Graduation Sunday for Process Church

Three years ago Process Church had its final service. That is a day I will never forget. This is the email I sent to our supporters that evening…

Today’s goal was beautifully accomplished… brag on the good things God has done in our midst. There were stories of lives changed and lives challenged to see Jesus with new eyes. There were multiple stories of people who still do not yet believe but were thankful for a safe place to come and explore faith. The theme I tried to leave in each of our hearts was one of definitions. For the obvious reasons I’ve been studying the word “failure”. While there are many uses of the word, we only qualify in the most technical sense. And that is mainly because of how we allow the Scripture to define another word… “success.” I read from Joshua chapter 1 and was doing ok (no I wasn’t) until I hit verse 8… “Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so that you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.” Because that has been the work of Process Church from day one… we have been successful!

To give Satan ZERO room for impact… you must know that there is no scandal. I’m not running off with my secretary – mainly because I’m crazy in love with my wife – never mind that I did not have a secretary. And though money was never our strongest link, we always paid our bills on time and will somehow do so with the startup debt that remains. Our friends at the New Dawn Theater even offered us to stay rent-free for the rest of 2012 if that would keep us going. But it is so many little things that bring us to this moment. The beauty is that all of us know we did all that we possibly could to make it continue and grow and thrive. So we hold our heads high.

The question I am asked most relates to what we’ll do next. We (the McQuearys) will do what all of us now-former Process-ers will do… we’ll recover. We’ll find new places to worship and serve and learn. Most importantly we will keep journeying with Jesus. In all the important ways nothing has changed. Collectively we walk away from Process Church knowing that our Boot Camp is over and we are about to be deployed. I have a simple request this week. Pray that all of us will believe the truth… that will be enough.

Today’s pic-of-the-week is the visual I chose to leave in our minds today. Today wasn’t a funeral… or even a finish line. Today was Graduation Sunday.