Friday night was great.  It was a strange mix of feeling like just yesterday since I've seen all these people and yet feeling like it had been an eternity, all at once.  So much has happened and we feel like we've changed so much, but being in the company of so many loved ones has a way of wiping away the years.  We were laughing and talking right away.

I tried to convey my heart and our passion about building the right foundation for whatever form a church may take in the future.  I'm not yet sure how well I did.  I talked mostly about the same things I've tried to share in other places.  It's just so hard to really articulate the total shift in paradigm that I see happening within what we call church.  Jesus describes the quantum change he was bringing by saying, "New wine must be put into new wineskins..." (Luke 5:38).  I feel like this is the place we're living in.  The container for what we do must go through dramatic change.

It's not impossible that someday, at some point, we'll work with something that looks like what we'd all recognize as a church.  But I feel like that is a far way down the line.  Maybe not in years (but maybe), but definitely in practice.  I want to be part of a community that is wholly devoted to mission - not meetings.  Churches are nearly always formed around meetings, getting that Sunday morning service started.  Maybe that is still a great method, but I just can't go back to thinking and doing that way.  I have such a clear vision of it in my heart, but the right way to describe it and make it clear to others is still alluding me.  We just have to take each tiny little step as it comes.

For now, all I can offer to those who are feeling this same restless stirring - this same, "there has to be more than this" - this same sense of God's call is:

Let's follow Jesus together.  Let's get reconnected to what it means to be his disciple.  Let's listening intently to the voice of the Good Shepherd and let's dare to do whatever He whispers.  If this journey leads us to the same upper room with the same purpose and the same thrust of the Spirit upon our lives - well, that's going to be a lot of fun.

We're getting started with this thing in Northwest Indiana on Friday.  Sort of started, not really, but as much as we can, or as we know to do for the time, or as makes sense to us now, or if...

Can you tell that this is a work in progress?  If I could give you an insight into my "process" with this church plant I would describe it based on the tiniest of increments.  So far, it has been about doing precisely what we know that we know that we know God is calling us to do and nothing less, but certainly nothing more.  That sounds like a great theory for starting a church, but what if you can't seem to get God to give you any more direction than "move one inch that way?"  I guess all you do is move that one inch and then wait for new orders.  Easier said than done.

I knew that we needed to move here so we did.  Well, kind of.  We're here, but all our stuff (including every pair of pants that I own!) is still in storage in Florida.  We are still living in my parents' house, without any lead on a place of our own.  Those are pretty small steps. 

The next step we feel the Lord directing is to get as many of our friends and family together as we can and share our sense of calling with them.  That's what we're doing at 7 PM on Friday night.  If you were somehow left off the "invitation list" to that get together, it was not intentional!  Email me and let me know that you want to come:  scottjbane@mac.com.  We'd certainly love to see you.

I used to be able to tell you precisely the role I wanted in the kingdom.  I could tell you where my strengths where and what I can do well and not so well.  I had ideas on how I wanted to lead and what kind of "church" I wanted to have.  Now, my desire to be in the story that God is writing at all,  has trumped my desire to tell Him the part I'd like to play.  I sometimes do hope that I'm not the guy who "dies in prison," having preached the message of the kingdom but never actually seeing it come about himself.  But if that's the piece God is writing for me, so be it.  Is that making any sense to anyone out there?  I'd rather be a dot on God's page than on the cover of a book I wrote myself.

I see this as a step in itself.  It's a starting point.  Through a glorious but often torturous refining fire, God is burning at my perceptions and assumptions.  I believe He will someday have me seeing the kingdom through a whole new lens.  For now, I see barely deeper than a little get together at my mom and dad's house on Friday.

My great friend Andy sent me a link to something that he wrote over a year ago.  He and I have been emailing each other about it today.  I asked if I could repost it here because it is such an eerie articulation of my own heart.  Andy and I seem to stay on the same wave length.  I hope you enjoy it too:

"A while ago I blogged how I had been poised to write a post about being really fired up about church again, but being side-tracked before I could get typing.  And then, shortly after, someone took a hose to my fire and I felt less inclined to type it.  But this fire is like one of those magic candles: it looks like it’s gone out but then it comes right back at you. 

I had met with my buddy and we talked about church.  It brought my heart to life about what it could be.  It reaffirmed to me what I believe it should be. 

I go to Nero’s and I sit, I drink great coffee, I work, I browse the ‘Net, and I observe.  I observe people who are about their business, and I wonder: I wonder what life means for them; I wonder what they see; I wonder what they hear; I wonder what their heart cries out in the darkness, in the quiet moments when they are alone.  I wonder what it would be like to brush against them, what they could show me and what I could show them.

