5 years

I cannot believe that we have been planting The Pathway in Tacoma for 5 years now.  Unbelievable.  What an epic journey Jesus is continuing to take us on.  It was actually 6 1/2 years ago that God called our family to help plant churches in the Pacific Northwest.  How young and crazy we were!  We came to Seattle for the first time in the fall of 2007 and by January of 2008 we had loaded up everything in our double-wide, jumped in the cab of our U-haul... me, Kelli and Addie (our then 2 year old pup) and began this incredible adventure.

No kids.  No fear.  And no clue what we were doing!

After a year and a half internship helping to plant Lifepointe Community Church in Snoqualmie, WA, we once again packed our things, this time just a 2 bed-room apartment worth of belongings, and headed south to Tacoma.  We still had Addie (and still do), but this time there were 2 little babies in Kelli's big ole' tummy!

We thought we were being so smart, so on the ball, and so prepared by moving November 1st.  After all, the twins weren't due until January!  Can anyone say "naive?"  Two weeks after spending our first night in Tacoma, Jagen and Rylan decided the womb was no place for them.  Looking back, we had no idea how crazy things were.  Kelli's water broke while we were spending the night at a friends apartment back in Snoqualmie.  We made the 45 minute drive from Snoqualmie, to the hospital a mile from our house in Tacoma, not knowing that was where we would be spending the next 6 weeks of our lives!  The kids were tiny, they were 9 weeks early, and we were just going with the flow.

We began our time in Tacoma with a vision.  It was based on Roman's 10.  In vs. 1 Paul writes... My hearts desire and my prayer to God is for their salvation.  I just remember that verse being the anthem of my life.  There was no denying that God brought us to Tacoma.  There was no arguing that he had called us to plant The Pathway church.  Everything in our hearts were beating for life change.  We fully understood, and still understand, Paul's heart in writing that particular sentence.  Everything in us wanted to see salvation for a city full of people that we did not know.  Not just that we didn't know everyone in the city.  We didn't know anyone in the city.  But we loved them.  We still do.

Later in Romans 10:13-15 Paul writes... Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.  How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?  How will they believe in him in whom they have not heard?  And how will they hear without someone preaching?  How will they preach unless they are sent?  As it is written, how beautiful our the feet of those who bring the good news!

From this passage of Scripture flowed a vision statement that has carried us for 5 years.

We want to be a church with beautiful feet, committed to walking with our city down The Pathway of life by:

Serving our communities intentionally

Sharing the gospel with those we serve

Showing believers how to grow and 

Sending ordinary missionaries to start new Intentional Communities 

and new churches in Tacoma and beyond.

It's been amazing to see this vision become a reality.  We've literally have learned to walk with our city through life, learning who they are, becoming a part of the city and learning what their needs, desires and beliefs truly are.  We've served our tails off any and every way we know how.  From meeting tangible needs, to throwing block parties, partnering with local non-profits and getting our hands dirty with our neighbors.  We have seen a church grow with a passion and resolve to serve selflessly no matter how we are treated in return (Philippians 2).  

We've grown tremendously in sharing the gospel.  We've seen God change lives because of the hope of the gospel.  We've seen the addicted find recovery.  We've seen the recovered find purpose.  We've seen the nominal Christian find intentional mission.  We've seen the lonely and isolated individual find family in Christ.  We've seen the gospel infiltrate our city, by God's grace,  through the hands, feet and mouths of our church.  Unbelievable.

We've seen believers grow.  Sometimes I get so frustrated and feel like so much more should have happened by now.  But when I step back, breathe, and get some perspective, I think... WOW!  Look what you've done Lord.  We've seen disciples make disciples.  We've seen people who had never heard John 3:16 learn it, believe it and share it.  We've seen people who did not know sex outside of marriage was less than God's best decide on their own to honor God through repentance and then marriage.  We've seen folks who never thought they could lead or teach, lead and teach.  We've seen so many people grow in so many different ways.  

Make no mistake... all of this is by God's grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone!

