To a Church That Loved Well: A Farewell Thanksgiving

 

 

Church! Yes, the Incorrect Theological Use Church. That One!

Becoming Saturday: Rest as Life-Teacher

Once Upon A Time

This summer I taught a message series entitled Once Upon a Time, four words that alert you of an impending story. The series explored various parables of Jesus. Although his stories were deeply engaging, Jesus did not tell them to entertain. His purpose wasn't to inform. Jesus told stories to change the way his hearers saw Life and by Life I mean, "the essence of existence." In each parable, Christ adjusts the way you see God, the world, yourself, and his Kingdom. If you pay close attention to what he says, (if you have ears to hear and eyes to see) the scales will start to crumble from your eyes and you will begin to see the world as Jesus sees. In each message I offer a Perception Alteration: one way Jesus wants to adjust your vision. I restate the 12 Perception Alterations in this post. If any of them peak your interest you can find the entire messages HERE.

"...There was a Treasure" (Matt. 13:44-46)

Perception Alteration: The only "good life" is "God's life."

"...There was a Net" (Matt. 13:47-52)

Perception Alteration: The presence of evil does not mean the absence of God, his love, or his power.

"...There was a Slave" (Matt. 18:21-35)

Perception Alteration: Forgiveness is not a religious practice; it is part of the Christian DNA.

"...There were Two Boys" (Matt. 21:28-32)
Perception Alteration: It's never too late to follow Jesus.

"...There were Renters" (Matt. 21:33-46)

Perception Alteration: Jesus did not come to save you from hell but to make you into a certain kind of person.

"...There was a Banquet" (Matt. 21:33-46)
Perception Alteration: The Kingdom of God extends an open invitation with high expectations.

"...The Master Took a Journey" (Mat. 21:33-46)

Perception Alteration: You do not simply belong to the Kingdom of God; you participate in it.

"...A Man was Beaten" (Luke 10:25-37)

Perception Alteration: God calls his followers to BE the neighbor.

"...There was a Party" (Luke 15:1-32)

Perception Alteration: Jesus calls his followers to engage the world rather than protect themselves from it.

"...There was a Clever Manager" (Luke 16:1-14)
Perception Alteration: Invest the temporal in the eternal.

"...There was a Persistent Widow" (Luke 18:1-8)
Perception Alteration: Live in the present as if it is the future.

"...There were Two Prayers" (Luke 18:9-14)

Perception Alteration: Being right with God is not about getting it right.

Call Me Jonah: Reflections After a Year of Re-preaching

Just over a year ago, God resurrected my preaching ministry. Before he did, I had to find peace in never preaching again, and so 18 months ago I gave up on my preaching dream.  In that moment of surrender God said, "My broken, failed child, I think you are finally ready to begin to learn to preach." God put the Trenton Church of Christ in my path, an authentic and grace-filled community who managed to see Jesus in my scars when so many others only saw disfigurement. I am so grateful for this amazing church and their invitation to preach again. THANK YOU, TCOC!

I also have to thank Tim Woodroof, who saw Jesus in the mess. I heard Jesus calling me back to ministry through his gentle and honest words. Thanks Tim!

I have so much to learn and so much to change, but after my first year back I want to share a little of what I have learned, some things I do differently, and some things I try to practice.

1. Every Sunday I am aware that I preach from God's grace and not ability, education, or experience.  It is a gift.
2. I try daily to choose HOPE over CYNICISM. Churches can make you cynical and I know many ministers who are. I was one.
3. I see Jesus in and owe my ministry to church members who work 40+ hour weeks at their regular jobs but then give their passion, time, and energy to the Church. They are the lifeblood of the Church, and TCOC has an amazing team of "owners" (rather than "members").
4. I take Fridays off, and I mean completely off: no Twitter, no Facebook, no texting, no checking emails, no answering the phone. I try not to think or talk "Church." It breathes life into my soul.
5. I give my time to people who are hungry for Jesus, new to faith, and have skin in the game rather than those who simply sit back, complain and object.
6. I am learning that I tend to underestimate the power of preaching but overestimate my importance to it.
7. Fridates! WIN! With the three boys in school, Mary Beth and I take Friday mornings to date each other. And yes, I still try to make-out with her every chance I can get. It has been wonderful for our marriage.
8. Life is so much more than ministry.
9. People are not as bad as we often make them out to be and not as good as they pretend to be.
10. Be like a duck. There is a lot of water in ministry and if you don't let it roll, you will drown.
11. I'm more convinced than ever that the Gospel really is good news and people do want to hear it.

