Wild Goose Chase

Hello from Seattle. We find ourselves at the beginning of a very exciting season. After a year of cleaning houses, making delicious coffee at the Green Bean, and teaching the art of beading to little kids, Cherie will soon began work on a master’s degree in counseling at Mars Hill Graduate School. I recently completed a one-year internship at a young church called Sanctuary in the Greenwood neighborhood of Seattle. I am now doing something called a “residency” in my church denomination. During the residency, I will continue doing ministry at Sanctuary half-time, while with the rest of my time I begin to identify and explore the who, what, and where of a new church in Seattle.

They call what I am doing “church planting.”
They call me a “church planter.”
But let me tell you what I’m really doing…

I am on a wild goose chase.

While the origin of the motif – whether born of the ancient Celtic Christians (400ish AD) or George MacLeod of the Iona Community almost 15 centuries later – has been debated, and likely over many-a-pint of Guinness, there is a tradition that symbolizes the Holy Spirit not primarily as a delicate dove (see Matthew 3:16), but as a goose in all of it’s untamed glory (similar, it seems, to the imagery in John 3.8). Yes, that same honking, unpredictable beast of a bird that is usually identified as the wild goose.

I am chasing the wild goose, the Spirit of God, wherever that might lead. This journey, no doubt, will be full of signs and surprises. It is the Spirit who will identify who begins this new church with us. It is the Spirit who will shape what this church will be and become. It is the Spirit who will determine the neighborhood where we will together embody the good news of Jesus Christ.

This new blog, “Awake the Dawn,” is where you, my friends, can get in on the thrill of chase.