The Pathway- Tacoma, WA

Soup-er-Bowl

2012-02-07T14:28:00.000-08:00

I'm sure most of you watched the Giant's beat the Patriots in a great game that went down to the wire. If you weren't interested in the game itself I would imagine you tuned in for the commercials or to see an aging Madonna put on a much anticipated performance. Most of you who know me even a little know that I am a sports fanatic and look forward to being glued to the screen every year during the super bowl. However, this year I don't think I saw one commercial and I missed most of the game... and I'm so glad I did!

One of the first ways we felt led to serve the Evergreen Neighbors (the community around our facility) was to throw and Intentional "Soup-er-Bowl" Shindig where everyone brought their favorite soup or chili and invited their families, neighbors and friends. Some people even met up the day before to go door-to-door inviting our neighbors to the party. The whole purpose was to develop relationships, love our neighbors and share the gospel. And boy did God ever bless the shindig. He is so faithful and so good.

I missed most of the game because we had so many new faces come to the party. We had people from the neighborhood, we had people from outside the neighborhood, we had a great number of our church in attendance and we even had many of our people bringing their family members for the first time. It was so amazing.

One man that came was named Dave. He's an older gentleman with a cool style... probably in his late sixties or early seventies. We sat and talked for a while and he said he doesn't go to church anywhere but does believe in God. I got to share the gospel with him and explain to him the difference between believing in God and following Jesus. He told me that he often wonders why he is still on this earth. I got to share with him that he's here because God loves him, wants a relationship with him and wants to use him for his glory and mission. Dave told me that was a very deep idea & that he thought it was good. I got his number so we can talk more.

One of our men had been praying that his wife would come with him and she did! We had two of our ladies bring their mom's for the first time. We had more new faces than I could count and had a great time in the name of Jesus. At half-

time we muted Madonna (or whoever was on at the time) for a few minutes to let people know who we are and to tell them that everything that was going on was about Jesus. It was an amazing opportunity and we're praying that God brings salvation, life change and Kingdom growth as a result.

Best of all, we got to model for all our future Intentional Community Leaders what it looks like to be the church and serve our neighbors. God was graceful to us and we pray and trust that he was glorified through our Soup-er-Bowl Shindig! Intentional Community really is a beautiful thing.

Roller Coaster

2012-01-30T08:30:00.000-08:00

I love roller coasters. I haven't been on one in years. But I love them. They're fast, rough, exciting and scary. But one of the best things a roller coaster has going for it is that it's not a straight and predictable ride. It has many ups and many downs. That's one of the great things about church planting too. I know that sounds a little off. As a church planter shouldn't I want as many ups as possible? In a way that is true. If I had a choice to have people coming to Jesus and the church thriving and growing all the time of course I would take it. But if that were the case, I think my faith in God and devotion to Jesus would start to slip. The ups are where my faith is strengthened but the downs are where my faith is tested.

The last month has been really fun. We have seen God moving in a new and fresh way on the Hilltop. We have seen leaders step up, worship attendance increase and an Intentional Community launch made up of people who are passionate about reaching our mission field... the Evergreen Neighborhood. Then yesterday, seemingly all at once, the momentum came to a screeching halt. It's like when you come to the end of an amazing loop on a fast roller coaster and you slam to a stop before beginning another incline. It really wasn't that dramatic... it just felt that way in the moment. We probably had half as many people at worship yesterday than we've had for the past month. None of the people I invited came and my message just felt... well... not great. It was just a bummer all around. It was then that I realized I have to be certain of why I am doing what I am doing. Is it for numbers or is it for Jesus? That is when my faith was tested and by God's grace my faith increased.

Then a blessing came. One of those exhilarating parts of the roller coaster ride. We have an awesome family in our church that is as committed as anyone to coming to worship but they have yet to be a part of our Community Groups or more recently our Intentional Community. I love them and there is so much potential in them, but hey haven't taken that next step. It always appears to be scheduling problems but I always wander if that's just an excuse. Then yesterday the husband came to me and told me that he and his wife came up with an idea so that they could be involved with our IC despite their schedule. They asked if they could skype in? I told him that was a great idea! I told him I was so encouraged that they value being a part of biblical community so much that they're willing to skype in until we can offer a gathering on a day of the week that works for them.

Roller coaster rides are full of ups and downs but it's faith in Jesus alone that sustains us through the ride. Thanks for praying. Please keep praying as we Gather to Scatter.

In awe of God's timing

2012-01-24T08:53:00.001-08:00

Let me tell you how amazing our God is.

Most of you know that we are in a new phase in the life of The Pathway. We are calling the months of January-April our Gather to Scatter phase. We have combined all our Community Groups into one Intentional Community for the purpose of modeling what "being the church" can and should look like and then scattering at least 5 new IC's across the city. As a part of that modeling, we have adopted a section of our community called the Evergreen Neighbors as our mission field. Over the course of the next several months, as an Intentional Community, we are doing everything we can to pray for, serve and share the gospel with the people who make up the Evergreen Neighborhood.

We made the Evergreen Neighbors our mission field around November. That is when we started planning and praying about our Gather to Scatter strategy. Then, just before Christmas, God did something only he could do in a way that only he could pull off. Most of you remember that God gave Kelli and I another daughter when we moved to Tacoma. Her name is Tiffany and she came to us when she was 17 years old. The pain in regard to Tiffany is great but God is still working in her life and she is still in our life.

One day in December I received a call from a number I didn't recognize. On the other end of the phone was a lady who was looking for help for her pregnant sister. The lady's sister had just escaped an abusive relationship. She was pregnant, close to giving birth and did not have any of the things so many parents are used to receiving from baby showers, family and friends. I told her I would connect her with Kelli because we have so much baby stuff... it's practically coming out our ears! Before I hung up I asked her how she got my number. She said from Tiffany. I asked, "How do you know Tiffany?" She went on to tell me that Tiffany had called her in response to an ad on Craigslist requesting "baby stuff." She told her that I was a pastor and that I could "help."

