I've been out of the office for a little bit.

Well things are going well in SC. We seem to be in a new season with the church: "Yeah, I'd love to come to your church," but don't show up season! It's cool. We have been here just over one year & I assume this is a normal part of what groups, who do church like we do, experience. We have made a great deal of headway into making relationships with people in this city, & for that Jesus is extremely blessed; however, we desire for people to bridge the gap into the greatest relationship ever offered. Persistence.

I've really had to search my heart in many ways, scrubbing out little pet secrets I like to keep. One is: Being successful. It's easier (easy in the sense of atta boys) to love Jesus when things are going well, but how do I love Jesus when things aren't as I expected? Another thing he has been teaching me is: He's in control, it's his time (& timing) not mine. My anxiousness won't make things go any faster & even if it did, I'll assume with some experience to back me up, it would probably make things more complicated. I was praying during one of our 24hr prayer nights & felt like God spoke to me, "Galatians 2:1." I thought, cool, let's see what it says. "Fourteen years later I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also." I started laughing; I get a word from the Lord & it's basically about one thing: Patience. So, I've become a much more relaxed person ;-).

No matter what though, I wouldn't change a thing about how we are doing this thing. Our hunger for God has risen to new heights, which I assume is the whole goal. Church isn't a service, even a cool post-modern seeker service, it's a group of people who love God, love People, & Make Disciples; & I will define success by the percentage of people within our fellowship who are living out the Great Commandment & Commission. Too, what % are willing to follow the Jesus of the NT who said, "No, Let the dead bury the dead. Follow Me." Fun times.

I mentioned to Laben the other day that there are basically 3 groups of people Jesus spoke to: 1.The religious leaders, 2.The broken & sick, 3. The apathetic crowd. I made the observation that a majority of churches cater to group #3, which is a group Jesus refused to gratify. The crowd was really interested in Jesus, wanted to follow, but the price to be a "Nazarene" was too great. Jesus is a fascinating guy. One guy in our church who has said "Yes" to Jesus is a Ph.D student at UCSC. He mentioned, "I don't want to follow Jesus. What if he asks me to give up my Ph.D?" I thought, "Well, sounds like a question you'd find in the NT!" I told him, “He might.” He has turned out to be one of the greatest blessings in our church.

We handed out flowers for Valentines with tags on them that said, "Jesus thinks you're awesome & we agree!" It was great. We handed out close to 100 flowers & everybody had a great time. The expressions on the faces of the people were priceless & it was awesome to know they were confronted with Jesus' feeling for them. I made sure to go to the Vet's Hall & place a flower inside the director's door. 3 days later as Jeff & I were paying our bill we noticed the flower on his desk, in a vase. Wow. Looking forward to 14yrs of pure Jesus fun. Too, one of our LifeGroups is moving to a house on campus! When I heard about it part of my LifeGroup ulcer was instantly healed!! Meeting in coffee shops downtown is cool, but a home is a much warmer place.

We are headed to Mexico this summer. We committed to working with a YWAM base in Mazatlan for the 1st week in July. We are going to build a house for $3800! (Uh, we could use some help getting the money). I chose YWAM because they are doing things we value: Outreach, Training School, Evangelism, Etc. However, we desire for this to be done within the context of a local church. (Para-Church orgs are another blog). Although we're not sure who will go with us I keep telling everyone, "We can't invite people to do something we aren't doing," so, let's step out in faith & go. Hopefully this turns into our yearly short-term trip, which gets people exposed to: Doing more of the same somewhere else. If you wanna' go let me know ($650: Not including house $).
Love ya,