We've even been amazed to see God allow us to raise up and send-out ordinary missionaries (by ordinary I mean folks just like you and just like me).  We've launched new Intentional Communities in multiple neighborhoods committed to serving and sharing the gospel.  We were even a part of launching a new church focusing on University students in Seattle called The Way.  The church plant ended up not making it, but it was an incredible act of trust in the Lord on the part of all involved.  Lessons were learned, faith was grown and you better believe we're not done planting churches.  We were even able, by God's grace alone, to send 3 ordinary missionaries to South Africa last year to partner in sharing the gospel with a people who so desperately need good news!

It's been an amazing ride and it is so incredibly far from over.

We believe that God has accomplished the original vision he gave us for planting the gospel in Tacoma.  We believe he's done that and we believe he can do so much more!  We've learned, we've grown, our faith has been tested and our God has remained faithful.  As I've prayed and sought God's direction over the last several months and really even the last year, one word has continued to come into my mind and heart as God has provided a fresh vision and a renewed passion.  Its the word on the graphic at the top of this post... Reproduction.

This Friday and Saturday is our Leadership Retreat.  Please pray for the leaders of The Pathway as we cast vision, ask questions, pray, dare to dream big and more importantly dare to put our faith in a God who does big things!  Pray for unity, passion, direction and resolve to see Reproduction happen.  Finally, please pray as we launch our vision series the first Sunday in November and cast this new, fresh, gospel-centered vision to our church.  It will be an exciting time.  

Please pray that people show up, bring family and friends, get excited, take action and begin to Reproduce for the glory of God!

I can only imagine (Ephesians 3:20), if the Lord has not yet returned, what we will be celebrating in October of 2019!

Margin for Unexpected Ministry

I'm trying to figure out the most effective way to give you a glimpse into my world today.  I always feel like full disclosure is the best approach even if it occasionally means my blogs come across a bit choppy.  Hopefully you agree.

First of all, I have been graced to be raised up as a church planter in what I believe to be one of the most exciting times of church planting in our nations history.  There is a focus on church planting like never before.  Part of that is because of the advancement of technology.  Everywhere I turn there's something new to learn, read, watch or study.  It's incredible.  There is a deep well of tools and seasoned experience from which to draw from... and it can all be a bit overwhelming.

One of the things I've been struggling with over the last 6 months to a year is what can be best referred to as "pulling the trigger."  It doesn't really matter what I need to pull the trigger on.  It could be a small project, creating the most efficient to-do list, deciding who God is calling me to invest my life, time and energy into, or coming up with a strategy for the next phase in the life of our church.  I get somewhat gun shy because I've read so many warnings, so many well-meaning planters and pastors sharing all the monumental mistakes they've made and so many experienced ministers telling me "exactly how to do this thing" or "exactly how not to do that thing."  The trouble is, more often than not the "tried and true" advice of one person contradicts the "tried and true" advice of the next.

The result?  I find myself over thinking everything and accomplish little to nothing.  Not a good place to find yourself when pursuing the glory of God and the advancement of his mission in this world.

All that being said, there is something that I have heard everywhere, over and over, in different forms, but conveying the same basic wisdom from more pastors, leaders and church planters than I can count.

What's their advice?  What's their challenge?

Retreat regularly.

Now that almost seems impossible for many of you.  How on earth can you retreat on a regular basis?  I believe many of us don't even know what a true retreat looks like.  We feel like wherever we go we have to have something to do.  We have to buy tickets, attend conferences, be entertained and we can't imagine escaping technology for even a few hours, much less a few days.

But for some reason, even in the relatively short time I've been in ministry, the advice has stuck with me.  Maybe it's because I have a great wife who gently (most of the time) reminds me that when I pour myself out without filling myself up I will eventually burn myself out.  Maybe it's because for every passionate and on fire pastor I meet I seem to meet 5 who are exhausted, overweight, bitter and burned out.  Maybe it's because I've seen too many church planters burn the candle at both ends so to speak at the cost of their marriage, family or just as seriously, their joy.

Or maybe, just maybe, this lesson has stayed with me by the grace of God.

Whatever the reason, retreating, by myself, every year is something I have made a habit of.  My bride is so amazing (most of you know that).  This year we were coming off a particularly stressful and hectic season and I just didn't feel like it was the right time to leave.  I told her I felt like I should cancel and she assured me that it was necessary for me to go... not just for me, not just for our family or our church... but for God to get the most glory out of what we are pursuing together as a family and a church.  She sent me on my way and I'm so thankful she did.

