try and be vulnerable about my own journey in planting a ministry base and also local church in Los Angeles. My hope is that I can begin to communicate to other pioneers and we can share our struggles and joys whether you are in the South, in Canada, across the Ocean, live around Los Angeles, or even in Hollywood. Feel free to comment and ask Questions. As always if you have something extremely negative to say feel free to private email me instead of posting message.
A funny thing happened on the way to the club where we have our church on Sunday mornings….(we call the children’s room “the Love Lounge” because it’s so skanky but its been a good temporary place). I had gone to Disneyland the day before with some friends (Props to Trish, Cherie, Heather, Scottie, and my Sister Jennifer…I was heavily outnumbered by estrogen) and I found out I was speaking that night….oops. That means by 10PM I had to spend limited time with God to figure out what I was supposed to speak on which I hate to do! I like to know the Monday before and then every day pray into and figure it out, especially when I am not just doing one of my old life messages but building into the season we are in. I switched topics about fifteen times and even considered the fact that the church is down in giving by about $10,000 this month because of recession in LA (the end of the year has about killed us financially but we are winning the war in our hearts). I knew that wasn’t the right thing to touch on especially because our people are givers and don’t need extra Christmas pressure.
Then finally, as often happens, God dropped the beginning of a message in me like the first line in a book. “A Father’s role is not to establish your purpose and vision for you, but to provide an environment where he helps you identify who you are and then brings boundaries with you to protect your journey of exploration into your own truth about that. He is supposed to allow you to be a visionary and dreamer, not substituting his dreams for yours but actually dreaming with you your dreams and making sure to help guide you in priorities in finances in family commitments and to stay the course to accomplish your powerful vision and desire.” and I had the scriptures that backed me up…so cool! I went to bed excited even though I only had that much thinking “I will spend time in the morning with Jesus and get the rest…this is good!”
Then I woke up and realised I had set my alarm for PM not AM and it was 9AM and I was supposed to be there early to help the team with anything service and I started running around freaking out that I couldn’t find clean socks or an ironed shirt and felt like I was catching the flu (which formed into a full virus in me) and I had lost all the energy that was my message….oops. I got in the car after posting on my facebook my ETA (which included a Starbucks run of course or no one would have wanted to see me…I needed the power of God AND caffeine) and I almost lost my salvation and ministry over an old woman driver in front of me who had forgotten how to drive or never learned in America. Then I FINALLY got on the highway while listening to Christmas music and it occurred to me:
God needs to take us on a journey as a ministry and as a church of really knowing each other. Most of my church team have been involved with other churches for long seasons before us and came with us to LA or transferred too us, my leaders have lead other places, our worship teams have been involved with other worship teams, but we are just now on our own journey of gaining our own identity as a corporate people. That is hard for a group of peops to gain their corporate identity and I realised my message of Fathering wasn’t just a message to empower our peops to do this but it was empowering me to dream with them, to help us establish a corporate identity and know how to really worship together and receive each other. I WAS BECOMING A FATHER FOR THE MINISTRY!
I felt like a Father, but the steps were becoming more clear and simple. Like a few weeks ago I asked people in our regional meeting (still Expression58 but the ministry not the local church..) “How many of you don’t feel known in something that you have maturity or wisdom in that you have been known in somewhere else in the past? In other words how many of you have equity in some area of life but it hasn’t transferred into Los Angeles or into your home church or here at Expression58?”
So many people raised their hands it was wild! So many people felt invisible in some of their strengths and because of not feeling known they were not completely activated. I immediately realised I had a job to create a safe place for people to be known and connect in their lives and ministries. You know an orginization is either held back by its leadership or moved forward by it and I have done both. I realize that to move people into a corporate identity even regionally they have to feel known and we have to learn how to transfer their equity into our organization and relationship structure. In other words if you owned a house and then sold it, you could take your profit or equity with you to purchase the next house. It should be the same in the Kingdom because we are all one organization, the church. We should be the best at receiving each other in strengths, in experience, in talents, in giftings, and in skills. We shouldn’t have hundreds of hoops to jump through before we become a part of relationship even if we do have programs to facilitate this joining like memberships or classes, they should only empower not be a protocol hoop to jump through.
Back to my Sunday morning. So I get their with the realization that I am to Father, and I am thinking: Dear God! I am single with no kids and most of what I have done is on the exotic side of ministry AKA being involved with the prophetic my entire life. Now God is asking me to be a Father in the city and to create Fathers and Mothers of all ages who really understand themselves and are coached into successful love in all areas. Then I remember Jesus was not your average leader in his day either. He was single without kids (props to me for the first time in that regard) and he didn’t spend a lot of time meeting needs but actually was working to bring a Kingdom. He raised up a team around him that had various strengths and passions that could carry the areas he didn’t bring to the table as far as meeting with people, organizing their mission, travel schedule, finances, etc. I started to get courage and so should you! When we pioneer we are so strong even when we are weak when we have (first God) then a team with us because in our weaknesses they are strong! (Not to imply Jesus was weak but he had incredible delegation abilities Matthew 10 as an example).
So I am qualified and so are you to lead even if your life looks different from the average life and we are called to Father (Mother) this generation into becoming the best versions of themselves. Its not about experience (although it helps so much and I can’t wait to have more), its not about whether you are married or single (Its believed even Paul was single), its not about how gifted you are (a big heart can cover up a lot of weakness), but we are qualified to pioneer this new breed of Christianity by a few things:
1) Love for God
2) Love for ourselves and people
3) Willingness, teachability and humility
So that’s it…thats the first blog but I will be writing more soon! In the mean time I would encourage you to read our end of the year report that is in my blog on wordpress, on Facebook in my notes, on our website in the news (www.expression58.org) and other places. If you want to hear the message I did on that Sunday look for it in our free podcast soon.
Signing out… Shawn Bolz
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