Okay, so enough talk. Time for action. We're going to kick things off this coming Sunday.
We don't have a building yet, we don't know exactly what it's going to look like when we meet, and we have no idea how many people are up for the challenge of finding life with God beyond religion. Perfect conditions for taking a leap of faith we thought, so we're kicking off this Sunday.

The photos I've posted above are the venue we are praying for. There's a set of three prefab-style buildings on the old CIT grounds just north of the YMCA that we felt would be perfect for what's in our heart. They're part of a treaty settlement process that's due to be finalised in Feb so hopefully we can negotiate the lease from either the local iwi or the Ministry of Education then.

So this coming Sunday evening we'll gather for the first time as The Local faith community. We'll meet outside these buildings (corner Somme Rd and Messines Ave, across from the YMCA and directly opposite the Army Messines Centre) at 5pm next Sunday (2 Feb) to ask God for the buildings together. Then we'll jump back into our cars, bikes, scooters etc and head over to the Martin's house for a potluck tea and some fun, laughter and some practical faith challenges together. We'll kick off with a bit of a look at some of what Jesus might be asking of us as a community of faith and as 'hosts' in the kingdom.

Anyone's welcome, so come along for the ride if you're keen to be part of the journey or even just curious without wanting to commit to anything. If you want to join us or have any questions, drop us a line.

Welcome to The Local. We're a new faith community (ie church) that's planning to kick off in Upper Hutt (NZ) this year.

We're currently just waiting to secure some premises and finalise things before kicking off in February/March this year. We've put this blog site together to keep those who are interested up to date as things progress and also to start to share some of the thinking that sets the foundation for the approach we want to take.

It's pretty different (well by our standards at least), so take some time to have a look around and let us know what you think. And if you're in the neighbourhood, call in and see us (once we're up and running of course :).   

(p.s. Carl Billington is the chief host of The Local and this blog. You can learn more about his take on the Christian Faith over at www.faithofthedead.net). 

Dad recommended a book to me recently that really captures so much of what I think we're aiming for here.
I thought I'd pick a couple of ideas out of what I've read so far as food for thought for our catch up this Saturday (the book is called Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality by Richard Rohr for those who are interested).

We need more transformed people, not more informed people
Christianity misses the point so often - the Bible is meant to be the living word of God and we are meant to be a living witness and a living people who share a living faith as we serve the living God.
Instead we act as if the christian faith is something that can be learnt and so we try to teach it to people - and in the process we offer ideas, concepts, and systems of thought.

• We aren't supposed to learn about God.
• We are supposed to know him.

If we focus on the relationship and knowing, we will naturally come to learn about him (just like we learn about anyone we get to know).
But if we focus on the learning, it's possible to miss the relationship (I've learnt quite a lot about the world's famous rock musicians, but I haven't gotten to know any of them).

This ends up creating a religion where those who know the most become the most important and others of us disqualify ourselves because of our lack of education.
When that happens its a sure sign we're in the world of ideas, not relationships.
(When someone asks you to describe what one of your friends are like, you never indicate you can't really answer because you don't have any formal qualifications - you know the person, that's enough! It's meant to be the same with God).

So, we aren't all qualified to lead or start a church of ideas - there's plenty of smarter more qualified people out there with more ideas than us.
But each of you have encountered God - you may not have as much of him in your life as often as you like, but the Holy Spirit is with you and those experiences have left his mark on you.
That's plenty qualification to help encourage others to meet this God and take up the wonderful challenge of working out their relationship with him and come to know his heart for this world. That's the kingdom - not a bunch of ideas.
We can all do this!

We have made the Bible into a bunch of ideas - about which we can be right or wrong - rather than an invitation to a new set of eyes
I loved this statement.
It's not about having the correct interpretation of scripture - it's about allowing the light of scripture to help you see properly...see God, see life, see yourself, see each other.
Unless we repent and are born again we cannot 'see' the kingdom.
The gospel and the kingdom it proclaims can't be taught or understood by human power...they have to be revealed. Once they are revealed we can begin the journey of growing in our understand but we can't apprehend them ourselves.
It is a gift and it must be revealed to us.

As we serve the community around us, and as we meet the people God sends across our path in our daily lives, our question isn't how do we convert them to our religion but rather how do we position them for revelation?

