To all who would be interested, there will be an Anchor Core group meeting at my apartment at 10:00 am on Thursday May 15th.  Greg will lead a couple worship songs for us, we will examine another scripture having to do with our theology, I will give an update on plans for the summer, and then we will spend some time praying.

Come join us!

If you would like breakfast, I may be willing to cook breakfast for you if you are willing to show up at 9:30.  Contact me if that is the case.

This is one of those practical updates where I get to share what is currently going on with the Anchor.  One of the big things that is going on this summer is that as a core, we will start meeting weekly.  Which is very exciting for us to be doing!  The other big thing is that I am going to be traveling a lot to raise support for the church plant.  On June 22nd, I will be speaking at Hartline Assembly of God, to share what we are doing as a church and how we are following our missional calling to bear witness to Jesus, here in Portland.  In addition, I will be speaking at Waterfront Foursquare church on July 13th.  I will also be setting weeks to speak at Coulee City Assembly of God and Almira Community Church.

As far as fund raising, we are raising in two ways.  The first is funding for the church plant, so we can keep the website going, so we can buy supplies, have some Bibles, look towards renting an area to meet, those sorts of things.  Secondly, I am hoping to raise some monthly support so that I don’t have to work on a full time basis while doing the church plant.

Please be praying that God would be bringing people who would like to support us and me.  If you are interested in supporting us financially by making a gift, email me at bryan@anchorpdx.org and I can give you directions.  If you would like to have me come and share at your church, I will also be available to do that as well, and you can also send me an email about that.

We also appreciate your support through prayer, and would love to hear from you, by leaving a comment or whatever on the site.

Blessings on behalf of the Anchor team,
Bryan Dormaier

I love how this topic comes up over and over. People like to ask “Is the gospel primarily word or deed?”

I think the next time someone asks me that question, I am just going to respond

“Yes.”

It really is sickening to me that people feel such a need to split these two components. I keep hearing arguments about how what the poor really need is just the Word of God(by which most mean the Bible, not Jesus, the true Word of God). I hear others is reaction to that person say “all they really need is bread.” And the worst part is that I’m not just hearing this from younger Christians who don’t know better, this argument is coming from older Christians, people who in my estimation should be able to figure out the difference.

I think of the book of James where it says if you tell people “hey Jesus loves you, be warm, have some food” but don’t provide them with something to help them stay warm or something to eat that you have a pretty terrible faith. And yet we don’t think this way of the need to follow through in our proclamation. James goes this far with it: “faith without works is dead.”

Dead

Dead as a doornail.

It ain’t worth anything if it’s not bringing about works as well.

So to those trying to say that the gospel is just something that is proclaimed by word, please stop.
To those trying to say the gospel is just about how we live and is proclaimed only by deed, please stop.

The gospel is, was and will be a message that changes our entire lives, a message that calls us to change our actions to bear witness to the reality of Christ’s work to bring about healing to a creation wrecked by sin. It takes individuals realizing their sinfulness and that they need Jesus. And then living in light of the change he is doing in their life, and it happens by how they live and by how they speak.

Yesterday, I found myself in multiple conversations focusing on church discipline.  It is very interesting, right now there is a lot of aversion to the idea of discipline in the church.  For what it’s worth, we don’t like submitting at all to people, or allowing authority over us.

It seems many times church discipline is only about behavior control.  The church has not done a good job of showing itself to be the healing community God intended it to be.  So when we lose this mentality that the church is to be about healing, church discipline becomes just about who is in power.  I know that if I know someone really cares about me, I will be willing to listen to what they have to say, even if it is very hard.  I know that many times I have been on the opposite side too, that I have been the one in a corrective place and I’m scared to death of injuring someone more than need be.

I don’t intend this to be a long entry, I just wanted to reflect on how church discipline can be a very good thing when it is done for the sake of healing rather than as a grasp for power, or as behavior modification.  It seems like this can go right along with the desire that Jeff was stating(in the entry before this one) about having a spiritual mentor, a Mr. Miyagi.  I actually see a lot of comparison between mentoring and rightly done church discipline in that they go hand in hand with each other.

How does a church do this sort of discipline/mentoring? 
Do you have any examples in your own experience? 
If you don’t, what do you feel would need to be in place for you to be trusting about it?

So I was bored the other day and started watching the Karate Kid on TV. I had seen it years ago, but thought I would rewatch it to see if it still held up. The movie overall held up, although it does have its ridiculous scenes that could only come out of the 80s.

