Current Summary of Foolswork et al

Here is a summary of the past 10 days or so of our ideas and work.  Not everyone has been in on all the conversations so I thought I should open the dialog up to all.  I have copied much of this from an email I sent to Kris at First Baptist Church in the Heights so if some of the sentences don't make complete sense then just chalk it up to me have the writing skills of a Panda.  

We have identified three areas that we will emphasize.  The Weekly Gathering - Small Group System and a Gathering system.

The Weekly Gathering will initially be on a weekday night like Thursday.  The elements will be based on our Celtic Knot diagram.  We have started gathering a list of artist and musicians for this gathering.  Also we have been talking with other teachers about joining us in this venture.  

Foolswork  It looks like we could have up to six locations starting by the end of the year.  (Including one in North Carolina, one in Dallas and two in Arkansas.)  

Our original idea for foolswork of being a web-based church gathering that had cells literally world wide is growing.  The guys in Dallas as considering joining us to make this a reality.  The North Carolina (Drewboy) and one of the Arkansas sites will be at college campuses.  Morgan is considering attending TAMU in the spring of 2009 and she plans to open a Foolswork there. 

And the Gathering system - we are calling these groups Clusters and they are a 30 day experiment in community and shared spirituality.  This group commits to a 30 day group reading schedule and a set of meetings.  When they gather they discuss the readings.  They also complete two projects in that time.  Our exit for the members of these groups is two fold: 1) they start a group of their own and 2) they join an existing foolswork gathering.

The one Year Reading Program - This is the system that a Cluster uses for their start and then encourages the others to continue individually or with a cluster they start for the next year.  This program is Monday - Saturday with Sunday as a rest day.  M W F - we read a OT passage and a NT passage with an optional reading that is extra Biblical like the Chicken Soup stories but more relevant to our audience.  T Th SAT we have a Psalm and a Gospel Message with an optional non biblical reading as  well.  

The six weeks prior to Easter as well as the six weeks following Easter there is a going deeper set of optional readings.  These double up the readings for the day so instead of 5 minutes it will be 10 minutes of reading.  

Also we are working on both a printed and electronic journal system.  Morgan has created a mock up for the paper based system.  She says it is really cool but tells me I can't see it until next weeks meeting.  For the electronic system we started talking to the guys that wrote the Kindle Joy website (www.kindlejoy.com) about making a site out of our yearly reading system.  

Putting the Word Out - I hope you are all starting to recruit your friends and neighbors and people you meet on the street.  I have been on the phone this week with several people at College of Biblical Studies talking about this new venture and they are all going to start talking about it to their friends and students.  We have a need for additional leadership: a leader for our artisan community and a group of pastoral teachers for a culturally diverse background.  (Please keep in mind they need to share our DNA of a heart for the misplaced - outcast and rejects form the church as well as those who have never considered the case for Christ.  We are not building a church we are building a community.) 

Some small additional things - 1) I exchanged emails with a pastor of a church in Hawaii this past week about us.  He was amazingly kind and generous.  2) has anyone made contact with Loc Tran about the Vietnam trip? 

Thank you for being a part of this venture.  

Crashing Forward,

Richard

One more thing... 

Relationship with Mosaic Church in Little Rock - Guys I hope you are reading the book we presented last week by Mark Deymaz.  Mark and I have spent several hours on the phone the past few days and I am really excited about the possibility of us being in relationship with his church.  Among many things discussed if we join with them they want to integrate Foolswork into their entire system of associated churches.  They will probably adopt our Cluster system as well.  So please read the book so we can have an open discussion about the possibilities of joining with Mosaic.  (FYI: This is not the Mosaic in California.)