Fast forward a few days and weeks and the lady and her sister came over to our house, went shopping in our miniature baby boutique (our garage) and spent a little time with Kelli. Kelli invited them to our worship service and they came that week. But they didn't just come. Over the course of the last month they have brought almost their entire extended family with them to various things we have done as an Intentional Community. This past Sunday the lady who originally called me on the phone came up to me teary-eyed and expressed her gratitude toward God. She told me she was amazed that we were putting all our focus on the Evergreen Neighbors because she has numerous siblings, cousins and other family members who live in the boundaries of the Evergreen neighbors. She said that God has used The Pathway to get them to be a part of a church and to hear the gospel for the first time. Awesome.

I love to plan, strategize and vision cast. But ultimately, not even the best strategist could orchestrate something like that. God is moving on the Hilltop. Please pray for us and for the Evergreen Neighbors as we Gather to Scatter for the glory of God and the sake of the gospel.

Intentional Community

2012-01-17T14:28:00.000-08:00

We had a great kick-off to the "gathered" phase of our Gather to Scatter strategy! All praise to Jesus for that. We began this past Thursday evening as we are seeking to model what intentional and biblical community should look like. The goal and our prayer is that on Easter Sunday, April 8th, a day we are calling Scatter Sunday, we will be able to pray over, commission and launch out at least 5 new Intentional Communities in Tacoma's Hilltop & beyond!

This past Thursday our Intentional Communities Director, Stacie Hooks, and I were discussing how many people we should prepare for. I of course said, "I have no idea!" Seriously though, the first time you try something is the hardest because you have no idea what to expect. I remember the first time me and Kelli tried to start a new small group in Snoqualmie we sat there alone, looking at each other, until we decided to go home! That being said, we had to plan for something so I told Stacie I would be excited to have 15 people at the first group so we should set up for around 20. Well, as he so often does, God did more than we imagined. He brought 28 people to our first IC gathering and about 10 kids came to our new Thursday night Kids Ave! It was awesome and all praise goes to Jesus.

We met at 6pm for dinner and then at 6:30 we began The Story-formed Way, a unique way to tell the entire narrative of Scripture in 10 weeks that is put out by Soma Communities, also based in Tacoma. Well, Stacie did an amazing job telling the story of creation and the not so small group really opened up for discussion. It was a great time of learning about and worshipping God for the Creator that he is. We got to learn about the beauty of creation, the pain of the fall and the love of a perfect Father.

I would ask that you pray for our Intentional Community going forward as we have a lot of work to do and we are relying on the Holy Spirit to get it all done. Between now and Scatter Sunday we are intentionally going to be serving and sharing the gospel with a group on the Hilltop called the Evergreen neighbors. They are an organized block group that we are trying to love and serve whether or not they are currently interested in the gospel or The Pathway. However, we are training our church not just to serve but also to share. If we serve in love and grace but do not share the hope we have in Christ, we are simply making people feel good as they journey farther and farther down the path that leads to hell. That is just not okay.

Tonight will be our first big open door to love the Evergreen neighbors as Stacie and some of the IC members will be attending the groups monthly meeting just to make ourselves available and build relationships. Please pray that God opens unexpected doors and that the gospel will bring life change to the Evergreen neighbors!

Also, I want to give a big shout out to Jesus for gracing us with a new interim worship leader!!! Donna Christian has been sent to us by a sister church of ours in Tacoma, Discovery Church, and will lead worship for us through may or until God brings us a part-time worship leader. That is a huge answer to prayer and thank you all for persistently presenting that request to Jesus. Please continue to pray that God would bring long-term staff to serve with The Pathway.

God is moving... please be praying

2012-01-10T08:43:00.000-08:00

I want all of you who follow this blog to be encouraged. God is moving. I know that I have a tendency to be very truthful in my posting. When things are hard and we are struggling, I do my best to be honest about that. I think it is a vital part of my partnership with all of you and I think that is what God expects of his church... authenticity and transparency grounded in the hope we have in Jesus. While I try to be honest about the hard things, I also want to share with you the good things. And over the last month and a half we have begun to see some very good things as God responds to what you have been praying for.

First and foremost, we have begun to see God raise up leaders for our church from within and without. As most of you who follow the blog know, the VanGo missionaries who were planning to help us for 3-6 weeks have now committed to serve as part-time staff for at least 6 months. Jenna Jones is our new Kids Ave Director and Stacie Hooks is our Director of Intentional Communities. One of the blessings is that we are paying them very part-time pay and they are working with full-time commitment. A huge load has already been lifted from my shoulders personally and we have already begun to see growth.

We have also see people take ownership from within in various ways. We've seen our church come together to decorate our facility for Christmas, host a New Years Day brunch and meet needs in various ways. It has been beautiful to see. The things we need you to continue to pray for are 3 fold. 1) Please pray that God raises up replacements for Jenna and Stacie as they are only here on an interim basis. 2) Pray that God continues to raise up passionate leaders from within our church to host and lead new groups that we will be starting. 3) Pray that we can find a worship leader!!! God has opened the door for a potential interim worship leader which is a huge praise but we desperately need some leaders to commit for the long haul.

I also want you to be encouraged regarding your prayers for my family. Satan definitely attacks us through our kids health but your prayers are being answered and multiplied. Our children are growing healthy and strong, we've had a great month of health and God has been providing for us in miraculous and overwhelming ways. Please continue to battle for us, but be encouraged!

Finally, we are beginning to see growth! Only time will tell if that growth sustains and continues to multiply, but we are seeing great things and prayers answered. We are seeing new families come in and take steps forward in their commitment... praise to Jesus! We are seeing God open doors for opportunities for us to serve within our community and connect with more people, more families. We want to grow because we want God's Kingdom to grow. Please continue to pray for salvation. We desire to see that more often and in greater numbers. But be encouraged, God is blessing us with spiritual, leadership and numerical growth. All praise to Jesus.

Lastly, I want you to pray for our facility that we call The Spot. We have great dreams for how we can use it for the city and for the glory of God, but we don't currently own it. There are a lot of open doors and possibilities for improvements and support, but God is going to be the one to put all the crazy puzzle pieces together if anything is going to happen. Please just pray that his will be done with The Spot because having a facility is nothing I planned or even wanted, but it is obviously a part of God's plan for The Pathway. Please pray that he would put the pieces together in his timing.