One thing that stood out to me though, was Mr. Miyagi’s character and how he took Daniel in to teach him self confidence and treated him like his own son. Daniel learned from Mr. Miyagi by more or less living with him and doing seemingly monotonous house hold chores. The wax-on, wax-off was really learning the technique of a certain kind of block. Same with painting the house, etc. Daniel doesn’t see the benefit in those household chores, until he begins to learn martial arts.

So when I watched this movie, I had an overwhelming sense that I need to find a spiritual Mr. Miyagi. Someone more mature that can teach and reprove through normal tasks of everyday life. Almost like a father, but different. I think that it is true that we don’t respect our elders, both physically and spiritually. Our elders really can teach us things we can’t learn on our own. I think this is at the heart of discipleship. For us to have a Spiritual Mr. Miyagi to help guide us through our spiritual journey. Eventually, or at the same time, we in turn can be the same role in someone else’s life spurring each other onward toward Christ.

Experience has shown and psychologists have proven that as we become more familiar with something, we are less and less consciously aware of our actions and surroundings.  So when we do a task repeatedly, like drive to work for example, we begin to zone out.  We can’t recall anything about the houses or trees on our block, though we are in fact still visually taking it all in.  Our brains efficiently and automatically accomplish the task at hand, ignoring everything else.

But, as we experience new and unfamiliar things, we soak in every detail.  Our consciousness of what is around us becomes much more vivid, much more intense.  Areas of our brains that remain dormant during everyday tasks suddenly light up with new stimulation.  I think that’s why we enjoy traveling to new places, why we put up with the stress of travel and forego any real rest to seek adventure for our two weeks off.  That’s why we can remember a trivial conversation during a first date three years ago, but have trouble remembering a lecture from last week.  The new and unfamiliar are what embed themselves in our minds. [Read more →]

I was part of a discussion in class yesterday that got me thinking about some things. It had been remarked that issues like fair trade, social justice and the arts are sexy issues for Christians right now, and that the consumer church mentality has brought many churches addressing these issues, because it’s what the Christian consumer wants, and it’s what will fill the seats.

I get torn in these types of conversations for a couple reasons. I absolutely detest doing something just to fill seats, if a church is going to do something, it needs to be centered in their understanding of the Gospel and how the Gospel is lived out. And yet at the same time, I have to hope for the best: that these churches are doing these things because they have been convicted that they are important issues that relate to living out the Gospel. I am not in a place to judge the motives of those who do these things. I do know that I reject those who see these issues as unrelated to the Gospel however. [Read more →]

Wow, it has been a while since I have been able to write anything on here, or give people updates.  To be totally honest, it has been a bit of a slow time, and I’ve been spending a lot of time making sure I’m caught up on homework and doing the student part of my life.

That said, there are always things to pray for, and I would(as well as the rest of the team) greatly appreciate prayer for those things.  Particularly the prayer requests to keep in mind:

• Further clarity for those on the team that are to be involved/not involved
• Connecting with the right individuals in the neighborhood
• Finding a good house in the neighborhood
• That God would raise up people who want to partner with our ministry in giving
• That I would get a decent job to be able to help support myself(particularly a job that allows me to connect with folks in the area)
• That we would find ways to partner with existing churches in the neighborhood

Thank you for your continued support!
Grace and Peace,
(soon to be)Pastor Bryan

A large crowd had gathered. Rumor had it that something big was about to happen. The nation, which had been under the iron fist of an empire for too long, was excited at the possibility of a revolutionary restoring them to prominence. He showed up, and he was greeted as a king. They spread their cloaks over the ground, in other places they were putting palm branches. Regardless of what they knew for sure, the word was that something big was about to happen and they were stoked! [Read more →]

Last night, we met together to talk about the Anchor Church, about our values and beliefs and approach.   We started by going through our values statements together, clarifying things that needed to be changed a little differently for the sake of the group, thinking about some wordings and whatnot.  There will be some changes coming to those, so look to see the values page updated in a few weeks.

We also discussed briefly whether it is appropriate to use the Apostle’s Creed as our belief statement.  The sentiment seemed to be that doing so was a good idea, as it allows us to have a generous enough orthodoxy to be able to partner with a number of different types of churches.  It was also thought to be important because it shows that we are anchored in church tradition: what we are doing is not something new, but a continuation of a movement that has resounded with people for 2000 years. [Read more →]