Story Church lately...

We're almost 10 months old. I can't even believe it at times. And yet, in other respects I can't hardly remember life apart from this church that I love so much. I seriously can't believe I get to do this. Here are some of the things that have been happening lately:

• Growth. We've experienced a really fun season lately where we are seeing more and more people each week and more and more who are excited about making Story Church home. We think we'll crack the 100 mark sometime soon!
• A couple of weeks ago we had some visitors who came because one year ago our launch team (the group that helped get Story Church started) washed their car for free one day. Wow.
• Baby boom. More like explosion. Not that babies are exploding, but you understand. At some point I will try and count all the babies from this year, but in the last six weeks alone we've had four new babies join the Story Church family.
• Connection Groups. We've got three groups going now of people that gather throughout the week/month to just hang out and do life together. Love it.
• Amazing God stories. It's been awesome to see people give their lives to Jesus and watch them begin to be transformed. Never gets old.
• Baptisms coming soon! Sometime in November we'll be having our first baptisms as a church and I can't stinking wait. So excited to share their stories.
• Community. I was watching our people yesterday just hang out, talk, love each other - it was amazing. New people were headed to lunch with some of our members, others were sharing coffee and chatting. So proud of who we are becoming.
• Looking ahead - we are quickly approaching our one year anniversary. WOW. We're going to throw a celebration of epic proportions. It's only the beginning - the best is yet to come!

One of the other things that I love about our community is that in times of difficulty we get to come along side each other and lift each other up. This week my heart is heavy while a couple in our church goes to be with family who lost a baby this week. Please pray with me for Jeff and Sara and their family as they seek to be a source of strength and encouragement this week in the midst of pain, unanswered questions, and difficulty.

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Crazy Month

Time to shake the dust off the old blog. I've been pretty busy lately, here's a rundown of what I've been up to and what is coming soon.

March was a month of figuring some stuff out. We began to zero in on the location of our church plant. Our application for the school facility has been submitted and as of right now we are still waiting to hear back on that. I've been doing lots of talking with lots of pastors, church planters, and leaders over the last couple of weeks. I'm asking lots of questions and taking lots of notes. As we get closer and closer to September, my list of questions is growing more and more. We are still trying to raise several thousand dollars, and over the last couple of weeks some interesting opportunities have opened up that may result in some big time gifts. Last week my good friend Barry Rice of GO Church was in town and he spent the evening with our team encouraging us and helping us to understand God's heart for the church.

Our group continues to meet every week for bible study and worship and of course some great food. After Easter we will begin separating our bible study from our launch team meetings. We hope to make our bible study a little more public, meeting in a more public place - and make our launch team meetings a little more strategic and intentional, keeping those in our home for now. We hope that through our bible study we can continue to grow our launch team and be ready for launch in September.

Last week I drove to Memphis (750 miles each way!!) to spend the week with the Yucaipa High School baseball team that I used to coach in Southern California. They were there for a tournament and while it was a long ways away, it was probably the closest they will ever be to Durham. I had a great time. They gave me a uniform and put me back in the dugout with the team just like old times. It was a lot of fun. The team is pretty phenomenal too. They won the tournament relatively easily and are now 11-0 on the year.

This week my mom comes to town, and we are really excited to see her. She hasn't been with the girls since November, so she's pretty anxious to hang out with them as well. Thanks to skype, they have seen her and talked to her, but it's not the same. While my mom is here, we'll be taking a family vacation to Orlando. I'll be going to the Exponential Conference there, and the family will be joining me in Orlando thanks to the aforementioned Barry Rice. He is totally blessing us with a place to stay so we couldn't pass up the opportunity. And of course, being in Orlando we'll be spending a day at Disney. The rest of the time, the family will be hanging out at the pool and the playground while I'm at the conference learning about church planting stuff.

Along the way this month there are some other training things I'll be doing, as well as connecting with some more mentors and coaches. There's a possible trip to Arizona coming up soon but I'm not sure when that will happen just yet.

But the best thing of all - baseball starts again TODAY! Wish I could be in Anaheim watching my halos tonight, but thank the Lord for ESPN.

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Church Planting Update

This has been and will be a big week for us as a church plant. A week ago we sent out our monthly newsletter to keep everyone updated on what has been happening. In that newsletter we made people aware that we are still hoping to add around $600 per month in monthly support. Yesterday I got a look at our most recent support records and I was thrilled to see we have added $550 per month in support. Wow! So cool. This extra support is really going to help us as we turn the new year and begin forming our launch team. With that said, we will continue to reevaluate the financial situation for Story Church as we go and make adjustments as they are needed. But a big thank you to all of you out there who support us both financially and prayerfully!

The really big news though is that this weekend will mark the very first home group that we will have. I'm really excited about it and I feel so blessed that we have met so many great people so fast. We've invited 16 adults who come with around 10 kids. We'll be having a meal together as well as talking about the future and direction of this group. Pray for us in this exciting step toward what God has called us to do.

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