Psalm 121:1-2
I look up to the mountains—
does my help come from there?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth!
does my help come from there?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth!
This has been a week of final preparations for the mission team's arrival from Humble Area First Baptist Church in Texas. Our church has never experienced a team of people who have journeyed from home to come help, and our excitement has been tangible. While it will be so great to see old friends and to make new ones, the single biggest anticipation for us is in seeing what the Lord will do through this trip. I sense it will be a pivotal moment for this ministry and will lead to many greater things here in Everett.
This was one of the few weeks where we did not meet as community pastors to talk about the plan for the week. There really was too much going on and we already had the plan for next week in place. Instead, Amanda and I hosted our regular monthly community group meeting here at our house, and we had 23 show up including several who don't attend church regularly. We fed them a brisket that had been smoked for 20 hours on our smoker and everyone ate well. It was a good taste of Texas! The time together was truly a blessing for us as we really saw the potential for our community group to expand and further impact our surrounding neighborhood. We now have a core group of people who are committed and are regularly inviting neighbors to church, as we are.
For so many here who won't go to a formal worship service, meeting in someone's home has a certain appeal to it. The real beauty of it is that we can do anything in our house that we would do in a worship service, and the Lord shows up wherever we happen to be meeting. We plan to use this time to open the Word, discuss it, and hopefully deepen relationships with each other so that more discipleship can occur over the course of the week. While I don't know long-term what the Lord will do with this group, I do know the potential that exists within our own neighborhood to develop and grow disciples in Christ.
With that in mind, our next major event with the Community Group will occur on the night of August 23rd, when we host our first block party as a Community Group. We have canvassed our neighborhood and spoken to many people about it and there is a lot of excitement. It is our hope that many will come to this and experience a good time, but we also will be planting some seeds at this event in the hope that people might want to begin coming to our Community Group and be willing to study the Word with us.
Now back to the mission team from Texas. We have many plans for the team this week! By day we will do prayer walking and street evangelism in Everett. In the afternoon we will host some barbecue events for the families at Family Tree Apartments, and by evening we will run a vacation Bible school for kids in the area. Other churches do VBS events here, but they are not as prevalent as they are in Texas. The barbecue events are an effort to reach out to families at Family Tree and connect them with us, the body of Christ. And street evangelism is always interesting because you never quite know what to expect. The Lord is in all of these things though, and we're going for a long-term impact in Everett.
This was one of the few weeks where we did not meet as community pastors to talk about the plan for the week. There really was too much going on and we already had the plan for next week in place. Instead, Amanda and I hosted our regular monthly community group meeting here at our house, and we had 23 show up including several who don't attend church regularly. We fed them a brisket that had been smoked for 20 hours on our smoker and everyone ate well. It was a good taste of Texas! The time together was truly a blessing for us as we really saw the potential for our community group to expand and further impact our surrounding neighborhood. We now have a core group of people who are committed and are regularly inviting neighbors to church, as we are.
For so many here who won't go to a formal worship service, meeting in someone's home has a certain appeal to it. The real beauty of it is that we can do anything in our house that we would do in a worship service, and the Lord shows up wherever we happen to be meeting. We plan to use this time to open the Word, discuss it, and hopefully deepen relationships with each other so that more discipleship can occur over the course of the week. While I don't know long-term what the Lord will do with this group, I do know the potential that exists within our own neighborhood to develop and grow disciples in Christ.
With that in mind, our next major event with the Community Group will occur on the night of August 23rd, when we host our first block party as a Community Group. We have canvassed our neighborhood and spoken to many people about it and there is a lot of excitement. It is our hope that many will come to this and experience a good time, but we also will be planting some seeds at this event in the hope that people might want to begin coming to our Community Group and be willing to study the Word with us.
Now back to the mission team from Texas. We have many plans for the team this week! By day we will do prayer walking and street evangelism in Everett. In the afternoon we will host some barbecue events for the families at Family Tree Apartments, and by evening we will run a vacation Bible school for kids in the area. Other churches do VBS events here, but they are not as prevalent as they are in Texas. The barbecue events are an effort to reach out to families at Family Tree and connect them with us, the body of Christ. And street evangelism is always interesting because you never quite know what to expect. The Lord is in all of these things though, and we're going for a long-term impact in Everett.
When we are on the streets we will be wearing shirts with this simple question. It is quite likely that these will get a response here, both positive and negative.
I personally have had internal wrestling this week. The administrator in me wants to make sure everything is done on my checklist of preparation for this event. What did I forget? What hasn't been planned enough? The pride in me wants to organize a great event and look for huge numbers to show up as a sign that things are working. The guilt in me looks at how I have done things in the past and wonders if I have over-planned and over-thought things. But the Lord's spirit spoke very clearly to me last Saturday. He said "Paul, you have done everything I have asked you to do to put this trip together. Now, step back and let Me do what I will do."
Psalm 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God!
I will be honored by every nation.
I will be honored throughout the world.”
While I have head knowledge of this, the Lord has had to work on my heart knowledge. Throughout the week I have experienced periods of emotional numbness. You can call it the weight of responsibility, anxiety, or something else. I just have had times where I needed to be alone to think and pray, and last night was one of those times. We had just returned from Family Tree Apartments in an effort to canvass the community so that they are aware of everything that will be happening next week with Kid's Club. The effort was a bit discouraging because few people answered their doors and others clearly didn't want to have anything to do with any church. I will be honored throughout the world.”
After getting home, I went for a run but deliberately stopped at a park next to the water and prayed at a park bench. It is funny because I felt the Lord wanted me to stop at that very spot, and I imagined Him there on the park-bench with his arm out waiting for me to sit down. At the park I had another one of those very honest prayer moments where I just told the Lord how I feel and what I'm concerned about. I didn't have any clear response from Him, but I know He was there and was listening to me. I sense this is a continued piece of his plan for me to die to myself.
1 Corinthians 15:58New Living Translation (NLT) 58 So,
my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work
enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the
Lord is ever useless.
Later I ran on and went downtown to the library where so many homeless individuals hang out. I was able to pray at that spot as well and remembered that the Lord has brought us to Everett, Washington by His own plan. While I get frustrated sometimes at apparent lack of progress or at the level of sin and evil here, I can stand on the promise that we are here because the Lord of Creation drew us here. When nothing else is certain, that is the anchor that holds us. What a blessing.
A sculpture outside of the public library in downtown Everett.
Tomorrow the mission trip begins. Please join us in prayer for this event, that we would be seed planters in this community and that men, women, and children would come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Pray also that I stay out of the way and comfortably release this entire event to Him. Additionally, pray for the mission team itself that they would have strength in their bodies and quick minds that are open to what the Lord is doing in and around them.
I will post periodically throughout the week on this blog and Facebook so you can share in what the Lord is doing in Everett.
A Huge Gift
Thursday we received the church van that has been long-awaited. So many people in Texas donated to make this possible and of course the timing of it is...perfect. This vehicle will be used all week to get the mission team and church members around town, in addition to being used to move countless numbers of people from Family Tree apartments to our church site for VBS, family carnival, and our worship service. We will attempt to keep track of how many people are moved this week as a reminder that this would have been impossible for us only a week ago. The Lord provided.
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