I could tell you so many things that God did in those couple of nights away.  He allowed me to read an incredible book called The Beginner's Guide to Spiritual Gifts by Sam Storms.  I highly recommend it.  He let me go for 2 runs... one on the beach.  He let me sleep the entire night through... twice!  He let me get healthy when I had been battling some pretty serious crud.  He let me pray.  He let me plan.  He let me dream, dream again and then dream bigger.  He let me write.  He let me read and meditate on his Word.  He granted me rest, peace, hope and joy.  It was a sweet time.

But of all those wonderful things, there is one thing he taught me that stands out above the rest.  It's not overly deep or profound, but it was an incredibly important message for me to hear.  It went something like this: SLOW DOWN STUPID! 

Such a simple message.  Such a truthful message.  I, like many of you I'm sure, tend to fill my plate too full.  I try to save the world all by myself (I'm pretty sure there's a King named Jesus who has that covered by the way).  I try to please everyone.  I hate to say "no" to anyone.  I like to have fun and do the things I enjoy, so I always make time for that.  I get up early, I stay up late and somehow in the midst of it all I figure out how to procrastinate.  I fall behind.  I try to catch up.  And before you know it I'm go 95 mph in 12 different directions spending the majority of my time on the things that matter the least.

What's the result?  There's probably too many to list, but in short, I don't have time for people who don't know Jesus.  I don't have time for divine appointments, for meeting needs, for praying for unexpected requests.  I just end up with no margin in my life.  And in reality, all the things I spend my time doing are farther from the heart of God than if I were just to make time to love a broken person.

So what am I going to do?  It's pretty crazy.  It's radical.  It's almost unimaginable.  I'm going to slow down!  Seriously.  I'm asking the Spirit of God to intervene in my life in a miraculous way.  I'm asking him to give me the courage to make time for people.  To trust him with the details, the to-do lists and the plans, and when there's a need... I want to meet it.  When there's a request... I want to pray for it.  When there's an unbeliever... I want to share Christ with them and when there's a brother or sister in Christ... I don't want to be too busy for them.

How is this possible you ask?  My best conclusion is... it's not! That is, it's not, apart from the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.  But thankfully, I have access to both of those.  And you do too, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone!

In summary... Make sure you have margin in your life for unexpected ministry! 

Paradox of The Pathway

The Pathway has never really done things by the book.

In the world of church planting, it is commonly said that you will always reach people that look like you.  Ha!  I think we blew that possibility out of the water when we moved to Tacoma.  From day one God drew us to people, and he drew people to us, who look absolutely nothing like us.  From background and economic status to race and religious heritage (or lack thereof), God has connected us with a diverse bunch of people, very few of whom look like me or Kelli.

Growth.  In "typical" church planting (whatever that means!), summers are always a difficult time.  I'm sure that's true for established churches too.  Rhythm's are broken.  Vacations are taken.  Attendance drops.  Consistency wanes.  Giving goes down.  But of course, for The Pathway, that's never been the case.  Summer has always been an incredible opportunity to embrace the patterns of summer and maximize the opportunity to do life with each other, engage new people and see people decide to make biblical community a part of their new routines.  This summer has been no exception to that.  We've seen doors open, the vibrancy of our gathering increase and more and more people connect to the community of believers.

The list could go on but for some reason I assumed that while we don't follow any other normal patterns of church planting, we would follow the pattern of renewed consistency and momentum heading into the fall.

WRONG!!!

What was I thinking?!?!  Why would we do that by the book when we do nothing else by the book?  The last 2 weeks have proven to be somewhat "slow," for lack of a better term.  I think people are still clinging to what's left of summer.  Getting kids back into school certainly drains parents and kids alike.  Overall, our worship gathering has decreased in attendance rather than increased and from a cursory look at our Intentional Community gatherings, attendance is sparse as well.

All this to say... pray for consistency.  Not just in the Sunday gathering, although I want people to long for and value that time, but also in community.  Pray for people to consistently do life together, consistently make disciples (and become disciples), consistently serve, give, love and worship.  Pray for people to see the need for disciple-makers, Intentional Community hosts and Intentional Community leaders.  Pray that our church, starting with myself, would embrace the call of God on all of us to be missionaries for the gospel in our own world, our own neighborhood and even in our own homes.

