A Work in the Heart

Fall is on its way here in the Seattle area.  The leaves are beginning to turn and our morning temperatures this week dropped into the 40's once again.  Our weather continues to be second to none, but you can tell a change is already happening.  We have already lost almost 4 hours of daylight and the sun now comes up after 6:30 AM and sets around 7:30 PM.  Whereas people currently can be found outside enjoying the sun, very soon we will head inside to endure a cold and dark winter.  This reminded me again of our challenge in being here to plant a church.  There is a limited amount of time here to find people outside and connect with them.  Once they disappear into their houses, you might not see them again until next May!

 Sunrise over the Cascade Mountains.  The Lord drew me out onto our back porch several mornings this week to show me what He can create.  Psalm 19:1

Men's Retreat

Last weekend many of the men from EFC gathered together for the Men's Retreat. We drove to Maple Valley, Washington, a town pretty close to Mt. Rainier, and stayed at a resort with lake and mountain views. Friday evening started with some teaching from "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan, which is one of the top 3 most influential Christian books for me. All weekend we wrestled with the idea of what a lukewarm follower of Jesus looks like from Revelation 3, and were challenged by some of the more difficult teachings of Jesus including:

Matthew 16:24-25New Living Translation (NLT)

24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. 25 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.

Luke 14:33 New Living Translation (NLT)
33 So you cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own. 

Matthew 7:21-23 New Living Translation (NLT)

True Disciples

²¹ “Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. ²² On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ ²³ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’

 Left to right:  Shawn, Steve, Dan, Me, John, Steve, Mike, Mike, and Darrell.  These are some great men and I thoroughly enjoyed our time together.

We played paintball (in the name of the Lord).  Here I await yet another opportunity to be painfully gunned down by a fellow brother in Christ.
We were challenged by these words because the American church largely doesn't teach on them. We are told that we must give up everything we own but that it's okay to hang on to much of the silly stuff that we buy or pay for on a regular basis. Yet Jesus commented that it is very hard for a rich man to get into the kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 19:23-24), and here we are the richest society that has ever been on the face of the earth. Even the "poor" in America are among the richest 20% of the world's population. We in the American church have been blinded by success and material things, forgetting that the only thing that truly matters is a relationship with Jesus. We "honor him with our lips, but our hearts are far from him." Matthew 15:9

I walked away from this experience thinking hard about where I am as a follower of Jesus and about what He might have me do next.

• What are we supposed to do with this big house we have?  If I say this place is His, what does that mean for us?
• What kind of work does He want me to do? 
• Am I supposed to cut back financially so we can be stretched in our faith?  Am I supposed to give more?
• What do we do with our neighborhood?

Then I got to some tougher questions like:

• Have I given up everything I own to follow Jesus?
• What in my life right now requires faith?

As I got back to the routine of this week, I encountered a great quote from a church leader here in America. He stated quite simply: "attempt something so great for God that it is doomed to failure if He is not in it." Wow. That really challenged me and was like a not so gentle nudge to me to step out in faith as we look to plant a church here in Everett. I'm going to continue pondering those words for quite a while.

Determining a Vision

In this interim time of waiting, I have felt pressed by the Lord to ask Him for a vision regarding what we will do here. I have to admit that my initial reaction to "mission and vision" statements is one of cynicism. In the world of education these ideas have unfortunately been perverted as an end-all, be-all way of making a great school. I've seen many good vision statements in schools and school systems that the employees didn't care about or aren't aware of. Worse yet, I have been around numerous school leaders who disengaged themselves from implementing these statements once they were created because they had suddenly completed the magic task of creating them. However, vision statements have a real purpose when it comes to starting a church. They define things like what we are striving to be in a community, what we will spend our time doing, and what kinds of people we will work with. I believe that if leaders will sincerely pursue the creation of a vision and mission by laying it before the Lord, the world should look out!

For me that has taken the form of prayer with the Lord and writing down ideas that come to mind. I have a lot of great ideas on what a church should look like in this community, but the worst thing we could do is start a carbon copy of another church. That doesn't work because every neighborhood is different and contains a variety of people from various backgrounds and cultures. If we want stale and boring, we will copy someone else. If we want vibrant, different, and real, we go to the Lord! It is my intent over the next few months to jot down ideas during prayer time and gradually meld those into a vision statement for our church. Hopefully once that is created I will be able to take it to our church leaders for their input. It has always been my belief that the Lord speaks through your peers, and this instance will be no different. If I'm off track they will be able to tell me. While this is one of those things that is done in quietness initially, I'm very excited to spend this time with the Lord.

