Prayer Update

Thank you for your prayers last month. We know your prayers are heard by God and we sense God protecting us, providing for us and blessing us.

• Pray for our family. Pray for protection from the evil one. Pray for good communication. Pray for healthy times of interaction.
• Pray that we will depend on God in prayer. We need Him each day. Pray that we will unite as a couple, family and individually on our knees.
• Pray that God will watch over me and my friends as we travel to Mexico City, Feb 24-Mar 1 . Pray that God will lead us to the perfect neighborhood to live.
• Pray that God will continue to speak to us and guide us as we move out in giving leadership to a city wide church planting effort in Mexico City.
• Pray that God will continue to lead us in our leadership of the Long Beach, CA Summer Project (May 18-July 7). Pray that God will provide about 7 more men to apply. Pray that our team will hear from God, be united in purpose and impact the city.
• Pray that the boys will be obedient in home school. Pray for the boys' ministry to their friends.
• Pray that we will not become selfish but will continue to serve, love and share with those around us.
• Pray that the paper work of acquiring visas to move to Mexico goes smoothly.
  Pray that God will guide us in renting our house, in selling and moving our stuff and preparing for the move. This August.

Thank you for laboring before the throne of thrones with us. You can view more up to date prayer requests throughout the month at: Prayer

Categories: Prayer

Students Seeing the Spirit Move

Our dream at CU has been to see students catch the vision and mission of fulfilling the Great Commandment (Matt 22:37) and the Great Commission (Matt 28:18-20) so that every student in the world would have a chance to say 'yes' to Jesus. This past month we are beginning to see our students take off in following Christ with boldness.

Danielle is one our student leaders and has caught a vision for reaching girls in the dorms and spends her time discipling many girls and sharing her faith. She also is a great baby sitter to our kids. The following is an email from Danielle on how the Spirit is moving in her life:

"Wow!! It has been an amazing week!! God is so great!! As you know Ryan became a Christian last Tuesday and Katherine (the other non-believer in community group) became a Christian tonight!"
God has been working in both their lives this year but the past couple of weeks God has touched their hearts. At the monthly gathering (of Fuel) God really worked in Ryan's heart. She prayed out loud for the first time saying, "Lord, thank you for Fuel because it brought me to you." After that night God really put Ryan on my heart. I began praying for her consistently. I shared what God had put on my heart with Lauren and Kristen (two girls Danielle disciples)...I encouraged Lauren to share the 4 laws (the Gospel) with Ryan. That day Lauren took a step of faith and shared the 4 laws with Ryan. She was very responsive and shared her desire to have a relationship with the Lord. The next day Ryan prayed to receive Christ as her personal savior.
That week at community group we shared our life maps (life stories). Ryan shared what God had done in her life and in her heart the past week. After Ryan's story, Katherine said something like, "I don't know exactly what you are talking about but I want a relationship with God." Everyone was shocked...Ryan shared part of the gospel with Katherine and told Katherine about this great book (4 laws) that explains everything really well. So Kristen shared the 4 laws with Katherine while everyone else in the group prayed silently. After that night I began praying for Katherine. I told her if she wanted to talk more about having a relationship with the Lord to call me and we could get coffee.
Today she called me! We met for coffee and she said she had been thinking about things since community group. We went through the 4 laws again slowly and talked about each point. She told me she desired this relationship with the Lord and ask if I would pray with her. She prayed to receive Christ as her personal savior and then I prayed for her. It was amazing!!!
This is what God has been doing around me. Thank you so much for all your prayers!
Danielle"

We are encouraged by students' bold faith in God. Our student leaders decided to cancel our weekly meeting and go to a monthly Fuel Gathering. This gathering is completely created and led by students. Last month you could just sense the Spirit's presence in this meeting. That night I sat down next to a grad student, Jacob. During a prayer time I prayed and two others prayed. Then Jacob spoke and he started off by saying, "Dear God, I'm sorry...." Then he turned to us and said, "I don't why I said that!" He continued in prayer, "God I'm sorry I haven't believed in you." After the prayer I asked him if he wanted to know God. Then I turned to his fellow grad student, Martin (who I just met that night) and asked him to explain to Jacob how to come into a relationship with God. Right there during the last song at the Gathering Jacob came to know Jesus.

