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Roll-in for Summertime worship series @ jacob's well, minneapolis

Author: jacobswell
Keywords: Jacob's Well Minneapolis emerging church worship creative art sabbath trailer
Added: July 2, 2008

Jacob's Well band, Minneapolis, plays "Those Who Trust"

Author: jacobswell
Keywords: Jacob's Well minneapolis band Nate Bergengren worship
Added: May 28, 2008

Message from Jacob's Well service

Author: jacobswell
Keywords: jacob's well minneapolis emergent worship relationships
Added: May 28, 2008

Message from Jacob's Well service 5/25/08-Relationships #5

Author: jacobswell
Keywords: jacob's well minneapolis emergent fun relationships
Added: May 28, 2008

kids can be pretty wise...and funny.

Author: jacobswell
Keywords: Jacob's Well Minneapolis for Dummies from the mouth of baby episode parody series short film spoof
Added: May 20, 2008

This is what happens when a group of people get together and decide that they are going to work hard to create a place for people to come and connect with God. We're doing a "Jacob's Well for Dummies" spin-off, and this is the 1st video in the series.

Author: jacobswell
Keywords: jacob's well minneapolis for dummies set up team be the church stefan van voorst
Added: May 5, 2008

Jacob's Well message from May, 4, 2008. Part 2 of series.

Author: jacobswell
Keywords: Jacob's Well Minneapolis emergent worship relationships
Added: May 5, 2008

This was our PowerLab experiment showing how our lives fill up and burst and flow out into the world when filled with thanks!

Author: jacobswell
Keywords: Jacob's Well H2O children ministry minneapolis powerlab
Added: April 29, 2008

we show all kids of weird stuff before our gatherings...take this one for instance:)

Author: jacobswell
Keywords: jacob's well minneapolis minnesota relationships who's it all about base ball advertising commercials short film
Added: April 28, 2008

Message from Jacob's Well service on Apr 27, 2008 - Relationship Series #1 - Minneapolis

Author: jacobswell
Keywords: jacob's well minneapolis emergent worship Relationships
Added: April 28, 2008

Some great comments on the last post have generated more thoughts.

Laurie, you DO make sense. Church buildings are an UnLearning issue. It is hard, and we are truly at a loss of how to operate and relate to THE church when the building isn’t there.

Monica, thanks for your thoughts too. First, this posting is meant to be an extreme statement to get us thinking, not a final and complete declaration. I would point back to Laurie’s comments though. Thinking outside the building, outside this church-box, is a hard adjustment. There are good uses and purposes of a building, but I’d challenge us to be more creative in how we meet those space needs.

Do we need to own buildings to house our presence? Can we rent, share, multi-use facilities? Cooperate with other, even non-church, organizations? There are many examples of this already. Unfortunately it is not the norm, and it is often perceived as a sign of weakness that a church borrows, rents or shares space.

Buildings tend to isolate us and separate the many Bodies of Christ from one another. We each need the ministry going on in our church. Ultimately I like the idea that we learn to head to people rather than a place when we have needs. After all, people, not places, will be how God acts sooner or later.

And face it, if I really want to go to a quiet place to meditate, I probably wouldn’t head to the kind of place we would be able to afford to do it, but would go to God’s great sanctuary out-of-doors, or to the Basilica, or maybe on the sidewalk outside our local police precinct, or the emergency entrance of HCMC anyway…

Lots of stuff to think about. Let’s be creative.

May churches build people always, and buildings when we must.

A blog I check out periodically called “Struggles with Faith” had a great posting that echoes our thinking at Jacob’s Well (see my April 2 post, “Irresistible Revolution - 2“) about the purpose of a building and WHO, not WHAT, the real ‘church’ is.  “Struggles’” posting is “Is God Done with the Church?”  Here is the link,

Two thoughts that it triggered in me that I want to add to Precarious Pastor are:

1. From both a conceptual and a practical perspective it may not make sense for churches - that is, communities who gather as a body to follow Christ - to have buildings.  Let the bricks & mortar of the temple continue to be the flesh &  blood of the sons and daughters of God.  (John 2.12-22)  I’ll throw this notion out to whoever is listening… er, reading… I’m sure to make someone mad with this…

To have a building should be the exception, not the norm.

Only churches who cannot meet the daily needs of their ministry through shared spaces should ‘resort’ to having their own.  The situation today is clearly the opposite.  Having a building is the norm and, in fact, legitimizes the church (or perhaps ‘the institution’).   I’d love to hear a congregation say, “Well, i’m afraid we’re going to have to do it… I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to build something.”

2. Churches should be 7 day a week communities.  (Anyone hear echoes of Lyle Schaller’s 1992 book, “The Seven-Day-A-Week Church”?) But the point isn’t to use your building 7 days a week (although if you have a building, I suppose you would feel like you need to in order to justify it.  Therefore go back to point #1).  The point is that the church (i.e. the people!) should be the church everyday, everywhere.  Those that claim that community as their checkpoint of growing towards God should see themselves as such all day, every day.  Not just half days on Sunday.

“Building” should be what churches do, not what they have.  A verb, not a noun.  Building faith, building character, building community, building bridges, building lives.  Building a building?  Only when you’ve exhausted all other options.

