read this

this was posted by someone on staff at resonate.... and what can i say... it resonated with me :)

committed

Last week in HouseGroups, we read the last story in God’s great saga! It was called Epilogue: The Church.

It was about how Jesus’ death was the start of something new… and that something came to be called the Church. It was a new way of living. The story describes the people as being deeply committed to God and to each other. They shared everything they had. They spent their time praying, learning God’s ways together, and helping anyone who was in need. And they did all of this “with great joy and generosity,” the story says.

These are the rhythms that marked the life of the early Church. This is how people who were directly impacted by Jesus chose to live. I often think about the way the first Christians were committed to each other. What does that even mean? Besides the idea of marriage, it’s hard for me to formulate a picture of what people committed to each other looks like. That’s weird, right? Isn’t the normal thing for us to be committed to our families and spouses?

Which leads me to another question: did Jesus really come to make us a new family, or didn’t he? Does Jesus still call us to define “family” along the same lines that we knew growing up? Or does Jesus call us to a new definition? One that includes more than the people we’re related to or have created children with?

After all, blood is what defines our standard concept of what family is. And because Jesus poured out his blood, and we can partake of it every week (in communion), and everyday as we choose to live the kind of life that he did. Partaking of Jesus’ blood gains us entrance into this new family, where no one is left out. The whole family celebrates, suffers, and practices faithfulness to God and his ways together. And we are all committed to each other with a love that promises to remain in relationship, to struggle through conflict, and to share with the other their joys and sorrows.

Together we can represent a whole picture of the Kingdom of God. Together we can remain the bride of Christ, living like our husband has come back already. With the way we treat one another, we beckon others into this joyful, cross-carrying period of waiting as we try to follow Jesus and show the world what love looks like.

here we go

hey fam. i thought it was time for another update... sorry this is kinda turning into a missional house blog... but it's all i can think about right now! :)

so as of today, we officially have 5 people 100% committed to live in the house! can you believe it?! ha... it's crazy to me how quickly this has all come together! we have natalie potts, ricky hampton, angie fabulous (carroccio), heather karsikas, and myself! i believe with all my heart that these are the people that God has called to live in this house. i have absolutely no doubts about this.

this saturday we're all heading back to the house again to turn in our applications, discuss/negotiate prices, and give the house one more walk through with everyone there. we're planning on moving in mid june! i am ridiculously excited about this! it feels like God has given us the keys to a car and now we just have to get in and go!

i'm praying like crazy about all of this... i know that there are probably all kinds of mistakes that we've already made but just aren't aware of yet... and many more to come... but i'm praying that God would be preparing us for all the obstacles we're going to face... that we would be as thoughtful and careful about all of this as humanly possible... that we would be ready to love others and each other the way that God has called us to... that we would be ready to share... to sacrifice... there is still so much planning that needs to happen.. so i'm asking all of you to please please pray! the only way we're going to be able to succeed is if we have God's help... people coming around us... praying for us...

i thank God for what He's doing right now... He's SO GOOD!!!

ummm... one more thing... if you think of it... pray for my momma... she's very sick right now and in a lot of pain... she can barely walk... i haven't ever seen her this sick before. so please pray that God would heal her. We know He can do it!

thank you fam!

ministry hizzle

ok, so here are some pics of the house we checked out the other day... it's right above a pizza joint called dino's gourmet pizza which automatically makes it the sweetest place EVER... it's a 5 bedroom apartment with a porch, a bathroom, a living room and dining room, and a big parking lot just for us! and the price is right!
before we even set foot inside, natalie and i both had a feeling this place was going to be perfect... and it was.
sorry some of these pictures are super dark... we just snapped a bunch right before we left and most of the lights were off...
as we were walking through the apartment... i began asking God again to send us the people that are supposed to be living with us in the ministry home... and we need like 5 or 6 to make it happen... by the end of the day we had one guy ricky 100% committed to the house! and 3-4 other people expressing interest! as of today we have 2 people that are right on the fence... about 90% sure that God is leading them to live with us!


God is delivering quickly on this one!

please keep praying for us! we need it now more than ever!

enjoy the pics!

snow

can someone tell me why i am waking up to snow when it's almost may? this makes no sense to me... eh... oh well, it'll probably all be gone by noon. ha...

so a number of you have asked me to keep you posted on how things are coming with the missional/ministry house... consider this your post (:

ok, so since i've returned from my wonderful trip to chicago... i've been discussing the idea of the house with a co-worker/friend natalie... she's been pretty passionate about this house for the last year and has been wanting to get it started for quite some time now... and as we spoke and dreamed out loud, it seemed very clear that God had put this passion in both our hearts... and so we met with seth (the emerging generation pastor)and the rest of our ministry team at resonate and we thought up a rough game plan... for the first year, we're planning to find a house to rent from... ideally we want 5-6 people in the house, and these people would make up the core group of the house ministry... we'll live together for this first year and begin to practice the lifestyle that we're feeling God call us to and also begin to form and shape the logistics of everyday life within the house... each person living in the house will be asked to not work more than 30 hours a week so that we can have enough time with each other, the neighborhood, and the rest of the resonate crew. the idea would be to start more homes after the first year, and the core group would disperse to these homes to live & lead there.

which left us with two things holding us back from getting started...

1. who is going to live in this first house?

and

2. where is this so called house?!

ha... so yesterday natalie and i went house hunting and i think we found a place that would be perfect... 5 bedrooms, a bathroom, dining room, living room and kitchen... i think... we're gonna go look inside later today... and once we found this place... we both looked at each other and knew that we were going to have to start asking around to see who would be interested in joining us in this house! so i started asking God to send us people that He really wants to be a part of this... and i believe he is doing that right now. a number of people have already expressed interest!

you guys... this is really happening...