And Jesus said, "Feed my lambs..."

Destination Transformation: Four Keys to Engagement (Part II)

God's plan to transform all things begins by Engaging the Unchurched with the mind-blowing news of Jesus, and he calls the community of Jesus-followers to the task.  In my last Destination Transformation post I addressed two of four keys to engagement: 1) Engaging churches take the initiative and 2) Engaging churches create a presence.  This post will look at two more keys to engagement.

1. Engaging Churches are Relevant.  I am successful in communicating, not when I transfer information from me to you, but when you understand and respond to the transferred information. God entrusts the church with the message of Jesus, a message with cosmic and eternal implications, a message of the most relevance, a message of joy and hope. He also calls the church to communicate the message!

Unfortunately, many established churches fail to communicate the message of Jesus because they have confused the means with the message. The message is eternal but the means must change as culture changes if a church wants to communicate and not simply transfer Jesus information. I believe many of the churches in my tribe (Churches of Christ) are on hospice because they believe it is more important to protect the means than communicate the message. (Fortunately, I am honored to serve at an established church taking the hard and exciting journey of learning again to communicate in relevant ways). We can talk about, we can even scream about Jesus until we turn purple, pass out and wake up stripped naked in a ditch somewhere...you get the idea...but if the message is not heard, if our means of communicating the message is irrelevant, then we might as well be silent.

If I want to share Fun's hit song Some Nights with my sister in Texas, I don't imprint the single on a vinyl record and UPS it (Yes, I used UPS as a verb) to the Metroplex. Most likely she would use it as a coaster or Frisbee. Because although the record contains the message I want to communicate, I have just added a plethora (I first heard this word in the movie The Three Amigos) of obstacles in her way before she can hear the song.  She would have to track down someone who had a record player, borrow their record player, learn how to use the record player and then listen to the song. With four kids I doubt she would go through the effort. Conclusion: record equals information transferred but not communicated - failure!

Instead, I would send her a link to the video on YouTube or a link to a sample on iTunes. "Click" and "Tadah!" music.  The information on both the record and the link are the same, but one creates unnecessary obstacles because it is an irrelevant form of communication. Records where great in the 1940's but are irrelevant to the majority of America today. Many established churches are trying to communicate the message of the gospel on vinyl records in a digital world.

From the beginning, God has intentionally removed communication obstacles. He is the founder of relevant communication. In Acts 2, the pilgrim crowd of Jews have gathered in Jerusalem for the Pentecost celebration. The writer of Acts describes it this way, Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven (Acts 2:5), and with the diverse crowd came a variety of different languages. As the story goes, God sends the Holy Spirit during this high-traffic period to empower his disciples to share the wonders of God with the crowd. As the Holy Spirit descends on the Jesus Community, they begin to share the wonders of God in the multiple languages of the Jerusalem pilgrims: When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken (Acts. 2:6).

God's primary objective was to communicate the message and he removed any obstacle that would keep his target audience from hearing what he wanted to say. He did not wait for the pilgrim crowd to learn Aramaic. He crashed through that obstacle by giving his followers an instant Rosetta Stone experience. If churches want to engage the Unchurched we have to remove any barriers that keep the message from being heard...yes, even our traditions.

2. Engaging Churches Serve in the Name of Jesus.   In Luke 9, Jesus sends out the Twelve to preach that God's reign (Kingdom) is breaking into the world. Luke tells us:

[Jesus] gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the Kingdom of God AND to heal the sick (Luke 9:1-2).

Jesus does not simply tell his disciples to preach about God's reign but to impact people's lives at the same time by curing them of their ailments. In other words, the message of God's kingdom comes with examples.  The same stands true today. If churches want to engage the Unchurched then we cannot simply talk about Jesus we have to give examples of Jesus. We must serve our communities in Jesus' name.

We must ask: 1) How can we serve our community? 2) What organizations, both christian and secular, can we partner with to make a difference in our community? 3) What are the needs of the area surrounding our physical location?