I wonder if the word ‘koinonia’ would mean anything to them, if it would interest them, because I’m damn sure the word ‘church’ wouldn’t.  I wonder if they cry for the orphan and the widow, I wonder if they long to see the captives set free, the sick healed and the broken-hearted comforted.  I wonder what this town would look like if it woke from its slumber.  I wonder what would happen if a generation rose up and chose to live.  I mean really live.

In that brief moment I wonder if I have lost the plot.  I wonder if I am seeking the unattainable, if this is all some pointless pipe dream.  I wonder if the life - the big life - I long to have is some utopian fantasy; some fictional creation that fuels imagination and nothing more.  I begin to wonder if there is any point in even trying.

And then I remember.  I remember the fire in my heart.  I remember the deadness that preceded it, and the cry that now bursts out of it, a cry I can’t contain, a cry that consumes me, that invigorates me, that drains me, and that lifts me all at the same time; a cry I can’t articulate, but that I can’t not speak out.  And I remember that my king walked where I walk, felt what I feel, wondered what I wonder.  I remember that nothing I feel, think, say or do is a surprise to him. He has sat where I sit.  And if I make room, he’ll come and sit here again, with me.

And as I remember, I begin to dream. 

My affliction, if you like, is that I dream on a grand scale.  I dream of generations living in freedom. I dream of a church worthy to be received by her groom.  I dream of a church that has found her place, that has stopped fighting within and started loving without.  I dream of community; I dream of vibrant, passionate community.  I dream of gatherings in coffee shops; I dream of gathering in parks, in homes, in pubs, clubs, gyms and offices.  I even dream of gatherings in churches.  I dream of inclusion, grace and humility.  I dream of lives transformed, communities liberated, and towns and cities awake with the joy of being truly alive.

And then I remember something else: in him all things are possible.  And then I am back to wondering; I wonder if maybe, just maybe, this is more than a dream."

Andy is just getting his blog restarted at www.liveabiglife.com.

I would say, "the eagle has landed," but we need a bigger, slower, more lumbering animal to describe our voyage from Florida to Northwest Indiana.  More like a camel with hip bursitis.  When we got here, it was just like I left it - gray and windy.  But today I certainly can't complain; it's beautiful.

We left on Tuesday morning and got here Wednesday night.  That's about the best our two-car caravan loaded down with stuff and children could do.  I'm really, really excited about what God has in store and am looking forward to getting started.  We're still trying to officially move here, you know all the little details like finding a house, moving our bank accounts, getting our kids enrolled in a school...

So we have not been up to anything "official" as far a church plant goes.  If you've been wondering, you haven't missed anything.  If you live around here and want to get together, I'd love to see you!  Call me and let's go to Starbuck's.

Wow!  Has it ever been a long time since I have updated this site... I apologize to all those who do check back here in hopes of reading something new.  I wrote something recently for my favorite publication, Next-Wave.  You can use that link to go over, check out the issue and comment on my article, Starting Stuff is Difficult.

This idea of "Starting Stuff" is actually part of my excuse for leaving this site static for so long.  I really have been busy, but so has everyone else on the planet - so I'm not going to use that one.  The real reason I quit writing is because I felt like I didn't have anything to say until I could release the "big news."  Sheryl and I are accepting an invitation we believe to be from God to plant a church in Northwest Indiana.   Sheryl wrote about this at her site - you can jump over there and read her thoughts.

This was a tough decision at first because NW Indiana is where we both grew up and where our life in ministry began as well.  There were a lot of reasons for this to be a really bad idea.  We had to sort through all of those to be as certain as possible that we were hearing from God and not just something of our own making.  For probably just as many reasons, it was a good idea too.  We both have family up there that we would love to be with again.  My older brother and his wife are expecting their first baby in September and we don't want to miss out on that.  My parents have always been such a big and important part of my kids' lives, we're looking forward to being near them again.

But all those good reasons could never add up to equal a call from God.

We had to know that this was about His Kingdom and nothing else.  It took several months and several confirmations but we are now confident that we are walking in the footsteps that have been ordered for us.  Sunday, June 8 - just over a year from when we arrived in Florida - we're leaving it behind.  I am going to miss so much of it!  This is my kind of weather and being cold is nothing I look forward to.  I love where we live and I love the schools the kids go to.  We love our friends so much.  Parting from them is the toughest part.  But we are seeking first the Kingdom - now more than ever before in our lives.  The passion that burns in me for the people of NW Indiana is unquenchable.  We have to act on it.

I'm going to be writing again and laying out what we're thinking and hearing as we take on this mission.  I think the starting point is to write about our call - what we believe God has said about us and about the mission He has given us.  Call.  Not vision.  Vision I'll talk about later.

Thanks to everyone for the friendship, prayer and support that has literally held us together over the past 2 years of exploration and risk-taking.  I'm more dependent upon the people God has placed in my life and His love and care for me than I've ever been before.  This is a wonderfully scary place to be!