Every time I talk to Jacob I can see the Spirit working in him. He told me this past month was amazing. He feels God is giving him many opportunities to tell people about his new relationship with Christ. Jacob has been a believer for less than a month and he is already beginning to fulfill the Great Commandment and Great Commission.

These three students are only three of the six that have come to know Jesus in the past 4 weeks. There is no doubt that when followers of Jesus take His commands and commission seriously there is a supernatural outpouring of God's Spirit. Praise God!!
Categories: Evangelism, God, Movements

I'm not sure I have it but I want it

I was tinking around on the internet and I found this article on Apostolic Passion by Floyd McClung from 1999. Man, what a challenge. When I read it I find myself wanting this passion but at the same time wanting my comforts. I am challenged and drawn to it. Mostly I want the Lord to renew my heart and give me this holy passion.

"I know when apostolic passion has died in my heart. It happens when I don't spend my quiet time dreaming of the time when Jesus will be worshiped in languages that aren't yet heard in heaven. I know it's missing from my life when I sing about heaven, but live as if earth is my home. Apostolic passion is dead in my heart when I dream more about sports, toys, places to go and people to see, than I do about the nations worshiping Jesus."

Where are you living? In Apostolic Passion? Maybe you're like me, wanting more out of life and ministry. Let's go for it.

Categories: Movements, Missions, God

Heading out tomorrow

Tomorrow I'm heading out to Mexico City to narrow the city (3 x's the size of LA) to a manageable size. I'm looking for neighborhoods to live in over the next 3 years. I'm joined with 4 good friends, Greg Schultz, Brian Krueger, Mike Elings and Andy Greenidge. Pray that God will speak to us, guide us, protect us and bless us during the trip.

We'll try to update with pictures while I'm there.
Categories: Mexico City

Final thougths from Spontaneous Expansion

I just finished Roland Allen's book The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church-and the causes which hinder it. I'll say I'm challenged, encouraged, fearful of what I have done, am doing and will do in ministry. Here are some quotes from the final chapter:

• The rapid and wide expansion of the Church in the early centuries was due in the first place mainly to the spontaneous activity of individuals. As I pointed out in my first chapter, a natural instinct to share with others a new- found joy, strengthened and enlightened by the Divine Grace of Christ, the Saviour, inevitably tends to impel men to
  propagate the Gospel.
• The Church expanded simply by organizing these little groups as they were converted, handing on to them the organization which she had received from her first founders. It was itself a unity composed of a multitude of little Churches any one of which could propagate itself, and consequently the reception of any new group of Christians was a
  very simple matter. By a simple act the new group was brought into the unity of the Church, and equipped, as its predecessors had been equipped, not only with all the spiritual power and authority necessary for its own life as an organized unit, but also with all the authority needed to repeat the same process whenever one of its members might convert men in any new village or town. Thus the result of the spontaneous labour of any individual Christian were naturally and easily consolidated and established within the unity of the Church.
• This spontaneous activity of the individual, rooted as it is in a universal instinct, and in a Grace of the Holy Spirit given to all Christians, is not peculiar to any one age or race.
• They equipped them and set them free; we have refused to equip them, and have bound them to the foreign organization of our Mission.
• We must realize that baptized Christians have rights. What are those rights? They have a right to live as Christians in an organized Christian Church where the Sacraments of Christ are observed. They have a right to obey Christ’s commands, and to receive His Grace. In other words they have a right to be properly organized with their own proper ministers. they have a right to be a Church, and not a mere congregation.
• For they must learn from the very beginning to rely upon God, not upon men, for spiritual progress; upon the Bible, not upon human teachers, for spiritual instruction.
• There is one other point which I think the bishop should impress upon the Church if he is seeking for spontaneous expansion. It is not that he should exhort them to take the Gospel to their neighbours; but that he should tell them what to do when they have made converts in their neighbourhood too remote to be intimately attached to their own body, or in case people from a neighbouring village came to them to learn the Christian Faith. He should tell them first to make sure that the new converts are really converts to the faith of Christ and understand the use of the Creed, the Gospels, the Sacraments and the Ministry, and then to send word to the bishop.
• To leave new-born Churches to learn by experience is apostolic, to abandon them is not apostolic: to watch over them is apostolic, to be always nursing them is not apostolic: to guide their education is apostolic, to provide it for them is not apostolic.
• The man then who would guide such a Church as I have described and assist its education must obviously get out of the way to give it room; because if he stays, or if he leaves some one from outside in charge, it will plainly not have room to move.
• It is not created by exhortation. It springs up unbidden. Where men see it they covet it, and when the converts of the older missions see it they will begin to desire it. Desiring it, they will begin to seek it, and in seeking it to express it.
• The spontaneous expansion of the Church reduced to its elements is a very simple thing. It asks for no elaborate organization, no large finances, no great numbers of paid missionaries....The organization of a little Church on the Apostolic model is also extremely simple, and the most illiterate converts can use it, and the poorest are sufficiently wealthy to maintain it.
• What is necessary is faith. What is needed is the kind of faith which, uniting a man to Christ, sets him on lire. Such a man can believe that others finding Christ will be set on fire also.....It is to men who know that faith, who see that vision, that I appeal.

After reading it I realize there are many lessons learned from those who have gone before us. There are many things I have done and am doing that need evaluation. Do I do them out of comfort because I like to do them or do I do them because it allows the Gospel and the Spirit to best move out in the hearts of men? All in all, I want to live by faith. I don't want to build the work of the Gospel expansion on me. I want to see God move and respond boldly.

Categories: Movements, God, Books

The Emergent Church: Huh, what is that?

The Emergent Church has been a term to describe a new kind of Church popping up in the last 7 years. There is an excellent article found at Emerging Church Fad or Future?

I would encourage you to read it, grapple with it and see where God is calling you as a follower of Jesus. Regardless of where you land, where you go to church and what you think about this, God is calling us to be part of His Kingdom work.
Categories: God, Church

Josh on the Code

A good friend of mine, Ryan, pointed me to this article on the Orlando Sentinel about Josh McDowell's new book, The Da Vinci Code-the Quest for Truth.

Confronting the 'Code'
As a conservative evangelical leader, Josh McDowell is one of the last people you'd expect to urge young Christians to see The Da Vinci Code, the upcoming movie based on the phenomenally best-selling novel. After all, the book argues that Jesus sired a line of royalty before he died on the cross, because Mary Magdalene was pregnant with his child -- and that all of it was covered up by religious leaders through the centuries.

Read More...
Categories: Movies

Prayers for February

We're sensing it more each day. We can't do anything apart from the Holy Spirit's movement in our life, before, around, and beyond. At the same time we're seeing as we are praying for revival, broken hearts, total dependence and just flat out for the glory of God, He is moving around us.

Please join us in praying this month:

