I heard God's voice

Sorry its been awhile. I've been working on the only room of the house that is all mine. Its my library/guitar studio/fortress of solitude. Its great now...but no headway on the Pinto.
Anyway back to the subject of my epiphany. For those of you that care I moved to Omaha under the impression that this is where God wanted me to come. I have felt accutely that the culture of the US, if not more broadly, has switched from a modern one (dominated by certainty, clear boundaries, absolutes, & authority figures) to a post-modern one (dominated by uncertainty more than certainty, gray foggy areas rather than clear boundaries, a reality that is more relative to specific situations than absolute, & who will listen to anyone rather than just a few authority figures). I believe because of this the church has to change. The change I'm sure will come slow, but it needs to be led by a few churches in this generation to pave the way for change for the next generation. Anyway my family and I moved out to Omaha to hopefully plant such a church. I don't know where within Omaha, I don't know how, I don't know who with, nor do I know exactly what it will look like. What I am doing right now is networking with people and trying to be open to find wisdom from them, to find friends and emotional support from among them, and maybe bump into a few like minded people who can join me in this journey. God led me to 2 in the last 2 days. One of them had completely given up on the "institutional" church (I'm not exactly sure what the boundaries of the institutional church are). His believes that once a "legitimate" church is started almost immediately its primary purpose becomes self-preservation rather than love and service to others. Definetly some truth there I would say. I guess after a little reflection I would say I still think there could be hope for more "institutional" type church models as long as they are willing to make drastic and constant changes. One that I am seriously considering is being a bi-vocational pastor. I think drawing a salary from the church colors the decisions a pastor makes and keeps him from being completely honest intellectually and in other ways too. I need to continue to think about how to orchestrate a church to avoid the goal of self-preservation. I'm sure open to suggestions. The other person I got together with told me of their last 2 years of ministry under a lying, manipulative, selfish senior pastor. It sounded like a really crummy situation. So what is the common thread I wondered. I think I learned a couple of things. First, I learned that I need to start conversations with people in such a way as to make them comfortable to share their true thoughts and not just what they think I want to hear. What I learned about the institutional church guy is still a complete mystery to a fellow church planter who has invested in this man and doesn't know why he won't join him. How many times in the past has my own attitude kept those around me from sharing their true feelings with me? Second, I believe God is trying to tell me that the shape of the pastoral leadership in this church plant will need to be different than models I've seen in the past, different than that designed by an authority figure culture. One less concerned with power, success, & prestige.
Is that even possible? Is the anti-institutional guy right?

Bonus Movie Reviews:
Be Cool - saw it on DVD it proved conclusively that just because Uma Thurman and John Travolta are dancing and smoking cigarettes the movie won't be good. No story, boring unoriginal characters, I never bought that John's character cared about the singer he was supposed to be promoting in the movie. Just bad, a wasted night. The book must have been btter than the movie.

Sky High - GREAT movie. You have to be familiar with superhero culture(watch some of the 60s Batman TV series and a few of the recent superhero movies) to get some of the jokes which are really funny. It has a soundtrack of remakes of 80's pop music which was fun. It dosen't take it self to seriously. It has some "Kids in the hall" cast members as teachers at the superhero high school and they are really funny. Fun story and characters.