This is a little project that will serve to be the be the roll-in to the message and cover the transition time from 1st song set/band to the message. It's goal is to be fast-paced, interesting and short

Author: jacobswell
Keywords: jacob's well minneapolis Play Ball relationships that work rage against the machine video roll in commercials short fil
Added: April 23, 2008

Message from Jacob's Well service of April 20, 2008.

Author: jacobswell
Keywords: jacob's well minneapolis emergent worship prejudice
Added: April 21, 2008

This is a little taste of how Jacob's Well is working together to preserve our parks and change how we live life. This is what we did at Minnehaha Falls Park, Minneapolis, MN

Author: jacobswell
Keywords: events nature jacob's well minneapolis park and rec board earth day save the landmark get dirty audio adrenaline
Added: April 20, 2008

Friday - Sunday Sailing 'Retreats' aboard 34-38' boats for Jacob's Well and friends. Get a feel for what the trips are like and decide to join us on one.

Author: jacobswell
Keywords: Jacob's Well Minneapolis emerging church spirituality sailing apostle islands wilderness sail
Added: April 15, 2008

The protests over the Olympics have really gotten my attention.  My very first reaction was why would people mess with this wonderful tradition of the Olympics and the carrying of the torch.  I mean, what could be better than that?  But that isn’t the point, is it…  People aren’t protesting the Olympics, but they feel compelled to speak against the host country.  They are saying ’something is rotten in Denmark’ (or China, in this case) and we can’t just say, “Rah Rah Olympics” when the host is oppressing a nation (Tibet, again, in this case).

Now I’ve no intention to comment on human rights abuses in the People’s Republic of China.  But I find the idea that the world (i.e. citizens of other countries a long, long way away from them, and with little or no say in that country) feel it is within their rights, responsibilities, even duty to hold China accountable.  I realize expatriated Tibetans, who are very involved with the situation are doing a lot of the protesting, but their support comes from their new countries of residence.

One of the unhelpful responses is for us westerners to point our fingers at China and say, “Ha, teaches you right.  You are doing bad things and the world is unhappy with you.”  We are tempted to do that because China has us all scared silly with their growing muscle in the economic, research, population, manufacturing, etc worlds.  You name it, after being in the lead so long we don’t know what to do with the fact that we see a much bigger vehicle approaching quickly in our rearview mirror.

The fact is that the world is shrinking.  While the world is getting more and more sophisticated and urban anonymity is more and more available to us, we are also getting closer and closer to each other.  We have a million ways, and a million watchdogs helping us look over each others’ shoulders.  And so our noses are in each others’ business.  Rightly or wrongly… doesn’t matter.  We are doing it.

Here is the other fact, lest we be smug Americans (this could also be written for Europeans, Australians, Japanese, whoever… but I’ll let them speak for themselves).  If the Olympics were to be held in the U.S. the torch bearing would be going no more smoothly.  Can you think of any nation whose citizens wouldn’t be stopping the torch and saying, “Out of Iraq!”  or “You’re not our policeman!” or “Clean up your industry before you tell others to do it!” or “Free the detainees in Guantanamo!” or “Restore Civil Rights in your country!”

Again, I’m not endorsing those critiques (although I do have my opinions; you have to buy me a beer, not just read my blog to get those), but I am saying that the same accountability the ‘world’ is leveling at China would also be leveled against us.  And we’d have to face it.  Here’s what we can have control over… actually two things:

1. Is it a good thing?  Is this just entitled judgmentalism on a global scale?  Or is it a global conscience learning how to flex its muscle? I’d venture a guess that it is a little bit of both and that such attempts are probably the only way the global community will learn to be mature with its new found power.  Besides, its going to happen, might as well get the adolescent acne stage going so it can be over with.

2. Are we going to seek to be ‘above scrutiny’ or not?  Is there, at least some, truth in the charges coming from all quarters that we can learn from? Again, I’ll venture a guess and say, “yes.”

Are there some early sounds of the kingdom of God in these groans of childbirth?  Hmmm…

Jacob's Well, Minneapolis. This is the message from our Sunday at the Urban Hub, "UnLearn Poverty"

Author: jacobswell
Keywords: Jacob's Well Minneapolis Urban Ventures preaching unlearn
Added: April 8, 2008

Worship Music from Jacob's Well for our service on UnLearn Poverty. This is a Derek Webb piece.

Author: jacobswell
Keywords: Jacob's Well Minneapolis music poverty unlearn social conscience band emerging church
Added: April 8, 2008

A common theme in Claiborne’s book is the echoes of the past that he feels in what he is doing.  He compares his ‘reformation’ (my word, not his) to that of St Francis of Assisi (p.65) and others - even Jesus!  I don’t think he is wrong.  But what he is doing is so future too.  He is very ‘disestablishment’ and trying to make the church speak to a new generation rather than the past.

I ask the same question about Jacob’s Well.  Yeah, we are very modern.  We use current music, video, a lot of high tech stuff (we had our trailer “stolen” once so we had to put a service on without all our ‘toys’ and we found it went just fine.  Although I think we all agree the toys add a lot.)  But I also feel like we are really, really old.  No, we aren’t part of the emergent church movement doing the ‘ancient future’ thing (google it if you don’t know what ancient future is), but we are doing the original thing.  We are taking our passion for what God is up to, and connecting it to our lives using the language and stuff of our age.

Isn’t that what the 1st century church did? This is really old stuff.