August 2015

        This is the first blog I write in "real time" pervious to now, it has been a summary of where we've been with a pretty good idea of what had happened next. If the tone changes at all, that's why. 

Jarred and I weren't quite ready to start our rhythms after our brief break in July so we decided to wait until September to start figuring them out. By the end of the month, we knew we wanted to be spending more time with the Goldsteins as we transitioned to them being the spiritual parents of our MC. We also knew we wanted to see Courtney more because she had continually showed herself as a person of peace to us and we wanted to invest in her because of that. 

Most of our rhythms were getting established around food.  In order to see Courtney more, we decided we would start inviting her to our morning breakfasts on the morning she would be getting off of work. We had also been trying to make our meals for the week on Saturday so we are going to invite people to join us to get some cooking done and hang out time in. 

We officially got the building for the deli/bakery in August so although there are no firm plans for how to get a consistent rhythm with working on that, it is very exciting and something we are looking forward to figuring out. That will be a major contributor to spending intentional time with the Goldsteins. We know we have to be careful to get covenant time in too so it's not all work, work, work.

Katy and Jon in front of the bakery. 

Katy and Jon decided to start family dinners in August so our MC got back into the rhythm of dinners once every other week. At our first dinner we met together with the core people to talk about what our mission-vision might be. It was decided that we would focus on the LGBT community because that seemed to be who we were attracting. 

Our second dinner we opened it up to invite people we had met at the block party. We had 6 new neighbors show up. All the people that showed up were church going people. They were excited about what we were doing and started becoming consistent (so far). 

Through the new people we met at family dinners, Jarred and I found another thing to start inviting people into. We got cable which meant access to AMC which meant "Fear the Walking Dead" and "The Walking Dead". There is not a shortage of people who don't have cable but want to be current with those shows so we obliged. Each episode we have had more people come over than the last. It has been a blast. 

As we look forward into September we are excited about a few things. First, there is a pilgrimage coming up of 3DM and TOM members and we can't wait to see some friends and family again. Secondly, Jarred and I signed up for the Vineyard's Residency+ to prepare for church planting. Finally, we are eager to start getting into some rhythms. 

July 2015

       July was the big block party.  We were all very excited because we knew at the very least we were going to have fun.  I borrowed my godchildren for the weekend ages 4, 3 and 2 since none of us had kids so we needed a kid element to get the families out.

It was a great success!  We had over 60 people come out that were not part of our family.  The washers tournament was the biggest pull that brought everyone together confirming that we do in fact live in the south.  

        Everyone was so grateful that someone had put this together.  There were neighbors that had lived in the neighborhood 20, 30, 40+ years who said it had been about a decade since they had had a block party but that they had done them every year for a very long time before that.  The newer neighbors were glad at the opportunity to meet other people in the area.

After the party was all said and done we realized we really did more work than was necessary.  Very little of the planned activities actually happened in the time that we planned them.  Kids pretty much just played with everything the whole time.  Water was a big hit.  We made WAY too much food because most people brought out their own food.  Even our music became obsolete when the neighbors brought out their karaoke.

Block party!

As had become our rhythm, after a major event, we did some resting.  We took the month off in July from organized time which meant no huddles and no family dinners.  We officially stepped out of Robert’s huddle because we needed to focus energy on our family as opposed to transitioning the church.  Not only did we want to rest and prune back to make space and conserve energy for the fruit that would come, but we also were all going to be on various vacations for the month of July.  Also, with the bakery on the table, we wanted to take a step back and pray into what the next season would look like since it was potentially much different than what we had been doing up until now.

One of the “vacations” that Jarred and I went on was the Vineyard Global Gathering.  There was so much from that week that God did in our hearts, confirming we were to plant a church, the blessing of our family and connecting with other TOM members (only one of whom was at the Vineyard conference.  The other three were just in the area so we visited them).

Robert signed up for a side meeting about missional communities.  He had three extra tickets so he asked those of us in his huddle to come having one representative from each household.  It ended up being me, Robyn and my mom.  At this meeting, we realized that the Vineyard did not officially have anything to say about missional communities so we were at the “Damn Historic Meeting” that started the conversation.  Of the 20+ people that were there, 3.5 of us were doing missional communities.  Robyn and I were two of them, mom was the .5.  When we got back from the meeting and I talked with Jarred about it, we realized that we had accidentally fallen into the forefront of the MC movement with the Vineyard.  That was the genesis of this blog.