With this in mind, last night I got home from the service at EFC and just felt that the Lord didn't want me to turn on the TV and disengage from the world. Instead, I opened the book of Acts and began to read it in a totally new way. Instead of doing my usual thing of reading it chapter by chapter, I decided to devour the book in just a couple of sittings, particularly examining what the New Testament church looked and felt like. If you have never done that I would encourage you to do so. While I knew that their church looked different than churches of today, I was really struck when reading the book in a huge chunk about how startling the differences are. They didn't have a building apart from the temple, instead meeting in homes. Needs inside of the church body were known and dealt with immediately as people sold possessions to help those in need.  The apostles were invited to local synagogues in various towns and preached to large crowds, and people committed to Jesus via repentance and baptism. And on top of that it seemed that the Holy Spirit always seemed to know those who had truly committed to Him at the moment and He entered them when He recognized a changed heart. I can't help but contrast all of these things to the churches in front of us today, and dare I say, how we sometimes flippantly say we have committed to Christ by simply saying a prayer. Now that's something to really ponder.

I had time to compare these ideas to what the Lord had me teach on this week, which is on giving to your neighbor who is in need.  I suspect that the world today is skeptical of Christianity because often we don't appear to be any different from the rest of the world.  We don't care for each other enough, we aren't known for our love for each other (John 13:34-35), and often are blinded as the world is by ambition and the collection of more things (1 Timothy 6:9-11).  When it comes to providing for the needs of our neighbors, we would rather throw money at a problem and remain disengaged and separated rather than be like the Samaritan in Jesus' parable who interrupted his life to help someone (Luke 10).  This challenges me because, if we are to be different here in Everett, what will that look like? 

I hope that you can see as I do that the Lord is working on hearts here, mine included, and is drawing us to something new and amazing.  Praise the Lord who called this family to do his work, and who is patient in teaching a hard-headed person like me so that He can "make all things new."  (Revelation 21:5)

And on the 7th Day...

God rested.  It's that simple.

Our family is exiting a very busy season of life and has experienced tremendous tiredness over the last week.  We failed to follow God's commandment of keeping a Sabbath rest time and paid the price for it over the last week.  It began with us having to return the block party trailer to a location 90 miles from home last Sunday only to return home completely drained.  It further intensified for me with a very stressful week at work as the district gears up for the school year ahead.  I quickly switched back to my old way of relying on my own strength to get through the week.  The fruit of that is usually lost sleep, anxiety, irritability, and intense frustration.  Yep, I experienced all of those this week, and it was of my own doing.

I don't believe that God wants us to take a Sabbath rest specifically on a Sunday, but I do believe His word clearly indicates that one day of the week is supposed to be for rest and devotion to Him.  Yesterday we heeded the call and had a much better day of recharging and refreshment.  We had no obligations, nowhere to go, nothing to do, nobody to see, and no plans.  And in spite of the usual stresses of having 5 boys in the house, the day really was great.

Where did all of this come from?  These are further lessons from the Lord Himself as He prepares us for our current and future ministry.

We can't do it alone.
We can't do it in our own strength.
We can't generate "positive feelings" and have them carry us through.
We can't do it.

And that's exactly why we are here in Everett, Washington.  It's because He wants to show all of us that while we can't do it, He can.  That's exciting to me.

 

The grapevine on our back patio.  It has made so many grapes that we don't have room for all of them.  And it is a constant and visible reminder to us that we can bear no fruit for the Lord apart from what He does through us.

John 15:5 (NLT)

⁵ “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.

The Week Ahead

Next weekend I have been given the honor and responsibility of leading the Men's Retreat for Everett Family Church.  We will be studying God's word within the framework of the awesome book "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan.  It stands among the top 5 works of Christian writing that have been most influential to me.

The central idea of the book is that if we say we love God, it is evident and looks a certain way.  There is no such thing as a Christian that bears no fruit.  You may want to read that last sentence again.

Scripture indicates repeatedly that at the end of time there will be people who went to church and even did good works in God's name who don't make it into heaven (Matthew 7:21-23).  Why?  Because they never really knew Jesus.  They were just doing a lot of things and making a big splash (1 Corinthians 13:1).  Or, they attended church because that's what we do on Sundays.  But church attendance won't get you into heaven either.  Only Christ can get you there as he covers you with His blood and pays the price for your sins (Romans 3:25, Romans 5:9).

Many people point to that idea and say "good, I'm covered."  And yet their actions 99% of the time don't indicate that they know Jesus at all.  Chan puts it very succinctly:  if they suddenly stopped believing in God, you would see no difference in their lives.  The thing that needs to shake you and me up is that the Lord knows who are His and who are not His (John 10:14, 2 Timothy 2:19).  While we can fool each other, we can't fool Him.

This teaching carries great weight and it is supremely important that the men own what the Lord tells us about those who are His.  Please pray for us next Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as we study His word and come to Him.

Life in the City
In previous posts I have simply posted scripture because I believe it speaks for itself.  This will be another one of those times.  In the last post I described some characteristics of people who come to work with us to plant a church, noting that they need not feel that they have to pastor a church and preach.  This passage describes the work better than I could ever do.  This is what we must do in Everett.

 Jeremiah 29:4-7

⁴ This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says to all the captives he has exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem: ⁵ “Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce. ⁶ Marry and have children. Then find spouses for them so that you may have many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away! ⁷ And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.”

