This past gathering we spoke about how Jesus called Simon the Rock, and that he "left everything and followed him" (Luke 5:11). Through experience with life, we learn that no matter how much hard work, experience, skill, and wisdom we have, that our successes and "following the rules" leave us unsatisfied. Yet, through experience with Jesus, "we are continually surprised by how fruitful obedience to God can be." (Following Jesus: A Disciple's Guide to Luke and Acts, William Kurz, S.J.)

This obedience in following the call is unique to each of us. Shane Claiborne in "Irresistible Revolution" says, "The more I read the Scriptures, the more uncertain I become about my plans for the future, or even of the wisdom of making plans in the first place, since God seems to be in the business of messing them up… What would Peter have said? “Well, I was going to be a fisherman, but then I met this dude, and he messed all that up.” I remembered Mother Teresa saying, “Do not worry about your career. Concern yourself with your vocation, and that is to be lovers of Jesus.”… I heard about a group of massage therapists who spend their days washing and massaging the tired feet of homeless folks… On some of our marches for peace and justice, chiropractors join us in the evenings to take care of people’s tired bodies so that we will be ready for another day of marching… The examples are as numerous as the number of vocations. But the calling is the same: to love God and our neighbors with our whole lives, careers, and gifts.”

In determining how to answer this call, the two things that held back Peter tend to be the same things that hold us back, and cause us to say, "Go away from me Lord" (Luke 5:8). These are confessing our unwillingness, and confronting our unworthiness. Below are three simple prayers that I think can help us take one step closer to Jesus. Let's each pick one and pray to God this week:

• Lord, I confess that I attribute my success to my wisdom and my hard work. Please help me learn to attribute my hard work and my wisdom to your grace and generosity.
• Lord, I confess that not only feel unblessed, but feel that my hard work and effort entitle me to more than I have. Instead, I wish to be content with your relentless love for me.
• Lord, right now I prefer to live a life of illusion – where I follow rules, success, security, comfort, and predictability. Please help me leave it all and choose the authentic life of submission, depravity, insecurity, uncomfortability, and unpredictability. I want to leave behind following the rules and instead follow the Ruler.

May we grow in our understanding of how it is we can leave everything, and what it means to transition from following the rules, to following the Ruler - the Son of God.

Yesterday at Kairos we spent some time working through the first chapter of Jeremiah, talking about the setting (verses 1-3), the sovereignty of God (verses 4-10), and the sight of God (verses 11-19). We talked about how Jeremiah was offered a chance to speak the words of God and to see the world through the eyes of God.

God's words are different than our words. God's sight is different than our sight.

In Los Angeles, we're surrounded by stories, voices, and messages coming at us from all directions. We speak many of these messages with our voice, even if we don't always realize it.

What would it look like if we took time and created space to listen for God's voice? To ask God to show us the world through new eyes?

As part of our worship response, we showed this video (thanks to the writers and photographers in our community) to offer a chance for our community to listen for the voice of God.

Beginning with Advent and journeying through the season of Pentecost, our teachings and gatherings at Kairos will be structured according to the seasons of the Christian calendar (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, the Holy Week of Easter, and Pentecost) and will follow Year C of the Christian lectionary (which primarily uses the Gospel of Luke as the gospel text each week). As we continue talking about our seasonal vision to “move into our spaces” (see this earlier post from Don for more information on our seasonal vision), we desire to see our community experience the depth and beauty of each upcoming season of the Christian calendar.

The Advent season is a period of waiting, expecting, and anticipating the event of Christmas because Christmas is not yet here. This year for Advent, we are focusing on our “Hopes and Fears,” and exploring how our lived experience and present reality is awaiting the truth of the Christmas story. One practice that we are focusing on this season is prayer. In a world full of doubts, questions, and fears, prayer is a chance for us to be fully present before God.

To help our community engage in the journey through the Christian year, I put together a short guide to the Gospel of Luke. It has some basic information about the lectionary, an overview of Luke’s purpose, structure, themes, etc., and some suggestions for different ways of immersing yourself in the story of Jesus through the words of Luke this season.

Download/View Shedding Light on Luke's Gospel

Over the next six months of our journey, I encourage you to fully engage in the story our community is exploring. Immerse yourself in the texts that are shaping us as individuals and as a community. Ask questions about yourself, about the text, about our world, about Jesus. Endeavor to be fully present in your relationship UP to God as a child of the Father.

grace and peace,

/dave

Hello - we hope this email finds you well.

