| There is this amazing and raw sensation when a boulder you are chipping away at finally gives way. “Chink chink” turns into a loud “CRRAACCKKK!” and relief floods through your whole body.
That’s what we’re feeling right now in Uruguay.
A couple years ago I lived out this experience in the flesh when digging post holes at San Geronimo with Barry Carter and other friends. Most holes took about an hour to dig down three feet. The ones in sand dug out in minutes. But others required digging in pure rock. It took two days of demoralizing “chink chink” with a massive steel bar before we heard the “CRRAACCKKK!” I never thought would come.
The rock gave way and the bar sliced down between shattered layers just like the posthole digger had done in the sand. Then, large chunks began to crumble off. Where “Mr. Indestructible” had been, now was a large crater.
Starting churches in Uruguay has been like this. It is demoralizing when we see yet another missionary family banged up and bruised, heading back off the field because “it didn’t work.”
But unlike any other year we have been in Uruguay, this year has been different. This year, we heard “CRRAACCKKK!”
“Smaller still, wider yet.”
A new friend of ours from Denver has played a part in this. John White and his team at LK10 Ministries facilitate a worldwide network of missional house churches. A while back, as they prayed through the future of their movement, they sensed The Lord saying to them “smaller still, wider yet.” They realized that while it was great to meet weekly in groups of 10 to 30 people, there was still a foundational rhythm that was missing. It was a “chink chink” moment, if you will.
The question that became a game changer for them (and for us) was “What would happen if the smallest possible unit of the church (“wherever two or three are gathered…”) met daily, every day, to listen to each other, listen to God, and live the day in the light of that encounter? This rhythm of practice took on the name “Church of Two” (Co2), and the rock below gave way. “CRRAACCKKK!!!”
This simple practice is changing our lives, our family, and our work from the inside out.
Toni and I did LK10′s four week Church 101 course and began to meet daily to check in with each other and listen in prayer together. During the season leading up to Easter, we began to practice our “Church of Five” every night at dinner. While mom and dad sat “listening” with pen and paper, capturing Scriptures, images, thoughts, etc, that emerged in our hearts, Allie and Annie listened by drawing and doodling, and Matt by playing with blocks. Oddly enough, it was the first time we as a family have ever found a rhythm of being in God’s presence all together.
As Toni and I adapt these basic daily rhythms into our lives, we are encouraging others to do so as well. We are currently taking four others through the Church 101 course and have still more people saying, “When are you going to start the next one?”
Toni and I have pioneered many other initiatives which exist to extend Christ’s peace and hope into the very fabric of Uruguayan culture. At times, it can be hard to keep up! And yet, living as Christ’s body and helping others do the same, is, and has always been, our central mission. The Co2 rhythms give us a set of practices we can integrate into every single project we have ever done in Uruguay. Everything is shifting.
In a google hangout conversation a couple months ago, John White say, “I get the sense that you are going to see many multitudes of house church communities form there. I do not know when, but I have no doubt.” And if that is what Jesus is up to, then, who are we to do anything else???
Love,
Matt and Toni
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