The only way to change a city is to change the people living in the city.  The only way to change the people in the city is to, with obedience and submission to the Lord, follow Him as He leads us into being involved in their lives.  To be involved in their lives, we must live and work among them.  And most of all, we must pray for our city because it is the Lord's limitless power that can change it.

May the Lord continue to glorify Himself as He draws people to Himself in Everett.

Intentional Block Party

Amanda and I hosted our very first community outreach to our own neighborhood last night in the form of a block party.  We put this on the calendar about 6 weeks ago because we just sensed that we needed to continue the momentum that would likely be present from the mission trip, and because we are getting to know our neighborhood better and better.  Over all things, our neighborhood needs Jesus and we figured this event could plant some seeds for the future.

I personally went back and fourth on how to do this.  Who do we advertise this to?  Our street only or do we expand in to other blocks?  How much do we evangelize during the event?  What do we say and how do we say it?  What role would EFC members take in helping with the event?  To what degree do we involve our neighbors?  As usual, God had a plan and we just needed to release these things to Him.

We chose to keep this particular event pretty low-key.  Being our first outreach to the area we wanted to just get our names and faces out there to let people know who we are and let people know we are here.  We didn't wear the "Who is Jesus to You" shirts simply because we didn't know how many would show up to the event.  Recognizing the nuances of our culture, it might be overwhelming to see 15 people dressed the same at an event like this one when you don't know anyone who is running it!

I was so impressed and overwhelmed at the support that the EFC team gave to us.  Mike brought a vanload of people from the Family Tree Apartments who were in it to help out!  They helped us with setup, takedown, cleaning, and fellowshipping with our neighbors.  It was amazing first to see so many of them step up to the plate, and second to see what they did.  God was truly at work last night in each and every one of them.

The event was a success.  We had good turnout and got to talk to many of our neighbors.  The thing I kept hearing was "this neighborhood hasn't done anything like this in a long time."  Others said "I finally know the people around me," and they have lived on our block for years.  We talked to neighbors who are enduring nasty family situations and others who recently moved in and are looking for community.  We had a good number of kids show up from around the area to play on our giant inflatable obstacle course and bounce house, and much kid energy was expended for 3 hours on our street!

I always reflect on these things and wonder what could have been done differently.  From a human perspective, I see that we could spread out and advertise more, particularly in the blocks directly to our east and west.  There are many people in those areas who are hurting or barely getting by.  We could involve more neighbors in the planning and execution of everything.  We could have arranged all of the equipment so that it would be easier to address the crowd with our sound system.  But the thing I come back to is that the Lord will do what He has set out to do.  While I am a sheep who doesn't always listen well or follow the orders from the Great Shepherd, He has the ability to do what He intends to do even if I don't account for every little detail.  That's the way our God is.  What He wants my family to do is to first lay these activities at His feet and ask for His presence in the event.  Next we are to plan as we are able to do knowing that He can either move things forward or shut them down.  Finally we have to go out and "do." I am just convinced that the Lord is in control of these things and that if I will just leave it with Him in faith, He will accomplish what He sets out to do.  I believe He did that last night.

 This was a game called "Paul has a little more energy so let's have him prevent the kids from running the obstacle course when they all run at him at once."

The titanic struggle between Mike and Paul on the obstacle course.  This could have been on Pay Per View.

What happens next?

I really don't know what our next step will be.  We have nothing on the calendar relating to our neighborhood in the near future.  I will be attending church planter initial training in October, and in September will be going to a training event titled "When Helping Hurts," which is about ministry to the homeless and how to actually help them long-term instead of just giving more handouts that don't have an effect.  I'm really excited about both of those things, and I sense right now that God just has us entering a season of learning and preparing for church planting.

Our heart is with planting a church right here in our neighborhood.  I have described the need previously and simply can't ignore the direction that the Lord seems to be taking us.  Suddenly doors that were shut and bolted are wide open.  People are interested in helping us right here in our neighborhood.  The Lord seems to be stirring hearts to come work with us.  There is much going on beneath the surface.  Based upon what we are sensing that the Lord wants us to do, we will be pursuing this end with increased energy.

What we need

The reality of the Pacific Northwest is that there is no hope without Jesus.  Period.

First we need prayer.  Pray that the Lord will give Amanda and myself insight on what to do next.  Pray that we'll leave our activities in His hands and let Him decide on what will happen with them.  Pray that the Lord will bring leaders to assist us, whether they rise out of our ranks right now or are called from somewhere else.  If you are interested in receiving regular prayer updates from us via text message, you can do so by going HERE.

Next, it is entirely possible we will need you and your family.  If the Lord can call us from Texas to drop everything we are doing and follow Him, it is entirely possible He will do that to you.  You might be in another state or might already be here in Washington, and He may be calling you to drop your fishing nets and come along.  We are praying for 2 couples who will join us in the work of planting a church here, and I believe it may be that the Lord is already tugging at some hearts out there.