We love you all. Thank you for your faithful prayers and generous support of our church and family. Be encouraged! God is moving.

A New Year!

2012-01-02T08:17:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling as many of you are that I can't believe we are already in 2012. We are about to enter into our 5th full year in the state of Washington, we just began our third year in Tacoma, our kids will turn 3 this year and Kelli and I will celebrate our 6th year of marriage in 2012! Where does the time go?

We were blessed to ring in the new year with some of our close friends. We celebrated the mountain time new year for Kelli (those of you who know her understand she can't stay up until midnight) and then the rest of us rang in the new year pacific time with Jack Bauer and season 1 of "24." It was wonderful.

Then on New Year's Day we had so much fun indulging in pancakes and waffles with our church family. Rich and Susan Llufrio-- King and Queen of throwing a good party-- had the idea of a pancake breakfast and they came full force ready to cook and serve with several others who pitched in to pull off the event. We had a great turn out of our normal crew and some new faces and families to The Pathway. It was an excellent start to 2012 but there is much, much more work to be done.

God has given me such a great peace over the last couple of days that our work is not in vain because it is a work orchestrated by him, for him and through him. What a glorious confidence that brings. Please pray for us as we enter into our Gather to Scatter strategy this coming week that will culminate around Easter with Scatter Sunday where we will commission 5 new Intentional Communities to infiltrate our city with the gospel of Jesus.

Can't wait to see what God does in 2012. As always I'm certain it will be far more than we have asked or imagined.

I have no idea what God is doing!!!

2011-12-28T09:49:00.000-08:00

I literally have no idea what God is doing! I would definitely say this phase in my life and this phase in church planting has been teaching me a lot about the sovereignty of God. He is sovereign over everything, including the direction of our church plant. But he has also been teaching me a lot about his providence which inevitably leads to a crisis of belief... a test of faith. I know that everything he does, even when I don't understand it, is a part of the journey he has carved out for me, my family and my church. The crisis of belief comes in deciding whether or not I am going to choose to trust him in faith when I have no idea what he is doing.

Most of you know we are entering a new phase in the life of The Pathway. We're calling this our Gather to Scatter strategy. We have combined all our Community Groups into 1 Intentional Community for the purpose of strengthening our core, training leaders, and ultimately scattering across the community and the city to saturate Hilltop and all of Tacoma with the gospel. Well, in order for this to happen God put several things on my heart to work toward. Long story short, all of them have fallen into place except one... a worship leader.

It's nauseating for me to think about how long we have been without a worship leader. Especially because we live in a place where music is a huge part of culture! How do we not have a worship leader? I do know that God has taught me a lot over the past 5 months about worship. He's taught me that worship is more than a song. He's taught me that worship is a heart, an offering, anything given to God as a pleasing aroma for his glory. He's taught me that a worship leader is not the end all be all of a church. But he has also taught me what a blessing it is to have someone who is willing to use their gift of music to lead a body of believers to worship God through music & through singing.

All that to say, for the first time in months God gave us several possibilities for worship leaders. But, for reasons only God knows, none of those people were the right people to lead The Pathway in worship. We now have zero possibilities... at least that I can see.

I want to give God all the praise and glory for providing the other pieces of the puzzle. He's motivated some of our people to step up and lead, taking ownership of the vision God has given our church. He's provided a Kids Ave Director and an Intentional Communities Director. He's done so much. I also want to praise him for protecting us from the wrong worship leader. We definitely want the right person to step in.

I would ask you to pray, as I try to trust God's providence and patiently move forward while I have no idea what he is doing, that God would continue to move us forward as a church in this new strategy... without a worship leader. And, that in his time, he would provide the right man to step in and lead us.

I have no idea what God is doing. But in my heart, I know that's a good thing!

Partnering & Serving for God's glory

2011-12-20T09:30:00.000-08:00

Most of you know that the heart of The Pathway is not to start "ministries" or put on "programs." We are legitimately not against those things, it's just not who we are and how we are gifted. The heart that God has given our church is to partner with other people, organizations and ministries by serving along side them and bring the gospel to the table. Most of the groups that we partner with are not Christians... but then again, that's the point. We want to bring the gospel where the gospel does not already have roots and for us, partnering through serving is the best way to do it.

In light of this heart, God has opened doors for us to serve with and alongside a well respected community organization in our community of Hilltop. This group, known as HAC, was started in the late 1980's in response to the Crips coming up from L.A. and trying to take over the Hilltop. They have seen the gang violence almost completely disappear and now they are focused on battling the drug issues and making our community a more beautiful and desirable place to live.

God has opened the door for me to sit on the Board for HAC and has already given me numerous opportunities to share the gospel through that role. Well, last night our church was able to host a Christmas party for all of HAC's leaders and community partners. It was an amazing opportunity for us to have our community experience the reality that our facility is for them, not for us. The President of the Board asked me to pray and through that I got to share our heart with a room full of unbelievers and thank God for sending Jesus on the first Christmas.

Our church stepped up to the plate too. They're really beginning to take ownership of the mission. Rich & Susan Llufrio deep fried a turkey... delicious. Scott Ignacio made a delicious green bean casserole. Maria Kelley babysat the kids and many others showed up just to help set-up and clean up. Many relationships were built and God gave us, as a church, more favor in the community. Please pray for more gospel opportunities to come from this and for the Kingdom of God to grow.

Partnership and serving for the purpose of sharing the gospel. That's the heart of The Pathway.

The heart of God.

2011-12-13T06:28:00.000-08:00

James 1:27 says, Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

This is not meant to ignore the vital part of James 1:27 that calls for believers to look after widows in distress, but God has taught me so much over the past 2 years about his heart for the orphan. He's stretched my understanding of what it means to be an orphan. In my mind, and I believe from God's perspective, an orphan is not just a child who has no living parents, but is a child who is neglected and robbed of love by their parents whether they live with them or not. I am convicted in my own life that I have not done enough, risked enough, sacrificed enough for the sake of the orphan. Unloved, unwanted and abandoned children is an epidemic in this world. But there is hope and it comes through the life changing power of Jesus. Over the last 2 years I've seen God's people stretch themselves and move closer to his heart through their willingness to look after orphans in their distress. Let me share with you a few examples and then a vital prayer request.

