If you are curious about EMMANUEL, you might find the following comments of interest.
COULD YOU TELL ME MORE ABOUT EMMANUEL, IN BALLARD?
Our church plant in Ballard, EMMANUEL, has two distinct features. The first is that we are connecting to the art community with the desire to enrich and bless the city. Our tag line is, “Emmanuel is a community of artists, creatives, and other imperfect people.” So that reveals the second feature of our church, community. Community is about living our lives together, and we are seeking to do that in a number of ways. As the Lord directs us to build this community, we will find our live increasingly intertwined with others, both in the EMMANUEL and in the wider village of Ballard. From the daily exchange of the stuff of life, one develops lasting relationships that transform one's friendships, neighborhoods and cities.
WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR GOALS?
Our goal is simple, but somewhat difficult. It is incarnational living. We desire strongly to grow a community of people who live life together and communicate Christ to the world through the art we make.
This can be summed up by three C-s – Content, Compassion and Community. The first, CONTENT, is to communicate Christ in our own generation by rearticulating, clarifying and making the gospel meaningful to people in our own time. Our generation needs a fresh description of the what the “good news” actually means. We can’t do that by mindlessly perpetuating the (good) arguments relevant in the time of the Reformation. We need a dialogue that is relevant to our own time, seeking to answer questions that people are asking today, not merely defending the answers to questions people were asking five hundred years ago. We hope to restate the gospel through various means of creative expression as well as through time-honored forms of public speaking and corporate worship.
The COMPASSION component is about living our lives in the midst of the city in relationship with those around us, rather than anonymously by ourselves in some quiet suburb. This means that life will become messy and unpredictable, and one must develop a sense of compassion in order to build authentic relationships in that kind of environment.
Our ultimate goal is to glorify God, of course, but a derivative of that we hope will be the creation of an authentic Christian COMMUNITY - which will take some time to produce. A mentor of mine use to say, "It takes a lifetime of living to learn loving." Our community will take time to grow, because it is not a program, it is as organic as is life itself. I would say our desired result would be that we would enter into the process of growing a group of people who would understand and embrace what it means to live incarnationally - together.
Incarnational living can be approached from many angles, not only as artists and creatives, of course; it is merely that we feel called to live our lives incarnationally through the arts. We are not trying to produce a new form of “religious art,” or “Christian art,” or anything like that. We just want to live togeter as “believing artists.”
Though this is evangelistic in many ways, the things we make are not specifically for the sake of evangelism – they are for the sake of the glory of God. There is a huge difference in these two motivations – though some have a hard time seeing it. If we make great art for the glory of God, there is no doubt in my mind that people will look in His direction. Jesus said, "Let your light so shine before others that they will see your good works (art and all) and will glorify your father who is in heaven." What could be more “evangelistic” than that.?
I think this has to do, again, with redefining what the believer should be about. Jesus, in my view, was not out “evangelizing” in the common sense of how most people think about "dong witnessing", as if evangelizing was an activity apart from bringing praise to his father. His goal, if I understand it correctly, was to do the will of him who sent him, which just so happens to be about living life with others, lifting them from where they are to where they can touch God. This is what grace is all about, God touching us and us helping others touch God. It is a partnership that's about redemption.
Evangelism is not a goal as such – evangelism is a result – a fruit – the product of living life in a way that glorifies God and includes others in that process. Living well is a Jesus-honored way of drawing people to God. If “evangelism” is lacking, it is my firm conviction that it is because people are living to please themselves and not living with a view to glorifying their father.
Madeline L’Engle said, “Bad art is bad religion,” so, because we are artists and creatives, and other imperfect people, we are hoping to make “creative stuff” in various mediums (and with excellence), as we live our lives together as the community of Jesus. This is why we call the church (community) EMMANUEL – or – “God with us.” This is the incarnational name of Jesus, and it is what we hope to demonstrate by our lives; that God is in our midst.
COULD YOU TELL ME MORE ABOUT EMMANUEL, IN BALLARD?
Our church plant in Ballard, EMMANUEL, has two distinct features. The first is that we are connecting to the art community with the desire to enrich and bless the city. Our tag line is, “Emmanuel is a community of artists, creatives, and other imperfect people.” So that reveals the second feature of our church, community. Community is about living our lives together, and we are seeking to do that in a number of ways. As the Lord directs us to build this community, we will find our live increasingly intertwined with others, both in the EMMANUEL and in the wider village of Ballard. From the daily exchange of the stuff of life, one develops lasting relationships that transform one's friendships, neighborhoods and cities.
WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR GOALS?
Our goal is simple, but somewhat difficult. It is incarnational living. We desire strongly to grow a community of people who live life together and communicate Christ to the world through the art we make.
This can be summed up by three C-s – Content, Compassion and Community. The first, CONTENT, is to communicate Christ in our own generation by rearticulating, clarifying and making the gospel meaningful to people in our own time. Our generation needs a fresh description of the what the “good news” actually means. We can’t do that by mindlessly perpetuating the (good) arguments relevant in the time of the Reformation. We need a dialogue that is relevant to our own time, seeking to answer questions that people are asking today, not merely defending the answers to questions people were asking five hundred years ago. We hope to restate the gospel through various means of creative expression as well as through time-honored forms of public speaking and corporate worship.
The COMPASSION component is about living our lives in the midst of the city in relationship with those around us, rather than anonymously by ourselves in some quiet suburb. This means that life will become messy and unpredictable, and one must develop a sense of compassion in order to build authentic relationships in that kind of environment.
Our ultimate goal is to glorify God, of course, but a derivative of that we hope will be the creation of an authentic Christian COMMUNITY - which will take some time to produce. A mentor of mine use to say, "It takes a lifetime of living to learn loving." Our community will take time to grow, because it is not a program, it is as organic as is life itself. I would say our desired result would be that we would enter into the process of growing a group of people who would understand and embrace what it means to live incarnationally - together.
Incarnational living can be approached from many angles, not only as artists and creatives, of course; it is merely that we feel called to live our lives incarnationally through the arts. We are not trying to produce a new form of “religious art,” or “Christian art,” or anything like that. We just want to live togeter as “believing artists.”
Though this is evangelistic in many ways, the things we make are not specifically for the sake of evangelism – they are for the sake of the glory of God. There is a huge difference in these two motivations – though some have a hard time seeing it. If we make great art for the glory of God, there is no doubt in my mind that people will look in His direction. Jesus said, "Let your light so shine before others that they will see your good works (art and all) and will glorify your father who is in heaven." What could be more “evangelistic” than that.?
I think this has to do, again, with redefining what the believer should be about. Jesus, in my view, was not out “evangelizing” in the common sense of how most people think about "dong witnessing", as if evangelizing was an activity apart from bringing praise to his father. His goal, if I understand it correctly, was to do the will of him who sent him, which just so happens to be about living life with others, lifting them from where they are to where they can touch God. This is what grace is all about, God touching us and us helping others touch God. It is a partnership that's about redemption.
Evangelism is not a goal as such – evangelism is a result – a fruit – the product of living life in a way that glorifies God and includes others in that process. Living well is a Jesus-honored way of drawing people to God. If “evangelism” is lacking, it is my firm conviction that it is because people are living to please themselves and not living with a view to glorifying their father.
Madeline L’Engle said, “Bad art is bad religion,” so, because we are artists and creatives, and other imperfect people, we are hoping to make “creative stuff” in various mediums (and with excellence), as we live our lives together as the community of Jesus. This is why we call the church (community) EMMANUEL – or – “God with us.” This is the incarnational name of Jesus, and it is what we hope to demonstrate by our lives; that God is in our midst.
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