Here are some things to consider in your life:

Do you feel uneasy in your current position or place?  Do you feel like in the near future something is going to change and you may not be there much longer?

Do you feel a specific tug toward the Pacific Northwest?

Do you sense God telling you that He wants more of you in His work?

Did you read something recently in the Bible that seemed to leap off the page and spoke to moving or changing your position in life?

If any of these things are things you are currently experiencing, I would encourage you to pray.  Just abandon everything to the Lord and ask Him if He might be leading you here.  You might be surprised at what He has to say!  All of the things above are components of the call Amanda and I experienced.  In addition to that He used songs that we were listening to and encouragement from fellow believers around us.  God can use anyone and anything to speak to you directly!

Your response might be that you aren't the pastoring type.  We don't need you to be a preacher, and it is very likely you don't even need to leave your profession or go into full-time ministry.  What we need is for families to move themselves here and live their lives here in the Northwest.  Enroll your kids in the schools here, attend community events, meet and engage with other people, and live for Jesus.  We need you to find one or two people whom you can disciple and live life with.  We need you to move into a neighborhood with eyes open to what Jesus is doing there so that you can join Him.  We need behind the scenes workers who can organize and move things forward.  We need people who will do Bible studies with others around them.  Above all things, we need people who will follow Jesus anywhere and who love people as a result.

Only Christ Himself can change this place.  You and I are privileged to be a part of His plan to bring people to Himself because He loved you and I before we first loved Him.  How great it is to be a servant of the King!

Will you join us?

The Classroom of the Street

The Lord continues to diligently teach and prepare me for the future.  I learned so much over the last week as a result of His patience with me and continue to sense that He has me on a specific path to a specific end.  In the words of John the Baptist, "He must become greater, and I must become less." (John 3:30)  I sincerely hope I can adequately show you the Lord's shaping and guiding hand from the last 8 days.  My head still spins thinking about what He is doing to teach and change me.

Last weekend I went with one of our community pastors, Steve, around downtown Everett to walk, pray, and talk about Jesus with anyone we happened to meet.  It has been great to spend time with this brother in Christ, and he and I continue to be surprised that our hearts are as one when it comes to street evangelism.  We just can't get enough of it.  We headed down to the Everett Public Library to sit and watch the world go by.

Currently the city of Everett has placed pianos around downtown as a form of performance art.  They are there so that passersby can stop and play a tune if they would like to do so.  Last week there were typewriters on many of the corners and pedestrians could stop and type a message to anyone they wanted about anything they wanted to talk about.  This is yet another continuing effort by the city to embrace and support the arts.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but we saw several homeless men taking turns at various pianos around town, and they were really talented!  We met a man named Ron who has been on the streets for several years.  He clearly has some church background because when we started talking about the Lord he began playing some old gospel tunes on the piano outside of the Library.  He easily is one of the better players I have heard in my lifetime and knew more songs than I could count.  Apparently he goes to the library and visits a website which videos someone's fingers on a piano playing various songs, and he has memorized the songs simply by watching those.  Clearly he is gifted in music ability.

We asked him the usual question about who Jesus is to him and he answered that He is his Lord and Savior.  That's always a comfort to meet someone who proclaims The Name boldly.  I gave him my card and told him that perhaps we should have him to the church to play for us.  I really hope we can make that happen.

I was surprised a second time on this same excursion when I ran into a man that I had talked to a week before during the time the HAFBC mission team was in town.  He was one who, when asked about Jesus, became very agitated and shut down my conversation.  On this day he happened to be outside the Library when we came by and he struck up a conversation with Steve and I.  While it was just small talk, I do believe he recognized me and was more at ease in talking this time around.  I will come back to this point a little later.

On Monday of last week I sensed that I needed to hit the streets during my lunch break at work.  The Lord has been teaching me to take everything on my calendar to Him, and I've really been trying to do that.  I have a simple belief that if I will bring these things to Him, He will either allow me to carry through with them or He will not.  I just leave it to him.   On this particular trek I was by myself so I just prayed for the city and for the people I was passing by at the time.  I also prayed that the Lord would help me to strike up a conversation with anyone that He wants me to talk to.  If this God can control my calendar, He can certainly determine who I get to talk to.

The Everett Transit Center.  Here one can jump on a commuter train into Seattle or various bus lines that go around Everett and greater Seattle.

I walked by a number of people and eventually found myself heading toward the Everett Transit Center, which is a large commuter train and bus station in downtown Everett.  I noticed an old man, also named Paul, who was leaning up against a wall while seated on the sidewalk.  He was picking up cigarette butts and placing them in an aluminum can.  He looked up at me and commented that he couldn't find his van.  A conversation was now started and the Lord was in it!