Destination Transformation: Four Keys to Engagement

In this post I continue the Destination Transformation series (Part I, Part II, Part III) by exploring two sections from Luke-Acts to highlight 2 of the 4 keys to Engaging the Unchurched. This post offers no ground-breaking insights, but it serves as the foundation from which TCOC engages our community. We believe in the mind-blowing news of Jesus!

 After paying-off his medical school loans and honing his practice, Dr. Luke researches the life of Christ and the work of his followers, reporting his findings in a two-volume narrative: Luke-Acts. Luke provides a thrilling description of God bursting his Kingdom onto the world stage through Jesus and of its continued growth through a group of Spirit-filled misfits. 

According to the good doctor, Jesus had a strategy while on planet earth. He invited a group of people to share life deeply with him - to come and see what the remade world of God looks like! In his speech and life he demonstrated the remade world to his followers. After some time, he sent his followers out to remake the world themselves (Luke 9:1-6, 10:1-20), because he planned for them to eventually be his hands and feet - to shape the world through the love and Spirit of God (Acts 2:1-13.) God was strategic and intentional in taking the life-giving news of Jesus to the world, and the aforementioned passages provide churches with four keys to successful engagement.

1.  Engaging Churches Take the Initiative.  Luke 9:2 reads, "...he [Jesus] SENT THEM OUT to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick." One chapter later Jesus commands his followers, "GO! I am SENDING YOU OUT ..." From the beginning Jesus sets a precedent with his followers, "Do not wait for people to come to you. Go to them! Break out of your holy huddle and take the initiative." 

God calls us to be "Hide and Seek" churches rather than "Sardine" Churches. When I was a kid we had two hiding games in our repertoire. In "Sardines" the person who was "It" high-tailed it in search of a hiding place while everyone else counted to the magical number of 50. Once remaining players hit 50, the crowd scattered in search of the hiding player. If you found the hidden player, you would join her and wait until the next person found you...and then the next, and the next, and the next...until you were crammed in some dark humid corner like SARDINES. In this game the designated "It" person waits to be discovered, and once discovered she is happy for you to join her.

Some churches are "Sardine" churches. They  stay within their walls, love each other, master worship, have great programs and are even friendly and welcoming communities, but they take no initiative in engaging the Unchurched. If the Unchurched find their way within their walls they will greet them kindly, but it's up to the Unchurched to find them.

"Hide and Seek" functions the opposite of "Sardines." The person who is "It" counts to 50 while all the other players hide. Once he reaches 50 he shouts, "Ready or not here I come," and then relentlessly seeks those hiding. He will even chase after them.

"Hide and Seek" churches do not wait for the Unchurched to discover them. They are not content within their four walls, hoping that those on the outside will stumble upon them. They take the initiative. They learn about their communities. They study the demographics. They research community needs. They meet their neighbors. They create initiatives and strategies to engage those around them. They ask questions like: Which age group percentage has the highest growth rate in our area? What percentage of our community consists of single-parents? What is the divorce rate in our community? What state-rating do our neighborhood schools have and why? How many other churches are in the area? What kind of non-profits serve our community? What is the average family income?

Engaging the Unchurched begins by dusting off the keester and obeying Jesus..."GO!"

2.  Engaging Churches Create a Presence. In Acts 2 Jesus has returned to the Father and his 120 remaining followers have gathered in Jerusalem for Pentecost. Pentecost is one of Israel's three pilgrimage feasts. Massive crowds converged on Jerusalem to celebrate the Sinai experience. Jerusalem at Pentecost was like New Orleans on Super Bowl week...crowds, celebration, food, and worship (of a different kind of course). 

It is no coincidence that God chose to wait until this very moment, Jerusalem swollen with festival pilgrims, to send his Spirit in style (Acts 2:1-8):

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.  They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
 
 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.  When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken.  Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans?  Then how is it that each of ^cs hears them in our native language? ⁹ we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!”

God leveraged the Pentecost crowd so that the his followers could share the good and shocking news of Jesus' resurrection. The results were satisfactory...about 3000 people were added to their (the 120's) number that day. (Sounds like a logistical nightmare in a good sort of way.)