My sister & brother-in-law (Chris & Amber Irving)-- God gave them a desire and a call to adopt. As they explored the system they realized the great need for foster care. Not only did they foster multiple children, they ended up adopting a sibling group. Two boys already into their pre-teen and teen years. A hard choice to say the least but a beautiful reflection of God's heart.

Multiple Church planters-- That's right, church planters. In the midst of their struggle, financial hardship and spiritual battles, I've seen several church planters go through the adoption process. Two particular planters have adopted children with special needs from China. The heart of God is a beautiful thing.

Trinity Baptist Church-- When we were down south for our partnership trip we went to the missions conference of Trinity Baptist in Ada, OK. We were surprised to see "adoption" as a break out session. How amazing that they don't view adoption as something separate from God's call for the church. They view adoption as going hand-in-hand with the mission of God. While we were there we met more couples than I can count who were fostering and/or adopting including the youth pastor & his wife. That's not an epidemic, that's a movement of God!

Becca Hurst & Laura Stevenson-- This is the one that is hitting close to home for our family and The Pathway. Becca and Laura are a part of our Leadership Team and sacrificed so much of what it means to be "young and free" by coming to serve with The Pathway. Over recent months they felt God calling them, as roommates, to become legal guardians for a 16, now 17 year old girl who has been abused in more ways in her short life than I can fathom. Did it make sense? No. Has it been easy or ideal? Absolutely not. But they saw an orphan (although her parents are living) in distress and they could not turn the other way.

Right now is a difficult time for our church as I shared in my last post and we believe it is because God is moving. My kids have been attacked through their health (and they are both doing much better) but Becca and Laura are being attacked, and quite frankly beaten down, through their James 1:27 heart. Their child is hurting and broken and this pain is manifesting itself in ways that are hurtful and inexplicable. They are trying to love her but their hearts are being destroyed. Please pray for three things...

1) Pray for Becca and Laura to throw all that they are into the hands of God. When we are weak he is made strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

2) Ask God to show you if you could do more, give more, risk more... trust him more when it comes to looking after the orphans in distress all around you. And remember, many of those orphans have parents.

3) Pray that what God is beginning to do here in Tacoma would not be thwarted by Satan's attacks on our church and leadership.

God is up to something

2011-12-05T22:17:00.000-08:00

Well, for those who have been praying for my son Jagen... thank you. He spent 3 nights in the hospital and then had 3 amazing nights of rest. One night he slept fifteen and a half hours!!! Unfortunately, the last couple nights have been really rough. With no real answers be found as to what is causing Jagen's ulcers, it appears that he might have to undergo even more testing since this new medication doesn't seem to be doing the trick. Please continue to pray for Jagen and our entire family.

As painful as it is to watch my son struggle with pain that I can't fix and that he can't understand, we know that over the past 2 years, every time God starts to move in Tacoma, Satan attacks our kids. As a father, it is hard to know how to feel in the midst of the attack. However, having just preached on God's providence, I chose to trust God no matter how he chooses to allow his plan to unfold.

Many of you have been praying for God to provide more leaders to join us in Tacoma. Let me encourage you and assure you, God is responding to your prayers. We have just recently completely reorganized our budget (although it still doesn't quite add up... trusting Jesus), and we have hired a part-time Kids Ave Director and a part-time Intentional Communities Director (new name for what used to be called Community Groups). This is a very exciting thing for us because it gives us two more committed people who are focused on saturated Tacoma with the gospel and equipping the people of The Pathway to be on mission. God has also opened some doors for potential worship leaders. Please continue to pray as we are meeting with several people over the next week or so and we're hoping that God provides someone to fill that role. We also have two other people praying about moving here. One may move as soon as February and the other is coming for a 10 day visit beginning Saturday.

God is moving and Satan is attacking so we need your prayers now as much as ever. In the midst of all of this leadership development and recruitment, we still have a strong and burning desire to see life change. Please pray that God would continue to bring salvation in the lives of the lost and surrender in the lives of the saved. It's tough, but God knows what he's doing and we can't wait to see how the next year of our journey unfolds!

Jagen

2011-11-29T19:30:00.000-08:00

Our world has been put on pause since Sunday because of health issues for myself and Jagen. I had been struggling with a virus since Wednesday but Jagen's reflux issues had been getting worse. Foolishly I pushed myself too hard on Sunday. Long story short, Sunday night Kelli had her son on one side of the ER and her husband on the other side. Not a great scenario. I got the fluids in me I desperately needed along with some anti-nausea medicine but Jagen's problem is taking much more time to figure out.

God always know though doesn't he? He's never been caught off guard... never. The VanGo girls who I have mentioned in previous blogs have become the VanStay girls as they've committed to serve with us in Tacoma for 6 months. Until they move into their apartment they have been staying at our home. I am certain God put them there at this time because I needed to be in bed resting and recovering and Kelli needed to be at the hospital with Jagen. They have been a God send, along with others including Becca and John, taking care of Rylan and bringing Kelli what she needs at the hospital.

At this point I am doing much better. Ry and I went to the hospital this afternoon to visit with Jagen and Kelli and we had a good time. We have two main prayer requests at this time. First, pray that the doctors would find out the source of Jagen's GI issues. They found out underneath his reflux are a stomach and esophagus full of ulcers. Today they ran some blood tests and did a sonogram and we should have the results tomorrow evening. Please pray for answers so we can get his pain relieved.

The second thing we need you to pray for is a new "Gather to Scatter" phase The Pathway is entering into. We have learned that every time God starts to bring momentum here in Tacoma, our kids health gets attacked. Tomorrow night is a big night for The Pathway as we are combining all our Community Groups to cast a new strategy and approach to more effectively accomplish our vision. I'm so excited about it but I don't know how we're going to get through it with Jagen still in the hospital. Please pray for wisdom if we need to cancel and faith if we need to push through. We know God has called us here for his glory and we want to do everything according to his purpose and plan.