I talked with him about 25 minutes there on the street as others passed by.  We spoke about life, about how he is able to survive living on the streets with his van as his home.  I eventually got around to asking him who Jesus is to him.  He proclaimed that Jesus is his savior and I asked him if I could tell who Jesus is to me.  He was interested so I explained that Jesus is my Leader, the One who called me all the way from Houston, Texas to proclaim the Gospel here in Everett.  The man seemed to be encouraged by this and I was at the point where I needed to go back to work, so we prayed together before departing.  He then said something interesting that really got my attention.  I had just given him my card and told him that we'd likely see each other again when he said "yeah, I've seen you walking around down Broadway before."  It may sound very simple, but I was floored because the Lord seemed to be showing me again where He is working.



The Lord's Lesson Plan
I am beginning to notice some patterns in this street ministry that the Lord seems to have led me to.  First, I now notice many of the same homeless people on the street and in turn they are recognizing me.  People who initially wouldn't make eye contact or say anything, and even people who have said that Jesus is just a myth or have stonewalled me on talking about Him are now being more conversational with me.  It seems that there really is power in being available and being recognizable on the streets.  What a reminder that missions work is about more than just one-time events. 

My second piece of learning on the streets is yet another pattern that continues to emerge.  The Lord seems to continue to use me to encourage other believers around town.  Whether it is a couple who wants to find ways to boldly proclaim their faith or a mom on the way to the county jail to pick up her adopted daughter who was arrested again the night before, we keep encountering believers who need a moment of encouragement or prayer.  You will never convince me that these are just random encounters on the street.  The Lord is in all of them.

Psalm 34

8 Taste and see that the Lord is good.
    Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!
⁹ Fear the Lord, you his godly people,
    for those who fear him will have all they need.
¹⁰ Even strong young lions sometimes go hungry,
    but those who trust in the Lord will lack no good thing.

We're encountering PLENTY of people here who don't believe in God, but on occasion we run into people such as these who just need a word of encouragement to keep putting one foot in front of the other.  It is easy to see why:  this place truly is a land of contradictions.

Blatant affluence mixed with the down and out. 

God's creation coupled with legions of people who deny His existence. 

Bright sunlight and blue skies on top of great spiritual darkness. 

It is easy as a Christian to get discouraged here. 

Proverbs 27

¹⁷ As iron sharpens iron,
    so a friend sharpens a friend.

Perhaps my greatest lesson learned this week is a reminder of how much the Lord loves us.  Since moving here I have set out to do the things that I believe the Lord has wanted me to do.  At times I forced things and didn't check with Him first, but I'm learning to lay them before Him prior to engaging in anything.  Yet each time I go out to "do" in His name I have an idea in my head that I'm going to be ministering to someone and helping them.  And yet even in this the Lord turns it around and ministers to me by teaching, guiding, or making divine appointments for me.  As it turns out, He is the one who is ministering to and blessing me.

Psalm 36

5Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens;
    your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds.
⁶ Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,
    your justice like the ocean depths.
You care for people and animals alike, O Lord.
⁷     How precious is your unfailing love, O God!
All humanity finds shelter
    in the shadow of your wings.
⁸ You feed them from the abundance of your own house,
    letting them drink from your river of delights.
⁹ For you are the fountain of life,
    the light by which we see.

Aftermath

Unfortunately the mission team from Humble Area's First Baptist Church had to go home last week, and I reluctantly took them to the airport to see them off last Saturday night after our Family Gathering.  Amanda and I were amazed at how close we felt to these brothers and sisters in Christ after what was a relatively short time.  I could see on some of their faces that they also were grieved at leaving.  Several told me that they are currently seeking God's calling on their life, even if western Washington is a component of that.  Of course that brings me tremendous excitement because as I have shared before, the "harvest is great but the workers are few," but the reality is that it is a huge thing for anyone to boldly seek God's will for their life.  That's what separates the churchgoer from the disciple of Jesus.  The churchgoer attends church and checks it off of a list of scheduled events for the week.  The disciple of Jesus seeks to find where He is and what He is doing so that they can join the work.  There is a massive difference between these individuals.  Lives changed as a result of the work that was done last week including on the streets of Everett, in private conversations with parents of Kid's Club kids, and in the hearts of the mission team, including myself and Amanda.  God moved.

Sunset over the Everett marina.  The sun is finally beginning to go down earlier and come up later!

How do you pick up from a week of missions?  For me, that was not an easy thing.  I had to go back to work on Monday and had a very busy week there, as did the mission team participants.  I'm sure some got back to a "normal" life and things just kept going, but as with last year, I found that my life didn't go on as normal.  I found myself looking out the window wishing I were outside on the streets or spending time in discipleship with some of the people we had met.  Don't get me wrong:  it isn't as though I'm not putting effort into work or attempting to do a good job each day, but my priorities are vastly different.  I noticed the contrast even more because we spent a lot of time with the principals and assistant principals in my district doing professional development.  I recognize in many of them the same ambition that I used to have for building a personal kingdom, achieving more, and making your own name great and recognizable.  Some haven't realized the emptiness of that kind of thing.  They haven't looked up to see that they are on a road that leads to a dead end.

I guess the best way to illustrate my personal change of heart is to pose a couple of questions to you.

Would you behave differently today if you knew tomorrow that you would die?

