| From Pastor Fran Leeman... |
| Over the last decade the Lord has taken our church on a wild ride. We started asking questions we’d never really asked before. What is the Gospel, really? Why are we not making deep disciples in American churches? Why are most Christians and Christian communities isolated from the larger culture? Why have we valued, for example, big crowds and yet neglected the poor? Our church is still being shaped, but we’re a long way from what we used to be. We’re finding better pictures and trying to live them out. For several years God has been calling us to network pastors and church planters who are on a similar journey. The Grass Roots Network is a simple concept: love each other, encourage each other, learn from each other, and partner in the mission together in whatever ways God leads. It’s not about one style or model of church, but about wanting to shape churches where people are falling in love with and learning to follow the Jesus of the Gospels. Grass Roots is not a denomination, and not intended to replace whatever other connections you have. |
| Why “Grass Roots”? |
The phrase was originally used in regard to mining for gold. An 1876 book about the Black Hills says that “gold is found almost everywhere, in the bars, in the gravel and sand of the beds, even in the grass roots” (that is, the soil just below the surface). But by the turn of the century we thought of grass roots as more than just a place to dig. Beneath the visible blades of grass, keeping the grass alive and making it grow, are the simple roots. Getting down to grass roots meant looking at the “underlying principles or basic facts of a matter.” It was in the grass roots where you could truly understand a situation and effectively respond to it. Many of us in church leadership find ourselves finally asking the kinds of questions that can help us truly understand and effectively respond to Jesus and the world around us. The term has also come to imply that the creation of a movement that is natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between grass roots movements and programs orchestrated from the top down by traditional power structures. What the declining church of western culture needs won’t be provided by a denomination or a program, but by leaders who dare to ask the questions, to think outside the box, and to live faithfully and dangerously on the patch of turf where they find themselves. Authentic grassroots movements start over kitchen tables, in church basements and union halls. Our network, fledgling as it is, has been hatched between a handful of church planters over coffee, on long car rides, and through much prayer. We aren’t the guys who run the office of the lawn-care company, we are hands-on gardeners in the field of the Lord. We believe that Christians and Christian communities in our day need to:- Embrace a wholistic understanding of Jesus Good News of the Kingdom of God, by which God seeks to set us free and make new men and women out of us.
- Learn to make disciples, not just converts, worship-attenders, or people with Bible-knowledge.
- Learn how to live as servants in our culture. Through the incarnation, God came into close proximity with sinful man—we need to regain and live this value with our own neighbors, rather than living in the isolation and abandonment of culture we have perpetuated in recent decades.
- We need to continue Jesus’ mission of the Kingdom in the world, including loving and serving the poor and the nations. To do this, we will have to lay our lives at His feet and come to value what He values. Only then will we have the freedom to follow Jesus out among the people.
|
|
| What does Grass Roots do? |
- Semi-annual “Deep Roots Gatherings” in Champaign, Illinois to connect and to chew on important questions about the Gospel, discipleship, incarnational living and mission together. These gatherings consist in worshipping and praying together, hearing some teaching, then chewing on the topic in a group, and bringing reflections back to the whole gathering from those discussions... and of course, eating, coffee, laughter, hanging out, etc.
- The formation of clusters that connect leaders in a particular geographic area.
- Some Grass Roots churches provide training for pastors and/or internships for potential church planters.
- We network with each other over missional endeavors we can share in. Several of our GR churches are connected in a mission called New Life for Haiti. Several churches in the Chicago cluster are also connected into ministry in a poor neighborhood on the east side of the city of Joliet (right near the old Stateville prison... remember The Blues Brothers movie?).
|
| Can anyone from any church come to the Deep Roots Gatherings? |
| Absolutely... all are welcome. We don’t care if you’re Baptist, Pentecostal, Catholic, Methodist, or entirely without a brand name. We would prefer, though, that you not just show up once in a great while. Come to a gathering... if you discover this is something you want to be a part of, then commit to be a part of it and build relationships. |
| Where are the clusters? |
| There’s just one so far. In the Chicago area, centered in the southwest suburbs, made up of several churches and church plants in the area. One of the churches in the Chicago cluster, LifeSpring Community Church, offers a September-May Church Planter Internship each year to help people prepare for the adventure of birthing new Christian communities. Because they are near each other, the pastors in the cluster are able to meet more often than just the semiannual Deep Roots Gatherings, and really encourage and support each other. We are hoping to see clusters form in other areas where we have leaders who are part of GR. |
| I am not from Chicago, can I be a part of this? |
| Sure, if you can come hang out with us in Champaign, Illinois at our Deep Roots Gatherings. Wouldn’t it be great if you shared this journey with us and then started a GR cluster of leaders in your area? |
| Can our existing church become a part of Grass Roots? |
| Sure. You don’t have to be a church planter. Many pastors of existing churches are looking for meaningful leadership connections, or for help learning how to take their church in better directions. The Deep Roots Gatherings are not geared around church planting, they are geared around significant questions that both planters and pastors of existing churches need to wrestle with if they are going to become churches Jesus would be a part of. |
| Do churches have to give financially to Grass Roots? |
| No. If a cluster decides to pool resources for a particular missional adventure or to pool a percentage of their giving to use in getting new churches started, that is up to that cluster. |
| I want connect, or I have questions—what do I do? |
| Just email me, Fran Leeman, at lifespringfran@hotmail.com, or fill out the form below. |
|
