www.blog.therefugeonline.org

when we started the refuge last year we were a wreck. literally. a small group of us had left a megachurch wounded & disenfranchised but full of dreams of the way we longed to live out our faith. most days we woke up doubting ourselves, ready to quit even though we had just started. then, over a qdoba burrito & an hours worth of kathy’s tears, our friend tracy howe shared some of the fewest but most powerful words in the life of the refuge “you guys need to make some new friends…” she invited us to the off the map conference in seattle and assured us that she’d introduce us to a bunch of people who wouldn’t think we were crazy. we went. we were bold and introduced ourselves to as many of these new thinkers we could possibly meet. and we went home feeling a little more certain we were at least on the right path.

now, year 2 for off the map has marked just how far we’ve come. this year we brought 11 others with us to seattle (the conference was november 1-3rd). we actually knew people and we didn’t feel like middle schoolers at their first dance. people actually knew about the refuge and we don’t feel crazy anymore.

off the map is not the kind of conference where you get a spiritual high and then come home and don’t remember anything you learned. it’s hard to describe, but it is much more steady. solid. deep. it just sort of gets under your skin and makes you think. about God. about community. about living out the ways of Jesus in really practical ways. about the tension of our faith in these changing times. our team crashed on the floor of a wonderful church called vineyard community church in shoreline & spent a lot of time processing, laughing, eating & dreaming. we of course felt cool because our new friend jim henderson, the director of off the map, actually knows us and made us feel so loved (along with everyone else at the conference!). sage played his steel guitar in one of the main venues (we were so proud). kathy & karl got to share the refuge story at ken loyd’s “cheap church planting” workshop. there are so many highlights, but we thought those that went could share the takeaways so that those of you who wonder what’s going on in the big kingdom of God can get a taste, too. check out the many links, so many committed people living it out. enjoy & hope you’ll consider joining us next year!

amber lane: listening to some of the speakers, a passion surfaced in me that has long been dormant for social justice. especially within ‘religious’ institutions, and the question that I keep asking myself…how can I be part of something that upholds my values for social justice, and not part of something that opposes it either knowingly or unknowingly. i was reminded that this world is a hard one to live in if you’re not part of the majority, whether that be anglo-saxon, heterosexual, non-addicted, or thin. it is devastatingly difficult. given the difficulty we somehow make it through the day, maybe so we can continue to challenge the norms. whatever the reason, we are not alone and we can do this thing called life together.

christa romig-leavitt: “we will die with many, many, many unanswered questions. but we are paving pathways for our children in which they will live out christianity in beautiful and unimagined ways. in justice and love. In creativity.” … “we are dis-membered. what if we started re-membering.” the first quote is from a woman. the second from a man. i heard them both in Seattle. they make me think…let us all keep going. let us stay on this journey of question making to discover and re-member Jesus. let us do our best to stay dirty and resist the temptation to clean our hands. let us be okay with more questions than answers. let us keep loving.

john nunez: the thing that has stuck in my brain the most happened the first night. someone from up front spoke about a conversation they had with a woman while checking into their hotel. “if you were to come back to christianity/this whole church thing, what would you want/need?” she said acceptance. i thought how crazy it is that after 2000 yrs and a whole lot of talking, training, building, spending, discipling, memorizing, growing, claiming, praying about Jesus…the church/christians still suck at accepting. do we get forgiven and accepted mixed up? (check out what i mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance) and i thought….. when a christian does accept a ‘lost’ or even a ‘damaged’ person, what kind of pressure to change or “repent” comes with it? Jesus’ style of acceptance is probably so beautiful and elegant that when it’s really displayed in the world, it’s unrecognizable.

john parks: off the map was intriguing. it seems like we christians are beginning to experience the heart of God differently today. i started to step back and really look at my theology. faith is not so much about having all the right answers or having every base covered or even being able to defend my beliefs with the Bible. all that has a role but if I don’t love and accept people with actions just like Jesus did my testimony will always be a hollow reflection of God’s tremendous love for us. i was inspired to continue to lean into God’s love so that it can flow through me into His world and people everywhere.

