Hugh Halter

Was going through my email file last night and found this encouraging one from a dear gal in our community.

“I can’t make it for the dinner on Friday, though i would like to. i just want to take a minute, though, to thank you and Matt and your families for starting this thing.  I watch the other kids that I’ve gone to school with over the past year, and they’re struggling with faith.  i am too.  i still don’t really know what i think about much of anything, nor how to interact with all of the ideas i’ve been exposed to over the past four years; some of them beautiful, some of them frightening.i feel, though, that adullam has been an anchor for me, of sorts.  your (our) ability to embrace a lot of the insights of postmodern culture while
clinging to orthodox christianity has been a constant reminder and challenge to me that there are some things from the faith that i grew up with, legalistic though it was, that are worth keeping–”the gift of Christianity to the world is not Christianity, it is Jesus”i sit in church sometimes and listen to you talk, and i think to myself, “yes, i know this, i’ve heardthis before…” but then i stop and remember that these are things i never heard in church growing up.  i heard them in
college: they were some of the beautiful ideas–like the talk we had on Romans 14 a few weeks ago–that made my major compelling and exciting.  The ideas that made me want to teach.  it’s such a gift to be able to say that i can hear those things in my church and know that other people are hearing them, too–at church, where they should be hearing them,not in college for eighty thousand dollars. thanks for what you do
god bless
Michelle

Good Morning, it’s Sunday morning about 5:30 am here in Denver.  I woke up in peace and I thought it was so noteworthy, I’d tell you about it.  You see, back in the day, with our first church plant we started in Portland, waking up on Sunday morning was like getting up to fight the French Foreign Legion.  I had such a fear of speaking, preaching, leading, and holding our community together, that I would get nauseous as soon as I’d realized it was Sunday morning.  I’d usually have stayed up till 1:ooam plowing over and over on my sermon, and then back up at 4:00am out of nerves to go back over my words. I’d drive to church depressed and often it would take me 60 minutes of prayer just to fight back the fear of approaching the community.

Today, I got up and was excited.  The fact that I was even able to take my mind off today’s events shows that God is re-orienting me towards a better way.  Adullam has taught me that people don’t come to a church gathering for a sermon.  Or if they do, they’re coming for the wrong reason.  Adullamites come to connect with God and see friends.  That changes everything.  I’m not really preaching today. I’m just going to walk the community through the sermon on the mount and see how people are feeling.  I’ve been meditating on it all week and do have a few thoughts to share, but I don’t feel any need to button it together into a monologue.  Jesus just seems to be in the room and I’m learning to trust his spontaneous voice to myself and the community.   I wonder what would happen if every pastor felt like they could just read scripture and facilitate a more simple and relational approach to spiritual learning.  I’m not suggesting at all that a well thought out sermon isn’t helpful, but quite possibly adults may learn better from an approach that requires them to participate.  It may also release many leaders from the performance miseries every week.

This morning, I’ll take my daughter Alli with me.  She loves to go early and hang out with me.  I wouldn’t have had the peace of heart to do this ten years ago, but this morning I’m looking forward to donuts and Alli, and friends.

Yesterday we had a few couples show up who were obviously looking for a church. We had about 40 people out on the sunny porch of the old church enjoying coffee, conversation, and a casual start to our day. Another 100 folks were downstairs grabbing their coffee and mingling in fine Adullam fashion. I saw these couples move quickly through our “church,” head inside to look for our church.  They missed it, and even though I was kind enough to follow them to help relieve their stress, it was obvious they were looking for a typical church service to begin. On this day, they found an empty sanctuary as we had all our folks meet for coffee and communion and then head to a local park four blocks away. Essentially it was a modified “big table” that we do every 8-10 weeks. Our purpose is simply to take the focus off of the church service and recognize that growing together is just as important to God as sitting next to each other.

I read out of Acts where the church in Antioch was forming and shared how this church was the first group to be called Christians. I asked the group, “what set these people apart?  Why did people feel the need to call them anything at all?”

The answer is not in their doctrine, or their ecclesial structures of church. They were set apart with this title, simply because they were that wildly strange group of people that had people of completely different walks of life, together in Christ-centered community.   That’s what set them apart!

If the new world church is going to reclaim the title of “Christian” we must again become unique in how we connect people who are not alike. Yes, I do feel pain to see people come into our church and not find friends immediately. I wish everyone felt the ease that some of our people do. Yet, there’s no way to short cut community. If people don’t initiate relationship, they won’t find it. We don’t have greeters, we don’t ask people to unnaturally connect to others. We give them the theological call from scripture to see their relationships as central to the Gospel.  In this small, but significant way, we are “A-Typical.”   I believe anything less than this, will simply continue to pandor to the individualistic consumer culture around us.

This week, I got an email that essentially summarizes both the strategy and joy of incarnational church, as well as showing a few reasons why the average Christian will struggle in a “non-attractional, program driven” environment.

“Hugh, I’ve been to Adullam for about a year now. Yesterday, during and after Lou’s talk, I felt like I understood things a little better. And then going to the park afterwards to play volleyball with Laura, Sean and some others, it hit me some more. Adullam is best defined by what it’s people are actively doing in their community. By just showing up on Sunday and trying to find your fit, the meaning of our community becomes more and more vague. And I think that’s where some people get hung-up and frustrated because they can’t find such internal structure to lead them to their purpose. Adullam’s people need to be active with the nonbelievers in their lives in order to discover what we are about. I like that things remain loose and sort of intangible within our “church”. It forces people to make fruit outside our own walls, where Christ is trying to lead us. I’m glad I haven’t gotten involved, per se in the usual ways Christians find fulfillment in their churches. I’ve taken time to learn what Adullam is about and I finally find myself in agreement with it. Thanks, sue.”