Thank you for praying.

Transfer Growth

2011-11-15T00:14:00.000-08:00

Tonight I'm sitting in a hotel room in Eugene, OR at the annual meeting for the Northwest Baptist Convention. Today was the pastor's conference and the speaker was Ed Stetzer. Many of you who have heard of Stetzer think of him as a brilliant statistical mind, author of too many books, and a big-wig at LifeWay Christian Resources. While all of those things are factual, something you may not know is that Stetzer began his journey into the world of church planting about 24 years ago in the inner city of Buffalo, New York. I definitely learned a couple things from Ed tonight from his brilliance, but I also learned a couple things from his experience.

After the main gathering of pastors there was a smaller Q&A time with Stetzer. For those who know me you won't be surprised that I asked the first question. I had read of his experience as a newly married 21 year old in the inner city of Buffalo so I asked him what were some of the good things God did while he was there. One thing he said really resonated with what I am feeling and learning and trying to trust God for here in Tacoma. He said that when you're working in the inner city, you are often living around and working with people who aren't there by choice. They're in the city because they are poor, because they are addicted, because they are struggling in someway... because they have to be, not because they want to be. If they were natural leaders they probably wouldn't be in the inner city.

That's how I feel all the time and I have told Kelli and others that most of our people don't have leadership potential (although thankfully we do have some). However, that's not an excuse not to develop leaders. Our calling is to develop potential in people and then develop that potential into leadership. It's an extra step in the process but it is completely possible by the power of the Holy Spirit. Stetzer said that 5 people from that first church plant in Buffalo are in full-time ministry today. Wow! Not to mention the church is still going. I needed that encouragement.

The second thing I learned was a revelation of sorts. The idea wasn't new but the lens through which I view the problem is new. One of the people in the crowd asked if Stetzer believed that the church planting success we are seeing in North America today is mainly due to conversion growth or transfer growth? His answer was "both." He said his goal as a church planter is to have about 50% of his congregation be new converts and the other 50% will inevitably be transfer growth. That ensures that as a church plant they will continue to reach the lost but that they will also have believers to help disciple the new converts. There needs to be a balance.

I have mentioned in many recent blogs that we don't have enough mature believers. The purpose of our most recent trip south was to find families and couples who are willing to move their lives to Tacoma. Then tonight it hit me. In our whole church I can only think of 1 person that came from another church in Tacoma. Everyone else is a new believer or was unchurched when they connected with us. That is a problem. We are nearly 100% conversion growth. While that sounds like something to be excited about it has in fact been the cause of our stifled growth recently. We desperately need some people who love Jesus in Tacoma and believe in what God has called us to do and be to jump on board with The Pathway so that we can continue to grow and multiply in our city and beyond.

Who would've thought it? I worked so hard to reach the lost and unchurched that I truly believe I pushed away many believers who would've joined the work God is doing in Tacoma. Chalk it up to another lesson learned. Thanks Mr. Stetzer. More appropriately, thanks Jesus!

So... how was your trip?

2011-11-07T21:16:00.000-08:00

Whenever we head south for a partnership trip the most common question we receive is, "So, how's it going in Tacoma?" The question is asked with a genuine heart but I've never really known how to answer it. Finally, on this trip, I decided to answer honestly. I would say, "It depends on the day you ask me."

Well, now that our trip is coming to a close we've already started being asked, "So, how was your trip?" I think the best answer to this is that time will tell. We have made no secret about the fact that our prayer for this trip was pointed and specific. We desperately need people, couples and families to be precise, to move their lives to Tacoma and help us raise up new believers, pour our lives into them and teach them to make disciples.

Although only time will tell, I can honestly say the trip seems to have been great so far. First and foremost we got to experience the uniqueness of the body of Christ. We got to worship and share The Pathway's story with mega churches, a house church, a church in rural Oklahoma, a country church in south Texas... and more. It was amazing to see such a diversity of people all serving the same God through the grace of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Second-- we were encouraged and loved on in a way that quite frankly we needed. Our last meeting was with First Baptist Church in Charlotte, TX. We got to share stories of "life change" with about 15-20 people and at the end they gathered around Kelli and myself, laid their hands on us and prayed. Kelli was moved to tears and she said it best (as she always does) when she said, "We pray over people so often in Tacoma but no one ever prays over us... thank you."

Finally, we have already seen God begin to move in response to our prayers. The night before we left Tacoma the VanGo girls (mentioned a few blogs ago), came and told me they saw our need for more mature believers and they decided to stay and work with us for the next 6 months!!! While in Oklahoma we heard from an amazing godly woman who has served with us before that God has called her to move to Tacoma!!! We had another awesome woman of God who came and served on a mission team that she wants to serve with us all of next summer. I already have another email in my inbox from a college student wanting to intern with us and I just got the flight itinerary from a godly young man who will be graduating college in May and feels like God may be calling him to Tacoma. He will be flying to Tacoma in December to spend a little over a week with us trying to discern God's will! The point is that God is working, God is moving, but God is not finished yet!

I tell you what, by God's grace we have been able to pour ourselves out over the past year for the glory of God and the sake of the gospel and in a matter of 10 days God used the body of Christ to fill us back up.

So, how was our trip?

It was... worship. Thank you to all who played a part and all glory to God through Jesus!

The Stars at Night, are big & bright... Deep in the heart of

2011-10-24T12:13:00.001-07:00

Texas!!!

That's right, we're excited to be flying into that wonderful airport known as DFW this Thursday. It's that time of year again and we'll be making our annual trip down south to visit with our wonderfully faithful partner churches and individuals. We're excited to take a few weeks to be able to catch up with those of you who pray for and support us so faithfully as well as share stories of what God is doing, how Satan is trying to thwart God's work and how you can support The Pathway going forward.

