But as I was reading Matthew, it came to me that one of the most common traditions in the church is to say the Lord’s Prayer in worship. But if you read Matthew 6:5-15, Jesus uses the Lord’s Prayer as a suggestion for praying simply and away from the spectacle of public prayer. As the scripture reads in the message translation:” Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.”

Jesus ends this part of the prayer passage with a lasting thought in 14-15 – “In prayer there is a connection between what God does and what you do. You can’t get forgiveness from God, for instance, without also forgiving others. If you refuse to do your part, you cut yourself off from God’s part.”

When we are hurt or mad, it’s very hard to not have it affect all of our relationships. It’s the same with prayer. Simply, we cut ourselves off from communication with God if we cannot let go of past hurts and wrong doings.

So let’s try our best to move spiritually to a new place where we so that we stop cutting ourselves off from God and take a moment to “sense his grace”, reminding ourselves of the larger spiritual community we call Christ’s church.

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Matthew 6:5-15 The Message (MSG) – BibleGateway.com

“And when you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat? Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.

“The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this:

Our Father in heaven,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right;
Do what’s best— as above, so below.
Keep us alive with three square meals.
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.
You’re in charge!
You can do anything you want!
You’re ablaze in beauty!
Yes. Yes. Yes.

In prayer there is a connection between what God does and what you do. You can’t get forgiveness from God, for instance, without also forgiving others. If you refuse to do your part, you cut yourself off from God’s part.

[Click here for those with need of a traditional translation]
Matthew 6:5-15 The Message (MSG) – BibleGateway.com
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Karen thought to simplify it to make it more iconic and focus only on the cross.

Rob developed the concepts into a draft logo.

Feedback to extend the road further into the background.

“grungi-fying” the logo with color concepts

Clean up the lettering and change the colors.

Your Thoughts?

The Road Christian Church planning team is hosting a Christmas party, and you’re invited.  We want to celebrate together – we will provide the food, and hope you’ll bring the fellowship and fun!

We are also collecting toys and canned goods to donate to those less fortunate.  We will send another note with more specifics on what we need once we get the details in order.

We plan to start our service by sharing our common goals, vision, etc, that has drawn us together as a community.

Next, we will have a time of community prayer – where we can each share joys, concerns, and prayer requests with one another both verbally and anonymously.  We will have a basket (or several baskets) for people to write their requests on – be it a person’s name, a word, a picture, or even just an “X” to indicate that there’s something that needs to be prayed for, but they aren’t yet ready to share.  These prayer requests will either be read aloud, or we may just pray over the entire basket.  After each prayer request, the group will recite some common response such as “Lord, hear our prayer.”

After we finish with the community prayer time, we will have communion.  The four of us felt like we don’t want to wait for communion, but want to have it be an intentional, important part of our worship gathering.

Once we finish communion, we will have a blessing to be led by the Regional Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) minister, Lari Grubbs.  During this time, we, as a community, will ask God for blessings of the location, the communion cups/plates, and the people.  We envision this as a time for those in the community to share our hopes and dreams for our new church, as the Spirit moves them to do so.

Following the blessing, we will have a brainstorming session, to help identify key ideas, theological questions, and interests that our community would like to explore further.  We will use the ideas gathered to determine, by consensus, what our next topic of discussion/meditation/study will be.  We intend to discuss this topic until we’re done talking about it, at which point we will, as a community, determine what to study next.  During this first service we only intend to brainstorm ideas – the next time we gather, we will come to consensus on what will be our first topic of study.

We will close our first gathering with a prayer.

We do intend to have music be a part of this first gathering, but we have not yet determined what/when/who will share that (we only had an hour, after all!).

One thing don’t foresee doing is having a weekly time of offering.  If there’s a special project that requires a donation outside of pledged monies, then we will have a time to request financial support for that project.  We may do a monthly offertory time.  We (or at least I) like the idea of having a piggy bank somewhere in the room so that there’s a clear space for people to leave money as they wish, but we are going under the assumption that those who pledge, have already thought about how they are giving, and those who do not already have a plan to give or not – we just need to provide a place for them to give it, should they want to.

Finally, an important thing we discussed was that we do not need to justify our reasoning behind any particular decision we make for a particular worship service.  If we are led by the Spirit to try something new and different, we will try it.  If it works, we may do it again.  If it fails, we won’t do it again – at least not in the exact same way.

I’m so excited to be involved in a Positive, Progressive, and Open-minded church.  I can’t wait to see what the future brings!

I am lucky enough to be on the planning team for the first worship service.  One morning a couple of weeks ago, at 8:00 am, we held a conference call to discuss the plans for this gathering.  At least two of us were driving, one had been taking care of a sick child, and I may be mistaken, but it sounded like the fourth was still in bed.  Talk about multi-tasking!  And, we had an incredible, spirit-filled, exciting conversation.  There are so many possibilities!  And yet, we seemed to all come to consensus on most ideas that were presented pretty quickly.