Would you behave differently today if you knew that the world as we know it wouldn't exist in one month?

These are the very things that I think of.  No I am not dying physically (that I am aware of) and I can't say that I know when the Lord will bring time to an end, but I sense an urgency here that I have never sensed before.  Too frequently in my own life have I gone through one day after another assuming that there will be a tomorrow, that I can share Jesus with someone days, weeks, or months later because "there will be time."  My priorities were skewed.  So what are the implications for people around you if that sense of time is completely wrong?  What if your eyes were opened and you found yourself in the middle of a great battlefield with bullets and shells whizzing over your head?  Would you act differently?  Would you act to save others?

The spiritual reality here in western Washington is that the majority of people here don't know Jesus.  There is no way around that fact.  If you don't believe me you should jump on a plane and walk these streets with me as we ask people who Jesus is to them.  You will be astounded at the responses you get.  This is a battlefield and the shells are flying.

What is God up to in the life of our family?  Amanda and I are not sure.  We do believe that at some point He will lead us to plant a church right here in our neighborhood.  We believe the Lord will provide at least 2 families who will come with us to establish a church and lead it.  We pray daily for those that God is calling, although we don't know who they are.  We have people stepping forward wanting to intern within our ministry.  Spiritual mentors of mine continue to tell me that they see God doing something big in the next year.  Numerous individuals have stepped forward to financially support the ministry, and we practically had a van dropped in our laps within a few short weeks.  More people continue to join EFC Family Gatherings and engage with us in what we are doing.  Things are happening.

While it all continues to come together and while we don't see the final picture clearly, we know this:  it is God that is doing all of these things.  He just happens to have chosen us to be involved in His work.  We sense the Lord moving in the background in exactly the same way that we sensed Him moving last fall.  If you look back at my blog posts from 9 months ago you will see me saying the same things.  God is putting pieces of the puzzle together already, but He has not pulled back the curtain to reveal to us what is afoot.  That will come when He is ready.

Community Pastor Meeting

We met as community pastors this past Thursday at Dan and Jenn's house for our bimonthly meeting regarding ministry and where it is going.  This one was notably different and anticipated because there was so much to discuss about the prior week and what our next steps will be.  Everyone shared amazement at what God had done and how many lives he had impacted through us and the team.  When I looked around the room I saw tired faces but also recognized faces that wanted more!

We currently are working to contact the many families who engaged with our Kid's Club and Family Carnival events to see if they will plug in with the church in some capacity, even if they will only come to Community Group.  Our next challenge is in plugging the people in who accepted Jesus as their Lord and savior last week.  Salvation is only the first step in the journey of becoming a Christian, and if we fail to disciple these individuals it is possible that they may slip back into old ways of thinking.  Discipleship is a long process, so we also have to determine who will take that role on for the long term. 

In addition to all of that, we have upcoming events.  Our community group will be doing a block party on August 23rd as a deliberate outreach to our neighborhood.  The men of the church went on a hike today to Mount Pilchuck.  We also have a community pool party at the end of this month as more community outreach.  And, oh yeah, we are still conducting our Family Gathering services on the weekend.  This is a busy time for all of us.

 A picture from today's hike at Mt. Pilchuck!

Matthew 9:36-38New Living Translation (NLT)

³⁶ When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷ He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. ³⁸ So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.”

Our temptation is and will be to try to pull away and make excuses for not doing or engaging in these activities.  Excuses for this behavior are easy to come by, and realistically we CAN'T do activities all of the time.  We all have families to look after as well, and we have jobs to do during the workweek.  To proceed with activities will require prayer and discernment on all of our parts, and as pastors we will have to have each other's backs, recognizing if one person is lagging behind because they are wearing themselves out.  That's why Christ made us a body, so that each part would help out the other.  Just as your body will only function when it is in one piece, so it is with the church.

These thoughts are tempered by what scripture says.

1 Corinthians 9

²² When I am with those who are weak, I share their weakness, for I want to bring the weak to Christ. Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone, doing everything I can to save some. ²³ I do everything to spread the Good News and share in its blessings.

The entire chapter of 1 Corinthians 9 shows the Apostle Paul's drive to share the Gospel with everyone around him.  When I read it, I don't see a person who engages in some activity and who is well rested.  I see a man who was so driven to share the Gospel that he likely was worn out often.  He was on a mission each and every day.  As it was with Paul, so it is with us.  The work is urgent.

Please continue to pray for us as we seek the Lord's will for our family right now.  Pray for strength for the leaders of EFC, and pray that we would continue to sense urgency in sharing the Gospel.  Pray that we wouldn't initiate activity without first bringing it to the Lord.  Pray for those who are called to come here to work with us, that the Lord would speak clearly to them and that they would simply say "yes" even though they don't have all of the answers right now.  And of course, pray for Everett, that the Holy Spirit would continue to move and would literally be unleashed in this city.

A view of Everett and Puget Sound from the top of Mt. Pilchuck.