We want to see as many of you as possible so if you live in an area we will be visiting, please get in touch with us and we'll let you know where we'll be. I wanted to let everyone know a few of our definite stops. We'll be in Ada, OK on Sunday October 30th for Trinity Baptist's mission's conference. If you are anywhere near the Ada area please contact the church for the conference schedule and come by and see us. On Wednesday evening November 2nd we have the privilege of speaking at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor's FOCUS Bible study... I believe it begins at 8:30pm. If you're near Belton, come on by! Then on Sunday morning November 6th we'll be speaking in the morning services for First Baptist Church Universal City. Finally, for those of you who are way down south, we'll be at FBC Charlotte, TX on Sunday evening.

If you have any specific questions about our schedule or you are interested in meeting up, just send me an email (Bobby@thepathwaytacoma.com) and we will try and get together. In the mean time, I wanted to give you a couple of specific prayer requests:

1) Please pray for The Pathway church while we are out of town for almost 2 weeks. Pray that our leaders are able to effectively step up!

2) Please pray for us as we seek several individuals, families and couples to move to Tacoma to help us plant The Pathway more effectively.

3) Please pray for our meetings with current and prospective partners. We still need a lot of support as we move forward in planting The Pathway.

4) Please continue to pray for life change in the people of Tacoma.

Thank you all so much!

Empower Leaders

2011-10-19T06:45:00.000-07:00

If you've followed this blog for long you know that one of our greatest struggles as a church is raising up leaders. God has blessed us to connect with the lost and unchurched of Tacoma but it has opened our eyes to how much we need some mature believers to invest in these new disciples. While we are still very much in need of families, couples and singles who love Jesus to move their lives to Tacoma, I've been encouraged this week by the people within our church who are stepping up to lead where they are needed.

I'm in Knoxville, TN this week at a missions conference with one of our partner churches, FBC Concord. Being gone from Tacoma for a week doesn't mean that "being the church" in Tacoma stops until I return. The work goes on, the mission goes on, and leadership is still needed in my absences. Right now I am leading two Community Groups a week. Monday night one of our young men, Corey Richmond, stepped up and led the group in my absence. He has done this before and I am praying that he will take over the group full time soon. Last night my good friend Gene who I have shared about many times before on this blog got out of his comfort zone and led our Community Group. He told me he was scared but he knew it's something he needed to do. Kelli told me he did a fantastic job. I'm praying that he will take over that group in the future.

Finally, my entire family will be traveling to Texas and Oklahoma over the next several weeks and I will be missing to Sunday's of worship services. I'm excited to have John Smithwick step up and preach while I'm gone. He has never preached before but he is excited to be used where he's needed and to preach the gospel.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed with the need but I often need to step back and see how God is working. Please pray for Corey, Gene, John and others who God is calling to step up and lead within The Pathway church. As I've said many times before, God is moving. Please pray!

VanGo

2011-10-10T09:54:00.000-07:00

Our church has been completely blessed over the course of the past week by two missionaries who have truly decided to trust God and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit wherever he decides to send them. Stacie Hooks and Jenna Jones are two young women who are passionately in love with Jesus and have decided to obediently follow Jesus no matter what the cost.

Inspired by the entire tenth chapter of Luke 10, Stacie and Jenna were praying and seeking the Lord about what to do and how to serve him upon graduating from East Texas Baptist University. With many doors closing and only one door opening, they decided to say yes to God. The sold all their possessions, purchased a used conversion van and hit the road. Following the pattern of Jesus sending the 72 out in Luke 10, they knew God was calling them to travel all over the United States with no preconceived notions or plans, simply stopping in cities to see where God was at work and join him wherever possible.

I actually knew Stacie from my time at Camp WOW when I served as the Assistant Director over summer staff. Stacie worked for me for several years and Kelli and I had the joy of watching her grow in her love for Jesus. It is amazing to see her now. Well, Stacie and Jenna showed up in Tacoma, WA a little over a week ago and it couldn't have been more perfect timing. One of our Leadership Team, Laura, has been going through a really tough personal time and Stacie is one of her best friends. God knew she needed the encouragement. One of my good friends who is a part of my Community Group, Gene Scott, had just lost his home and did not yet have his new house livable for his 3 young children. The Scott's had been staying with my family for several days while Gene tried to get the house ready. Stacie and Jenna jumped right in and helped scrub floors and clean the kitchen.

Yesterday we were blessed to have the girls share all that they have seen God do over the past year in their travels. His favor, provision and blessing is obviously on these girls and they are so full of joy you would never know they sleep in a van every night, wash there hair in the bathroom at Starbucks and don't always know where they are going to be the next day. When asked when this journey for them will end, they simply respond by saying, "We know God hasn't called us to live in a van and travel the country forever, but we're going to keep going until he plants us somewhere. We're going to continue until the Holy Spirit tells us to stop."

Absolutely amazing. Many would call these girls crazy and irresponsible. I know them and our church has been blessed by them. They remind me of Abraham when God simply told him to "Go to a land that I will show you" in Genesis 12. If you want to follow the girls and know how to pray for them you can get to their blog at www.whoismyneighborvango.blogspot.com.

You can also watch find their video on their blog and get a better understanding of what they are doing and how God is using them.

Sin Magnified

2011-10-03T13:48:00.000-07:00

Matthew 18:15-20 is a passage of Scripture that most pastors and Christians would just assume ignore. And to be honest, for most of my life I have ignored it. However, as we have been going through the process of planting The Pathway in Tacoma we have learned in a much more real way the depth of the sin problem in this world and the effect sin has on our mission as a church in this world. Romans 1:18 says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

I for one don't want to play any part in suppressing the truth of the gospel as a result of my own sin and the sin of this church. This leads to the reality and the importance of not ignoring Scriptures like Matthew 18. We cannot ignore or accept sin in the life of the church. We must call it for what it is, confront it in the name of Jesus and deal with it biblically. If we don't, we will end up seeing churches and Christians ignoring sin in the name of personal privacy and tolerance and we'll find churches being complacent and self-consumed... oh wait, that is what we are seeing in many churches in our nation.

I've also learned in the last 2 years and have been reminded in the past couple of weeks that all sin is magnified when it is found in a church plant as opposed to an established church. As a church plant, everything is magnified. We are small, we are immature as a body, we are still learning what it means to love each other and love our neighbor. When sin jumps in the pool with us it creates a tidal wave of controversy, anger, frustration and spiritual blindness that cannot go un-dealt with. Over the past week I've had to have multiple difficult conversations with people who know Jesus but are refusing to repent of the sin in their life. It is not fun.

