pat loughery

I’m an introvert. One of the things that means is tht it takes me time to process my thoughts; I can’t just respond on the fly. (That made it REALLY difficult for me when I was an engineer at Microsoft, which used to survive on rapid decisionmaking, highly conflict-engaged meetings and hallway conversations).

So now, a day after the Missional Matrix event, I have a few thoughts.

– I really enjoyed hearing the speakers. I hope you’ve enjoyed my running summary, but really – go listen to what they said; I didn’t catch it. I’ve heard Todd speak before and like his approach a lot; I am fortunate to be able to interact with Rose fairly often and continue to call Rose and Rich my mentors and to a large extent heroes. I’ve read Scot McKnight for quite a while but never gotten to learn directly from him. That time was very helpful for me.

– My main response to the event: I feel reinforced. Nothing made me say, “oh (&*%((, I really need to change my ideas/actions after realizing that”. I think that’s probably because we’ve been thinking in this space for a while. But it was really nice to again hear Rich and Rose (this time, Rose) tell the story of their church and what being missional in service to the local community means to them.

– Blogging: One of the sets of questions to Scot McKnight was around why he blogs. Scot’s easily one of the most prolific, and effective, bloggers out there – especially in this space. Hearing him talk about blogging as a teaching form was encouraging to me.

I initially blogged so that I could have a writing outlet; and also so that I could tell the story of what it’s like to plant an emerging, missional church in the suburbs. I’ve tried to share as much as I reasonably could about my own experiences and feelings in that journey. But since that journey isn’t the current journey, and I haven’t wanted to publicly process my own stuff as much (though I still do…) I’ve had less to say for a while. But I was re-energized to blog again after hearing again from Scot.

– Relationships – This was the most fun part for me. Meeting old friends again; talking for a few minutes with my friend Rachelle, whom I dont get to see enough of; talking with my classmate Ben for a good amount of time, etc. Truth be told I didn’t seek out any new relationships. I found that when I was introducing and describing myself and my interest in the topic, I had a lot of raw-ness. I’m still hurting, probably will be for a while. I’m introverted anyway, right – so it’s hard for me to seek this out, even though the networking is really helpful.

– Suburbia – the topic of being missional in suburbia came up again in one of the breakout sessions. I’m not sure if that was the intended topic; I just noticed Shannon joining in a conversation so I went to where she was, and they were fully into the “can you do this (specifically, like Vineyard Community Church in Shoreline) model of church in suburbia”. The initial thought was ‘no’ (I still think you CAN, I just don’t know how ;-)).

I was pleasantly surprised when I got back home to see that Todd Hiestand had just posted this excellent paper on that topic. I want to talk more to Todd about this; I think he nails the challenges of mission in suburbia. I want to think more about countercultural suggestions to those challenges.

– What’s next? continues to be a good question. There are steps ahead. I still feel inspired to lead a church in my neighborhood; what and how and when and who and all those things are still huge open issues. Doors are opening for me to focus a bit more on teaching. At some level I know that’s a calling for me. I need to write more on this issue, but for now that’s enough.