There’s always an underlying motivation driving the birth of something new.  A felt need, a discontent, frustration, passion…a desire to be different, to add something new to the conversation.  There are lots of churches out there trying to be different, trying to grasp the direction of the culture and speak to it, us included.  So over the last decade or so we’ve seen a wide-spread shift to implement expressive changes like contemporary music, casual dress, social networking, you name it.  We could easily compile a very long list.

And much of what we do at City Community Church would be reflected in that list:  our musicians are cutting edge, we’re all over Twitter and Facebook, and if I needed a tie for some unexplainable, cruel and heinous reason, I’d probably have to make a trip to Goodwill to pick one up (I’m firmly convinced neckties are a result of the fallout of original sin).

But those things are window dressing.  We can very easily fall victim to changing the outward expression without really dealing with the core of our motivations and worldview.  That’s the hard painful work most of us choose to avoid.

So what drives City Community Church?  What’s our motivation?  Why did we start this grand experiment?  I’ll at least share our hope:  It’s in how we want to see people.

Let me tell you a dirty little secret.  I believe in Jesus, I’m creative, I’m passionate, I’m motivated…and I’m innately and hopelessly selfish (and so are you…sorry).  It would be so easy for my buddy Nathan and I to leverage our influence and entrepreneurial capacity to turn CityCom into a pathway to fulfilling our own personal dreams, and to simply see the people around us as commodities in that pursuit.  If I’m being completely honest (shhhh…come real close…I have to whisper) a lot of churches do exist simply to fulfill their own organizational agendas or those of their leader.  No one would admit it, but it’s true.  It’s human nature, it can sneak in subtly, and we all have to guard against it.

So as we launch City Community Church, our deepest desire is to unearth the unbelievable, untapped, uncultivated God-imparted possibilities that reside inside of everyday individuals.  We want to be curators of people potential.  And not just so we have musicians to staff Sunday services, workers for the children’s ministries, and ushers to collect the offering.  It’s not that those things aren’t valid (or needed), they’re just not our ultimate definition of success.  We don’t just want to mobilize your Sunday, we want to empower your Monday.

So don’t just wait for us.  Our job is to help you uncover your God-birthed vision, not design, create and implement one for you.  Look for us to push, prod, inspire, challenge, and flat out irritate you into becoming all that God created you to be, in the context of the daily life He’s called you to live.  For the record, that starts with Jesus.

Now you know.  Now we’re accountable.  Let’s get to it.

I like my house, not gonna lie.  Nearly nine years ago, my wife and I (less two of our three little rug rats) moved into the home we were going to spend the rest of our lives in.  Suburbs, picket fence, 3 kids and a dog.  You know, what everyone wants.  What everyone dreams of.  Until you get a glimpse of God’s dream.

When we decided last fall to begin the process of planting City Community Church in downtown Indianapolis, we had absolutely no desire to leave our home.  After all, we can be in the heart of downtown Indy in minutes.  Why move?  It wasn’t necessary.  We know the west side.  We grew up here.  Our families are here.  Everything that makes life “normal” and “predictable” is in our back pocket,  and we sure had plenty of of other things destabilizing our quaint, little reality.  We didn’t need to move, too.  The LaGranges are crazy enough (love you guys), let them do it.  We’ll hold the fort down from out here.

That’s usually when God starts to mess with you.  Not because He doesn’t want you to be happy, but He definitely knows control is not something you’re qualified to possess.  He’s not satisfied with one act of radical obedience, He wants a lifetime commitment to it.  We love control, and even though we never really have it, we desperately hang onto the appearance of it.  It’s like a security blanket that provides us nothing of real value, but for some reason makes us feel better.

So my wife and I slowly and subtly realized that even though we professed “God, we’ll follow you anywhere,” we had set our feet in concrete and chained ourselves to our current reality like some crazy, Oregonian anti-logging fanatics (if you’re from Oregon my apologies, but you get the picture right?).  We said all the right things, but in our minds there were just too many hurdles to jump to actually make something happen.

So we’re changing that.  We’re letting go.  We’re positioning ourselves to lose control.  Honestly, I have no idea what God is going to ask of us.  Maybe he’ll let us stay right here (honestly, that’s probably the answer we’re hoping for).  All I know is that we have to remove all the barriers that keep Him from owning the decision.  We have to stop treating God as if we control Him (an admission we would never openly make but far too often live out).  We’re untying the knots, releasing the locks, chiseling our feet from the concrete.  And then we’ll just see what happens.

What a way to live.

I don’t know.

Those are liberating words. Yeah, really. Not words a leader is naturally drawn toward, but words I’m trying to become more and more comfortable with everyday. Those words don’t make me weak. They make me honest. Fact of the matter is, sometimes you don’t know either (yeah, I know who you are).

Having it all figured out is not a pre-requesite of leadership. If it were, only good actors would lead. But just like all of you, I fight the desire to always have the perfect answer, to know the score, to have thought through every possible situation, equation, and outcome before it happens. Oh, and we also have to innately know the contingency plan, too.

As a church planter, I involuntarily desire to eloquently answer every structural, organizational, and visional question that comes at me. “Of course I know the strategic intent of our planned infrastructure’s capabilities to handle economic downturn over the next three years.” (Liar! I don’t even know what that question means).

And as a pastor, I’m required to understand all the theological minutia of God’s will, His plans, and His ways. Right? If not, why am I even here? So we make ourselves look good. We give the pat, trite, Christian answers (that really help no one). We squish the ungraspable nature of God into our little box so that people think we’re good at what we do.

Here’s the deal. Sometimes we just don’t know. All of us. And that’s OK.

I don’t want all the organizational answers. Not knowing gives me the liberty to experiment, to dream, to try new things never done by anyone before. It gives me the right to fail and get up and try again. That’s where greatness begins.

And I don’t have all the theological answers. I don’t want a God I can fully explain, that I can fit within the scope of my little world and perspective. I want a God that blows my mind with the unfathomable scope of His nature and being. Sometimes His will is simply beyond my ability to comprehend. It keeps me honest. It keeps me dependent. As Andy Stanley so eloquently says, “focus on the undeniable, not the unexplainable.”

In my life, I’ve found that God often gives me just enough of the picture to keep me moving in His direction. I’m learning to live with that ambiguity, to thrive within those unknowns. It’s a beautiful thing.

So, here’s the deal. I don’t know. Yeah, I said it. I don’t know. Feels good. Maybe you should admit it, too. Wisdom begin there.

One of the great things about planting a new church is all the new people I get to meet.  A few weeks ago I got the chance to sit down with Geoff Wybrow and Jim Falk of LAM Ministries in Broad Ripple.  Geoff threw out a challenging analogy as we launch into these new church building waters:

God is calling you straight from “high school basketball” to the pros.  When you were in high school, you could get away with some handicaps…not dribbling well to your left, poor mechanics in your jump shot, being a little slow on defense.  But in the pros, those things will kill you.  You’ve got to fix them, spend some time on them, or you’ll never make it at this new level.

Same for all of us.  As God calls us higher, those little things we could easily compensate for as an “ameteur” become magnified issues we must confront and deal with.  Little insecurities, unbridled frustrations, masked selfishness, unchecked temptations.  No more letting those things go.  Time to cut them out.  Learn to play like a pro.

God’s call for all of us is radical discipleship.  That requires change…growth.  So what handicap have you been making excuses for?  Time to sharpen up.  The Pro is calling.