If a church wants to engage the Unchurched, it must create a presence in the community. It's not enough to simply study and understand your community, your community must know you exist.  A mentor of mine once asked this question, "If your Church disappeared tomorrow would your community miss it?" That's a great question, but I want to take it back one step further, "If your church disappeared tomorrow would the community even notice?

I believe Churches should create a presence. Churches should advertise: online, billboards, social media, newspapers, etc. Churches should have a strong presence at community events: participate in parades, run in 5ks, set up booths at community festivals, support local school events. People in your community should know your church's name! I even believe in church window stickers for your car...right next to your stick figure family. [Note: Serving your community is the most impactful way to create a presence. So much so that it gets its own bullet point in my next post.]

Churches need to ask the question, "How can we create a presence so that we might declare the wonders of God?!"

[In my next post I will look at the final two keys in Engaging the Unchurched]

 

A Celebration of Life Prayer

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Every February TCOC centers one of our worship gatherings on the newest additions to our faith community. On Celebration of Life Sunday we pray blessings over the children who arrived within the last year. 

We value the power of blessing. Blessing inaugurates a favored future. It initiates a desired future in the present moment by speaking it into existence. On Celebration of Life Sunday, the faith community, through blessing, chooses God for the child while she is incapable of choosing him for herself. 

We take our cue from Numbers 6:22-27, one of the most popular and oft-quoted biblical blessings. In verse 27 God explains to Moses that through this prayer of blessing the priests "...put my [God's] name on the Israelites." On Celebration of Life Sunday we put God's name on the new lives he has entrusted to us. Below you will find the communal prayer we prayed yesterday.

LEADER:

Almighty Creator of all life, we come to you on behalf of our newest and youngest additions and ask you to use this community of Jesus-followers as your instruments in shaping these beautiful babies into the image of Jesus Christ.

COMMUNITY:

Father, give us…

Love

So that we will affirm the value of each child today.

Discernment

So that we will know how to act in the best interest of each child.

Wisdom

So that we will teach each child what is best.

Courage

So that we will be the child’s voice when she cannot speak for herself.

Joy

So that we will demonstrate for each child a full life in you.

Authenticity

So that each child will understand that her identity comes from you and not her success or failure.

Perseverance

So that we will never give up on each child’s future.

Forgiveness

So that we will extend grace when each child needs it most.

Hospitality

So that each child will feel at home among us.

And Father, give us your Spirit so that each child will see you reflected in us. We commit these children to your care and we commit ourselves to caring for these children.

LEADER:

In the name of Jesus, the Risen Savior, amen!

Destination Transformation: Part II

This is the second post in a blog series where I unpack TCOC's spiritual formation model in hopes that it will help in your spiritual transformation. In my first post I highlighted the goal, "The End," the aim of the gospel: TRANSFORMATION. In this post I will us an example from Jesus' life to show how TRANSFORMATION took center stage in Jesus' ministry and it's implications for the church today.

Engage the Unchurched

Jesus did not come as a religion entrepreneur. He did not step out of heavenly glory, wrap himself in fragile human flesh so he could establish another religious system. The Son of God did not come down with a new set of Stone Tablets entitled How to Be Spiritual. "One or two Communion prayers?" did not even make his Stuff-that-matters list. His mission did not entail an article for Christianity Today arguing theologically for Home Church over Mega Church. He came to change the world and not in some kind of nebulous disembodied domain, but in a tangible, relevant and practical way.

In Mark 3, Jesus gathers on Saturday, as all faithful Jews, in the synagogue. He finds himself face to face with a man crippled by a shriveled hand. Jesus' gut reaction is to heal the man, to mend and restore. To any rational human being, healing makes the most sense, but not to religion. The Pharisees were counting on Jesus' healing instincts, because to heal meant to break Sabbath Law.

Connect to Christ

Sabbath Law defined "work" as any activity exercising dominion over your environment. Healing clearly demonstrated authority over one's environment and therefore it was a blatant violation of Sabbath Law.  This moment provided a prime opportunity for Jesus to prove his spiritual superiority and his religious mastery to the Pharisees, but Jesus did not come to be Judaism's Most Valuable Player. He came to save, to heal, to redeem, to TRANSFORM!

