Wednesday, December 31, 2008

2008 In Review

Well it's the last day of the year. It seems appropriate to take a few minutes and remember and reflect upon 2008. it was an election year, an olympic year, a "green" year. For me it marks the year that I pretty much fully embraced the internet and technology as a means of communicating ideas and staying connected with people. From Facebook to Twitter to blogging - and all of it happening from my iphone. I guess when I decide to do something, I jump in with both feet.

It has been a life changing year for me and my family. In fact, it's probably been the most significant year of my life so far in that regard. I know some people hate these kinds of things - looking back and all of that. But I think there's real value in it. Over and over in the Scriptures we are told to "remember" and "don't forget" the things that God has done for us. So here's my year in review.

In January we welcomed our second born into the family - Joy, also our second girl. She was so perfectly named, as she has brought us nothing but Joy this year (well, almost nothing but Joy if you ignore all the sleepless nights). Hannah and Joy have bonded so amazingly. They absolutely love each other. Going from one kid to two has been quite an adjustment for all of us.

In March I went through an assessment process for church planting. Kimi and I spent the better part of a week in Wisconsin being studied and dissected with a group of other people who were potential church planters. We left that week feeling extremely affirmed in our calling. It's the week that really started the ball rolling for what we are doing today. In March we also announced to our home church that we would be leaving in the summer. It was one of the hardest things I've had to do in ministry - that is to tell people that we had been called to something else and that we would be leaving.

In April I spent a week in Mexico building houses with our youth group and doing a kids program with a local church. It was a trip we took every year, but this would be my last. It was a great trip, with many memories. I'm proud of what we have accomplished in San Felipe over the years and I know that things will continue to flourish there.

In June, we graduated off our senior class, which included my sister-in-law Kandy. Kandy and her brother Tim had lived with us all through their high school years, so it was pretty cool to see them through this stage of their lives and be able to move them on into adulthood. We are proud of both of them and the people they are becoming.

July was my last month of ministry at First Baptist Church of Yucaipa. It's the only church I've ever called home. I closed out my time there with one final trip - our annual West Coast Missions Tour. We traveled to Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Oakland and worked and performed in homeless shelters. It was two weeks of bus driving, serving, hanging out, working, and just having a great time with students. It was a fitting way to end things for me in Yucaipa.

Then August rolled around. On August 1st I drove out of Yucaipa with a moving truck and a van packed with stuff and headed across the country. A handful of guys from my youth group came with me and we had quite an adventure. 2500 miles later we pulled in to Durham, NC. What began as a whisper from God more than three years ago had begun to take shape. We were here in Durham, ready to plant a church from scratch in a place where we didn't know anyone.

The last few months have been quite a ride. We were pretty lonely when we first moved here and we prayed for friends. God has brought several people into our lives here that have encouraged us, loved us, and helped us in so many ways. Hannah has a bunch of great little friends, and Kimi has absolutely flourished here. She amazes me more all the time. It's like something in her soul has come alive here - she is so good at life. She teaches me so much.

In October I started getting contacted from different people who were looking for a church community to call home. In early November, we started a weekly gathering in our home for dinner and bible study. We've had as many as 23 people here at once including kids. Over the last couple of months we have been studying the Sermon on the Mount from Matt 5-7. It's been so great to talk about the Kingdom of God and what that could look like in this community. We celebrated Thanksgiving in our home with our church group and Kimi's family. It was quite an event! I cooked my first turkey ever, well, half-cooked. Haha.

December has flown by. We officially decided on the name "Story Church" and we got incorporated with the state of North Carolina. We also opened a bank account and received our first ever check made out to Story Church. While not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, these were some pretty neat milestones for us.

Christmas came and we celebrated it in our home with Kimi's family. It was a beautiful 65 degree day here in Durham - reminded me a lot of southern California.

What a year it has been. So many life changes - adding a daughter to our family, beginning a new ministry, and moving across the country all in one year! We feel so blessed to be at the place we are right now as a family. Things are really going well and we know that God has been faithful every step of the way. We've had some financially tight times this year, as have so many others, and some difficult things as well. But God is good and we have grown a lot as a family this year.

The 2008 presidential elections were all about change this year. I feel like nothing could be more fitting as a theme for our year - "change". Thanks to all of you who have helped us throughout the year with your prayers, your friendship, your encouragement, and your support.