June 2015

       In June, our MC was focused on preparing for the Fourth of July block party.  We were getting the word out to the neighbors and planning the festivities for the day.  It was probably the most labor/planning intensive thing we had ever done as an MC.

One day, Katy was looking around online and came across a property for sale.  It was a fully functioning industrial kitchen with office spaces and two apartment buildings up above.  Currently, it was being used by the catering company that owned it.  The property was 3 blocks away from where she and Jon lived.

She posted the link to the property on Facebook and said, “Anyone want to dream a little with me?  This is in our neighborhood and I would LOVE to buy it, rent out the apartments upstairs, and start a bakery in the bottom portion.”  No one who knows Katy was at all taken aback by that status.  The thing that took us by surprise was what happened next.

The post that started it all. 

There was a man, Fred that we had started to build relationship with in our neighborhood.  He owned a bakery that employed people in transition.  They had a kitchen down the road called Bridge Bread and mostly sold bread to churches.  Upon reading Katy’s post, Fred emailed Katy saying that a man in his church had just approached him about that exact property.  This man, Doug, wanted to do a neighborhood bakery/deli in that building.  He had the money but not the experience.  He had asked Fred if he was interested in going in on it with him and expanding Bridge Bread in that way.  Fred was not really looking to do that but as soon as he saw Katy’s post, he knew he needed to get Doug and Katy talking.

Doug and Katy quickly connected and started to realize their vision for the space was more than just compatible.  Katy told Doug that Jarred would be a great General/Deli Manager because of his experience and she could run the bakery side with her experience.  Doug was sold.  He put a bid in on the property.

Over the next three weeks, there was lots of prayer from the handful of us that knew this project was in the making.  It was an excruciatingly long three weeks.  There were offers and counter offers just about every third day.  By the end of the three weeks, Doug had the building.  As soon as the inspections were finished, we would have 10 days to write up our business proposal.  The catering company was going to rent the building from Doug through the fall and then we could start renovations in the winter with an extremely tentative opening in the spring of 2016, right in time for Katy to finish up her schooling.  

        Update: Currently, the catering company is going to continue to rent the space into next year. The apartments are ready to rent out. Katy, Jarred and Doug have been in constant communication from things about the name of the place to the menu.  Katy and Jarred have quickly brushed up on writing business plans so they can be prepared when the time comes.  Doug also bought a warehouse building in our neighborhood and 500 chairs and is asking Katy for ideas for the building. We have not formally said a church building, but we are all thinking it!

May 2015

        May was a big month for Robert’s huddle because of the Discipleship and Mission Workshop.  Things had started to come together as far as what we were going to share and how we were going to share it.  Everyone in his huddle had a part to share/teach.

One thing that we had learned was the value of a huddle beyond the discipleship of leaders.  We realized (and not without having been told at least two times/ways) that we could use a huddle as a vehicle for processing information as well.  We had been put in huddles in the workshop that we had gone to and Jarred and I had been in huddles for the pilgrimage.  So, we planned to use a huddle for the attenders of the workshop so they could process what they were learning and really pause to see what God was telling them about what they were learning.

We had about 20 people show up to the workshop that were not already part of a huddle/MC.  We had another 10 or so people come that were part of a huddle and 6 of those people lead the processing huddles over the two day workshop.  The huddles were a major selling point for the people who had never heard of huddles/MC.  There was a lot of challenging information shared that overwhelmed a lot of people.  When they were able to take a step back and focus on one or two things they felt God was telling them, they felt more empowered.  

         After it was all said and done, we felt it had been a successful first jab.  We learned some things about what worked and what didn’t.  We also realized that for some time, as a church, we should probably do this workshop quarterly so that everyone had a chance to come.  It took 10 people to run the operation not counting worship.  Next time, for the same size group it should hopefully take only half the man power.

         In our MC, two major things happened.  First, Rhonda’s girlfriend started to become more a part of the family.  They invited us over to their house a couple of times for drinks.  Mari wanted us to do a block party for the Fourth of July so she and Katy headed it up.  The two of them invited us to play in a softball league with them.  Courtney, Jon, Jarred and I signed up to play.  There was no one else from the neighborhood that was in the league but we were building in to Rhonda and Mari’s networks.

