Sunday, September 13 marks a momentous day in
Wisconsin. Sure it’s NFL’s opening
Sunday and the Packers just happen to be playing the Bears. Admittedly, that alone is enough to make any
Wisconsinite get the cheese out. But
tucked away in a 3-car garage just off Park Avenue in Racine WI will be the
first worship service of Parish House Anglican.
As the priest of this newly minted congregation I’m excited and confused
all at the same time. Julie and
I moved to our current home 3 1/2 years ago eager to begin a church here. Of course we never imagined it would begin in
our garage. To be honest I’m not sure
what we imagined. But since our move
we’ve continued to feel the Lord pulling us in a single direction…it just so
happens that direction is where we normally store our lawnmower. So this Sunday, Parish House Anglican will
take its place among Apple Inc, Hewlett-Packard, The Walt Disney Company,
Mattel, Google, and Yankee Candle, and will set up shop, albeit with a
Kingdom-orientation, in our garage.
And we’re excited to step out on this new missional
adventure. But as a priest I’m fighting
off this one question: “What if nobody shows?” It bothers me that I’m not
asking other questions like, “How will we park the church bus in our driveway?”
or reading books on techniques to learn a massive number of names all at one
time. Instead I feel like I’m about to
become the pastor of the smallest church in America. Then I’m reminded of the wisdom a Kenyan
priest I recently met in Nairobi who said, “Most anything really needed in the
world will start small.” I’m struck by
how quickly the vision God gives us can shrink in the midst of anxiety and
fear. Anything new, especially a parish,
will by necessity rewrite our expectations as we discover the depth of the life
of God in our midst. I know that being
missional is code for relinquishing expectation. And while that’s uncomfortable for me, I’m
finding it necessary because the vision God gives won’t fit inside the
probabilities that linger in the world of our own prediction. It’s when God’s vision leads that we can lay
down anxious expectancy and let the love of God draw us into those peculiar
places we would have never gone before. If
you follow, you never know, you may find yourself worshipping next to your snow
blower.