That being said, God is laying for us a foundation of righteousness and I would like to ask you all to pray that those individuals who are dealing with unrepentant sin in their lives would not run from biblical community as so many of us are accustomed to doing, but that they would cling to the word of God and the people of God so that restoration and growth can happen both individually and as a church. God is at work... Satan is at work... thankfully we know, God wins.

Worship Leaders, Worship Services & Missionaries

2011-09-26T10:24:00.000-07:00

Worship Leaders: Those who read the blog weekly know that several weeks back I asked for prayer as we hosted a family from Montana, worship leader and former church planter, who were praying about a church planting team to join in the Seattle area. We of course had a great visit with the couple who are in love with Jesus and trying to be for another church what they so desperately needed when they were planting in Montana... a committed family who is willing to work secular jobs and serve whole heatedly in the church. However, after spending the day with our church and having conversations about Tacoma and the people God has called us to reach, it became pretty clear that we weren't the right fit for this couple. Please continue to pray for the Powell's as they try and discern where in Seattle God has called them to serve.

This past Wednesday Kelli and I got to have dinner with Juli Morgan (www.julimorgan.com) and her two adorable daughters. We were connected with Juli by a mutual friend who knew we were looking for a worship leader. To make a long story short, Juli is an awesome musician, has a heart for worship, we connected with her wonderfully and she already lives just a couple blocks away from us. We don't know what the future holds but for now, as a single mom supporting her two girls, Juli is working the only schedule available to her which includes Sunday mornings.

We still don't know what God is doing in regard to a worship leader but I am excited that Mackie Wood, a member of our church, has stepped up to use her vocal gifts to lead worship for us the last month or so. I am abundantly thankful for her and it is amazing to see God calling our people to step up and serve where they're needed!

Worship Services: I feel like our worship services are a roller coaster of attendance, emotion and actual worship. My heart is for Sunday mornings to be a time for the church to gather and lift high the name of Jesus. Sometimes, it feels like no one actually wants to be there and that we are almost robbing glory from God. However, in the midst of a great deal of prayer, the last several weeks it seems that the heart of The Pathway is changing, growing and molding into a church that desires to worship God. Our attendance has increased pretty significantly over the course of the last month. People are stepping up to lead and God is definitely being worshipped in Spirit and in Truth. We'll see how God continues to grow us but there is no doubt that the more of the church that is gathered the more passion in worship there is. I love worship and when the church truly desires to take part it is a beautiful thing.

Missionaries: We had our first Introductory meeting for our Missionary Process yesterday. This is The Pathway's membership process and I was very encouraged with the turn out. We had 5 high school students and 5 adults attend. People seemed genuinely excited about taking the next step. One of our guys told me that during worship he went to our prayer and response area, feeling dry in his walk with Jesus, and asked God to ask him a very specific question so he would know what he needed to do next in his walk with Jesus. He told me he knows the question was, "Will you be a missionary of The Pathway?" Wow! Please pray for The Pathway over the next month as we work through the Missionary Covenant Process together.

Missionary

2011-09-19T14:34:00.000-07:00

Commitment. It's a word that many people are scared of in all facets of life but when people are willing to embrace it in regard to a purpose they truly believe in the results will be far beyond anything that could have happened through the half-hearted efforts of a non-commital group. This is what churches need. Churches need people who are so committed to the vision God has given the church that they are willing to sacrifice time, money, energy, possessions, safety, security and more just to see the vision reached. Commitment doesn't mean that you agree with every method, every choice, every decision of the leadership, but in regard to the body of Christ, it means that as long as it is not sinful or unbiblical, you believe in it and you trust the leadership God has put in place to the point of making the same sacrifices on the days you are disgruntled or frustrated as on the days you are seeing results and are fully on board.

Some time ago we put together a team of people to explore what it could look like to become a member of The Pathway church. They explored purposes, processes and asked the question if membership is even helpful. They came back with passion and enthusiasm about the purpose of membership and presented a first draft of what The Pathway's membership process could look like. Well, after some time, growth and a few revisions and simplifications to the process, we will be implementing our first membership process beginning next Sunday. We will actually call this our "Missionary Process" as we want every person connected with The Pathway to understand that they are not just covenanting with our church to be "attenders," they are covenanting with us as "missionaries," sent out to reach their families, neighbors, friends and co-workers with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Please pray for us as we go through this first "Missionary Process" as I'm sure there will be many bumps in the road and we will learn a lot on this first attempt. First and foremost, pray that God will call the right 3-5 people to go through the process. We need people who are growing in their walks with Jesus, who will be patient with us as we learn how to make this effective but who will also step up to the challenge and become more effective members of this body of believers. Below is our timeline for this first process. Please pray for us as we hit these dates and pray that it would be a time for our church to become stronger, more unified and more effective on mission for God.

September 25th-- Introduction to The Pathway's "Missionary Process"

October 9th-- Biblical Doctrine Class

October 16th-- Spiritual Gifts class

October 23rd-- Baptism Service & Covenant signing service

Sunday.

2011-09-12T09:31:00.000-07:00

On a given Sunday in Tacoma I sincerely never know what to expect. The token question people ask church planters is... "How many people do you have in worship?" I often respond, "Somewhere between 15-40." That's the truth too, I just never know what to expect.

Well, yesterday was an exciting day for us. It was the second week of our vision series and we've really been challenging our people to come to worship so they can hear who we are and who believe God wants us to be as a church. Yesterday we had a fantastic turnout. We had 8 new faces, one of our ladies has stepped up and she led worship for us for the third time. We had great fellowship and it was just an all around great time of worship for The Pathway church.

Then the spiritual attack came. It actually started during the service. Just before i went up to preach I found out that one of the ladies in my Community Group was back in the hospital in pretty serious condition after attempting suicide. It's heart breaking and all I can do is say to God is, "Please bring a radical change in her life." It is heartbreaking but I know God will use it for his glory and I truly believe he can change her life and use her story as a testimony of the power of the gospel.

