—RYAN

After talking in last Sabbath’s sermon about Jonah’s difficulty hearing God’s voice—or better, doing what we hear God clearly saying to do—we gathered after church to try to hear God’s voice together. We started by spending a few more minutes in the story of Jonah, asking ourselves how we are hearing God’s call in our lives and as a community. Then after hearing a few reports about finances and ministry, we spent the majority of the meeting tackling the one big issue: what to do about our property.

I asked the congregation to think about three options:

1. Raising a significant amount of money to do the urgent repairs (est. $100,000–$200,000). This would likely not include any cosmetic renovations like improvements to the bathrooms or the sanctuary. These improvements are urgent and essential but would not be visible to most people. It includes things like major plumbing and electrical, roofing, heat and AC units, etc.

2. Raising a larger amount of money to do the things included in option 1 above and cosmetic improvements. This includes renovations that would improve people’s first impression of our church and its ministry. I’m sure you can think of a few of these things yourself!

3. Sell the church building and move to a different location—most likely renting a worship space of some kind (either another church or a warehouse-type space or store front) in Hollywood. This would allow us to live off the interest from the sale price of the building (rather than the rental income that currently makes up 68% of our total operating budget) and be less occupied with maintaining a building and managing renters.

I’m happy to report that our members took these challenges very seriously. We have only begun to have this conversation but all indications so far are the we really want to stay here and renovate our building as much as we possibly can. One thing is clear: the status quo is not an option. We absolutely MUST do some work to our building if we intend to stay here.

The closing comment came from one of our new Elders, Brian Lauritzen, who challenged us all to keep these important issues in our prayers. So I pass his challenge on to you. Please be praying about our needs! Just in the past week God has already proven, one again, that he is ready and able to provide.

If you wish to talk to me or any of the other leaders about these issues, please don’t hesitate to do so. This is a wide open conversation and will require each and every person who cares about the Hollywood Adventist Church to get involved.

Thank you, once again, for being the amazing congregation that you are!

—RYAN

Conversation with N.T. Wright

A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege to speak to N.T. Wright on the phone from his home in Scotland. Those of you who know me and have heard me speak over the years know that Tom Wright is my favorite New Testament scholar and someone whose writing and speaking has deepened my understanding of Jesus and the gospel in profound ways. I will be publishing the full interview on The Hillhurst Review in a few days, but at a friend’s suggestion I want to share a short excerpt here.

This statement below was Wright’s response to a question about how the work of the church goes beyond simply getting people in the pews.

A lot of folk in the church have simply said, “Well, it’s basically the more people we get in the pews the more people we get to heaven at the end of the day.” And, though obviously, as you know from some of my other works, the whole question of the long-term future and the new world and the new creation and resurrection is absolutely vital—you can’t do without that hope, but that plays back into the present life precisely because the resurrection of Jesus. God has actually started this new creation project right now and when somebody becomes a Christian and starts to worship God in Christ, and join with others in doing so in the power of the Spirit, then things are supposed to be happening both in that community and through that community, in and for the world all around them. Of course the church has always basically done this and if you go back into the second and third centuries and so on, that’s the reputation that the church had: “Who are these funny people who go around being kind to everybody even though they don’t need to be?” And that’s how Christianity spread, rather than just the communication of great ideas.

Watch www.hillhurstreview.com for the full interview.

—RYAN

As we begin this new year at the Hollywood Adventist Church we face fresh challenges. As a highly mobile, extremely diverse congregation we often struggle to maintain momentum for the initiatives we undertake. We have more or less adapted to this rhythm by creating a variety of short term opportunities to grow in Christ and serve our community. There are new opportunities available along these lines at the beginning of this year, such as our upcoming neighborhood groups and the winter shelter, to name two.

There are also some long-range issues that we really must address. One of those is our financial viability. Each year we depend upon our rental income for fully three-fourths of our operating budget. When one of our tenants moves, as is about to happen in February, our entire budget is in jeopardy. In addition, you may have noticed that the church is in need of some cosmetic improvements, to say nothing of more serious infrastructure repairs. With every passing year these maintenance issues grow more serious. We have tried our best to follow God’s leading, which has meant putting almost all our money into ministry and outreach. Now we have reached a crossroads. Together we must discern God’s leading for the next chapter of our ministry together.