• How do I serve you in a way that helps remove barriers and brings you closer to being able to see his revelation?
• Doing that requires me to love you more than my ideas and interpretations.
• It also requires me to resist my tendency to try and control what you think (because deep down we tend to think that of course my way is the correct way, and all would be fine if you just agree with me!).
• To really love people we must let go of our desires and ambitions for them.

That's tough but it's also freeing.
It's not apathy though - sometimes I need to push you and sometimes I need to be pushed by you.
But when we do push it needs to be because he is leading us and the push is designed to help you get past things that trap you - not because I am tired or frustrated and want you to hurry up.

God always and forever comes as one who is totally hidden and yet perfectly revealed in the same moment or event. It is never forced on you, and you do not have to see it if you don't want to.
God comes to us disguised as our life.
I loved these ideas. God is right here - he has been fully revealed, and Jesus promised we will find if we seek.
But he is in our life not our religion. We need to learn how to look for him there - once you see it though it's way more exciting and more relevant. We can change our community with this!
Our temptation now and always is not to trust in God but to trust in our faith tradition of trusting in God.
We often place our faith in the particular tradition we ascribe to and the saints and theologians who have gone before.
God is waiting in your life now - he has hidden his kingdom there and he is waiting for you to see it so he can then plant you in other people's lives.
We have the power to be such enormous - and almost effortless - catalysts for change.

Let me invite you into a really different kind of journey together.
Let's invite the community around us into it with us.
It's something we are all qualified for !!
- Carl. 

Hi everyone

I'm Natasha, one of the people helping to establish The Local.  Carl asked if I wanted to contribute to the blog so I thought I would share something I read recently by British theologian Tom Wright which I think neatly captures what we are trying to achieve.

In commenting on Hebrews 5 v11-14 (which talks about the fact the Church is focusing on basic teachings (milk) rather than the more in-depth teaching and practice they should be focusing on (solid food)), he makes the following comments:

"[the passage] makes the point that the purposes of God in the gospel are focused on God's longing to put the world to rights,
and to put people to rights as part of that work.  What
the writer here longs for is that people should become
proficient in understanding and using the entire message
of God's healing, restoring, saving justice.  He wants
them to know their way around the whole message of
scripture and of the gospel, to be able to handle this
message in relation to their own lives, their communities
and the wider world, and to see how all the different
parts of God's revelation fit together, apply to different
situations and have the power to transform lives and
situations."

This is what The Local is all about.  It's exciting, but its also a little scary because it demands active participation and commitment. However, I believe the journey will be worth it.

I hope you can join us.
Natasha

Almost every church I know of here is largely doing the samething - inviting people to come to a church service once aweek and hopefully attend a weekly homegroup and theoccasional seminar, men's breakfast etc.

When they do gather, perhaps except for the homegroups, it
tends to follow a format of singing some songs and then
listening to someone teach, perhaps followed by prayer or
communion.

This is where I feel we are fundamentally being asked to
bring something different.

The hallmark of our approach is to be a community that produces disciples who make other disciples (disciples not christians).

The main problem with the typical church service is that it's entirely passive for the congregation.

Basically their roleis to sit and watch, sit and listen while the religious professionals put on the show.

I think we're being asked to do something different.
Something opposite even...

Our aim needs to be to show people how to live, to wrestle
together with seeking the Holy Spirit and bringing his
presence into life with us and applying his revelation to
the circumstances of our lives.

If you join a sports team or a martial arts club or a music
group and you go to their training practice, you don't get
to sit and watch.
You have to DO the sport, PRACTICE the martial art or PLAY
music.

I feel we need to make our gatherings the same.

The Local needs to be a place where you come to practice
your faith, test your faith and grow your faith or...if
you're new and interested, then it's a place to come to SEE
faith in action.

It's a place to experience and see faith in action and try it yourself rather than a place where you hear about faith but don't see it, hear
about God but don't feel him etc.