 

Mission Trip Day 5

Friday of the mission trip reached a fever pitch as we brought everything that had been done throughout the week into a central focus for the day.  This was the day that I had personally anticipated for many weeks because it involved so much planning on my part.

 This team sure looks happy for being so tired!!  I'm the owner of the baseball cap on the right.

We started the day off on the wrong foot as the kids just couldn't seem to get it together and get ready to go off to camp at the YMCA as they had done all week.  They were tired just like us and were moving slowly.  We finally got them moving and I drove them to camp.  On the way back I noticed that the U.S.S. Nimitz was pack in the harbor.  Several weeks ago it had left port and we had assumed it was gone for a while, but it reappeared on this morning apparently for some more maintenance work.  I sensed as I was driving back from the YMCA that the Lord really wanted us to put first things first and pause for some prayer, which is what we did.  The team went to the top of Rucker Hill in the neighborhood behind our house where we can get a clear view of the Nimitz and we prayed for the crew of that ship as well as for our strength for that day and for the city of Everett.  It was a very moving experience to circle up and hold hands with fellow believers in such an amazing spot.  To me it was also a reminder that agendas are for the Lord to do as He wishes.  Had we proceeded as planned that morning I do not think things would have gone well for us that day.

  
2 Chronicles 7:14New Living Translation (NLT)

¹⁴ Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.

After leaving Rucker Hill we traveled into the Silver Lake area near the church to do prayer walking and visit Family Tree Apartments so that it could be prayed over.  As we pulled in to the parking lot Amanda noticed several families moving that day.  Family Tree is undergoing a lot of renovation right now and is moving families from one building to another, which is a huge hardship for many of them.  We decided to go offer to help the people move.  When she walked up to them and asked if we could help, their response was incredulous.

"Are you serious?"

Yes, we were serious, and about 5 of us worked for the next hour and a half to move one family across the complex.  When we were finished they were nearly done with moving, and with as much furniture as they had it would have taken them all day to do on their own.

As usual, God was at work in all of this as well.  The family genuinely couldn't believe that we'd help so willingly.  One of their relatives currently goes to a church across town but doesn't attend that often from what I could gather.  She said she'd been wanting to find a church like ours that treats each other like family.  Another person had a somewhat cynical view about church from their past, but in talking to them I sensed that their mind had dramatically changed due to what had just happened with the move.  They also are interested in coming to see what is happening at EFC.  Praise God!  Through a simple act of His people he can still bring glory to Himself and reach out to those that he chooses to reach out to.  That is His work, which he does as we do our work.

After finishing our work, we went over to the main corridor of Family Tree to set up for the barbecue.  We again had a great turnout and were able to invite even more people to the carnival that would be happening that evening.  There were many people we had not previously seen that week, including some who had been at work on the other days but who were off on Friday.  One woman I talked to had several kids and no church home, and she agreed to come to the carnival to see what God was doing at EFC.  The family that we had previously moved came by to request 6 plates for the people who had moved her family.  She did a double take when she realized that the crew that had moved the family was also serving lunch to her!

John 13
³⁴ So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. ³⁵ Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

The pace only increased in the afternoon as we went to the church property to prepare the carnival for that evening.  We each took specific roles during the event and everyone set up specific stations and parts of the event.  As a team we had to lug the inflatable slide out of the trailer as it arguably weighed about 1,000,000lbs.

At 5:30 we began to have families show up.  The cooking crew began serving chili dogs, the snow cone and popcorn crew did their thing, and we got several to operate the bounce houses.  All told we probably had about 100 people show up to this event.  We had people from the neighborhood around the church show up also because they heard us playing loud music and wanted to see what was going on.  All of the food and fun was free to the attendees and we welcomed anyone and everyone to the event.

The most important event of the evening, I believe, was our ability to give testimony in response to the question "Who is Jesus to You?"  At periodic times that evening we shut down the rides, games, and food lines and myself and the other community pastors got up to tell the crowd who Jesus is to us.  It was a great opportunity to tell them our personal story, which no one can argue with, and plant some seeds among the listeners.  Many people there that night are not believers, so it would have been an opportunity missed had we just done an evening of fun without spreading the Good News.

I told the crowd that Jesus is my Leader because He personally led me and my family to the Northwest.  I was able to tell about how He had aligned everything perfectly for us, from our specific call last year at this very time to me wrestling with a new heart in the fall semester at Summer Creek, all the way to how God moved us here when we didn't have a home, a plan, or any money to make it happen.  I feel it is a powerful story of how God can move through a person or a family.  If you haven't read the earlier post on "The Call," I would encourage you to do so.  May the Lord receive glory for what He has done in this family. 
 

When the evening was over myself and the community pastors as well as many from the mission team were able to talk to people from the neighborhood who didn't have a church home, some stopped and prayed for those individuals, and the Lord used it to draw a number of families back to His side.  I really don't think things could have gone any better than they did.  Praise God for what He did.