The next big thing that happened was that Kelsey moved in with Jon and Katy.  This became a big deal because for the foreseeable future, the three of them were getting some intense practice at doing life together.

Kelsey was quickly turned into a 3DM junky while living with Katy and Jon. 

        Finally, Jarred and I went with my family to Michigan for my brother’s graduation.  On our way back, we visited Roger’s church and then spent all day with him and his family.  They were preparing to launch an MC and had spent the better part of a month trying to nail down their mission-vision.  It was again so refreshing to meet people and quickly connect with them because of being able to speak the same language.  Never before had we met someone and then hung out all afternoon on their couch in the same day.  It felt like family.

As always, we would love to hear about what you are doing with missional communities in your context. Please feel free to share in a comment below. Also, if you have questions about anything we are doing, feel free to ask and we will get back to you as quickly as possible! Thanks for following along. 

Love, 

The Irby's

April 2015

April was a lot of fun but it went by really quickly.  During the cold months, Greg and Eddie had been staying with a friend to get off the streets.  As it was warming up, they were able to start coming back to family dinners because they were staying in the area again.  When they came back, they started bringing along Kenny too.  He quickly became part of the family.

For Easter, the three of them went to church with Katy and Jon.  They spent the whole day with their extended family after that.  Later in the month, they came to church with me and Jarred.  This was the first time that we had brought anyone from the family to church (who wasn’t already part of a church) so it was monumental for us.

Greg and Eddie with Katy and Jon celebrating Easter. 

In April, Robert had bugged Eric enough for free help with transitioning the church to huddles and MCs that he invited Robert to be a part of his huddle specifically for churches making the transition.  We also put on the calendar for the following month a Discipleship and Mission workshop for our church, modeled after the one we had done the winter before.

One of the men from that huddle that Eric was leading, Roger had been in relationship with 3dm through Eric for a couple of years.  Eric had him contact Robert and his huddle so that we could talk through our leadership pipeline which would help us focus our workshop.  He was very helpful at getting us to ask the right questions.

Robert’s huddle was planning the workshop but we were using people in all three huddles that were now going on to run it.  Since we had not taken/kept copious notes from the first workshop, it took a while for us to plod through all that we had learned in the past year plus to figure out what was necessary information to share.  This was going to be a big deal because we were introducing huddles and MCs to the church for the first time.  

Also at this time, Robert’s original coach was coming back to the States and he and his family were making their way across the US on their way to their new home in California.  They stayed with Robert for a week as they passed through St. Louis.  

        On one of their first nights in town, Robert invited all the huddles over to his house to meet them and hang out with them.  For most of the people that showed up, this was their first experience with being in relationship with people who spoke the language.  As it had been for us at the pilgrimage and (for those of us that were there) at the Fry’s for the vows, they were excited to be able to relate to people they had just met on such a deep level.  

        Shaun and his wife also happened to be part of TOM.  Since Jarred and I were very new to TOM and had very few connections to people in it, we were excited to spend time with them.  We took them out to the City Museum and the out for dinner at Pi’s.  It was great to get to know them.  The consensus from the people that got to hang out with them was that it was like they were part of the family already.

As always, we would love to hear about what you are doing with missional communities in your context. Please feel free to share in a comment below. Also, if you have questions about anything we are doing, feel free to ask and we will get back to you as quickly as possible! Thanks for following along. 

Love, 

The Irby's

March 2015

March was the final blow to our huddle.  Christopher said he was bowing out.  He had been absent most of February after Erin left the huddle.  He had gotten hurt at work which had prevented him from being able to come to many family dinners too.  He said he wanted to explore what God might be calling him into and that huddle and our MC wasn’t quite aligning with that any more.  Since he had been fazing himself out, it did not come as a shock.  As prepared as we might have been for the news, it was sad to see him go when it was finalized.

It wasn’t all loss in March though because March was when Jarred and I took our vows for TOM.  During the winter, we had done the exploratory huddle for TOM.  We had learned a little bit more about it.  From everything we learned, we realized this was something we had to be a part of.

The Order of Mission, as its name suggests is an order that is focused on being missional in daily life.  People within the Order support the church with its mission to make disciples.  They use a common language, specifically life shapes.  They take vows for purity, simplicity and accountability.  As we learned about the Order, it became clear that 3dm had actually been birthed as an economic arm of the Order in the US.