My next post will be a look ahead at 2009 and the goals and dreams I have for myself, my family, and Story Church.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas

We had a great Christmas today. It was our first here in Durham, the first Christmas on the east coast - though you couldn't tell it by the weather. It was a beautiful day today, reminded me a lot of a southern California Christmas. A beautiful 65 degrees. We are starting a few new traditions now that Kimi's whole family is here together. We did Christmas breakfast together (really an early lunch), cooking pancakes, eggs, biscuits and gravy, potatoes, and cinnamon rolls. We spent the rest of the day together opening gifts, playing games, jumping on the trampoline, and doing more eating. It was very nice, very relaxing. That's what we did. My friend Dan and his family thought it would be fun to spend most of the night in the ER. How about you? What did you do?

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Who's your Vivian?

Back in Yucaipa I had an amazing administrative assistant. It was one of the coolest things about my job there. I got to focus completely on ministry - while my assistant did all the really hard work of planning events, taking care of details, payments, transportation, promotion, etc. I knew I had it good, but it became incredibly clear this morning just how good things were.

One of the cool things about Story Church and the group that is beginning to form, is that there is a real heart for putting into practice the kingdom of God and the things we discuss. So in light of that I planned for us to volunteer at the Durham Rescue Mission for their Christmas community event. I went down to the mission, met with the volunteer coordinator, signed up to volunteer, got my packet in the mail with all my instructions and name badges and all of that. We were ready to go. Just one problem - I forgot to mention anything to my group. I also failed to put it on my own calendar. So this morning at 9am I suddenly remembered that at that very moment Story Church and I were supposed to be checking in as volunteers at the Rescue Mission. Needless to say - we didn't make it. So the first public project for us as a church bombed because I suck at administration. VIVIAN, WHERE ARE YOU?!?!?!

So today I will call and talk to Vivian and tell her how much I miss her. Who plays a role in your life that gets under-appreciated?

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Story Church

So I suppose it's time to put an official post on here about our church plant here in Durham. We've made some progress in the last week or two making things official. We've been incorporated with the state, we have a bank account opened in the church name, an IRS tax number - you know, all the fun stuff. So anyway, the church name is Story Church. You can view the website by clicking on the name, or go to www.storychurch.org.

So far, there are around 20+ of us including kids who are meeting together each week in my home for dinner, some hang out time, and a bible study centered on Jesus' famous Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5-7. It's been really exciting to see this thing take on a life of its own as it grows in such an authentic, organic way.

If you are in the triangle area and looking to get involved in a church, feel free to send me a message. I'd love to meet up for coffee or have you come check out our group sometime.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

A busy week

It's been a great week so far. Monday night I got to do a ride-along with the Durham PD. It was an eye-opening experience to say the least. We responded to calls about shots fired, hit and run, and a home invasion robbery. The officer was very helpful to me as he took me on a tour of some of the worst areas of Durham. He introduced me to some people who are seeking to make a difference there as well, and I look forward to how that relationship might grow. I had a lot of fun though, and I hope to do it again sometime.

On Tuesday I had lunch with a pastor in Cary who is leading a really cool church over there. We had a lot in common, and it was an encouraging time for me.

Then Wednesday I had coffee at a cool little place in Raleigh with Bill Cummings of Lemonade International. I encourage you to follow the link to his organization and read about what they are doing in Guatemala. We had a really great conversation and I hope to have many more with him. I'm looking forward to how Story Church might play a role in what is happening among the poor of Guatemala.

Today we'll head over to Duke Chapel and take part in a candle light celebration of Christmas.

Then on Saturday, we're having a Christmas party at our house and inviting a ton of people. So I'm looking forward to that!

I've been using Twitter for a while now as sort of a test to see if it's worth using and I've really enjoyed it. It's been another tool that allows me to get to know people and to stay connected with others. If you have any desire to know more about what I'm doing on a day to day basis, you can follow me by clicking on the Twitter link on the right.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Surprised by Hope Part 2

A while back I did a post about N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope and promised a second post later. Well, I almost forgot but some things I've been thinking about lately have brought it back to mind. So here goes.