Last Sunday, we started a 3-week series on giving and finances entitled "Radical Generosity." It has been about two years since we've talked specifically about this topic, and we feel like it is an important part of discipleship and following Jesus that we want to discuss as a community. If you missed our service on Sunday, we encourage you to take some time to listen to Greg's talk.

As Greg mentioned, we also want to be open about the financial situation at Kairos Hollywood. Year to date, our giving for the year has not matched the budget created for 2009. As an equipping leadership team, we have been working to cut areas of our budget for the remainder of 2009 to do what is necessary to bring our budget in line with our giving. Our budget has a number of fixed items (rent and facility costs, network fees, insurance, etc.) that we are not able to cut at this time, so we have had to make cuts in other areas, including gathering team and ministry budgets as well as staff salary support. Our current estimates project a shortfall of about $10,000 even after making these cuts as we approach the end of the year. This shortfall comes at a time that giving in other areas such as Unembraced and Toy Giveaway increase, and focus on the needs of our community budget tend to decrease.

Currently, we are also making decisions about what our 2010 budget will look like. Our desire is that we are able to craft a budget that takes our financial resources seriously, and allows our finances as a community to match our seasonal vision of living incarnationally by moving into our spaces. In two weeks (11/22), we will be talking more specifically about our budget at Kairos, and will have an opportunity for all of us to discuss together any questions or concerns that you have.

This week, we will be continuing our series on radical generosity with a specific focus on our partnerships in Kenya. The team who recently traveled to Kenya will be presenting some stories, pictures, and thoughts about our situation and relationship with our brothers and sisters in Kenya. There will be a time for an open conversation and dialogue, so think about questions and thoughts you would like to raise with our community regarding issues of international justice and generosity.

We believe passionately in Kairos: her mission, her people, her heart for God, her impact in this neighborhood, and around the world. We want to be the kind of community that is willing to engage in all areas of life, including our finances. As part of the Kairos family, we're asking you to pray a simple prayer - "Lord, what would you have me give to help Kairos as you use Kairos to help the world?" As we discern together what God is calling us to, we hope that you will continue journeying with us as we join God in the renewal of all things.

Warmly,

Audrey, Dave, Don & Greg

This past Sunday we introduced a new seasonal vision, Incarnate: Moving into our Spaces. (If you're not big on reading, click to listen to the first 5-10 mins of my talk for a similar summary to what is written below.) A lot of us have been feeling the stirrrings of a new season, as some of us move deeper into canvas groups, or begin to move into East Hollywood, or take on new vocations, or start at new schools.

When Jesus Christ fully moved into our space, Jesus experienced the incarnation, or was made flesh. As we are called to be imitators of Jesus (1Cor 11:1, Eph 5:16) we also are called to imitate the way of incarnational living.

In Luke 6:12-20, when Jesus first calls the 12 and gives his most famous sermon, he follows the process that Moses used when he received the ten commandments. It is a pattern that Henri Nouwen describes as solitude, community and ministry. It is the way that both Jesus went up a mountain to God and rested in God's presence and prayed with him, called together his disciples, chose them, and named them, then as a community they descended to a level place, healed others, and spoke the good news.

May this be our pattern, the pattern of Jesus over the next season in the life of kairos hollywood. May we

• Incarnate UP to God as a child of the Father
• Incarnate IN to Community as disciples of the Rabbi
• Incarnate OUT to the City as a church of the Spirit

As we begin this season, it's important to follow the same pattern as Jesus, and be willing to spend a whole night with the Father on the mountaintop, and incarnate into the role of a child of the Father. Two things that hold us back from this role are our self-image (an idea of "me" that is much less than what the Father thinks of me), and our self-idolatry (the things we hold as idols, and most often ourselves, when in control of our lives we put ourselves in the place of "Father" and cease to be the child).

Just as Jesus, in the form of God, emptied himself and took on the form of a slave (Phil 2:7), we too are called to empty ourselves of self-image and self-idolatry, and take on the role of a child of the Father.

The easiest way to do this, although it tends to be one of the hardest practices in life, is to simply be with God. It's not about doing, it's about being, observing, remembering. If we all could spend just five minutes with God a day, and truly hear the ever present voice that whispers to us as it did to Jesus, "You are my child, my beloved, I am well pleased with you." we would incarnate fully into our space as a child of the Father of the universe.

Here is the detailed version of our seasonal vision if you desire to see where we hope to go as we follow Jesus in becoming more incarnational in our spaces.