But as the believers rapidly multiplied, there were rumblings of discontent. Those who spoke Greek complained against those who spoke Hebrew, saying that their widows were being discriminated against in the daily distribution of food. So the Twelve called a meeting of all the believers.
"We apostles should spend our time preaching and teaching the word of God, not administering a food program," they said. "Now look around among yourselves, brothers, and select seven men who are well respected and are full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. We will put them in charge of this business. Then we can spend our time in prayer and preaching and teaching the word."- Acts 6:1-4

Over the next few weeks, in this space we're going to be laying out some thoughts on doing church organically.

One of the things that doing church organically means is this: the pastor(s) focus on what God has called them to do (pray, teach, counsel) while allowing the people to focus on what God has called them to do. The question, of course, is "What has God called us to do?"

This is the challenge- has God called us to meet the needs of the poor? Then who is our community will step up and do this? Has God called us to meet the spiritual and emotional needs of the children among us? Then who in our community will step up and do this?

I love that the very first pastors of the church left us this example: Do you want to see something happen? Then have at it!

In the garden that is the organic church, the leaders are the gardeners, watering, pruning, tending... the "fruit" comes from the people themselves. The leaders recognize that too much water, just as too little can kill a plant. Finding the right balance is a challenge...

I love that we have people who are stepping up and taking our community into AIDS hospices, to the homeless teens of Portland, into building a house for needy families. Thank you all for taking it upon yourself to live out our core value of justice!

Some areas where our community needs to consider the next step-
Kid's ministry. Right now, by and large, the people involved in kid's ministry are parents. Do we as a community want to allow this to continue? Or do we want to give these parents a little break, love, serve and teach the kids in our community even if we ourselves don't have any kids? If so, we probably need someone to put some structure in place- someone with organizational skills. You could help put volunteers in place even if you are not a "kids" person... think and pray about doing this...

Welcome coffees... have you noticed
a. a ton of new people
b. a lack of "welcome classes"?
The reason you don't see these classes is because... we don't have them. We (we made this decision together, and we can change it if we like) decided to go the more personal route of one-on-one coffees to welcome people and orient them to the community.
We need more people helping to make this happen. Please talk to Chris to find out more about helping.

I am so thankful for those of you helping to make the dream of evergreen a reality. Please continue to dig in and discover what God is asking us to do... and doing it!