After talking with David and Susan, they told us the guardians who would oversee our vow taking were Mark and Wenda who lived in Omaha.  We had started to see the strength of networking amongst people in 3dm (and now TOM) so we knew we wanted to go to Omaha and take the vows in person.

We invited people from both our huddles as well as the huddle that Robyn and Kyle had started.  My parents and Courtney were the ones that made the trip up with us.  Almost immediately upon getting to Mark and Wenda’s house, our decision was confirmed.  It was like a breath of fresh air to meet people who spoke like we did.  Sitting around making jokes about life shapes with people we had just met was a new and exciting experience and for my parents and Courtney (who had not made it to the pilgrimage) it was a first.

The five of us spent a lot of time learning about Mark and Wenda’s story.  They had their share of ups and downs.  They also had a similar lifestyle to my parents which helped them get thinking about how they could do missional community and was very influential in what they now do for their MC.  

The day of the vows, Mark and Wenda invited over their TOM family which consisted of four other families.  We also had Robert and Kim and another TOM member David skype in.  After the vows, Mark and Wenda had everyone pray for us.  During the prayers we realized the significance of the date, March 21, 2015; exactly nine months from the date of our wedding.  God was birthing something through us and on this day, the second set of vows we had ever taken, there was a solidification of the family we were a part of to see the story unfold.

Our new TOM family. 

February 2015

In February we had another personnel loss.  Erin was in the end of her final semester of college and did not have time for huddle or doing much with the family outside of her studying.  We affirmed her decision and told her that of course when she was ready to jump back in we would be there with arms open.  Jarred had already offered her a job out of school as his assistant (which paid in friendship) and we anticipated her sticking around after school ended.

Now that we had more people from the neighborhood coming to family dinners, we wanted a more visible presence in the neighborhood.  There is a Mexican restaurant in a few blocks from Katy and Jon’s house that we decided to go to on the off weeks from family dinner at their place.  It was a little safer space for Rhonda and her girlfriend to get to know us and it allowed for us to support a business in the neighborhood as well as start building relationships, at least with the employees.

Rhonda was starting to become more comfortable with us.  She had lost her job at the end of January and was looking for a new one and pretty down about not having one.  We prayed with her that she would find a job.  Eventually she did but not in the field that she wanted.  We are still praying for something more suitable for her.

One time at Chimichanga’s, Rhonda and Mari simultaneously got talking about their past with the church (we were split between three table since we had so many people).  Mari had grown up going to Catholic schools.  Rhonda had not grown up in church but she had started going to a charismatic church with a friend in high school.  She got used to people laying hands on each other and speaking in tongues, the whole nine.  As she got comfortable, she realized she wanted to look in to other religions to see what they said since she was newer to the whole thing.  As soon as she started asking questions about other religions, she was quickly ostracized.  They both were very interested in coming to church with Katy and Jon.  As of yet that hasn’t happened but we are waiting on God to continue the work he is doing in their hearts.

During much of the previous year, Katy and Jon had been in a band with a group of friends.  That band had disintegrated but several of the people still wanted to play music together.  Katy started her own music project and most of the people from their band play and record with her.  Eventually, some of those people would make up the band The Resounding with her.

The Resounding

        One couple from that group started hanging out with Katy and Jon quite a bit.  It was easy to see that they were people of peace to the Goldstein’s.  Brooke and Randy started reading the 3dm books and were quickly hooked to the idea.  They realized they wanted to do something like Katy and Jon did in their own neighborhood.  They started figuring out that they would need sometime imitating Katy and Jon before they would be able to start off on their own.  They slowly started to become a fixture at family functions and became more and more integrated in what we were doing.

January 2015

In January, as is typical in a new year, we were excited to get back into our rhythms.  We hadn’t had a family dinner in a month and we were looking forward to possible fruit from the caroling.  Jarred and I had also started opening up our Wednesday dinners to more than just Christopher and Erin and we had about four other regulars by the time the month was out.

Before our first family dinner of the New Year, our huddle went around to the neighbors that we remembered from the caroling that had stayed out and interacted with us.  We went to about 10 homes but two stick out as important.

