Jason Evans 3 November 2009 Events, Featured, General 1,290 views One Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

The summer between my junior and senior year of high school I started playing in a band with three friends of mine. All of us were Christians. But we had no appetite for the Christian music we saw on Christian bookstore shelves. We listened to metal, hardcore and punk rock. We weren’t any good. Most of us had just picked up our instruments. But we threw ourselves into learning our instruments and writing songs. We loved it and we were proud of the outcome of our hard work.

Many others were not though. We often found Christians to find our music appalling and people in the underground music scene thought our Christian convictions were silly. I still remember playing a show in a cellar converted into concert hall, pipes running just above our heads, walls covered with graffiti and stickers, drenched in sweat and watching a Coke can fly through the air towards our bass player as he shared our convictions with the audience.

We were proud of who we were and what we saw as our mission. But it was awful lonely–never feeling that we quite fit in with anyone; Christians or scenesters.

The rejection and loneliness haunted us until we met Kurt Love. Kurt was a middle-aged man with tattoos, long hair and a big heart. He was a Christian and a punk. He held a Bible study for kids like us through a local Calvary Chapel. He also played drums in a local band. And Kurt started helping us get shows.

Eventually, we did experience some marginal success locally. And once we did, we instinctively started doing our best to help out other bands. We put out their tapes (yes, I’m that old), booked shows, printed t-shirts and stickers and hung out late into the night at cafes sipping coffee and sharing stories. We wanted to make sure that other young people–that were doing their best to follow Jesus in the midst of a culture that made just as much sense to them as Sunday church services–did not feel as alone as we had. Just like Kurt had done for us.

That ideal is something that I’ve sought to live by ever since then. Having been committed to doing grassroots, missional stuff on the margins I still know what it feels like to be “alone.” So, when Brooke and I established the Ecclesia Collective several years ago, we adopted a motto of “nurturing grassroots expressions of the Kingdom of God.” Our hope has never been to prop up our own project, but find ways to link up with others and say, “You’re not alone, we’re in this together.” In other words, through the Collective, we’ve tried to bring together those doing meaningful and important work that embodies God’s dream for this world here in San Diego, but just might not be valued by others in their congregations, denominations and other institutions they’re committed to.

The Hawthorn House may have been the faith community/intentional community to be the primary host and contributor to the Collective for several years. But the Collective has always been something else. And today, more than ever, it has an identity outside of those that comprise Hawthorn House. Today, the Collective is a network of individual Christians and Christian communities ranging from evangelical to mainline backgrounds and affiliation trying to work together in San Diego the way God called the Israelites to in Jeremiah 29–to pray and work for the shalom of our city. The Collective has simply been a conduit for all of us to work and learn together through. Not all of us are employed by churches, but some of us are. Some of us are considered clergy and some of us aren’t. We’ve become much like an artists collective (hence our name), bringing our different mediums and attempting to make something beautiful together.

We’re doing our best to hold forms and methods lightly, realizing this often just allows the few to control the agenda. So, we’re changing things up once again. Starting this month, we’re holding monthly gatherings that will be hosted by the different people that consider themselves part of the Collective. Tomorrow night we’re meeting at Lestat’s on Adams and will be hosted by Adams Ave. Crossing, a new missional community getting started in the Normal Heights neighborhood. The agenda? Mostly conversation. We want to hear what’s going in your community, in your neighborhood and in your work. We’ll talk about how the Collective can be owned by and serve each of us better. And we’ll see where that takes us. These gatherings will look a little different each time I assume. And we have yet to see what will come out of them. Check out the event info on Facebook and watch the video that our friend Geoff Hsu posted that explains the value of networks such as ours.

So, if you’re feeling alone, come join us.

Photo Credit: CCBImages