• Worship needs to be more than just politely singing a bunch of songs you don't really like - it should be about expressing our
• reflections of awe in who God is and the work he has wrought (and
• keeps creating) in the universe.
• Our teaching should be so much more than passively listening to someone else in the spotlight waffle on all about their theory and ideas - it should either be having someone who possesses some degree of revelation on a topic help us experience it, or having people that are skilled hosts facilitate a dialogue where we can test our thinking and understanding of scripture together. It should be a
• wrestle and a conversation, not a monologue.
• The teacher's job is not to convert us to their way of thinking - it's to guide us through a process of wrestling with scripture and truth together and confronting us with the challenge of how we live this in the context of our own individual and collective lives. It's confronting, challenging, stimulating and provoking. At times it might be like Demonstrate, at other times it might be more like a traditional lecture, but as long as it's about helping people find a revelation of God and then wrestle with it's implications in their lives and our lives together then it will be empowering.
• In simple terms: as long as it's about the audience and not the speaker, we're probably on safe ground regardless of style.
• Similarly, for ministry and prayer, rather than having everyone stand around while the experts pray for everyone else, it should be all of us learning to pray and minister together and then deferring to those with a particular gifting and anointing in a recognised area but hopefully seeking to learn and be enriched by how they operate rather than just leaving it to them.

We should absolutely recognise the leadership, annointing and ability of others in a given area and celebrate that.

Then, seeing the good they can do for others should inspire
us to find, train and express our areas of gifting and annointing.

If we start to practice this way of being together we will then become a church who meets regularly to train in our faith, rather than a
group of unrelated people who gather to observe a religious church service.

Then we will become disciplies who make other disciples.
Then we will begin to change our neighbourhood.
To me that is something really different from what I see around us in the expressions of church we have here.

But it is something we can totally achieve.
I reckon that's worth the effort.
Seewhat you think.

The following blog is taken from an email we sent the others who are helping us lead this work. Some of the key themes are relevant generally so we've included it here

As Karla and I became convinced the Holy Spirit was signaling it was time to step out and kick something off, our immediate thought is who will we do this with?

We're looking to express the life of the kingdom in a shared community.
If that's going to work, the essence of it needs to come from a bunch of people who increasingly share community together...so our approach to building a 'leadership team’ was based on considering who is it that we feel our lives resonate with, who could BE community with us and out of that relationship we can grow everything else.

If you're building collaborative community, you ask "Who can we do this with?"
If you're building a corporate organisation, you ask "Who is qualified to lead/serve here?"

We're not building a corporation.
So what qualifies you all to 'lead' is that you want to live in relationship with us and each other...if you're committed to that, that's what we're looking for.

Out of that, it’s God's responsibility to provide the various "skills" that he needs to build His church through the community we are creating. He said he will
build His church, our job is to use the keys he gave us to unlock the life of the kingdom together.

We respect each of you for your honesty in your faith, the integrity of your journey and your desire to live life and grow and see others increase in freedom. That's plenty enough for the Holy Spirit to flow through us.

So rest in that.

You should feel some weight in the commitment to act and live out what we seek to build...we are aiming to create an environment where people need to participate rather than spectate, so it will be an active church...but don't listen to any thoughts or lies that might whisper doubts in your mind that you're not qualified for this.
God has been preparing all of us for this from way before this idea occurred to any of us. We're looking forward to the journey with you.

Clarifying what we're creating.
The vision that's in our heart is essentially this: To draw a community of people together who are committed to seeing the life of the kingdom thrive in community.
That means pursuing the life of the kingdom above religion, honouring the Holy Spirit above any form or routine, and valuing people above any structure, dogma, or
hierarchy...ultimately, I believe this is really what it means to follow the life of Jesus.

What else can you add?

This time I'd like to propose a slightly bigger vision for us, or at least set our vision in a bigger context.

The good news though is that we don't actually have to build
or create anything ourselves...                                                          Jesus said he will build his church.

Our discipline is staying focused on what God said he is focused on ("Seek first the kingdom and his righteousness..." - Matt 6:33) and being really vigilant against any distractions from that.

So keeping that in mind and being at peace in it all, let's expand our vision.

In 1 Timothy, Paul distinguishes between a religious deception that is 'taught by demons' and a real life of faith.

More and more I'm forming the opinion that religion is the greatest enemy to the life of the kingdom. I believe it's a deliberate counterfeit work of the enemy, intended to create a charade that looks like faith but, as Paul also writes, 'has a form of godliness but denies his power' (2 Tim 3:5).