So...Jesus gets angry, stands the man up in front of the scheming leaders and restores his hand! Technically he breaks The Law, but a man goes home that day with a recreated hand. If Jesus had simply followed the powerless rules and rituals of his day he would prove nothing except his self-discipline, but by raising a dead hand to life he screamed of God's tangible love.

Connect to Others

In many of our neighborhoods the church sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher. Our discussions and conversations often have very little relevance to a world hungry for the tangible love of Jesus.  I pray God uses the Church not as a club for theological and doctrinal discourse but as a transforming catalyst and guide in people's lives.

• We want to see drug addicts set free.
• We want to see the lonely find a community of friends.
• We want marriages restored.
• We want single parents to find "co-parents" in their church family.
• We want to see people move from being money slaves to generous Kingdom givers.
• We want to see people break free from debt.
• We want to see individuals who are in the final phase of life die well, loved, and unafraid.
• We want to see the hungry fed.
• We want to see the unemployed find work.
• We want to see bitter individuals discover joy through forgiveness.
• We want to see apathy catch fire.
• We want to see people discover compassion for the first time.
• We want to see racial division and social segregation collapse.
• We want to see prisons turned into churches.
• We want to see strip clubs remodeled into teenage pregnancy centers.
• We want to see Satan fall like lightening.
• We want to see TRANSFORMATION through Jesus.

Destination Transformation

Seven months ago I started preaching again...resurrected but completely unqualified and undeserving. The grace-filled community of TCOC invited me to partner with them in welcoming the Kingdom of God to Downriver (southern Detroit burbs). Unlike past ministry experiences, they hired me as another piece to living out the vision God had placed before them rather than hiring me to aid in vision discernment. I believe God called my family here because our vision aligned with TCOC. Stepping into a community already convicted by God's leading has created a very smooth transition thus far.

With the brief introduction behind us, this post is the first in a series unpacking TCOC's vision and mission.  I'm sharing this on my blog because I believe TCOC's vision captures the function of the gospel, the heart of God, and the calling of the Church. I pray these posts will enrich your relationship with Christ and create lasting change in your life.

TCOC's mission statement reads:

To engage our community in spiritual transformation by connecting people to Christ and one another.

Not only does the mission statement serve as our decision-making filter, but inherent to the statement is a spiritual formation model. I believe God, as a relational being, not only relentlessly pursues us, but invites us to chase him with the same abandoned passion. A spiritual formation model is a intentional and practical pursuit of God. We communicate our model through a simple formula:

Enagage the Unchurched 

 + 

Connect to Christ 

+ 

Connect to Others 

 = 

TRANSFORMATION

In order to understand the spiritual formation model, I start with "The End:" TRANSFORMATION.

Growing up I argued the Christian "End," the goal, the aim was heaven - to walk the golden streets, grub the all-you-can-eat calorie free buffet, sing God's Family 1 million to the millionth times (Actually, that sounds a lot more like Hell). But, the more I dug into the macro movement of scripture I realized "heaven" was a byproduct of God's ultimate aim.

During another season in my life, I came to believe the "End" was to be like Jesus, to be the perfect disciple...to live out the great commission in my own life to do everything Jesus commanded (Matt. 28:19-20). Yes, God calls us to follow Jesus, to become "little Jesuses" in the world, but one question moved me a step further in my quest toward The End: WHY? Why be like Jesus? So I can give legalism a new twist and elevate my Christian status by being more like Jesus than you? To master Jesus' teachings rather than let Jesus master my heart?

After more study and a renewed discovery of Jesus, I realized when I become like Jesus, the world becomes more like The Garden. God's shalom swells. As more people become "Little Jesuses," the more sin's curse goes in reverse. In other words, discipleship is the TRANSFORMATION of me for the TRANSFORMATION of the world.

