The Mission Church of the Nazarene

     It is never my intention to go so long without blogging. In my mind, I blog every day. Getting it out there, is another story. Technology glitches, and the difficulty of blogging from my phone all play a part, but mostly it's because we are incredibly busy people.
     We are busier than we've been thus far, because we have started having informal worship services on Sunday morning. This is a big step for us, and one I know a lot of you have been praying about.
    A launch meeting was held just before advent. We compiled a small group of friends and family to be our core. It's an incredible blessing to plant a church where you can pull form family and friends to make up that initial group of people.
     Creating this leadership team has been one of the biggest blessings since we've started this journey. First, we feel much less alone. Second, we are able to accomplish a significantly higher amount of work. Three, church isn't really church if there are no people.
     This leadership team really pushed fast forward on our church planting. They are excited and eager to walk this journey as we learn together. They have energy, insight, and wisdom that I lack on my own.
      The reality is, the Christian life was meant to be lived in community, and that is proved more and more as we are building this small community here in our city.
      A snapshot of the last several weeks:

• We have been holding worship services.

        This may be the coolest thing we are doing. They are small. They are intimate. We eat breakfast together every Sunday. We visit. We explore what it means to be a part of the Church of the Nazarene. We sing a few songs. We read scripture. We pray. We work. Our Sundays are almost entirely spent at the church which is a neat phenomenon. When there are so few of you EVERYONE has to help, and everyone does help. Since we are all there on Sundays, that tends to be the day we work. We clean, we build, we fellowship, we eat, we drink coffee. It's a really cool thing that just sort of was born out of necessity.

• We held a Christmas eve Service

         We were a small group, but we were there. We lit close to 100 luminaries outside to illustrate our presence (trying to be a light in the darkness) as well as to show our vigil for the coming Christ child. Our hope was that neighbors would see the lights and wander in. This didn't happen, but it was a great learning curve for us. One of the things we learned is that things take time. It takes time to be recognized as people who care and are present. We also learned we'll have to do more than light some candles to illustrate that.
             Mainly the main thing we learned during the season of advent, was that longing and expectation aren't bad things. Advent is the season we live in these days, and being able to come together and reflect on why we do what we do, that it's ok to long, and what hope looks like, was incredibly meaningful.

• We've met some more neighbors

            If we've learned nothing else, we've learned a lot about prevenient grace. This grace that goes before us, calling people to the heart of God. That's truly the only way to explain some of our conversations and chance meetings.
             Last sunday, one of our Church members was outside, and a neighbor walked by and started talking to him. I went out and he said "I walk by this church a lot and I always pray that God would open it's doors, and that he would send people to it. I really believe God is going to send you a lot of people."
              It was really an amazing thing, and not an isolated incident. We are glad that God has called Christians in our neighborhood to pray for this old church on the corner. We are grateful that the Holy Spirit is moving in the hearts of our neighbors.
             Would we love to see them walk in our doors? Absolutely, we'd be dishonest if we said we didn't, but ultimately we are here to bring about light in darkness, and transformation to a neighborhood. The transformation we want to see doesn't happen over night, and it won't happen just be getting people in seats on a Sunday morning.

• We've cleaned A LOT

                If you were here this summer, you should come back for a visit, because the building is beginning to become unrecognizable (in a good way). Things are becoming more and more organized, change is really taking place, rooms that were once filled with stuff are now ready to be filled with people. It's actually astounding given the task we had at the beginning of the summer. It's easy for us to be overwhelmed, because there is still so much to do (we still need to tear down some ceilings downstairs, and install new ceilings and light fixtures.... do you know how to do that? Because we'd love to have your help). We really need a new front door, and a new air conditioner, as well as a new window installed, on top of other projects we can't even think about affording right now... BUT, we have this awesome new sound booth built that a couple members took on themselves to put in, and it looks better than I even imagined (and it's not done yet). We set up this amazing breakfast/coffee area in the back of the sanctuary, that my mother-in-law turned into this really warm and welcoming space. The coat closet is completely cleaned out and ready to go. We are preparing to paint the foyer steps and put in new carpet. The bathrooms smell the best they have since I first stepped into them. We have diaper changing stations in the bathrooms. We have new hymnals. We have bulletins. We have a working sound system. We have chairs set up like a real sanctuary. The lights no longer have bugs in them. The stained glass windows shut all the way! The church is getting internet on Friday, which means I'll be able to hold real office hours! This has all happened over the last several weeks. Just imagine what can happen in the next several years?

People ask me sometimes how we get the funding to make all this happen, how we have the time or ability. Sometimes I'm astounded myself. City Connexx has helped us tremendously, and has been one of the most amazing blessings in my life. Our launch team is the best in the world, dedicating significant amounts of time, money, and energy into seeing this vision come to life. On top of that, Mac and I work... as much as possible outside of the church.
       I'm not sure what things will look like 6 months from now, but if it's anything like these last 6, it'll be greater than what we could ever hope or imagine. So, we are ready, 2015, for this to be a year set aside to do great things for the Kingdom of God.