• Pray that we will depend on God in prayer. We need Him each day. Pray that we will unite as a couple, family and individually on our knees.
• Pray for wisdom on how to finish well at CU. Pray for our transition out of leadership.
• Pray for strength, energy, and power to lead at CU, prepare for Long Beach and Mexico City.
• Pray that God will give me wisdom and guidance as I review male applications for Long Beach
• Pray for me as I travel to Mexico City, Feb 24 to March 1st. I'm going to look for neighborhoods that could be potential living areas. This is monumental as the city is massive. It holds 28 million people.
• Pray that during this trip I will hear from the Lord and respond.
• Pray that God will give us wisdom on who, how much and when to rent our house in Colorado.
• Pray as we prepare our training material for Long Beach.
• Pray for the two spiritual movements I am trusting God to grow and take over; Football Team (Mack and Pat-new believers desiring to impact their team) and Grad Students (Martin and Jacob - Jacob is a new believer and they too desire to see God move). Pray that I will be able to coach, train, encourage and get out of the way so they can see God move in their lives.
• Pray for our family. Pray for protection from the evil one. Pray for good communication. Pray for healthy times of interaction. Pray that the boys will be obedient in home school and beyond. Pray for the boys' ministry to their friends. Pray that in this time of transition and change our family will adjust to it in the power of the Spirit. Pray that we will not become selfish but will continue to serve, love and share with those around us.
• Pray that God will give us wisdom on how to spend our time.
• Pray that the paper work of acquiring visas to move to Mexico goes smoothly.
• Pray that God will give us wisdom, ideas, heart softness as we pray, plan, strategize next Monday (Feb 13) with our co-leader of our Mexico City Team.
• Pray for our team going to Mexico City; Craig, Joe, Curtis and Emily. Pray that if we need more God will provide that.

Thank you for laboring on your knees for us. We believe the greatest movement of God is birthed in prayer.

Categories: Prayer

Your eyes won't believe it!!

I just received this photos slide show of Mexico City. What a city. What possibilities. The images burden my heart to pray every day that God would cause a supernatural revival in every neighborhood, rich and poor.

Don't miss out on this amazing slide show. http://homepage.mac.com/helipilot/PhotoAlbum31.html

Categories: MexicoCity

Simple Movement Training in California

This Friday 7 other staff from Colorado, Nebraska and New Mexico joined me to a simple church/movement training in Pomona, CA. Because of my bias, it well could be the armpit of California. But our trip was redeemed because we got to each at In and Out two times in 24 hours.

We went to hear Jaeson Ma (Campus Church Network) and Brad Fieldhouse (Kingdom Causes) give some simple training on how to do simple church/movements on campuses in our neighborhoods. I went with Joe Linstedt (CSU director), Christian Rainbolt (UNC director), Eric Heistand (Denver Director), Kevin Dennis (CU's new director), Amy Yablonski (staff at CU), Joe Cross (staff in New Mexico, moving to Mexico City with us) and Ethan Wiekamp (new Nebraska State director). It was a ton of fun, less than 24 hours in Calif, no sleeping and tons of laughing.

Friday night we jumped off the airplane at Ontario, CA, headed straight for In and Out and then off to the training. It was awesome. We walked into an upper room filled with about 80 Asian students worshipping and praising God. It was the church seeking God, desiring revival and wanting His Spirit to move in their lives and around them.

That night we headed off to Long Beach to meet my sister, Sarah, for drinks. We finally made it to Long Beach about 11pm and had a great time at the Rock Bottom Brewery. For me it was personally encouraging as I got to share with my friends the location of the Long Beach Summer project. As I knew it would, jaws dropped at the beauty of the location. Headed to my grandparents and parents to sleep for about 5 hours.

The next morning I pulled into my grandparents house to find Joe Linstedt talking with my 87 year old grandmother, Anna, and having cafe. What a site. She is a quick witted, energetic women and Joe loved the conversation. Then off to my aunt's coffee shop for breakfast and got to catch up with my mom and dad. Then dad bought us all breakfast. Too kind and generous.

The rest of the day was hearing some of the nuts and bolts that Brad and Jaeson have been practicing in reaching the lost and seeing God move in simple movements/churches across the world. If you have read all their materials and books before you probably didn't get too much more info but you sensed God moving in your hearts and realized this is more about God than methods and strategies. If God is going to move in our neighborhoods, campuses, and in Mexico City it will because His Spirit is moving, we are hearing and responding. The whole day was an eye opener.

