pat loughery

A couple of our friends and church plant coaches checked in with us this week to see how we were doing, what we were up to, what church we’ve landed in. I wrote a book in response (typical for me).

Because I know many of you reading have gone through something similar, or are keeping us in prayer, or are just curious – I’ll post a chunk of that email here.  It’s edited to remove some details that aren’ for web type consumption.

Thanks for checking in! Family’s good and the kids are doing well. Brogan’s 9 months now and is trying to pass up the crawling stage and head straight to walking. Kaileigh’s 4 1/2, doing well in preschool and a huge ball of energy. Shannon’s doing great, in the middle of her end of quarter reporting load though.We’re starting the process for another adoption, checking out agencies that others have recommended. Probably in the next 6 months or so we’ll start the process. We’re torn between doing a local adoption and doing one overseas (Guatemala is our current favorite location for a bunch of reasons).

We’re doing fairly well with processing the church plant’s closure. It’s harder for me than Shannon. I have ups and downs, usually I’m OK but I find it hard to visit other churches and that generally sends me into a tailspin. I get angry, but there’s not really a target. Just the sense that I wish we were in a different mode.

It’s weird to be guests (anywhere), to go through the process of being recruited, people putting their best feet forward. We’ve learned a lot about hospitality from our church visits (and from our aggressive Mormon neighbors ;-)).

We’ve been to Mtn Vineyard once – it felt good to see friends again and it was comfortable. And we’ve been to Shoreline Vineyard a couple times. I feel like I want to live within a different shape of church than I have before, and Shoreline feels good to me. But it’s a long drive. There’s a couple other places we want to check out – a smaller church plant in the Greenwood area called Ohana Project whose pastors I’ve run into before; a Mosaic plant in Issaquah.

I feel best in the Vineyard, and I think that over the long haul we are grapes. I do though want to take the time to try on a different skin, a different form of church.

We’ve basically decided not to stay at any of the local churches in the valley – I still feel like church planting or somehow church leadership is in the cards for me, and I really don’t want to do that from within another church here in the valley. that’s just inviting some future church split.

I feel like we’ll probably bounce a bit between Mtn Vineyard, Shoreline, and maybe occasional visits to other spots.

We’ve accepted an invitation from Rose Swetman to help out with the nonprofit org that they spun off to do community development. They’re teaching marriage courses using the same training materials that we used for our marriage classes. We’re going through that material’s training system in May and will do courses for them once a quarter or so, starting in Sept. We love doing that stuff. We also are doing premarital counseling with a lovely couple that Roy knows pretty well. We really enjoy working with young marrieds and premarried folks, so this is a nice, easy, fun thing for us.

We’ve considered planting into Issaquah, but frankly, we couldn’t afford to buy a home there, and I really don’t like the idea of starting and leading a church in a town I don’t live in. It makes logical sense, but I just don’t feel it. Not now anyway.

Similarly, I don’t think we’ll be moving. My time working in the city has ignited a love for Seattle in me, but I don’t think that implies a move. Frankly

I continue to go to school at Bakke Graduate University. Last week I got word that they’ve moved me from the master’s program into their extended d. min program – which is really exciting to me (this is the same program that Rose and Dave Pardee are in). One thing I’ve had solidly confirmed in this past few months is that I’m effective at teaching, and I want to teach – at what level or shape or whatever I don’t know – but somehow that’s in my bones. I was planning to complete my MTS at Bakke, do some other work for a while, then go into a d. Min program after that – so this probably moves that final graduation up 3 or 4 years. This thing is really the only solid sense of direction I have at the moment in terms of “ministry focus”. I’m finishing up my 5th class at the moment; I’ve got a class in Hermeneutics next Sept but August I get to go to Ireland and Scotland to study Celtic Christianity – historical roots and contemporary practices. That fits me really well, and I absolutely cannot wait. I really feel like that will be the learning experience of a lifetime. I’ll get to visit Patrick’s gravesite and the principle church he established, the isles of Iona and Lindisfarne, spend time in Belfast and Glasgow… I’m giddy.

The folks from our church plant are doing well. All are now plugged in somewhere else, which makes me happy. (We’re the only ones really still drifting ;-)). It’s interesting to me that one couple is going back to their charismatic-Lutheran roots; one family is at a Calvary, one family is at a pentecostal church; our worship leaders are at Roy’s church. Since one of our values was to take the best of a variety of church traditions and make those things our own, it’s pretty cool that people found a wide variety of homes. I like that.

I find that I love having a whole weekend off. No more Saturday day-long church prep days followed by lots of time Sunday, and we can choose to hang out after church on Sundays or not, depending on our schedule and energy. It feels like a revelation :-). We get to have Easter with my family for the first time in 7 years, so that’ll be cool. We’ll visit my grandma, who’s approaching 90 and who lost grandpa about 14 months ago now; then my mom and my brother and sister and their families.

The best thing that’s happened to me recently is running into a couple of guys who’ve been through failed church plants. they’ve been very helpful with advice and telling their stories. It’s encouraging to know that what I’m experiencing isn’t necessarily insanity :-). One guy, I could have sworn that his email to me was really written by me from a year in the future. It was eerie, eerie good.

I’ve also run into some failed church planters who really strike me as bitter and angry at the church in general. I don’t feel that way. I don’t want to become that way either; I’m really trying to process this grief in a healthy way and not jump into something just for the sake of moving on. I still love the church; I just have a lot of questions and doubts about my hearing, my discernment, timing, etc. I know I have a place in the kingdom; I’m just not in a season of life where I have a clue what that is at the moment…

I don’t feel like I regret any of the tactics or strategy that we took – I wanted to grow relationally; I wasn’t interested in drawing a big crowd to a show and then trying to find servant-hearted disciples from within the crowd; I wanted leaders with integrity and authenticity and was willing to wait as they grew, etc. I realize that we could have made other decisions to grow more quickly but with shallow growth.

Of course, it would be nice to still have a church, so perhaps some day I’ll reconsider those things 🙂 ,but I’ve wanted to be about something that had integrity, that I didn’t feel like I was doing “the wrong way” (for me). Lots of decisions I would do differently, but I am happy with how we chose to try to grow, even if it didn’t work out.

Well, that’s a book, and I’m tired. Thanks for checking in, and we’ll talk to you guys soon.