A Bit More About Nieucommunities

As we continue to invite you into our story as part of Nieucommunties, I thought it would be helpful to share a couple more aspects of Nieucommunties.

Road Trip: (I stole most of this "road trip" explanation from my friend Matt Chapman!)

While Nieucommunites is centered around a one year apprenticeship designed to develop Church leaders, they also host short term experiences that are designed to offer a "crash course" into what it means to be an apprentice with Nieucommunities. These short term trips are called "road trips" and our community here in San Diego hosted one this past week. Participants came from all over California and Washington to experience life with those of us that live in Golden Hill, receive training and consider whether a full year commitment may be something God is leading them towards.

One or our hopes for this trip was that this experience would change the trajectory of their lives or reaffirm existing convictions that God had put on their heart in regards to their calling. We also hoped to give them some tools so they might be more equipped to live a life of mission in their own neighborhoods.

Over the course of the 5 days, they experienced neighborhood picnics, an unknown side of Tijuana, and several learning sessions on topics such as submerging, the Kingdom of God, and culture. They also had a chance to make a timeline of their life in order that they might see how God has worked in the past and what he might be calling them too.

On the last day of this experience we began to see our hopes for this experience become reality as participants shared what God was stirring up in their hearts. Some shared that they want to pursue missions as a vocation, others shared they want to begin to multiply leaders as they continue to mentor others, and some shared that God is challenging them to give up pursuing a career that will make them wealthy in order to pursue a life of mission.

Picnic in the Park:

Everyone apart of Nieucommunities has made a commitment to live missional lives. Central to being missional is understanding that God's mission has been and continues to be one of redemption and healing. Living missionally assumes that we advance God's Mission by bringing redemption and healing to our community through our words and deeds. Like Jesus (the culmination of God's missional movement towards his people) taking residency among humanity, we hope to take residency in the lives/stories of our neighborhood as a way to invite others into the transforming and redemptive way of Jesus.

So, with partcipants of Nieucommunities living out mission in the local schools, half way homes, restaurants, homeless communities and refugee settlments there are all sorts of interesting people we are able to share life with. One of the ways we create a place for all these people to get to know each other is through a regular meal and gathering at the local park. It is called "Picnic in the Park." Janny and I were able to attend our first one this past weekend. From homeless friends to high schoolers, we all gathered to feast on locally made tamales, laugh, pray and enjoy the sunshine. It was the type of setting I picture when I think of Jesus' saying that all are invited to his banquet table.