We will begin this process together at our Congregational Meeting on Sabbath afternoon, January 21. If you are a member of the church, please PLEASE prioritize this meeting in your schedule. We really need your input. Also at this meeting will be news and information about upcoming opportunities to grow spiritually and put your faith into action.

At the beginning of this new year I hope you will resolve to be more intentional about your spiritual growth, your service to the community and your commitment to your brothers and sisters in the church. I’m not sure if this is the best way to say this, but your church needs you right now. Actually, you are the church. Without you there is no church at all. So in whatever way God is calling you to engage, do it with all your heart and 2012 will be the best year yet.

—RYAN

Happy New Year!

We stand on the threshold of a new year, full of hope and possibility. Each day, in fact, holds the same new hope, the same fresh possibility. You might even have the experience of getting partway through a day that is going badly and saying to yourself, “I can start over right now and make this day better.” In that sense, every moment is a new opportunity to experience the goodness that God has for us, which is all around us if we have the eyes to see it.

But in a special way, the new year holds out new hope. Whether you make official resolutions for yourself or just think about the way you’d like this year to be different than the last, the turning of the calendar gives us a chance to think in new ways about our life. I hope you’ve had time this past week to reflect on the past year and the ways God has led you. As you look back over the joys and the sorrows, I hope you can trace the hand of God leading you, comforting you, rejoicing with you. I hope perhaps you see evidence of a deeper commitment to Jesus’ way than you had last year.

As we look ahead to 2012 there is a great deal that is unclear. We don’t know much about what this new year will bring. What we do know is that God has come among us in the person of Jesus. By God’s Spirit, Jesus is among us still and the future is in his hands. As we look forward to this coming year together, please join me in praying for our congregation and our future together!

—RYAN

There are just a few weeks left in this year. Many of you will soon be traveling for the holidays, enjoying time with your family and friends. I pray that you will have a joyful and peaceful Christmas and New Year, wherever the holidays may find you.

As we face a new calendar year several challenges loom large in front of us. Most of these are the same challenges we’ve been diligently addressing for nearly seven years. Nonetheless, it’s important that we meet together as a church family to think and work together on our future as we enter 2012. To that end I’ve scheduled a Congregational Meeting for January 21, 2012. That’s a Sabbath afternoon. We’ll provide a light lunch in the Community Chapel and then have a conversation together about our life together and the direction God is leading us. Stay tuned for some of the themes we’ll be talking about at that meeting.

One thing we can all look forward to in the New Year is small groups. We are now working on ways to continue the experiment of the PODs with fresh energy and some modifications based on your feedback. I think this will take our congregational life in new directions this year. We will also continue with the things that have set our church apart as a progressive, spiritually vibrant community: active community involvement through service and and social justice, thoughtful and challenging Bible-based teaching, and rich fellowship in a diverse community of members.

I hope you will think this Christmas season about your commitment to your church—your spiritual community. How has God been tugging on your heart to use your gifts in service to the church and the community around us? Is God giving you a creative idea for service? Have you been challenged to support the church financially and just haven’t followed through? May God give each of us the courage to move forward in our walk with God as we face a new year with hope.

—RYAN

It’s hard to believe there are only four more Sabbaths in this calendar year and only two more Sabbaths before Christmas. As we near the end of the year I’ve begun thinking about how our congregation has grown and changed this year. Overall I would call this a year of Transitions. The church hasn’t gotten any larger in terms of numbers, but we have grown and changed—even matured—over this past year.

We’ve had five weddings this year and four babies born. This is a new development for the Hollywood Church, at least in recent history. It’s remarkable to witness God bringing people together and growing the families of our church. It’s been such a joy for me to share those moments with you.