Our general plan is to not be tied to structure.  We want to have an open format.  We do not intend to have the same order of worship every week.  Some weeks may be a guided discussion; some weeks we may have a guest speaker – either a minister, lay person, or a person of a different faith who can share some of their traditions with us; some weeks we may have silent meditation for the entire service – we are open to just about anything.  Personally, I’d love to spend an hour doing yoga one Sunday morning.  Possibilities abound!

Join me for my next post detailing what decisions we made about the specifics of our first gathering!

So we are at the moment where the idea of a new church has materialized into people with a mission and a place to worship, learn and build community. The NOVA West Church project is winding up with our first worship tentatively scheduled for November 27, 2011 at 10 AM in Chantilly, VA.

4229 Lafayette Center Dr #1350
Chantilly, VA 20151

The location: The Condo Mentality

Being a condo dweller in Ashburn, my mantra about condo living is: “you live in a condo so you can spend more time in your community and less time maintaining your home”. Your condo is still your home, a place where you can find respite and comfort, but it doesn’t define who you are. The location of any church is just a building where people gather, but it is these people that define its use and purpose. The condo church mentality allows for the inward church community to be outwardly focused through Christ’s church, where the work on the church building does not get in the way of the work of the church community. The new space is an office condo space with a large multipurpose space for worship and friendship gatherings, a classroom space for children and a meeting room for small groups.

What’s in the plans?

For the immediate, we plan to meet for community lead worship, start education programs for both kids and adults, participate in community service programs, giving to homeless and poor in the Fairfax and Loudoun County area. The future of the church holds wide open possibilities and plans. If you want to participate in the big plans for this church, please come and participate.

We need your help

To continue the journey of building this new church community, we need your help.  There are a few ways that you can help us immediately.

Join Us

Become a part of this community and join us for our inaugural worship service on the 27th.  At that time we follow the service with some friendship gathering and community building.  Though this requires no material giving, your part of this community provides us with the intangibles that are required to serve our community, inside and outside of the building.

Donate Money

Your decision on this type of gift ultimately needs to come from your belief in this church and the good that it plans to do in the world.  The money will immediately support the church’s startup cost and emerging community service programs. If you decide to donate money, your check donations can be made out to Christian Church Capital Area with a note in the memo field for Chantilly Church and mailed to (Robert Winter | 20385 Belmont Park Terrace # 105 | Ashburn, VA 20147).

Donate Services or Goods

The gift of time and service is the vitality of the church. If you have a service or goods that will meet the needs of the new community, please let us know.  We appreciate any help you can lend.

Pray for Us

In all cases, we ask for you to pray.  We need the spiritual strength to continue this journey and with your prayer we will be successful in God’s new church.

With Christ’s Love, Your friend,

–Robert

We have a plan.

After meeting with Lari Grubbs, Christian Church Capital Area regional minister, a action plan was formed. The plan relies on each person’s support and God’s blessing on all of us.

Some facts of the plan:
• Looking for at least 10 people willing to make a one year commitment to attend worship regularly at a central location.

• Region has ear marked funding to support the start of a Northern VA church.

• Region also has a directive from the national church to start new churches in the Capital Area

• Looking for a location that is either a store front or an industrial park that could be a semi-permanent home for this one year period.

• Goal is to start regular worship services as early as Nov 6 but as late as December 4th.

• Looking for those who want to participate in worship leadership.

• Important to this effort is to have a separate program for the children of the church to worship and learn.

Why are you doing this?

As I have shared my thoughts with individuals about starting a church, I have received a common response. Why are you doing this? I am reminded of lyrics of one of my favorite hymns, Here I am, Lord.

“Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if You lead me.
I will hold Your people in my heart.”

Church is where my faith leads to actions. We can talk about having a christ filled heart, its another thing to have one and act on it. It takes courage and perseverance to do so, and I only hope I can meet the challenge ahead. I have prayed for clarity in understanding my purpose in regards to this church. I feel God is calling for a new church in the Christian Church Capital Area for the good of our community. There are many people I meet that find themselves with little room or purpose for a church life. But I foresee a church filled with purpose and that makes sense in ones life. A church that is active in the community, putting mission ahead of comfort, shaping individual passion and faith with Christ.

So please consider joining this new community that is going back to the basics of faith in Christ and its relevance in our modern life.

Reach Out
There are two ways that I will try to reach out to you (both by email and phone). Though, if you want to save me some time, please email or call me if you are willing to commit along with me to this one year experiment.

God Bless You,

Robert

Click for a map to find distance and directions to this general location.