the beginning of our story…
I’ve never been good at long-term writing commitments. Between balancing full-time school, family, and ministry, I don’t really think about much else. But several friends have encouraged me to record my experience of establishing a practicing missional community at SMU (a postmodern bubble in the buckle of the bible belt in Dallas). So here it is…
The church I work for found SMU in its backyard and wanted to engage in transforming its culture with the kingdom of God. This is where I came in. We had no presence on campus and no student basis to draw from. The ministry started out like many other ministries, I think. I thought of the coolest name I could that reflected the culture of SMU. They say that the campus is located on the hilltop of Dallas, if there is a hill in Texas. So drawing from that, I called the ministry The Hill and used Matthew 5:16-17 as a play on words; we exist to be a ‘city on a hill’ for the sake of the world. However, the beginning of the ministry didn’t really reflect that. Perhaps a better name that reflected what we were would be ‘the attraction above the cafeteria on Wednesday nights’ because that is how we began. We needed to draw a critical mass together and by default I thought worship service. So we rented black curtains, lights, a worship leader, candles, etc; everything one needs to make a ‘sexy’ environment for worship. We began the ministry and several people checked us out because they were curious.
I almost forgot, the reason why they were so curious is because I saturated the SMU market with free t-shirts, water bottles, and pens that promoted The Hill brand. I didn’t really feel like I was proclaiming Jesus as much as I was marketing a religious brand. Looking back, I understand that I needed to get the word out about the group and it is difficult starting from scratch. But I still feel dirty from the marketplace.
We had dual screens, pro-presenter, worship, and a good series called “Jesus for President” going on and people began coming. But I really didn’t have anything unique to offer them. Our ministry was just like the dozens of other ministries on campus. Now I don’t want to sound cynical or anything. I sound repulsed by this beginning just because I am still detoxing myself from the consumerism that has crept into Christianity. The truth is I love our beginning because it is honest and I see how crucial it was to our journey. I love the church too. It is not a perfect place but I believe it is still the best place. I love being around the body of Christ, no matter how mature or immature we are.
This is a basic summary of our first semester of ministry. We were meeting for worship, trying to create an environment with food and stuff so people would stick around and talk with one another. But we didn’t have a real direction in what we were doing. I think this is because we didn’t have a culture established yet. I didn’t know what students were coming and why they were coming. Something drew them there; they had their reasons. Most of the first semester was spent with me meeting with the students I saw coming on a regular basis and asking questions. I wanted to know their story, why they came to The Hill, what experiences drew them to a gathering that was socially awkward as all were strangers to each other, and what their relationship with Jesus was like. I knew somewhere in these answers there existed some continuity and foundation to build on. But we’ll get to that in the next post.
