Welcome to Nuni De Community

I love “church.” I love walking with folks as we struggle to live in to the call on our lives. I love wrestling with difficult questions. I love a good sermon. I love beautiful theology. I love communities that reach beyond themselves.

There are many things I love about the “church.” To say I love them is on par with a fluid passion that penetrates obsession with ease and rests comfortably close to apathy in many moments.

I am tired of carbonite churches with their BS liturgy and overly produced worship music. I believe there is room for them in the Kingdom. I just am tired of the happy meals many churches are serving us.

We get the sampling of tatters in the greeter at the door. The warm, silver haired man with the honest eyes reaching for your hand as you enter the door. It is the flock of seniors that hover over you that freaks me out.

We are offered a seat but not a position at the table. We are relegated to the toy in the box. We are there to be counted and displayed. We are never to fully involve ourselves in the community and challenge the paradigm in which mission, evangelism, or education is done. Tradition is the rock to which we stand.

I am tired and weary. I want so much to be a part of a community of saints that are vulnerable, honest, and seeking transformation. Perhaps I am a bit rustic in my want. Perhaps not, I just know that I am not alone in my quest.

I have had many conversations over the past few years with strangers in pubs, on planes, and in the lunch room of a rural central Oklahoma McDonalds. A common theme in this conversation has been the lack of honesty in the worshiping community or a place to be part of and have their voice heard.

I am a recent graduate from Austin Seminary. I am filled with ideas and a passion to be the “church” to those God sends me. I sometimes make myself laugh as I really get a whiff of the smoke I blow. I am an idealist with very little reality.

In seminary every paper I turned in said, “Beautiful ideas. I love what you are speaking of. Your paper lacks structure and is not very cohesive and is not very clear.” I dream and dream big.

This has lead me to dream of the “church” I would love to be a part of. I spent the last year in seminary shaping it from all possible ways. Almost every paper in that time was in some way related to my idea of a “church.”

I gave this idea a name, Nuni De Community. I set up a website. I set up a twitter account. I dreamed of it most of the time. I spilled this dream on to 50 plus pages for my final paper in seminary when the paper required only 15 pages. I was filled with excitement and adventure as I created this vision.

I imagined the who, what, and why’s. Then I got married and moved to Louisville. I chased many leads to serve this community in ministry. Then I got to hang out with Philip. He mans the Church Growth and Development Office in Louisville. He is also my wife’s boss. He loved my ideas. He encouraged me. I spoke to anyone that would listen. I email BRC. I called this EP and that. I enlisted the minds of my Presbymergent family. Then I thought…why not.

So here I am. I am ten days from cracking the wine bottle on a worshiping community. I have a vision and hope. I have no budget. I have a few folks committed to be in community. We have no idea what this will look like or if it will be anything.

I am seeking to plant a worshiping community with no money and am hoping that it will inspire others to just go out and gather as a community and invite others into that sacred space for fellowship and wrestle along side each other in the difficult questions with honesty, intimacy, and integrity.

Our mission statement:

We are a worshiping community in Old Louisville seeking to be the Body of Christ to our neighbors. We wrestle with today’s church and its inability to transform the lives of those that find themselves on its shores. We seek new ways to be an incarnation body to the world. We desire to be free of the chains of differences and celebrate diversity, in all of its beauty. We answer the call on our lives in service to our communities as we endeavor to be the church and cease doing church.

We gather to create a safe place for all to explore faith, grace, love, and compassion.

We are not a “church” founded in bricks and mortar. We are a worshiping community founded in the principles of Gods unbiased love and never ending grace.

We are not just Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, or Catholic…or even Christian. We are seeking to be Christ-like, sans all the religious pomp and circumstance. We subscribe to a belief in God as witnessed in Jesus the Christ. We are inclusive and open to all. All are welcome...come.

I will document the growth of this community and our journey to be a worshiping community in Old Louisville that seeks to be the Body of Christ to our neighbors as we wrestle with the crap we bring to the Table here on this site every fourth Friday.

If you are in Louisville we meet at the Old Louisville Coffeehouse on the NE corner of Forth & Hill Monday night from 7-9pm beginning September 01, 2008. All are welcome to Nuni De Community.