God seeks the TRANSFORMATION of all things. TRANSFORMATION has may aliases: restoration, resurrection, recreation, new birth, New Heavens, New Earth, etc.  The pages of scritpture testify to a God who is transforming a rotting creation through the sacrifice of Christ's death and the power of his resurrection:

• Jesus describes his ministry as one of TRANFORMATION: ...he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor...proclaim freedom for the prisoners...recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free... (Luke 4:18-19)
• The culmination of Christ ministry was on one of TRANSFORMATION. There is no greater TRANSFORMATION than dead to life: Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! (Luke 24:5b-6a).
• Paul captures the essence of conversion as TRANSFORMATION: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here! (II Cor. 5:17)
• Paul goes on to describe life after conversion as ongoing TRANSFORMATION: ...you have take off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in the image of its creator.
• Paul also alludes to TRANSFORMATION not simply as God's goal for humanity but for all creation: ...creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. (Rom. 8:21)
• John supports Paul's theology for cosmic TRANSFORMATION when he hears God's voice declare: I am making everything new! (Rev. 21:5a)

I believe God is up to something EPIC...if that isn't the understatement of the millennium. The day the stone rolled everything began to change. I want to see TRANSFORMATION that only comes through Christ in me, at TCOC, in Downriver, in Metro Detroit...and in you!

Our destination? Transformation. In my next post, I will explore a passage that brings TRANSFORMATION to the forefront of Christ's ministry.

Father, may you bring all who read these words ever deeper into Christ. May they never be same...not today, not tomorrow, not the next day...may they be renewed in your very image for their sake and for the sake of the world. Amen!

MUCH

"From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked." (Luke 12:48)

Five months ago I decided that I would not pursue ministry as a profession. I had come to grips with never preaching again, but then God breathed John 21 deeply into my soul. In this passage, the Risen Christ gathers with his disciples and has this intimate moment with Peter.  Peter had blown it!  He had turned his back on Jesus when Jesus needed his friendship the most.  I am positive Peter felt like a failed disciple...he was! Jesus, always in the business of resurrection and restoration, intentionally asks Peter, "Do you love me?!"
"Of course I do!"
"Then feed my lambs!"
Jesus again, "Simon, do you love me?"
"Jesus, you are God's son, you know everything and the answer is 'Yes!'"
"Take care of my sheep, okay?"
Jesus for a third time (Hmm, seems like Peter did something three times), "Do you love me?"
"Come on JESUS! You know I love you!"
"Feed my lambs!"

Jesus, by calling Peter back to ministry three times is clear to point out, "I acknowledge that you betrayed me but I STILL want you to minister to my people!"  I believe this moment with the Risen Christ empowered Peter to a new and more effective ministry!  He went on to be one of the greatest preachers and leaders in Church history.

I, in no way, compare myself to Peter.  I cannot touch him with a ten foot pole except for one area: I also failed and I too have felt Jesus asking, "Charlton, do you love me?" 
"Yes, I do!"
"Then feed my sheep!"

I felt this whisper from Jesus through many who love me, through a raging fire in my heart that won't quit burning, and through a new friend and mentor Tim Woodruff. Tim looked at my heart, chose to believe in me, and served as my Barnabas.  Thank you, Tim! Jesus is calling me back to ministry. And so this summer my family and I will be taking the long trek north to serve alongside an amazing congregation in Trenton, MI: Trenton Church of Christ. I believe wholeheartedly that God is intertwining our stories because he is up to something redemptive in Trenton and the surrounding area. Here are some of the few things I already love about TCOC:

1. Mark Frost, their Senior Minister for 30+ years, has loved them and pastored them well.  He is a man of God who has shaped an amazing community of faith.
2. TCOC has loved Mark Frost well! They have taken care of their ministers.
3. Philip, Mary, and Jema...three new co-workers who love God and dream God's dreams for TCOC.
4. Four elders who are passionate about shepherding and empowering their flock.
5. A vision: ENGAGE, CONNECT, TRANSFORM!
6. A passion to reach a mass of unchurched families in the area (65% of people in the area have no church affiliation).
7. A community of people who have already begun to love and accept my family.
8. Relocating to an area of the country hit hard by the recession that seeks redemption on so many levels.  We have a good message for that!
9. A community that takes seriously the leadership of women and their Spirit-given gifts.
10. A faith community with lots of kids.

And there are many more.  I am humbled and honored to have been invited to join stories with TCOC. I'm so excited to see what God has in store. The following statement sums up my thoughts as my family and I enter this new phase of life and ministry:

I have less confidence in myself and my ability than I have ever had in my life, but I have more confidence in God than I have ever had in my life. 

Here is a video my family put together to introduce ourselves to our new Church family:

 "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked." (Luke 12:48) His favor keeps me on my knees with my head bowed...I better get busy!