We're learning to be the church together.  We're learning the rhythm's of life together.  It's messy and it's fun but it is never ever "typical!"

One of those moments

I had one of those moments Sunday night.  It was a good moment.  It was a sweet moment.  It was one of those moments where God reminds you that he is at work in big ways.  He's at work in God-sized ways, doing God-sized things that for the most part I will never know about or comprehend.

I've shared on this blog before that 2014 is a year of focused and intentional congregational prayer for The Pathway.  By God's grace he gave us a reminder at the end of last year that we are really good at working hard.  We're really good at serving our communities, hosting block parties, moving people and meeting needs.  But we're not so good (mainly because I've led poorly in this area) at slowing down and asking the God of the universe to move in power, to change lives and to see God's kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

We definitely don't have it all figured out, but the first Sunday of every month this year we've committed to coming together as a church to pray for the spiritual healing of our city.  It's not glamorous by any stretch of the imagination.  At times it's down right frustrating and discouraging.  Prayer is hard.  For the most part we don't have a big turn-out.  Overall our numbers have been decreasing as the year has progressed.

Sometimes it's hard to focus.  We bring our twin 4 year olds with us.  Try praying for an hour with 4 year olds!  For us it really doesn't happen.  We make it as long as we can (usually 30 minutes), praying together as a family for our friends and neighbors.  Coaching our kids in what it means to pray, why it's a crucial part of life and the powerful affect it has.  Then either myself or Kelli takes the kids home while the other parent stays and continues to pray.

One of the stations we have set-up at the concert of prayer is really just a row of poster boards.  All year long we've been writing names on those poster boards.  But they're not just names, they're souls. They're human lives who need to be radically changed by the power of the Holy Spirit.  We write names every month and then we pray over those names.  It doesn't matter if we know them or not, God knows them and is honored by our prayers for them.

Last night was when I experienced one of those moments.  To be honest, my prayer time had not been incredibly deep and passionate.  It was a struggle.  But I made my way over to the poster boards as I do every month, kneeling next to them, and asking God to move in the lives of the people as I read their names in prayer.  I began reading names and then I saw my own handwriting.  The name of a man named Paul who our summer interns had met and served as they sought to saturate their apartment complex with the gospel.

I had attended a few of the intentional cook-outs our interns put together and that's where I met Paul.  We struck up a conversation and I asked him for his phone number (one of the most awkward, yet absolutely crucial parts of missional living... asking another dude for his number).  The interns continued to love on him and I reached out to him.  I prayed for him, had lunch with him and God started to soften him and work in his life.

The reason it was one of those moments, is that as I came to Paul's name on the list, I looked over my shoulder and there was Paul, sitting at another station in the room, praying.  Paul is still wrestling with God over many issues in his life, but God is moving.  Paul is now a part of my Intentional Community and becoming a friend. God is moving in people's lives.  Prayer works.  Lets not ever forget that!

Stepping up

I shared a few months back that we seemed to be having a mass exodus of leaders moving out of state due to job changes.  It really wasn't all that many people but when you have 6 Intentional Communities and the leaders and/or hosts from 3 of them move, it can be a scary challenge.  As I mentioned in that blog, God gave me an unusual peace about it all.  Usually I freak out about these types of things.  We have a hard enough time raising up leaders as it is.  But God is so good and thankfully he is sovereign.  I don't have to know his will or figure out his will in order for his perfect will to be done.

We're about a month removed from the last leaders to leave and not only are we surviving, we seem to be thriving.  Chase and Kyler Phillips and Chris and Rachel Croft were fantastic leaders.  The mark of their leadership is that when they left, and before they left, new leaders were already stepping up.  Of course it's not without challenges, but it's been cool to observe from a distance how the groups saw the challenges, embraced the challenges and are growing through the challenges.  Praise Jesus!  We lost our host, Deidra Delgado, to a move to South Dakota.  It gave us the opportunity to move back to a mission field we had thought was not going to bear much fruit and already we're seeing opportunities and open doors.  God knows what he is doing!

