SETTING UP CAMP
- Andrew Barris
- Apr 30, 2019
- 8 min read
APRIL // 2019
“Whenever the cloud lifted from above the tent, the Israelites set out; wherever the cloud settled, the Israelites encamped. At the Lord’s command the Israelites set out, and at his command they encamped.” Numbers 9:17-18
Hey Family,
This is the longest update email you will ever get from us. We promise.
Over the last few months, we have been thinking a lot about worship as we followed the cloud and went about setting up camp here in the Bay Area - worship as obedience, worship as living sacrifices, and at GraceWay church we just completed a teaching series on worship and what it means to offer all of who we are for all of who God is. This is such a foundational teaching that reflects where we believe God would have us begin our ministry, in going back-to-basics to be and help establish a community of worshippers.
Since January, God has created ongoing connections with people outside of the church and with new believers where we have had opportunities to share our stories and create safe space to wrestle with the big questions about God’s character, what worship is and how to worship in spirit and truth. God has begun what feels like a spiritual awakening and cultural shift in corporate worship on Sundays as musical worship becomes more about engaging with God than just singing about Him. People who have been churched for a long time have begun to experience freedom in worship for the first time. Recently, during an extended time of prayer, God physically healed over a dozen people from various ailments in one of our Sunday gatherings. Several weeks ago, our church hosted our first outreach event for the local community where many new faces gathered to bond over a meal and crafts, engage in a time of worship through music and hear the gospel message.
While we have been encouraged from the evidence of God’s hand at work, we also see more than a few God-sized challenges on the road ahead in our ministry here as we survey our new mission field, and our faith and courage comes from knowing He goes before us and our job is to obey and follow the cloud.
SETTLING
We just have to say one thing up front.
To all our family and friends in Southern California: we miss you. A lot.
Moving away from family and friends is hard. There’s no way around that. And, to be candid, we’ve really felt that a lot especially in the last several weeks.
The Bay Area has its charm, especially right now during the rainy season when the hills are bright green and weather other than sun feels like a novelty. Up here, the urban sprawl is broken up by what feel like huge pieces of open land and the forest isn’t that far from the city. Even though it’s much more spread out than we're used to, there is actually a lot to do within a reasonable drive. We have Yosemite and other national forests to the east, Napa valley to the north, Santa Cruz and Monterey Bay to the south, and everything the San Francisco peninsula has to offer to the west.
We find ourselves drawn to the coast as often as possible to get a feeling of “home,” though the beaches here are colored with beautiful evergreen trees, which help take the attention away from the colder temperatures.
A friend let us borrow a nice camera, so we have taken some photos from our weekend excursions and used them on our new website, which we are happy to finally share with you.
A lot has happened in just a couple of months, so here is a quick update to give you the highlights from our camp:
AT HOME
· At the ripe old age of 33, Andrew finally got his wisdom teeth pulled toward the end of January (insert joke here) and we are thanking God for a smooth recovery over the following weeks without complications
· We started a life group in February that meets in our apartment and have found some community by making community for others and ourselves
· We celebrated 3 years of marriage on March 12th with a short trip to Monterey and Carmel
· We have enjoyed several visits from our Huntington Beach church family so far
· Our 12-year-old truck had a small failure that quickly became large when the fuel gauge stopped working and then the fuel pump did too (woof!)
· Oh yeah... Andrew learned how to make a website
WHAT WE FEEL GOOD ABOUT IN MINISTRY
There is a lot to do and we have hit the ground running. While there is a place for passion, strategic planning, an aggressive timeline and grit in the mix, God is the pace setter and He seems to be most concerned with foundational work - establishing a strong spiritual foundation on which to build as we discover His long-term plans for this church and surrounding area.
Melissa has done a great job stepping into her role as the full-time Worship Leader at GraceWay, doing a lot more than leading worship every Sunday. She has been working to build a volunteer worship team nearly from scratch, establishing volunteer culture and a new worship culture. She also oversees the multi-media team, is a primary member of the communications team who takes care of social media, graphic design and contributes toward marketing, and has a seat on the Women’s Ministry lead team that was very busy over the last few months planning an outreach event that was both effective and a highlight of our church ministry so far.
Andrew has been doing a little of everything: co-leading worship almost every week (unless filling in on drums), writing life group curriculum, strategic planning for ministry initiatives, collaborating on teaching series’ and establishing a teach team, attending staff meetings, giving drum lessons, building a website, and lining up the details for the church leadership residency he will be stepping into at GraceWay (details below).
· Worship – we have been working to establish a new culture around musical worship as one way to personally engage with God as a worshipper. We feel encouraged to see and hear from the church body that there is a spiritual shift happening and fresh ground is being taken as God’s Spirit is stirring and awakening the hearts of worshippers.