What is God's purpose for the world as a whole? Think about it, that question is probably what drives the way you live. It's a question that Wright brings up as well. There are two common responses to this question. The first is what Wright calls the "myth of progress." This is the idea that the purpose of humanity is to continue to grow, develop, and improve our current state until we arrive at some sort of utopian existence. You can see that this idea is quite attractive. We are constantly changing. We are learning new things as a culture. Technology is advancing and learning to deal with disease and sickness and food shortages and much more. We are better educated than ever before. Many Christians buy into this myth. We are told, and in fact we often believe, that if we can just control things enough, this world will get better. It's the "hope" offered by politicians. Vote for me, and all your wildest dreams will come true (thank you Pedro). Things will get better, we'll all be wealthier, healthier, and happier. And of course, if your particular candidate doesn't get elected, then your march toward utopia has taken a serious hit and will have to wait for at least the next four years. The problem with this myth is simple really - it isn't true. Not only that, but it doesn't have any ability to deal with evil in the world. How do we explain new atrocities like what happened on 9/11 or the genocide of Darfur, or the rise of nuclear threats, or greed in America, or father's abandoning their families, etc.? If the world is progressing forward, why are more people dying than ever before of needless disease and poverty? More on this to come.

The second thought that many have to the question of God's purpose for the world is this: The world is decaying and dying. The existence of evil and the cycles of life and death show us that we were made for something other. A world without space, time, matter, a world of pure spiritual existence. This idea says that eventually we will get rid of our mortality and our physical limitations and finally arrive in a sort of spiritual state. It also implies that therefore this world will pass away and be destroyed. This idea originates with Plato and his idea that the present world is simply a shadow of things to come. This idea is also popular among many Christians. I think of the more recent sticker, bracelet, t-shirt campaign seen on many Christian's cars and selves that say "Not of this World." While the phrase is clearly biblical, the implication is that "I'm leaving this place behind anyway so screw it." Maybe not those words exactly. But you get the point. The material world is bad, the flesh is bad, and the non-physical spirit is ultimately what is good. Someday all the "bad" will be gone and we'll be left with what is "good." "I'm saved and I'll be leaving this place and going to heaven when I die." This idea just isn't biblical. In fact over and over we hear about heaven coming to earth and the two being united in the New Jerusalem. We hear of God's plan of redemption for all of mankind. Paul says that all of creation groans in anticipation of this event. So where does this idea come from? It has close ties to Gnosticism, which was clearly shut down in the early church. It's as though this world is at best irrelevant, and at worst a dark evil place (Wright, 90). It seems to me that we see strands of this within modern Christianity today as it translates into how we live. Let's take morality for example. If I buy into this view of the world then my goal is simply to keep myself pure and far removed from the reaches of the splash of the pool of sin. I think this is what Jesus is addressing in the sermon on the mount. He confronts the Pharisaical teachings of the law over and over. "You've heard that it was said don't murder, but I tell you that hate is the issue." "You've heard that it was said don't commit adultery, but I tell you that lust is the issue." His point is this - we can try and control the flesh all we want. We can avoid doing specific things. But that doesn't make us righteous! The issue that we must still deal with is the heart. In fact in Matthew 15 we see Jesus saying "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile you; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile you" (TNIV). In other words, it isn't the physical stuff that is bad, it's our hearts and how we respond. So the idea that the physical world is evil and I'm just passing through - it just isn't biblical.

So what is the hope of Christianity? What is God's purpose for this world? Early Christians didn't believe the world was progressing toward a utopia. They also didn't believe it was getting worse and worse and that they ought to escape it. "They believed that God was going to do for the whole cosmos what he had done for Jesus at Easter" (Wright, 93). RESURRECTION. REDEMPTION. RENEWAL. If God's plan and purpose for the world is redemption, how can we believe that He will in the end scrap the whole thing and start over? The hope of Christianity is that God is in the process of redeeming, reclaiming, renewing, rebirthing, and recreating all the time. As followers of Jesus, the one who put this plan into action in one redemptive act, we partner with him in the redemption of all things. We claim this world for Him, as we bring hope and healing to people, to the creation itself, and ultimately we help to bring about the very thing Jesus taught us to pray for - "Your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven." May it be so!

Friday, December 5, 2008

"Missional"

A while back I read Frost and Hirsch's book "The Shaping of Things to Come." If you are in to dialogue about the church and it's mission, I can't recommend this book any higher. I came across this video today over at the "Out of Ur" blog (there's a link on the side of my blog) from one of the book's authors discussing what it means to be "missional." It's about a three minute video, well worth your time if you think about these kinds of things. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Baby Lauren

Some of you have heard about baby Lauren. She is the daughter of our friends Dan and Rebecca Browne. Today was a long day for the family as Lauren had yet another surgery. Please keep them in your prayers. To read more about Lauren's story you can check out my friend Dan's blog by clicking over on the right side of my blog.

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