Westchester Church of the Nazarene: Terrence's story

Monday, March 7, 2011

Terrence's story

Nomad - the church with no home
Pretty cool! www.vibrantmagazine.org published this article about about our bro, Terrence. Of course, those of you in the know will recognize this as the beginning of a story that has been going on for some time, and it's taken many turns. People of Westchester, amazing stuff has been happening in your local park, and it didn't begin with a grant or referendum.

Blessings!

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Times and Places

Q: Do you have a weekly Sunday gathering?
A: Yes.

We meet at 7299 W Manchester AVE, LA, CA 90045 @ 3:30 PM to hang out and connect, pray for one another and listen to some good teaching. Afterward, some folks go on home while others usually end up eating good food and drinking coffee together, laughing, sharing more with one another about what God is doing in our lives.

Q: Is this your only gathering?
A: No.

Presently, there are churches gathering in a nearby convalescent home, Westchester Park, a home in Westchester, on West Los Angeles College's campus, and a home in Hermosa Beach. There are some other cool things happening too. We are a part of a very simple church that was started in February in a nearby mental health hospital. We have things "in the works" in an apartment complex in La Mirada and a hotel in South Central Los Angeles.

Q: Where do your churches gather?
A: Lots of places.

If you are interested in a simple church gathering in a park, coffee shop, or home, email the administrator. We'll let you know what's happening near you.

People Stuff

Our Purpose: Making Christ-like Disciples

We have a single discipleship strategy. It looks like this...

Two or three people meet once a week, preferable in a public/social place, to:
1. Share the stuff they read from the bible the previous week. Everyone agrees to reading the same 25 to 30 chapters - a gospel, a book of the bible, a shorter book two or three or four times.
2. Ask each other important questions about our lives, i.e. accountability questions.
3. Pray intentionally for people who desperately need God.
We call these groups LTGs - Life Transformation Groups. And that's what we want to see: lives transformed through reading God's word, friendship and prayer.

For more info, check out this pdf.

http://www.cmaresources.org/files/LTG-card%20Red.pdf

DNA - Can't Tease It Out...

We have a simple 'essence' or DNA we try to perpetuate through everything we do.

D=Divine Truth
N=Nurturing Relationships
A=Act on the Mission of Jesus

So our DNA goes something like this: We love God, we love our neighbor, and we each choose to pick up our cross and follow Jesus.

It's a challenge, but we don't want to operate on one of those 'strands.' We want all three. As Neil Cole writes, you can't tease out DNA - or have Dna or dNa - or minimize one of the strands. You need all the info the DNA offers, because that determines the life of the plant.

And that brings us to Jesus...

Look, we are are not a religious group. We are tired of religion as it tries to make bad people act 'better.' So much of that is lifeless! Jesus did not come to make bad people good; he came to make dead people live! And that's what we want to be about - living, as God intends! Truly alive! Truly free!