For those who enter into our community, there is a predictable process we all go through. It’s an individual, personal and nonlinear process, but it’s helpful to know when decentering feelings arise. This is completely normal. We documented this process to be like a map and help you orient yourself to where you might be at a given moment in time.

Solid is a generalized term for a framework of thinking where the church doesn’t exist for you and your spiritual growth, but rather, you exist to be used by it in order for it to keep going. This stands in contrast to the term liquid, where what we know as the church is malleable, by design, to serve the goal of personal and social spiritual transformation. A paradigm shift occurs when we can be a part of a faith community that is both for you and shaped by you so one day, we will be capable of being a genuine blessing to the world around us.

We call this shift the Transition from Solid to Liquid.

DETOXIFICATION
exodus of the deus ex machina

Often, people first come to our community because they want something deeper than what their experience of church had offered. Like many of us formerly in professional ministry, our experience of church behind the scenes was no longer helping grow the faith we wanted. Many of us felt a pressure or compulsion to feed the ministry machine, just to keep it going, while we ourselves were running on empty. Others felt their church experiences had become too rigid, legalistic, or superficial. Some of us even experienced trauma under spiritual abuses of authority.

Detox is the first step in clearing the toxins we inadvertently absorbed into our faith and practice, trying to live up to the cultural expectations of our former churches. Real and healthy belonging to a church has to be bigger than the dysfunctions of groupthink conformity.

SOBRIETY & FREEDOM
new conceptual landscapes

After detox, there is a new sense of freedom, like being sober for the first time. The dreams never realized in our solid context begin to feel possible here. We begin to explore parts of our faith previously unattainable. New hope is born about what it means to belong. This is also known as the honeymoon phase.

PERSONAL PLATEAU
settling into old patterns

Our old struggles begin to surface at this stage. The patterns of avoiding vulnerability and connection begin to show up in our new context. The disappointment that inspired us to leave solid has followed us here. Despite our best intentions, we cannot escape ourselves. But this is often a painful realization we will still try to avoid at all costs. We often find new ways to avoid facing ourselves.

COMPLAIN & BLAME 
nobody here doing anything

The previous stage of disappointment can turn into resentment with the realization no one here is doing anything – especially nothing similar to what was being done in our previous churches. Sharp criticisms are common here. There are no structures in place to keep us moving forward despite ourselves. Arrogant and naive attempts to fix what is wrong within the community or leave altogether are also common.

THE PIVOT POINT
personal growth starts with me

Something unlocks when I see my spiritual growth as my responsibility – it cannot be deferred to anyone else. No one will or can do it for me. There is no system to make it easier; in fact, the ease and comfort of such a system may have been what was keeping us stuck and not growing in our (more solid) church contexts. Here we begin to ask ourselves, what do I personally need to grow? Real growth starts when we start rearranging our lives around the answers we discover. The people around you are available for support.

GIFTS TO GIVE
initiating service and leadership

After you grow awhile, you begin to discover you have something to give. You have gifts to contribute to the needs of the community. You are strong and secure enough within your own skin you don’t have to wait for someone else to tell you to do it or go first. You begin to serve and thus lead.

FACING CONFLICT
staying for the hard conversations

Sooner or later, an interpersonal issue with one or more people creates a conflict. When the crap hits the fan, will you avoid it, push people away, or stay present with the tension and allow it to teach you? Will it be an opportunity for deeper growth or will it be an excuse to walk away? Sometimes by facing it, conflict reveals it is time to part ways and we can do so on good terms with respect, honor and mutual love. But we only discover such answers by going through conflict. We can’t get there by running away from it.

READY TO RECEIVE
becoming known in your vulnerability

For many of us, it’s difficult to be on the receiving end of help – especially in areas we feel weak or vulnerable. Many of us have never done it before. These are the parts of us we would prefer to keep tucked away. But receiving grace in these tenders parts is what actually transforms us. This is the original goal for which we set out on this journey. This is the purpose for which we exist as a church body. This is where spiritual transformation takes place and God moves into the inner chamber of our lives to restore our soul.

DECISION OF INVESTMENT
risking more for what’s most important

At this stage, we have built and are building tremendous amounts of trust for and with one another. All that is left to do is to invest more love, care, concern, hope, justice, compassion, affection, vulnerability and dreams into the relationships around you. What kind of life can we live together? Impossibilities begin to disappear. Hope isn’t wishful thinking anymore. It’s the path that leads into the future.

RESOLVE & REPEAT
as often as necessary

Go backward, forwards, or jump around in between stages. This is a nonlinear process. It’s not something to be achieved but something to be experienced. It’s the continued movement that drives us deeper into community together and helps us become one as Jesus himself is one with the Father and prayed for all of his followers to enjoy the same experience.
 
 

Kameron

Idea explorer. Visual storyteller. Conflict mediator.