It’s also been a year of people moving to other parts of the country. In the process of these life changes we have lost some significant leaders. Even if that loss is just temporary we definitely feel it each and every week. At the same time God has brought new members and leaders to our church. As we have come to expect with God, these developments happen “just in time!” One daily reminder of these transitions is our church staff. With the exception of me, our entire staff as changed in the past year. Vienna just celebrated her first anniversary on the church staff. Dannon is our newest addition, replacing Scott, and Syd replaced Nathan back in July.

In the midst of these times of change we shared in some wonderful times of ministry together. Our garden has grown and developed and our second class graduated. We conducted a first round of small groups we called PODs. We developed some lasting relationships with our Muslim friends at the Islamic Center through our Standing Together group and had a deeply meaningful September 11 commemoration service with Imam Jihad Turk. We’ve organized to hold banks accountable for the financial crisis we’re still living through, and we have had literally dozens of opportunities to serve our community and our neighbors in partnerships around the city.

In the coming weeks I will be sharing in this space some of the thoughts about where God is leading us this coming year. May there be fruitful times of reflection for you in these coming weeks that would cause you to be grateful for all that God has done!

—RYAN

One of the great challenges of reading the Bible in our time—thousands of  years removed from the events and the authors—is that so much has changed. The greater the distance, the more likely we are to read our our own concerns and values into the stories and poetry of the Bible.

For example, Christians talk about “good news,” and rightly so because the word we translate as “gospel” is a rough transliteration of the Greek word εϖαγγελιον—or euangelion—which means “good news.”  You can probably recognized the English word “evangelism” in this word. Evangelism literally means announcing good news.

And here’s the trouble. What is this good news? I would argue that the greatest difficulty we have is hearing the news of Jesus as news, the way you would hear breaking news on the radio or television today. What was the news in Jesus message? With this question troubling our minds we can more easily understand what was behind the message of John the Baptist and Jesus.

But John and Jesus didn’t make this message up. They learned it from Isaiah. Though Isaiah is written in Hebrew, not Greek, the concept of euangelion is present. Isaiah speaks of a “herald of good tidings.” What is the good news that this speaker wants announced? It is about salvation! This season of Advent is about the anticipation of our salvation. May God give us the eyes to see his salvation in all its wholeness this Advent!

•  •  •

This week Dannon Rampton joined our church staff as our new Worship Coordinator. We are very excited to have Dannon leading our worship ministry with his creativity, musical ability and passion for God. Please join me in welcoming him! if you have a desire to use your gifts in worship, please speak to Dannon. I know he’s eager to get you involved!

Grace and peace,

—RYAN

Happy New Year!

Even though we just celebrated Thanksgiving a couple of days ago, today is the beginning of a new year. In the Christian calendar, the new year begins on the first Sabbath of Advent, so welcome to a new church year. But let me back up and say a few words related to Thanksgiving.

I have so much to be thankful for this year. God has provided for my family, as I know he has provided for yours. We have everything we need plus a whole lot more, so we are deeply thankful. I am also thankful for this incredible congregation. I just can’t say it enough. I do a fair bit of traveling around the country and the world. I meet a lot of incredible people, some of whom remain my friends to this day, but a congregation with the warmth, compassion and power to transform a community like we have in Hollywood is incredibly rare! I am sure you sense this as well.

As you sat down with your friends and family this week, I hope you had a chance to express gratitude for the blessings God has placed in your life. The most important blessings are the people God has put in our lives, so I hope you take a minute and express gratitude to your family and friends—people who love you and sacrifice themselves for you. This is not to be taken for granted.

As we enter this season of Advent, and a new year for the Hollywood Adventist Church, I hope that you will pray with me for the coming of our Lord. Our city needs God to show up in more powerful and meaningful ways than ever before. Most of the time God choses to do that through communities like ours. So I also hope you will recommit yourself to this congregation—to being the healing and life giving presence of Jesus in Los Angeles.

We have ambitious goals in the coming year which I will say more about in the next 4-5 weeks. In the meantime, we need your support and commitment to this family as we move forward together. May God give each of us a fresh vision for his work in Hollywood as we enter this new year. Our most important challenges are just ahead and God is preparing us for them now!

—RYAN