Daniel’s Pilgrimage

For anyone looking to setup a community site you should definitely check out Drupal. Now that is some cool website software. It handles blogs for each user, a forum, a wiki, photo albums, a slashdot style frontpage and a bunch more. Plus they are looking to add social networking ala Orkut.

I’m playing with it here. Don’t get too attached to that install though. And I don’t really see an easy migraton path from our current setup of unintegrated pieces, so it will not run simplepilgrimage.org tomorrow or anything… but man do I wish I would have tested it at the beginning.

Well, it seems to be going around some that we(Alicia and I) are planting a church so I figured I would address it here.

So, yeah… it is something we are praying about and looking to pursue. It will not be a traditional church or a Horizon clone. It will be a Missional/Simple church. Hopefully a whole network of them eventually.

I want to be clear that this is in no way a protest of Horizon. The leaders and pastors of Horizon are some of my best friends and they will continue to have my friendship and prayer. We are just seeking a way of doing church that fits more natually with us and our vision.

Right now it is just experimentation. But we are looking to move to Mt. Washington in the fall and will focus on that area. Keep us in your prayers.

Here are some random things to mention to anyone reading this.

Alicia and I are going on vacation June 13th through the 18th. We are going camping on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It should be a wonderful relaxing time full of walks on the beach, reading and just generally anything but work.

Don’t ever watch the movie Duplex. You know, the one with Ben Stiller and Drew Berrymore. Yeah, we watched it last night and I have to say it’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.

You may have noticed Dave Cowan showing back up on the links to the right. Yep, that’s right, Dave has started blogging again. Apparently he’s discovered the word emergent as well. Go give his blog a read.

I locked my keys in the car the other night. I was going to be working late, and I did it when I first got there. And the key I needed to get in and get started was on the keyring. So while I was sitting around waiting for Alicia to get off work so she could come unlock my car for me I was thinking some.

I was thinking about the different areas of life that we divide up. Our home/neighbourhood life, our work life, our social life, our religious/church life and maybe others(hobbies, school, clubs). Sometimes there are strong connections between one of two of these areas, such as people who go to church with all of their friends. But for the most part they stay pretty seperate for most people. I had some thoughts on how to connect these areas:

• Befriending your neighbours links social and home life.
• Living close to your co-workers(or even to work itself) and car pooling links home and work life. As does going into business with your neighbours.
• Inviting your friends to church links social and church life.
• Inviting your co-workers to church links work and church life.
• Living near or with your friends links social and home life.
• And the grand finale, living near your friends and co-workers, befriending your other neighbours while starting a neighbourhood church links all of life together.

Of course there are other combinations, and most people can’t do all of the links. But each link you can make integrates your life more.

Here is a good article by Leonard Sweet on giving and receiving. It’s long, but it was really challenging for me. I, like Len, am much more comfortable giving than receiving. But as he says in the article, our relationship to God is as a receiver. Very challenging.