The two prayer requests I want to leave with you today are the following:
1) Pray for more Intentional Community Leaders & hosts.  We had 94 people at our gathering yesterday and we only have 5 Intentional Communities.  That's simply not enough groups to assimilate people into community.  We have also had an interesting influx of soldiers and families from joint base Lewis/McChord.  We need to see an Intentional Community birthed there.  I have ideas of who could host it, not idea who would lead it... but God knows!  Please pray for open doors.

2) Pray for volunteers to step up in September.  We are spoiled in the summer because we don't have to set-up and tear-down our worship gathering because school is not in session.  Well, school starts next month so we are recruiting volunteers and developing a new system with new leaders.  It's always a challenge because when it comes to gatherings, people often just think it happens.  They don't realize all the work and prayer and preparation that goes on behind the scenes to provide an environment to worship without distraction, a hospitable culture that welcomes new folks in and a children's environment that safe and engaging.  We're in the recruiting process now and it's natural to be getting excuses!  Please pray that our people would be so passionate about worshipping Jesus together that they would be willing and executed to rearrange their routines to make it possible.  Please also pray that by this time next year we would be launching a second worship gathering so that even our KiDCity volunteers would be able to gather for worship every single week.

Whirlwind.

KiDCity kiddos singing "J is for Jesus" after an awesome week of Kids Club

Whirlwind.  I think that's the best word I can use to describe the end of June and the entire month of July.  Eight mission teams, 6 interns, at least 6 block parties, partnership with 2 local non-profits, more hours of prayer than can be counted, 4 nights of Kids Club and our first ever parenting class called Equip: Parents.

I think our natural tendency is to shout the praises of our God, proclaim that what he has done is good and then collapse in exhaustion, satisfied that the task has been completed.  In reality though, that would be a horrible blunder on our part.  In fact, the task has only just begun.  

Prayers were lifted that God would bring the spiritual healing of our city and there is still much to happen in that regard.  The Kids club and parenting class were carried out in an effort to partner with parents in discipling their kids and that is only one piece in a multi-faceted, life-long discipleship process.  The block parties, cook-outs and service project partnerships were done in an effort to love our city well and find persons of peace who want to be a part of seeing the kingdom of God come on earth as it is in heaven.  Now it's time to build into those persons of peace and spiritual sojourners so the kingdom will in fact grow in Tacoma.

The work is far from over and we need your prayers.  We've realized that we are at a crossroads as a church.  We are no longer at a size where we can fly by the seat of our pants and handle everything as it comes.  We're realizing that in order to effectively equip leaders, make disciples and multiply Intentional Communities, we have to implement systems that are clearly defined for people to walk through as they grow in Christ and play their role in the body.

But where do we start?  Do we begin with our Family ministry system, what I believe is one of the most important things we do in equipping parents to raise up the next generation to know and follow hard after Jesus?  Do we start with our financial system so that we can raise up a community of extravagantly generous followers of Jesus as well as providing people the confidence that the church is being a great steward of the resources we have?  Do we start with our discipleship system?  Our volunteer system?  Our leadership development system?  Our assimilation system?  Our worship team system?

You get the point.  There are so many places to grow and systems to implement, the tendency is to get overwhelmed and accept the status quo.  But if we accept the status quo we won't grow.  And if we don't grow that means disciples aren't being made.  And if disciples aren't being made, God's mission is not being accomplished and that's simply unacceptable!  

Please take a good look at the kids in the picture at the beginning of this post.  They are the vessels that will carry hope to the next generation.  That hope is the gospel and we want them to know it, be raised in it and be saturated by it.  Please pray that as we follow-up with all that God did this summer and as we seek to wisely implement the right systems in the right ways at the right time, that God would pour out his grace, grow his kingdom and empower us to keep our eyes fixed on him every single step of the way.

Thank you so much!

What a summer!

Fail.

I'm pretty sure that's the best word to describe my attempt to fulfill my end of this blogging relationship.  You can't read and pray if I don't write and post.  Sorry about that.  Let me share with you a bit of what's been going on.

Mission Teams:

I'm going to jump in the "old church van" in just a little while to go pick up our 8th and final mission team from the airport.  Please be praying for Humble Area First Baptist Church as they lead our Kids Club for the second year in a row.  Last year I believe we had around 25 kids a night. This year we already have around 70 pre-registered!  Glory to God!  Please pray that this would be an incredible opportunity to partner with our families in making disciples of their children.  Please also pray it would be an incredibly fruitful connection point for many of the families in our community.  Our heart is that they would experience the gospel in all it's fullness and the Holy Spirit would change them in a powerful way.

