What I'm supposed to be doing:

Peter’s "Pause, Listen & Learn" Goals for July: (Will posting the here make them any more attainable?)

PLL Operational

1. Listening Team – be an active participant, looking for God and helping others do the same.
2. Field Trip Co-Leader – facilitate fruitful experiences and get to know Becca better.
3. Plan & Facilitate Sharing of Outcomes – be intentional about how we can share all the we experience and learn to our broader constituencies.

On-going Work

1. Facilitate a renegotiated lease at Field that includes a storage solution.
2. Re-structure/energize Sunday morning volunteer recruitment process.
3. Get the signage finished for Longfellow.

Personal

1. Finish all the writings for June classes.
2. Find new ways to support & encourage my staff in MT.
3. Exercise at least 6 days every week.
4. Try yoga at least once.

So I recognize immediately how ambitious this list reads. Already have fallen short of the exercise goal but still feeling good about it. That last one, the one about yoga, well that will be an interesting one to pull off. At the least, I'm sure it will be fodder for another blog entry.

You're doing what?

So... Jacob's Well (the church I currently serve as intern pastor) is doing something that I've never heard of another church doing. Quite honestly, because we've never heard of another church doing it was probably the main motivator in taking the idea serious to begin with. That's what I love about this call. As the tag line goes, Jacob's Well is "church for people who don't like church." I think that's even more true for the leadership. It's a collection of leaders who want to lead a church but fundamentally don't like church. At least not "church" as it's commonly understood and experienced.

Jacob's Well is about to celebrate its 5th anniversary and as an institution that wants to be anything but, that's a frightening thought. As we look around at what we're doing, we can't help but wonder, "is this really the church that God is calling us to be?" So rather than keep doing what we're doing but not knowing, we've decided to push the pause button on the week in and week out activities so we can make some time to listen for God and maybe learn where we're being called to next. And that's what it's called; Pause, Listen & Learn. During the next four weeks of July, we won't be producing our own worship experiences but encouraging our community to engage the world around them and maybe, just maybe, find God speaking in some unexpected places. I, along with a number of others, will be leading "Field Trips" to a variety of other worshiping communities around the Twin Cities. We'll also be intentionally engaging our neighbors in a variety of other settings. To learn more about the whole initiative, go here.