God help us.

resonate

so as some of you know i work at woodland hills as a creative arts resident for the emerging generation... our 16-22 year old ministry is called resonate and we have a blog site that i'll be posting on weekly now along with the rest of my co-ministers... so i thought i'd toss the link your way... between the 7 of us there are usually some pretty cool posts. check it out yo.

a letter to pilar

so i just wrote to my friend pilar and i thought i'd post part of it here to give y'all some more insight on what's going through my mind...

"this changes everything...

ok... so it's officially late... like 2:40am late... and i should go to bed... but i'm totally buzzing with excitement and anticipation right now!!!

pilar... i'm feeling God speak to me so clearly right now... it's unreal...

this ministry/missional house idea... i'm gonna do it.. i have to... ha... God has made it so clear to me! and i'm just feeling so overwhelmed with different emotions... mostly good ones! ha... ok... so where to start?

ok, well this whole past week has been probably one of the most eye-opening/influential weeks of my life. the conference was incredible... i don't know... i feel like God breathed new life in me while i was in chicago... like all of a sudden i woke up from a deep sleep or something... i think the parts of the weekend that hit me the hardest was THE WHOLE FIRST DAY! ha... all the speakers impacted me in a huge way... but i think shane did it for me... especially since i've been reading his first book, the irresistible revolution... it goes into depth about his life and how he got into ministry... and it talks a lot about the community he lives in with the simple way... and then to hear him speak at bethel and in chicago... i don't know... it just helped me to connect even more with that ministry... living in intentional community and becoming invested in your neghborhood... searching for opportunities to get involved helping the poor, sick and desperate people that are just around the corner...
and then when trevor shared everything thursday night... that was a really powerful night too... like i felt something happen in our group that night... specifically our house group...
tonight at resonate... as seth was covering everything that we experienced in chicago, i was becoming very emotional... especially towards the end when we played the shane claiborne video... i just began to weep and continued to do so all through worship...
and then i went over to joey's to watch american idol and it was idol gives back week! ha... so there was a 2 1/2 hour special where tons of celebrities rally together and raise/donate money towards all kinds of different causes... aids, malaria, education, katrina, poverty, etc... and so of course through the whole show my brother and i sat down in his basement sobbing like a couple of saps... ha...

PILAR!!! i can literally feel God giving me his heart for the poor and broken people in the world! and it feels incredible!"

shift

so this week i took a trip to chicago with my leadership team at resonate. we were checkin out a leadership conference called "shift" which was being held at willow creek church. this conference was life changing to say the least. there was so much that happened, and i don't think i'm going to be able to adequately explain everything, but i'll do my best. the conference consisted of 3 days packed with speakers, worship and other cool experiences. the first day had 3 main sessions, each led by a different speaker. in between each speaker we would worship God.

the first main session was led by author, speaker & pastor brian mclaren. brian is a networker among innovative christian leaders whose teaching is stirring people all over the world to think in fresh ways about christian life and faith. during his session, he talked a lot about our societal system and how jacked up it is. his session was titled "everything must change". he talked about how our goals are prosperity, security and equity... and he illustrated a picture of a goldfish in a bowl and how if the goldfish continues to take in all the resources and only produces waste then there will be less and less room for the waste to go because the fish is continually growing larger and larger... eventually the fish dies from it's own toxicity. i probably butchered that... but it definitely raised some questions that i haven't really thought through before...

every worship session was led by charlie hall and his band. wow... this was some amazing worship people... charlie definitely has a gift... his connection with people was so real and he wasn't showing off at any point... he came in humbly with a heart to worship. so so good! you all need to go out and pick up some of his worship cd's. cool?

mark yaconelli was our speaker for the second main session. this guy was a stud. he's the co-founder and director of the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project, and has spent the past 15 years working with students in local church, camp, and conference settings. this session was titled "failure, frustration & loss: the youth worker's path to holiness". he talked a lot about brokeness.... how youth ministry is designed to break the youth leader & how God is aking all of us to be broken. the questions he raised were pretty awesome... do i have an accurate understanding of what success is? or blessing? because if we look at the life of jesus... and we ask ourselves "was he successful?"... and if our answer is yes... then what does that look like for us if we're trying to be more like him? yaconelli also talked about being weary of the tendency to pretend... which is something i'm all too familiar with lately... the invitation was to become real... to hold suffering... and to carry the broken heart of jesus.

our last speaker for session 3 was none other than shane claiborne. this guy was incredibly inspiring! shane is one of the founders of the simple way, a philadelphia-based community of faith that spends much of their time feeding hungry folks, serving neighborhood children, running a community store, and pursuing peace and justice amongst the poor. shane is also the author of jesus for president, and the irresistible revolution. before i took off for this conference i was able to pick up his books and i started reading the irresistible revolution... it goes into depth about his story and how he got into ministry... and as i was reading i felt myself becoming more and more excited... like wow... this is it. this is what i want to do! and then hearing him speak at this conference really stirred up some dreams. within our community at resonate, we've been discussing the idea of starting a ministry house in st. paul... and at first i was very hesitant about being involved... the unknown can be pretty intimidating... but over the course of the last few weeks i've been feeling God leading me down a path that has a ton of potential to land me smack dab (no pun intended) in the middle of a ministry house!

and last but certainly not least... switchfoot was able to come do a Q&A for the conference... followed by an unplugged set by the band's front man... jon foreman. he recently started a solo project with the support of his band and he's released 3 of the 4 EP's so far... fall, winter and spring... the fourth one will be released this summer... ha.. can you guess what it will be called? jon's performance was incredible... it made my top 3 live performances list...

so yeah... needless to say... this conference was SO GOOD!