the underground network

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We are all created to be like God and God is creative! We are called to worship him with our whole selves. David and others worshiped with poetry. Paul and others worshiped in prose. Throughout the ages, people have worshiped in song and visual art. Some cultures worship in dance and others worship in ways we don’t even know about. The underground church network is developing a “Community Garden” where we can share in our creative worship together.

Any form of worship that can be uploaded is appropriate here as long as it is an expression of the creativity that God has instilled in you. Where there is genuine worship there is joy. This is meant to be an inspiring encouragement to one another as well as an alter to our creative Lord!  Maybe you come to the Community Garden for personal inspiration, or fresh ideas for your faith community.  Maybe you come to contribute you or your faith community has recently offered the Lord in the form of worship and you’re ready to pass it along!

Give us ideas (ways you worship the Lord), give us videos or audio files of worship in action, give us written or spoken word, even prophecy and preaching is welcome.  Let this be a wild and diverse garden where the Body of Christ can grow and share the fruits of our imaginative Spirit.

This “Community Garden” is still being fertilized; cultivated.  We’re working on the best plot of land to begin (this website?  a nearby wiki space?) and we’ll send out the word when its ready to begin tilling!

In the meen time you can Post Comments to this page with links to things that you find inspirational or worshipful.

Ever wondered how to change the world with the thing you’re most passionate about? Watch this video to find out:

I read Godin’s book Tribes earlier this year, and found it enlightening. This video is a quick summary of the book by the author, plus his theory on a process for those interested in changing the world. He looks over countless organizations, and through history at movement leaders and then draws some conclusions. Why is it that Ghandi was successful in bringing about liberation and true change in India? How did Martin Luther King rally a battered and bitter people into a movement of civil rights?

It begins by telling a story. Frederick Buechner is quoted saying,

To truly tell the story of anything well is to tell the story of everything.

If you want to change the world, tell an alternative story.

httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=7091B281E16248EA

Want to see a visual on what we’re all about?  Check out this graphic (click for full size):

Chicago Mission Mindmap

Organic Economics

The Church has a storied past with how it has used its finances to contribute to the greater work of God’s in breaking Kingdom. The earliest church sold possessions to give to the needy among them, to support traveling missionaries, and bring hope to the hopeless. This was more than an obligatory tithe; it was an offering of love to the greater work of God in the world. They didn’t have a lot of the contemporary budget items like building maintenance, multi-staff salaries with benefits, et cetera. Their budget was lean in categories, but potent in purpose.  Read more…

The Underground Network is a relationally-connected group of friends, organic churches, and missional communities in Chicago trying to follow Christ.

We dream of seeing a vibrant family of Jesus Christ within close reach of every person in Chicago both geographically and culturally.

We understand that each person sees truth a little differently and that God has the ability to reach us all, where we are. We are not denominationally affiliated and we are not interested in preaching at anyone. We are an extended family that believes that another world is possible.  For more of who we are, check out our values tag-cloud.

We are a community based on the love and life of Christ. That means we are interested in helping people; whatever it takes.

We are an organic movement which means we are interested in using forms natural to our environment to achieve our goal. In this city, families and groups of friends meet in homes, restaurants, bars, clubs, parks, coffee shops, schools, and community centers; so that’s what we do.  We share life together, learning to be the church we want to see in the world.

Our main projects are urban missions (organic church planting, social justice), city research (spiritual mapping), and missional and spiritual formation (apprenticeships, coaching).  Check our mindmap for a visual!

We are not interested in your money. We encourage people to give back to God in ways they feel appropriate. Sometimes that means paying a struggling neighbors electric bill; sometimes it means buying a meal for a homeless person; sometimes it means sending support to a missionary; sometimes it means giving to our budget and sometimes it looks totally different. Those of us who are blessed to be supported in working with this effort full or part-time are supported by other individuals and organizations and do not gain direct financial support from donations given to the Underground Network.