Humble is our final team but God has been rocking our community this month through the 7 teams that came before them.  In brief, we had 2 teams per week for 3 weeks come and serve with us.  Two teams focused on the Hilltop, the neighborhood where The Pathway started and where my family lives and 3 of our Intentional Communities currently gather and serve.  Two teams focused on the neighborhood around Franklin Elementary where we have our Sunday gathering and 2 teams focused on the North End, a new neighborhood for us but where we already have 2 Intentional Communities gathering.

What do I mean by focus?  Quite simply the teams adopted the neighborhood for the week.  They prayer walked the neighborhood almost every day.  They dove into what we call "Gospel Saturation."  That is, after they prayer walked with their eyes open, asking God to show them people and needs, they went out and met those needs.  One example was a family on the North End who needed a HUGE tree trimmed and some yard work done.  By God's grace one of the team members was a professional tree trimmer so he bought a chainsaw and knocked it out.  The family happened to own a sail boat so they took the team out sailing on their final day in Tacoma.  It was a beautiful and God-ordained connection.

One of the teams who was focusing on the North End seemed to also unofficially adopt a local frozen yogurt shop as their mission field.  That's where they met Tanya and Faith (pictured above).  Tanya is a single mom and Faith has special needs that the doctors have not been able to fully diagnosed.  Faith can't communicate verbally and she's in a wheel chair but she has one of the most precious smiles I have ever seen.  The team bought mom and daughter Frozen Yogurt and invited her to The Pathway's block party.  She told them she felt like God was trying to tell her something because some of her neighbors keep inviting her to The Pathway's gatherings and block parties... imagine that!

Well sure enough, Tanya and Faith came to the a party where she immediately recognized Gene (also pictured above).  When she found out Gene was a part of The Pathway she knew God was up to something.  She had multiple days of sweet fellowship with the mission team, has come to 3 block parties and visited our Sunday gathering.  When she came to the gathering she also realized she knew my wife Kelli from time spent with the kids at the zoo.  God definitely knows what he's doing!  Please pray that Tanya and Faith will connect to Intentional Community!

All in all the summer has tilled up an abundant opportunity for spiritual harvest.  We have tried to make the foundation of the entire summer a movement of prayer.  God has been honoring that and we have seen him move in a unique way.  Two Sunday's ago we had 113 people at our Sunday gathering and that does NOT include any mission teams.  Yesterday we had 96 on what was one of our lowest Sundays last year!  Please be praying that these new folks would quickly connect to Intentional Community where we are confident they will connect to the gospel.

Intentional Community

Speaking of Intentional Community.  Please be praying for our Intentional Communities to grow.  We really focus on 3 areas of growth as an IC... Communion with God, Community with each other, and Mission among our target neighborhood.  The last month has been a time of good-byes for us.  Two of our IC Leaders, Chris and Rachel Croft moved their family to Nevada and 2 more, Chase and Kyler Phillips, moved back to their home state of Oklahoma.

Normally I would panic about such things but God has provided so beautifully and new leaders have already stepped up.  That being said, we need more people who understand the heart of Intentional Community to be willing to lead and host IC's.  Please pray that God would bring leaders for the harvest that he has been working on this summer.

The picture to the right is of my family's Intentional Community.  We gathered yesterday to have a good-bye party for one of our families who are moving to South Dakota.  We are sad to see them go but I'm excited to see how God uses them in their new home.  I'm certain he has big plans for them.  I posted this picture on Facebook today and my sister sent me the following text:

Just saw a pic of your IC on Facebook. Every time I see these pictures I am AMAZED at what God has done with the Pathway. Do you remember when it was just an idea??? Be encouraged- He is doing awesome things!!!

I definitely remember when it was just an idea.  And as I told my sister Amber, I hope I never forget the days of inviting people intentionally into community and repeatedly being rejected, stood-up, taken advantage of and stabbed in the back.

Does that still happen?  Of course.  But by God's grace he has provided some incredibly loyal brother's and sister's in Christ to walk with us through the hard and to join us in celebrating the good. Thank you Jesus for Intentional Community!  Please pray that God would multiply us!