· Teaching - we recently concluded our first collaborative teaching series on worship – an invitational series that challenged all of us to consider things like our purpose as worshippers, what it means to give our best to God as living sacrifices, how we can experience freedom in worship, and how we can die to our preferences in worship style. This series produced some strong reactions and great conversation as we establish new culture in line with the vision for depth in worship and effectiveness in outreach.
· Life Groups – with our new life group leading the way, we are pioneering a new vision and approach to weekday home Bible study groups as a primary entry point into community, and Andrew is writing a weekly curriculum based on Sunday sermons and geared toward discipleship
· Teach Team – we have assembled our first-ever teach team and are working to establish vision and values for a teach team focused on Sunday sermons, each teaching series, life group curriculum, and weekday events like classes, workshops, worship and prayer nights
· Facility - we are also helping this church settle into the new building it purchased after being on the road for the last several years, preparing the sanctuary as a multi-purpose space for weekday and weekend gatherings.
· Outreach – We are also doing our best at home to reach out and build relationship with our neighbors in our apartment complex. Our team has also been experimenting with ways of using the church facility to connect with neighbors in the business park as well as serving the greater community during the weekdays. As mentioned, we recently helped host a very successful Women’s Ministry outreach event that included lots of new faces from all over the Tri-Valley and many who were visiting the church for the first time.
WHAT FEELS CHALLENGING IN MINISTRY
Now that we have boots on the ground and have had time to survey our new mission field, the last several months of ministry have definitely made the challenges we anticipated in answering this call more concrete. Planting a church from scratch is hard work (as we learned from our ministry in Huntington Beach), and replanting an existing church has significant challenges as well.
This church was founded just over a decade after the Civil War and recently transitioned out of a mainline denomination, which was a very costly move for the sake of integrity and staying faithful to following God’s whole Word and teaching, and this church is trying to become a more outwardly-focused church that is reestablishing itself in this area to reach an increasingly diverse local community and close a large generational gap.
· Coming into an established church community and instituting cultural change as we move in a new directionis a delicate process
· With a long church history comes the challenge of working with established expectations, preferences and culture
· Right now, we are inviting new people into a vision of a generationally and ethnically diverse community that requires their buy-in to become a reality
· Developing a strong core group of people from outside of the church body who share the vision for what we are trying to do and how we are moving forward is hard when you don’t have many friends or established relationships in the area yet
WHAT’S NEXT
· Andrew is stepping into a residency at GraceWay (details below)
· Andrew is also teaching on Sunday, 5/12 from John 21:1-14. You can livestream or watch the sermon video using the links at the bottom of this webpage.
· Graceway is hosting a Marriage Night on 5/17, based around a livestream experience geared toward honoring God with your marriage. This event was part of our Easter invitation, for the sake of strengthening marriages in our church body and to create more opportunities for those in our church to make personal invitations in their circles of influence and reach new, unchurched people and families in this valley.
· We will also be planning worship and prayer nights that we will pilot over the summer, with the goal of creating a low-key entry point into Christian community and collaborating with other churches and worship leaders in the area.
ANDREW’S RESIDENCY
Over the next 2 years, Andrew will be invested in a church leadership residency hosted by GraceWay, in preparation for the next season of ministry as he gets ready to lead a new church plant or an existing church community with Melissa in the near future.
As a resident, he will continue his development as a future lead pastor through a combination of hands-on experience and relevant seminary-level coursework, and he will apply what he is learning in present, real-world church ministry, gaining experience in greater levels of church leadership by partnering with the existing leadership team at GraceWay to replant the church in a difficult mission field as we share about Jesus with our local community.
In order to be fully invested in this residency and relaunching this church, Andrew is trying to raise financial support so he can spend his time, energy and effort becoming a highly qualified pastor, leader and church developer as he applies himself to study and connecting with church planters, building relationships in the community around us and outreach, as well as local church ministry with GraceWay as his covering, while being able to cover our family’s daily needs in this expensive area.
Our invitation to you is to prayerfully consider becoming a financial partner with us in this ministry effort.
Your giving will be a dual investment in God’s Kingdom – in equipping Andrew as a future church leader for wherever God would call us as a ministry couple, and supporting our ministry as we help replant a local church and share about the amazing grace found in Jesus in the most unchurched part of the country.
If you are interested in becoming a financial partner with us to support Andrew’s residency and ministry, you can learn more about the details of the residency and how to contribute by visiting the SUPPORT page on this site or by clicking or tapping HERE.
Feel free to pass this update along to anyone who might be interested in what we're up to. You can do so using the links at the bottom of this newsletter.
If you'd like to be added to our email list, you can subscribe using the form at the bottom of this webpage.
And please keep us in your prayers. We won’t be shy about sharing prayer requests, which we have listed on our site so you can join us in prayer.
We hold you close to our hearts as we continue to celebrate the living Jesus in this Easter season. He is risen!
Love, grace and peace.
- Andrew & Melissa
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