So as we get ready to gather again, think about the challenge of finding a real, powerful, God-filled life of faith.

That is what we are seeking and we are aiming to build a community around expressions of that.

It means we will be enormously gracious to people but intolerant of 'religion'.

It means understanding religion as a counterfeit blasphemy that makes God look bad (think of the classic religious teachings on hell, heaven, rules, nature, food and drink, engaging with society, women and female equality etc).

Underneath all of that is a real kernal of gold that is

waiting to blossom into a giant tree in the kingdom that

will provide shelter for those around us (Matt 13).

That is what we are building. That is something pretty

exciting I think.

What do you reckon?

Look forward to the chat, the company, and the food!!

Bless you all heaps!

Come down to The Local, see you at The Local etc...playing off the idea of your local pub and watering hole. 

Tthere's a lot of fun with this name (ie The Local - Serving Free Spirits Since 2014 etc :) but there's also some serious thought behind it.

I think it really captures the heart of that community hub idea but it also flies directly in the face of the religious spirit and all it's nonsense by using the pub imagery. 

Also it really sets it as a localised community work - if it ever does really grow and flourish and spread to other communities it would become 'their' local...it's not like where setting up a national corporate brand to corner a market share on christianity!

(In terms of playing with the slogans and messages, I do like the idea of 'serving free spirits' but I also would use things like 'faith not religion' and 'a kingdom in a community'...those are the places where I we can draw out the context behind the name).

More seriously, if it ever grows and replicates it would then be about us mentoring others to make it work for them. It's NOT about us. 

This is really growing on me, but it needs to work for more than just me. What do you think?  





It may just reflect that I'm more naturally wired and inclined to run a pub than a church too !!!!   :)

1. A pursuit of the kingdom and a clear understanding of scripture (
2. Active faith in the power of Holy Spirit
3. Close, committed community 

So our foundation sits on a triangle of three things: the word, the spirit, and each other. 

To really pursue this though means something radically different from what church usually looks like. 

•    A true pursuit of the kingdom life must come at the expense of the spirit of religion (which substitutes dogma and hierarchy, for living relationship with God). 

•    A true pursuit of community and each other means when we meet together it must be around dialogue and participation (rather than one person is the boss and everyone else spectators) - we must challenge each other to actively steward our own lives and faith. And we must develop harmony together - which comes not from all thinking the same and agreeing but by confronting and acknowledging difference and putting love around it. It also means having the courage to speak into each other's lives - don't let what we perceive go unspoken. 

Lastly, a real pursuit of the Holy Spirit is deeply challenging - he brings us face to face with our fears, insecurities, and unhelpful attachments (all so he can help us let them go). It's a gentle discipline. We must steward our relationship with him - which means exercising our gifts actively outside our own safe faith community and also challenging any opposing spirits that seek to manifest their influence. 

For it to genuinely qualify as a representative of Christ's bride in the city (rather than just a gathering of believers) we do believe a church needs to be a publicly recognisable entity that uses public premises in the city. So this means we'll be meeting somewhere public and central and having a clear name and identity - but purely to enable it's role as a 'light on the hill' - not to build it's own brand or ego. 

We also feel our role must be to increasingly enable those that journey with us to steward their own lives and callings, under the leading of the Holy Spirit. We must work against encouraging any dependency on any of us as leaders etc. Working from that principle we'd encourage a model of teaching that emphasises dialogue and interaction (helping people think rather than telling them what to think). 

We'll aim to build deep friendships and gather regularly around food and fun as a community.

And lastly, the other main change we'd make is in worship. Really keen to move away from that feeling of singing lullabys for the insecure and instead towards bold proclamations of who God is (worship as warfare vs that self--oriented "Jesus-did-it-all-just-for-me approach). 

We hope to incorporate pertinent secular songs regularly too - consciously work against that sacred/segular divide that comes with religion. Lyrically hymns are brilliant. They'd be a good complement to some of the more searching secular songs. Musical style is probably less relevant, and depends on the ability of people who can play so probably work that out last - but definitely more upbeat, rock style than the current tendency towards country-music lullabies. 

We aim to blend learning with fun and creativity. If we really are God's children we should be brimming with life and creativity. Not to put on an unreachable perfect 'show' but as an everyday expression of life we all come to embody.