jose escobar: loved the conference, but more so than anything, even though I got there late, i loved the time hanging out with everyone that went from the refuge. related to the conference, I liked the concepts and the diverse speakers, men, women, white, black, christian, and muslim, but it was also marked by a fairly non-diverse crowd. my favorite part of the conference though was the bridge service that we went to. i really loved the creativity, energy, and the music and songs (of which they wrote themselves). the service is really where i came out excited about we’re trying to do at the refuge. all in all, it was a cool weekend!

leslie kaczeus: sadell bradley of equipping ministries international read excerpts from the willie lynch letter and let’s make a slave in her workshop. i had never heard this and it sickened me, saddened me, and gave me a deeper understanding of the generations of brokenness and anger that our friends have lived through. she is an amazing woman. if you ever have a chance to hear her speak, don’t miss it! i also enjoyed the workshop on making friends with witches by phil wyman who is pastor at the gathering in salem, MA. he reinforced my thoughts about how normal people are that practice pagan religions and that we shouldn’t be afraid to build relationships with them. overall, it was just so incredibly inspiring to see so many people building bridges in ways and places that most of us couldn’t imagine would ever happen. thanks so much for inviting me along and making me feel so welcome!

karl wheeler: once again i experienced the confirming and marvelous joy of a bar set low. so low, that all who wish are able to march right over, head held high and dignified. after 30 years of conferences which should have all been subtitled “beat the sheep” or “wow, you are a sucky christian.” OTM is meaningful to me for its simple agenda of making friends, hearing from others, and setting the table of hospitality in all we do.

kathy escobar: one of the highlights for me was hanging out with our friends at the bridge worship service at on the house/church of the undignified in capital hill. agents of future rocks. loved chatting with jeff & jason from santa barbara’s uffizi mission project, deeply committed to their homeless friends & incarnational ministry with no programming. hearing rose swetman say “being missional is not having a cool service. who cares what band you have? i’m so tired of caring about what the meeting looks like. but what i care about is are you being the new humanity, and the presence of Christ in your neighborhood?” favorite quote: “people with power never think about it; people without power think about it all the time.” thomas friedman, quoted by brian mclaren who really is one of the most gentle but powerfully simple speakers i have ever heard.

mike herzog: i connected with brian mclaren and how the church is like music. the old way is like classical with exact notes lead by a conductor (a lead pastor). the new way is like jazz different people playing different notes in the context of a chart (shared leadership). both are playing the right music, just differently. and we could not have our jazz without their classical music. another thing about classisal vs jazz–there are no women, or native americans or africian americans etc. that wrote wrote classical, but many of the marginalized play jazz. my best take away was to practice what church is really about, being in real relationship with people.

sage harmos: i had the priviledge of playing music for OTM this year. my playing partner, jeff greer, is a young and intensely talented musician. he also is bald, has an orange goatee a half a foot long, and wears a kilt. my highlight was when a couple wearing western clothing (and the fellow had an american flag on his hat) thanked me and said how moving the music was for them. they come from a pentecostal evangelical church, and love to hear the steel guitar (usually country) in worship music. it had the spirit which they love in worship. they were so happy that we weren’t throwing the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to renewing our way of living out our faith. no one was “too cool” or “uncool” in our time together as conferencegoers. all were truly welcome.

we’ll end with this…from nate blegger’s blog, a conversation between he and ken loyd, the pastor of home, a new plant from the bridge committed to the homeless in portland. nate says, “i usually end up expressing to folks that the thing that gets me most is the “slowness.” “slowness! that’s the point!!” ken said. “you will be an instant success in maybe four or five years… you have to do things that are completely un-extraordinary. don’t do anything special or spectacular. this is how you will be legendary.” he went on to say that so many churches out there are trying to do extraordinary things. it is getting tiring for people. we just have to be normal and engage people where they are at with the absolutely normal things of life.”

other conference bloggers that linked to the refuge:
john smulo
(hey, check out john’s cool post from earlier this year “be like jesus” so good)
erin at decompressing faith