Twenty-two years ago I believed the good news of Jesus Christ. I was not a part of nor attended any church. By God’s grace, the message of the gospel was delivered and I finally received it in a postal truck while delivering mail. Over the next 20 years, I experienced just about everything one can experience in our modern church models. I took a deep dive into church and into the Christian culture, but I never felt fully at home there. I went to seminary hoping to become a cross-cultural missionary, thinking that’s exactly where God would want me. He initially led me to himself largely void of Christian culture and so it made sense that to serve the same purpose, to take the good news and apply it cross-culturally.
I came into the church as an outsider. I was welcomed literally with open arms by some of the most loving and gracious Christians. They loved and served me well. But as much as I was accepted there was always a part of me that didn’t belong no matter how much I fought it. My experiences before I became a believer, while not unique, did give me a perspective on evangelical culture that was always unsettling. I left for seminary to get it all straightened out (that's a joke, you don't get straightened out there). Seminary was great in so many ways but didn’t help my perspective that the church’s mission to reach the nations was largely futile as it was being practiced in the church. I learned that 70% of Americans today have no interest in attending a church gathering of any type. I also learned that only 20% of Christians have any idea about Matthew 28. Those statistics reflected what a challenge it is to make any headway in terms of reaching others with the good news of Jesus Christ. Only 30% of Americans are even interested in a church gathering and only 5% of those within the church have any idea what it means to reach them. These are not winning odds and yet the massive resources of the church are misapplied with little to no care for what doesn’t work. While I don’t doubt the well-meaningness of so many Christians and churches, the model simply isn’t working in relation to reaching unbelievers. How many more resources will we waste on models that get so few results? Those questions weighed heavy on me year after year.
So I set out to change it from within. I took an outreach minister internship from my home church in hopes of starting something that had never been done in the 200 year history of that church. I found some success by certain measurements. So then I started a nonprofit ministry and set out to connect the community of believers (lots of churches) into the community of need (lots of different needs), seeking to put the church directly in front of unbelievers in hopes that real conversations, culture, and redemption would occur. Others joined me and perspectives were changed, mine at the very least.
Eventually, a group of folks desired to plant a church that would seek out the community of need and do church in a much more simple way focused on doing life with one another and intentionally spending time with unbelievers. I was all about that missional church life and it was good for a season. I was much more comfortable in this Christian wasteland, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling of still being an outsider in an evangelical world that I had been finely groomed into everything I thought I wanted.
Then came the brewery. It was originally nothing more than a missional community started from our church to meet others in our community and get to know them over homebrewing. And it grew. And grew. And grew to become Reformation Brewery, a legitimate business. I quickly began to see something new that this venture was doing. It was bringing people together that I had longed to see together. It happened when I stopped trying to force it to happen. It taught me a lot about the gospel but it also brought its share of disdain from the Christian community. I felt the ostracism deeply. Over time I made the very difficult decision to let go of the church ministry and see where God might take me next. Little did I know he would lead me deeper into the underground.
I am now almost two years removed from formal vocational ministry. Some might say disgraced by my vocation as the CEO of a brewery. But never have I been more at home. While I will never outrun (nor do I desire to outrun) my history, I am in a position now that I only dreamed about 20 years ago and would never have dreamed of the context in which I’m found. I’ve learned more in the last 2 years about myself, the gospel, and others than I had in the previous 20 years combined.
I’ve lost contact with some good friends but I’ve gained incredible new ones. Reformation Brewery is a mess of people. But it’s my underground outpost, my new home where I get to know all kinds of people and serve them what I’ve been served, grace upon grace.
It isn't sunshine and rainbows, but God is rich in mercy and beauty is found in the strangest places. I find the power to live this life is found in the freedom of the gospel that gives me the great freedom to risk and to rest. I can risk the most because I have the least to lose and can rest in a work that's not my own.