The Jesse Lee Project is the tongue-in-cheek name that resulted from a discussion with a friend over coffee in spring of 2005.  As we sat enjoying our bear claws and coffee at Panera, the discussion trailed off as is always the case, to the slow and steady change in the way our culture practices its spirituality.

A friend relayed a story of a discussion he had with a group of four or five twenty somethings that had made the very deliberate decision to step away from the church.   The general agreement among them was that the church was out of touch, irrelevant, and simply no fun.   In many ways they saw us as simply out of touch or outdated.

After tossing about their story, both of us agreed that it is sad that there are so many misconceptions related to the church.   The church is a fun place.   Passion and excitement can certainly be found in its walls.     We agreed that correcting the state of decline, will only occur when we change our impression to a world that is checking or has checked out.

As we chatted over coffee, a story that was told to me that was originally from Bishop Peter Weaver  of the United Methodist Church(a true blessing to New England Methodism).  It was the story of Jesse Lee.

For those of you who have not heard of Jesse Lee, he was a friend of the great American Bishop, Bishop Francis Asbury.   In the late 1700’s he visited New England and established Methodism along the Connecticut River to the farthest settlements of Maine.

Whether it is legend or not I can not say, but the story goes that Jesse Lee was travelling through New England (right about through the area of my current church in Chesterfield, NH) with hopes of building new Methodist congregations.    Unfortunately the further north he went, the less receptive the people were (This is not surprising as New Englanders have always been leery of this type of thing).   After repeatedly failing to gain the interest of locals, he decided to take a different route.

Throwing Caution to the wind, Jesse hitched his horse to a tree right outside of a school house…climbed on up….and started to sing from his hymnal.    As you can imagine, this caused quite a stir among the children.     Soon a crowd of kids joined him around the tree and joined in the impromptu sing along.   After doing this for an hour or two, he looked down at the kids, and said;  “Maybe…  I can do this at one of your houses…  I could give a service,…and we could sing….    Would any of you like to come to your house?”

With that all hands shot up.    Jesse Lee would follow them home, introduce himself to their parents and tell them what he wanted to do.   At first the parents would oppose the idea.   They would oppose the idea until they looked at the pleading eyes of their children.  Looking down at them their minds were quickly changed.   He would hold the service and capture the spirit of those gathered, and a new Methodist Society was born.   This soon became his standard operating procedure upon entering any new town.

While we were sipping our coffee, we decided that what the church needs now, is a new generation of Jesse Lee’s (putting aside the obvious taboos with manipulation of children, of course).    Perhaps we don’t need tree climbing clergy people, but we do need Christians that think outside of the box.   We need Christians who are willing to take risks, shake things up, and not get caught up in the same old ways of doing Church.  To borrow from a multi-million dollar marketing campaign from the UMC, we need people willing to rethink church.

We decided then and there that we needed a New Jesse Lee Project.   We needed to come together and share laughter, share resources, share ideas, and share the journeys that we are taking.  Maybe there is a new breed of faithful out there, just looking for that tree to climb.

We talked about the tools of a new generation (from Facebook and Tweeter to online media and person to person marketing), and how they could be applied to a quickly aging church.   We talked about what was needed to make ministry real and authentic.   We talked about fun, laughter and fellowship as key prescriptions.  We talked about laughter being the best and most effective form of evangelism.   We talked about taking risks.  We talked about climbing trees.  We started spreading the word.  

We talked about our personal journeys, and where we faced our own roadblocks.    We talked about how at times we are extremely proud to label ourselves as churchgoers,…and at other times extremely embarassed.    We agreed that too often we struggle, and can not find the tools, resources, or outlets for those struggles within our current environments.   

Having said all this, the Jesse Lee Project, began as a formal tool for resource among a small group of pastors.   At its peek, we had close to 300 ministers recieving a regular email distributions chock full of random musings, great epiphanies, and assorted pearls of wisdom.  Together, We figured if we couldnt find the needed tools that encouraged us in both our ministries and our individual faith journeys, then we needed to create our own.  

Unfortunately, as so often is the case, life happens.   Things got busy.   Somewhere along the way appointments and workloads changed, and our  efforts took a back seat.   The email chain slowly declined, and eventually other resources took their place.   To be honest, the real, day to day demands of ministry became more pressing, and each of us eventually agreed that there were other resources that made more sense.

Soon, the small group of pastors found themselves heading in other directions, and despite an attempt with WordPress in April of 2009 to revive the resource, it became clear that the Jesse Lee Project would not become the tool we originally intended it to be.    In retrospect, it wasnt the need for a new or different resource that drove us,…but rather the soapbox that the Jesse Lee Project became.  Soon, we decided that perhaps a resurrection of the resource was not where we needed to be.

Yet for those people who know me, you can affirm that I am the stubborn type.

I not only enjoyed the discussion, but realized that blogging helped me move beyond the weekly sermon preparation, towards a real understanding of my personal faith journey and the challenges I face along the way.    I wasn’t ready to give up on the whole Jesse Lee Project, because of the selfish benefit that I recieved from it.    So with the okay of the other pastors involved in the project, I decided that I was going to comandeer the blog for my own pursuits.  

Hopefully this will provide the setting, where I can not only work through the day to day issues of my faith,…but provide some value for those who visit.     The truth is simple:   I am a father, husband, professional, homeowner, part time gardener, chief landscaper, wanna be long distance runner, avid storyteller, and minister of the Gospel.    Even though I can easily point to all the labels I carry around, I have yet to find the balance between all.    Maybe by taking my journal from paper to the blog, I will learn something along the way…  (And perhaps other will as well).

So as you begin reading this blog,….Let me apologize in advance…   I tend to ramble…