That lunch (again In and Out) I sat with two high schoolers, Andrew and Josh, who are planting spiritual movements/churches on their high schools. Yep, that's right. They are not just youth group attendors. They are going out on the campuses, praying, seeing the Spirit moving (signs and wonders), sharing their faith and training up the next generation of missional, going for it believers. I was blown away. Their faith, expectancy of God and their boldness. Wow, if this is the future of the church, watch out!!!

Back to the airport. Sadly to say, no more time for In and Out. Mostly because of time but my gut thanks God for the quick run to the airport. I'm not sure how this weekend will play out on our campuses but I know God is working on our directors. I only have about a week of influence at CU as I'm transitioning out. But the Spirit of God is already moving and moving us to be missional at CU.

At another time and in another story I'll have to tell you about the 6 students that have come to faith in the past 2 weeks. A renewal of hearts is happening and God is starting a revival.

Categories: SimpleChurch, God, Movements

Encouraged by our National Leadership

This past week one of our National Directors, Shane Deike, posted a conversation with a regional director. I'm encouraged by our leadership and the direction we'll be taking as a movement. Sign me up. I'm in if we are going to get spiritual movements to each and every student.

Read the whole thing at IM conversation on mission

I posted a comment on his blog. My comments are here:
Shane,

You nailed it. This is where we have already moved. Our students cancelled our weekly meeting b/c it didn't allow us to go after our mission. It was becoming the "Thing" we do and we were not going out. We tend to talk about CCC/CRU/Fuel and not about Jesus. Now that we have decentralized our staff and CCC students are sensing God moving (not us moving it) and they are talking about Jesus and the supernatural. It has been a blast. There is a fear that we are not the "Big" ones on campus anymore but we are having a blast. Our staff are released to do what CCC has always talked about that we are (yet we always ran a big machine), evangelism and discipleship. Even those two things are convoluted. Evangelism is an event, surveys, not really getting into the lost world. It is leaving our fellowship and doing it to do one by one extraction of believers (we have just gathered) or non believers who now don't have any more non Christian friends (they live in our sub culture). Discipleship is not about selection and doing the mission but an ongoing consuming relationship.

I believe many staff in the 90's came on staff to shepherd, lead bible studies, counsel and not to be part of a radical spirit filled, supernatural, God powerful movement that requires white hot faith, total dependence on prayer, Spirit filled living and wild living. What we're aiming for is the supernatural, not the practical and proven.

Keep leading us (National Team and others) to go for it. Mark Spoke at SP Leaders Conf and made a statement from Matt 28; we're not to teach all of Christianity but just to teach those things Christ commanded. I think often we feel like we must be all things to all Christian students but in the same time we have lost our distinctives.

Tom Neslon about 8 years ago said something to me. He said, CCC is the Green Barets of the Christian world. You guys are a specialized trained group of warriors going after the lost. He says often we in the Church have worried more about who is bring ham buns and jello to the next potluck. Maybe we need to become more of the warriors again and not worry about all the other things we do.

Downside, we will lose our size in meetings and maybe even staff who are gifted in these other areas may leave staff. But I believe and have no doubt that we will gain a new generation of staff with out the heavy handed need for recruiting staff. They will see us for who we really are and say, "man, I want to work for those guys."

Just some rambling early here in the altitude of CO.
Categories: Leadership, Movements

Bono's voice and faith is growing!!

Recently Bono (yes of U2) spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast. You've got to read his speech and or hear it. This is a challenge to us as Americans, Christians, followers of Jesus and people of faith.
To read: Bono's National Prayer Breakfast
To listen: Bono the Prophet

Then go to I tunes and download 40 by U2 (based on Ps 40)
"I waited patiently for the Lord
He inclined and heard my cry
He brought me up out of the pit
Out of the miry clay

I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song
How long to sing this song?
How long to sing this song?
How long...how long...how long...
How long...to sing this song

He set my feet upon a rock
And made my footsteps firm
Many will see
Many will see and fear

I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song

How long to sing this song?
How long to sing this song?
How long...how long...how long..."

Categories: God, Music