When an organism is introduced into an environment for which it is well suited, it spreads like kudzu or a virus. We believe that the Good News of God is just as explosive.  An idea that changes our world, our city, our families, and our very lives.

Ever wonder what the OTHER Lord’s prayer is? We’ve all memorized, “Our Father, who art in heaven…” but do we know the ONLY OTHER prayer Jesus calls us to pray? It’s in Luke 10, and its changing the face of missions in America, and really the whole world.

Jesus calls together a band of about 70 disciples, and asks them to go to the towns and villages he planned to visit. Before they head off, he teaches them to pray, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few; so pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest, ask him to send more workers into his fields.”

What if we really believed in the Lord of the Harvest – that if we continually begged God to bring workers to the harvest field of Chicago, that he may answer that prayer in ways we could never even imagine?

I believe the Gospel is a virus, and one of its mutations is the 10:2b Virus. So if you don’t want to get infected, stop reading right now and forget you ever saw this! Every day at 10:02am my cell phone alarm goes off and reminds me to pray for the harvest workers in Chicago. That includes many of you. My prayers focus on the harvest field, for the people groups who do not yet have a vibrant family of Jesus that embodies the Good News in their language.

The truth is, since I’ve started praying this prayer, I’ve seen two things in the way of God’s answers: one, more workers – LOTS more people ready to be sent into their social circles, and two, WAY more harvest field than my heart can take. Gals n’ guys, let’s pray this prayer together. Everyday. Let’s just see what God can do with a network of radical followers of Christ ready to pray this dangerous prayer.

It’s interesting that after these disciples prayed this prayer, they went out – they became the answers to their own prayers!

There is a community of church planters around the country that center around this prayer online – check out their site: LK10.com

Pray4Chicago’s “flash mob” event was so fun, exhausting and a big success!  (see pictures above or at this link)  We plan to have these once a quarter or so, and continue to develop the website all throughout the year.  Alan has been such a great help in helping make this project become a reality, and many props and thanks go out to him and Sara for letting us host the event at their place.  (Read his thoughts on the event here.)

But the majority of time was not spent at their apartment.  It began with all the participants showing up to gain some orientation on what they were up to for the day.  For many, this was their first crack at prayer-walking, and needed some basics on what it was all about.

We shared some of our Chicago mission’s vision, gave some practical training on how to “pray with your eyes open” (something I was never allowed to do as a kid! ) and how to essentially see a city with God’s eyes.  We tried to be as specific as possible, but in the end, we knew that keeping things open for imaginations to run wild was the whole idea.  After a time of Q & A, we teamed people up in pairs, and sent them out to various city neighborhoods with maps, cameras, and journals.

Their job was to discover what they felt like God was doing in the city.  Different than other census reports or spiritual mapping projects, the goal of this event was to develop inspiration, not gather information.  Our dream is to see a vibrant family of Jesus in every neighborhood in Chicago – and then beyond that in close reach of every person in Chicago. So we need to know how to join God in planting a community of faith in each neighborhood.  What would it mean to be the church in Little Village?  In Lakeview?  In the South Loop?

The groups came back with amazing stories, profound discoveries, and changed hearts.  Read their reports here! I hope that some will return, I hope that more will get to experience this in the future.  One thing we hope to do next time is involve more of the house churches in our network in the event, as well as incorporate a more continued presence of prayer in between the “flash mob” events we do quarterly.  (The next one is August 8th – if you want to be a part of this, contact me!)

What if teams of people began walking the streets and praying for a neighborhood every week?  What relationships might develop?  Who might invite these teams into their lives?  Isn’t this how churches started in the first century?

I’m really thankful for each participant who gave their Saturday to this project.  I hope that it was as meaningful and inspirational to them as it was helpful for Alan and I, who now know a LOT more about these neighborhoods and hope to cultivate a community of faith their through the power of God.  May these followers of Christ never stop prayer walking, and like tilling the soil, may their shoes plough paths for other missionaries to follow them into these Chicago neighborhoods and plant a church in the midst of the city.