In what was a surreal moment for myself and Amanda, as the sun was setting and we were wrapping up our festivities and preparing to clean up, two songs were played on the loudspeakers which the Lord had used as part of our call to the Northwest.  God can use anything to glorify Himself and talk to His people, and this was only one piece of how He did it with us.  Here's what we heard:

White Owl, by Josh Garrels

When the night comes,
and you don’t know which way to go
Through the shadowlands,
and forgotten paths,
you will find a road
Like an owl you must fly by moonlight with an open eye,
And use your instinct as a guide, to navigate the ways that lays before you,
You were born to, take the greatest flight
Like a serpent and a dove, you will have wisdom born of love
To carry visions from above into the places no man dares to follow
Every hollow in the dark of night
Waiting for the light
Take the flame tonight 

Child the time has come for you to go
You will never be alone
Every dream that you have been shown
Will be like living stone
Building you into a home
A shelter from the storm 

And the one-two punch of the Lord continued later with the song "Beyond the Blue," also used by the Lord in our call.

And wisdom will honor everyone who will learn
To listen, to love, and to pray and discern
And to do the right thing even when it burns
And to live in the light through treacherous turns
A man is weak, but the spirit yearns
To keep on course from the bow to the stern
And throw overboard every selfish concern
That tries to work for what can’t be earned
Sometimes the only way to return is to go,
Where the winds will take you

And to let go, of all, you cannot hold onto
For the hope, beyond, the blue.

I am still moved to tears in hearing both of those songs.  I don't know why the Lord is so good to me.

Once again, this mission team did a quantity and quality of work that would have taken EFC at least a year to do on its own.  It is quite possible that at our current size it would have taken us multiple years to achieve it.  Instead of that, the Lord used a team from Texas to do all of those things in a week.  All total we had 6 salvations, countless connections were made at Family Tree and in the community, and the Lord reached out to numerous people who were hurting and thought they were alone.  If God can do that in a week, what will He do in the next 6 months?  I guess you and I had better stay tuned...

Mission Trip Day 4

Yesterday the mission team went into downtown Seattle to do prayer walking and street evangelism.  This experience is always a pivotal moment for anyone who goes down there because of the great spiritual darkness in that place.  While downtown isn't necessarily dangerous during the daytime, one has to have an openness to the Holy Spirit and discernment to know when to engage someone in conversation and when not to.

 We met this man, who moved from Birmingham, Alabama to share the Gospel with people on the streets of Seattle.

As I had expected, our team did encounter many new things while there and were able to truly experience the emptiness that is there. 

One team was able to talk to a man who was clearly strung out on heroin.  He was in and out of consciousness.

Another team talked to a man who was selling marijuana in a park.

Still another team inadvertently walked into a coffee shop that is being operated as a safe place for homosexuals to gather.  They asked about the "Who is Jesus to You?" shirts that the team was wearing and they explained what they were doing on the streets.  One of the young men said he had attended seminary in the past but had parted from the church because he had experienced judgement from it.  He proclaimed to still love Jesus.

I got to talk to a Muslim man about his thoughts, and mine, regarding Jesus.  He was courteous and so was I, but we differ considerably on our views of who Jesus is.  Earlier I got to talk to a man who offered me marijuana, and he was hanging out on a corner with a transvestite.

In perhaps the worst expression of the depravity present in downtown, one of our groups spoke to a man about Jesus and asked if they could pray with him.  He told them that he would do that after he took "care of some business."  He then proceeded to get a syringe out and inject himself with heroin right there on a stairway in the open.  He then of course was in and out of consciousness.

To say these events were a shock to everyone is an understatement.  Ironically, there was a tremendous presence of Christians in downtown on many street corners.  What seems to have happened is that many have come to downtown after hearing about the spiritual needs present there.  As a result, the population there has heard the story so many times that they now either know how to respond to spiritual questions because they want something, or they are so hardened to the Gospel that they won't even listen.

This reminds me of the importance of relationships as we speak to others about Jesus.  If all we do is schedule events that are spread apart or are one-time events, we will not be heard.  People in the city know that there are teams coming for events such as this and they are not granting them, or us, the right to be heard.  Lack of regular presence equates to lack of caring in their eyes, and really, who can blame them?  If you have a family member that only checks in with you once a year, or if you almost never see them, do YOU believe they care about you?  Probably not.

If there was no other outcome from yesterday we realized the need for building relationships with those we intend to talk to about Jesus. We must earn the right to be heard. We must live among all kinds of people and live life with them. Jesus would have done if no differently.

We walked the streets and prayed with Steve, who is another community pastor from EFC.  This wall represented the Living Water to us.
 

The big news out of Kid's Club was that we had 4 salvation a last night!  Four girls in the group accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior, the most important decision anyone can make in their life.  We will now begin the work of discipling them, hopefully plugging them in at EFC for the long term.  That makes 6 salvations for the week, which is incredible.  Many more lives were touched and seeds were planted for the future.  The Bible makes clear that the Lord is the one who calls, not human beings.  While we want everyone to accept Jesus, it isn't our work other than to present the Gospel to others.