the beginning…

One night…wow, was it 5 years ago?…Brandon, Trevor, Lyndsey, Austin and I sat in an office at church. We had just finished a midweek youth group meeting. I think it was a good one, because we were all in really good spirits…and we started dreaming. The question eventually landed at “What would it look like if we all started a church together?”. We started dreaming about what all of our roles would be…we thought a lot about where we would do it (I think all of us but Trevor landed on Denver- hilarious to think about now)…and we kinda dreamt a little about what the purpose of our Church would be. I remember Austin leaving to go home and get some sleep for school…Lyndsey left and Brandon said he would be close behind…and Trevor took off to get home for school too…And then Brandon and I sat around there for hours continuing to dream. That night is one I’ve thought about probably 200+ times since then…and about 6 months ago I found out that Brandon had never let go of that dream either. I had continued to minister in MTV for a few more years and then moved to the OC to work at Saddleback Church. Brandon had finished undergrad work in education and was teaching at Edwardsville High School. I was still single and on the ride of my life with my career. Brandon was newly married and was settling into a new life too. Both of us continued to think about this dream…what would it look like if we were journeying together again?. Both of our journeys in faith and church have been…hmmm…interesting. Sometimes it has been unbelievably inspiring, and other times disappointing…a lot of really powerful ministry moments and a lot of frustrating “church” stuff…Interesting journeys to say the least. Through it all, we’ve begun to ask some questions. Questions like “what does God care about?”…or “what if we don’t already know it all?”…or “what if it really was all about Him? what would that look like?”. That’s what this is all about. This is a place of dialogue as we start on this journey. Brandon and I aren’t really sure where this is going to lead. We think we have an idea, but honestly, we really aren’t sure. What we do know, though, is that we want to be people who eventually move from dialogue to reality. We want to search for answers together and live them out…and we want to invite others to journey along with us…to dialogue and live in a new reality. So…we begin. It’s exciting really…to think that we’re open to change. Openness is the idea that there is more out there…that there is more growth to be experienced…that there is more life to be lived. Progress almost always begins with openness. Dreams take root and become reality when the dreamer is open. And most of the great movements in history have been birthed out of openness. So we begin…to be open…and to share it on here…here we go…