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Remain

Remain. That word jumped out to me tonight as I read from John 15.

"Remain in me and I will remain in you."

"You can not be fruitful apart from me."

"Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit."

"...if you stay joined to me and my words remain in you, you may ask any request you like, and it will be granted."

"Remain in my love."

Remain. What a great word to own and pray going into this new year. A few years ago when I was in campus ministry, one of our student leaders challenged us to come up with one word we felt needed to be significant in our spiritual journey that semester. We were to meditate on that word. Turn it over in our minds. Immerse ourselves in it. Pray that word for ourselves consistently. And share the word with others so they could be praying for us and asking us about our word.

That semester I prayed the word "aware." I sensed the greatest thing God wanted me to do in those months was to be aware of his leading...sensitive to the movement of his Spirit...looking for him. What ended up happening? Out of nowhere I knew he was asking me to quit my job and step out on a faith journey that eventually landed me in my current circumstances. A single word can be quite powerful.

I'd love to practice the discipline of the word again. Maybe I'll ask my children's staff to do it with me...it's a practice that is much more powerful in community. I think it would do me good to live for a while in 'Remain.'

Multi-Site

I love the multi-site church vision. I knew nothing about it before I found myself on the staff here at Community Christian Church 3 1/2 years ago. At that point we were 3 campuses. Now we are 7 (and soon to be 8). Today I had a renewed perspective on it.

I left my house at 8:40am. I intended to go to our Montgomery-Oswego location this morning but needed to make a stop at our Naperville Downtown location to make sure the large group leader was able to make it. As I left my neighborhood, I passed by the signs for our Romeoville campus which is right by my house. I thought about Tim and Scott and Kerry getting ready for services there. Heading north on Weber Road I passed the entrance gates to the Carillon retirement community. I knew that in less than 2 hours Earl would be teaching the congregation of senior citizens that meets at the Carillon campus each weekend. 20 minutes later I arrived in the parking lot of our Naperville Downtown campus. I rushed in to find that the large group leader did in fact make it to the service. I thought about finding Troy or Caroline as they prepared for the morning, but assured that things would be fine, I headed back to my car. Traveling west on Ogden it wasn't long until I passed by our Naperville Yellow Box campus. I surveyed the cars in the parking lot as I zoomed by and thought of Robbin getting ready to lead the kids' large group. A few minutes later I was traveling through Aurora and passing the Hometown community which hosts our newest campus. I had no doubt Sue and Laurie had things under control there. Finally at 9:35am I arrived at our Montgomery-Oswego campus where I was greeted at the door by Carter, Shannon, and Angi.

6 campuses in under an hour. As I thought of each one, I thought about how much I love this vision of taking church to our communities. I loved the sense of unity knowing there was a Big Idea connecting all of these church locations together. I was so grateful for our staff team. We are spread out all over the place every weekend yet we definitely feel "in this together." And I thought about all of the people who have found their way back to God because they heard about a new church starting in their neighborhood.

Maybe I'll take a drive out to our Shorewood campus this afternoon just for the heck of it.