Intentional Baseball Game...

Mackie & Seth, Rachel & Maria, & Crazy
excited Gene all having a blast at our
Intentional Mariners Game!

Most of you who read this blog know that The Pathway believes church is not a place we go, it's who we are every single day of the week.  With that in mind, we gather weekly with smaller groups of believers that we call Intentional Communities. The idea of an IC is not to turn church into a different location (i.e. a house or apartment instead of a church building or school), the idea is to create a people on living together on mission for God.  We definitely don't always accomplish our goal.  We still fall into the trap of church attendance rather than church as community on mission.  But we also get it right sometimes.

At least once a month our IC's are expected to serve or bless their neighborhood.  This fits right into our vision of serving our communities intentionally for the purpose of sharing the gospel with those we serve. Sometimes we do this in traditional ways.  Baking cookies, mowing lawns, throwing a block party.  But sometimes God gives us unexpected ways to serve.  Earlier this year a local non-profit organization that we partner told us they had a bunch of free Seattle Mariner tickets and that we could request some if we wanted to.  I decided to request 30 tickets so we could use it as an intentional opportunity to spend time with our neighbors.  It went far better than I could have ever imagined.

Our IC really embraced the idea.  We ended up taking 25 people total to the game.  There were 15 people that would fall into the category of lost and unchurched.  We invited 2 or the neighbors in our IC mission field or target neighborhood.  they both came.  One of the moms brought her 3 year old son, the other mom brought her two kids (2 & 4 years old) and invited her Dad, mom, brother and sister!  I was also able to invite a friend of mine who brought his wife and 2 young girls that Kelli had never been able to meet.  It was a great connection point.

One of our IC members brought her boyfriend and another brought one of his kids friends from their neighborhood.  It was amazing to see our community of believers intentionally start conversations with many of our unchurched friends and neighbors.  It was awesome for them to know we were doing this because we are the church, not because we expect them to "go" to church with us.  The work is not over.  The mission is not accomplished.  We are still praying for more relational opportunities and chances to engage in gospel conversations.  But this was a HUGE step.  Seeing our community of believers live with intentionality and to see our friends and neighbors engage was simply incredible.

Thank you for praying and please continue to pray that the Holy Spirit would move in the hearts of the 15 friends and neighbors who attended our Intentional Baseball Game on Friday night!