Over the few years Adullam has been in existence, I’ve find myself frustrated that people just don’t hear our vision once and then get to work. Why they can enjoy a coffee with me and nod in agreement as I share our mission, and then revert so quickly back to churchianity. Sue’s email reminded me that the only way for people to “get it” is to experience it. You can have the coolest, most articulate website, slick brochures that state your values, even logo t-shirts. We’ve been encouraging leaders to avoid trying to move people through mission statements, but let me now say it more plainly. They don’t do JACK! The only way people experience the “light-bulb” going on, is to find themselves in an actual environment where the preferred values are being lived out in front of their eyes. Sue is the wife of our worship leader. She’s heard me preach at least 30 times. She’s read our website. But in her own words, she showed that isolated events or words don’t coagulate into learning. She experienced a sermon, but she also integrated the words, with a lunch after our gathering, followed by a spontaneous recreation activity.

In short, just as we reference in The Tangible Kingdom, God’s ways become real or tangible when several factors are integrated together.

She has reminded me, that my job as a leader isn’t to cast vision and then expect behavior. My job is to sanction and help move people into these integrated environments and experiences, and to keep it as spontaneous and natural as it can be.

She also, put a finger on why so many don’t make it with us. In short, it’s good hearted people who won’t allow themselves the space or focus to fill their spiritual cup out in the world instead of inside the church. People who continue to come to a church service then go home, only to return for another service, won’t experience the tangible kingdom. There’s not a nice way to say it. Life must be re-oriented around mission to the world and relationships. There, they find God.

Just a few thoughts. Thanks Sue!

This last Wednesday, we held our first ever Ahava Fest. Ahava is referenced in Ezra chapter 8. Ezra leads his community down to a beautiful watering hole named ahava and declares a fast and they begin to seek God for what they were to do with their children and their possessions. Ahav means “to give.” Ahava means “love.” The concept is to “love through giving.”

Adullam has been a unique experience in many ways, not the least of which is how we deal with helping people understand how to handle their resources (time & money). We have never taken an offering in our main gathering and we have sensed a radical distrust and skepticism by both existing Christ followers and the new band of Vikings who have found faith with us. Heck, I don’t even trust churches to do the right thing with money. It’s never bothered us that people are not giving to God stuff. The average churchgoer gives about 3% of their income to charity…the exact % non christian people give to charity.

Yet, there remains a truck load of scripture that references our giving, and deep down in our hearts, we know we should and that God likes it! So what do you do?

We did Ahava. We took 6 weeks to have our entire community reflect on (intentionality, stewardship, simplicity, community, and calling) We shared ways that we can help the world by simply giving up things instead of just calling them to giving more out of their pockets. Then we gathered and drank wine…alot of it. and called the entire community to live this year with a committment to greater simplicity/sacrifice/time etc. I commented to many that I’ve never talked about money in front of 200 people and had them all smiling! It was like sharing one of the coolest ideas ever….that we get to love God and love the world by giving.

Adullam works in the minds of many skeptics because we’ve shown that we’re not about growing a church. We don’t have any full time pastors (in fact the 7 people that serve adullam require a combined income of $5500/month) Yep, we have 7 people for the price of one. We ask our staff to raise missionary support as Matt and I do, so that we can be as little financial burdent to the mission as we can, thus freeing up more money to help real people.

Just for fodder, I made mention that it’s possible that a hundred people (drinking tap water instead of bottled, downgrading our cable packages, giving up one happy meal a week…. would free up about 10k a month). I then posed the question. What if we not only gave up a bunch of crap we don’t need and wouldn’t feel BUT WE ALSO gave 5%?? In our setting that would be about $40k a month. With the lean way we run adullam, it would free up $25k a month to bless people. That’s just with 200 adults!!

People don’t trust spiritual leaders with money for several reasons. 1) They see us putting all our cash into our own stuff (salaries, buildings, overseas missions) None of which are all that inspiring. 2) Most leaders don’t let people help determine where money goes.

In Adullam, our Ahava Fest is how we will now budget for the new year and every year from here on out. What we commit to give together to love God and love the world is what we have to work with. No pressure, no fear, no waste. All of sudden, we’re excited to get out of debt, give, serve, love, and be together. I can’t wait for next year and feel honored I get to serve with these people.

As I reflect on this last Sunday, I simply can’t get past the incredible privilege we all had to be together and experience the witness of baptism. We had 9 planned “dunks” and one spontaneous baptism. Here’s a list of some of the significant moments.

• People being baptized by normal folks instead of the paid pros. Ryan was able to dip Paul and Jessica, Greg was able to dip Troy and Julie, Laur and KC dipped Kim, and a Lou and Sean got to help with Tim. Each represented a depth of community and influence on their stories.
• I loved how open our experience was to onlookers. Jet skiers slowed down to watch and we have some great photos of strangers smiling as they watched you.
• At the end, simple communion, and spontaneous swimming and eating. What could be better. May God grant us this privelage each year!!