One of the first houses we went to was the one were the woman had come out and been so touched she had started crying.  We went up to her house and she remembered the event more than any of us particularly.  We invited her to dinner the next night.  She had a couple of questions for us trying to see who all was invited and why.  Once she felt sure enough about being invited she said she would try to come.  While we were at the next house, she ran out after us and asked, “I’m gay, is that ok?”  Jarred responded, “We’re straight is that ok?”  She has been part of the family ever since.

The second house of note was Don’s.  We were talking about how he had come out and sung along with us the night of caroling but we were having a hard time remembering his name.  Jon and I went to the door and we were listing off three letter names because that’s as much as we could remember.  Then, from down the street we hear, “Hey, it’s Don!  I’m over here!!”  He had been at Katy and Jon’s house to see if they had a coat for him from our yard sale stash.  He was just walking back to his place and ran into us.  We walked back to the house with him and tried to find a coat.  We invited him to dinner.  For a season he came with various members of his family to dinners.

Don teaching Jon how to dance. 

With the New Year and our newly solidified vision we had some time to take a little family inventory.  Besides those of us in the huddle, there were about 5 people that still came from Common Ground and about 4 people that had started coming when we launched in the fall.  We realized that they did not know our family vision and that they probably would not want to devote their lives to South City like we wanted to do.  So we started the ball rolling on what we would later call the Major Pruning of our MC.  We split up the list of people and each of us was going to talk one on one with them to cast the vision and see if they wanted to take part.  If not, we wanted to have one last act of discipleship and help them to see where God WAS taking them and what steps they could take to get there.  We estimated we would have between 0-4 people stick after that.  After all our conversations, we had three say they would stick around.  By the time the month was out, one of those people realized that he would rather pray for us because he loved what we were doing but wasn’t called to where we were.  When it was all said and done, Kelsey was the only one who stuck.  

Family dinners were smaller, sometimes 6 people, but we had made room for the fruit.

As always, we would love to hear about what you are doing with missional communities in your context. Please feel free to share in a comment below. Also, if you have questions about anything we are doing, feel free to ask and we will get back to you as quickly as possible! Thanks for following along. 

Love, 

The Irby's

December 2014

December was a fun month.  Because the holiday season was in full swing, our regular rhythms were put on hold.  We still had an intentional time of Out with our MC and an intentional time of rest and Up-In with our huddle.

For our Out, we did Christmas caroling.  We teamed up with the School of Kingdom Ministry (SoKM) from Hope.  We had about 40 people show up outside of our huddle, half of them from SoKM, another third were people who came because someone from our MC invited them and about 2-3 had actually been to our family dinners before.

We split up into two groups and went two different directions on Katy and Jon’s block.  We had a list of four songs and at each door we would sing one or two of them.  SoKM was with us to offer to pray for people after we finished singing.  We had a slow start but eventually people started coming out and listening.  Several families stayed out while we went to their neighbors’ houses.  One woman watched all the way down the block and was so overcome that she was crying the whole time.  One man, Don, recognized us from the yard sales and he came along and sang with us for a few houses.  When a SoKM student would ask people what they wanted prayer for, many people said pray for our city.  The Mike Brown case was fresh on our memories and it was impactful to us that so many people in our neighborhood wanted peace and reconciliation just like we did.

Between Christmas and New Year’s, our huddle went on a three day retreat.  We drove out to Kansas City to a retreat center called Precious Blood.  We spent the time casting vision for our MC and the movement we wanted to do at large.  We also spent a lot of time in prayer and seeking out the Lord’s love and direction for our own lives.  We ate breakfasts and dinners together and spent some time playing games and relaxing together too.  

Our Family Mission Statement that came from that time is as follows:

We are committed to:

Focusing our lives on Jesus

Serving others in love

Acting with humility

Seeking the Holy Spirit

to the best of our abilities.  We let God strengthen us in our weak areas and grow us in character as children of the Father.

This is the statement that guides us in our family decisions.  Multiplication is one of our goals and we believe one of God’s desires.  Through as many generations as our family grows, we want this to be their commitment as well.

First family photo. 

As always, we would love to hear about what you are doing with missional communities in your context. Please feel free to share in a comment below. Also, if you have questions about anything we are doing, feel free to ask and we will get back to you as quickly as possible! Thanks for following along. 

Love, 

The Irby's