Later I got a text from one of our ladies who has been having struggles with her 17 year-old daughter. It's been up and down and up and down and yesterday was a major down. We go to pray with her and love on her but it didn't make the situation go away. Loving with the heart of Jesus is hard, especially when loving someone who is living in rebellion.

On top of that we have another teenage girl in our youth group whose home life is crappy to say the least. Her family is currently homeless, which sadly she is used too, and she had to leave the home where she was staying with a friend. I picked her up last night and she is staying with my family for the next days. She is sad, angry and when you look in her eyes you just see a broken little girl. It makes my heart so sad.

God is working. Satan is attacking. Please continue to pray for us and the people of Tacoma on the journey to Kingdom growth.

God is up to something...

2011-09-06T16:29:00.001-07:00

As followers of Jesus, we know that God is always at work. He is the creator and sustainer of all things. However, there are times as believers, filled by the Holy Spirit, that we can sense God is doing something a little more drastic, possibly more visibly and definitely on a more than we can imagine type of scale (Eph. 3:20). It's hard to describe but if you've been a believer for any amount of time, you probably know what I'm talking about.

This post is really more of a prayer request. First though, I need to share with you what we have been praying for and what God has been doing. As a Leadership Team we have been praying for quite some time for God to bring us a worship leader. We have been praying for God to raise someone up from within our church to lead and/or for God to bring us someone who is gifted & passionate about teaching a church to worship. We have been amazed at how God has given one of our ladies the courage and boldness to use her voice for God's glory and lead us in a few worship songs for the last several weeks.

As a church we spent the summer praying and working to see God connect us with more families. We have prayed for God to send us families who already love Jesus as well as families who are lost or new to following Jesus so we can see the gospel transform the culture of our community.

Finally, I have personally been praying for God to call more families to move their lives to Tacoma and serve with The Pathway in a leadership role. I have specifically been asking God to bring another man who is called to pastor people so that I can have someone to walk with as we learn to shepherd a vast and previously un-shepherded culture of people.

Now for the prayer request. Last week I was connected with a family who has been in ministry in the west and northwest for years. The husband is an experienced, gifted and passionate worship leader. For the past 3 years he has been the lead planter of a church in Montana that has recently felt God closing their doors. Amazingly, the heart of this family is not callous or bitter. Instead, they want to join another church planting team and be for them what they so desperately needed when they were in Montana... a committed family of believers who will serve and make disciples.

I don't know for sure if this family will be coming to Tacoma, but I would like for you to all join me in praying that God will show them where they are called to minister. They are looking at visiting the Seattle area next weekend, they are placing their house on the market and they are trusting God to open doors for them.

God is up to something... can't wait to watch and be an active part of what he does.

Prayer, Testimony & the power of life change

2011-08-29T14:26:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me, is a part of The Pathway or follows this blog has heard me say time and again that the prayer we as a leadership team have had for the city of Tacoma from day number one is that we would see life change brought about by the power of the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ. The question is, how do you measure life change?

First and foremost measuring life change takes time. Anyone can fake it for a while. Many people have mastered the art of temporary behavior change but true life change is only observable through time. Well, I've mentioned Gene on this blog before. He's a part of my Community Group and it's been incredible to see how God has worked in his life to bring about life change. I mentioned in a previous post that our Community Group has been praying for Gene to be reunited with his son Malachi for some time and by the grace of God through prayer and for his glory, Malachi came home permanently this past Friday!

What stuck out to me in the process was the fruit of what I believe is a legitimately changed life. Gene has been growing in his walk with Jesus and always has a lot of questions, but his confidence in the reality that God can speak through him has always been somewhat low. He doesn't think he knows enough to share the gospel and he hasn't felt ready to share a testimony. Well, this past Sunday we had a time of preparation at the beginning of worship. We basically listened to a song and watched a music video while spending time praying and repenting of sin. I told the church that when the song was over I didn't want them to wait on me. I wanted someone to jump up on their own and share a testimony of what God has been doing in their life. For some churches this may be an easy task but for us I often just get blank stares from apprehensive people. Not yesterday...

As soon as the video was over Gene jumped up and headed to the front of the room. He proceeded to give God the glory for bringing Malachi home. He shared with our church the power and blessing that comes from following Jesus and the result of the community of believers going to God in prayer. It was amazing not only to be a witness to the power of prayer, but to hear a testimony from Gene that actually was a testimony of his new life in Christ.

Life change. I can't wait to see more!

Balancing Urgency & Patience

2011-08-22T09:10:00.000-07:00

Of all the character traits that compose the fruit of the Spirit, patience is the one I struggle with the most. I hate to say it, but I'm probably the most impatient person I know. God has grown me significantly in this area over the years, but I still have a long way to go. Most of the time my impatience is completely selfish. I find myself acting as if "my time" is the most valuable time on this earth.

Urgency is another aspect of life I deal with on a daily basis. As a follower of Jesus Christ, I am constantly aware of the reality that Jesus is coming back soon, that life is fragile and can end any day, for any person, of any age, and that those who die without placing their faith in Jesus' atoning work on the cross will be tormented in hell forever... that's right... for eternity. This reality is haunting at times. I want to get the message out so fast. I want to shout at people, scream at people, shake some sense into people. But I also believe the reality that the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:18).

There is a balance between urgency & patience, but both are needed as missionaries of the gospel (which we are all called to be). We all must recognize that some of us plant the seeds of the gospel, some of us water those seeds, but God is ALWAYS the one who makes it grow (1 Corinthians 3:5-6). Always. There are places in this world that are seeing revivals the likes of which I can hardly comprehend. Thousands of people placing their faith in Jesus for salvation. Then there is Tacoma. Spiritually open... closed to the gospel. Patience is key but it is only possible through faith. I have to have absolute faith that God knows what he is doing and it's the best plan possible.

One quick story about the patience that can often be required of the gospel. Last week I got an email from a bartender in Snoqualmie where we lived and helped plant a church prior toTacoma. The soil is so tough there. This bartender, Patrick, was a casual acquaintance of mine at best. He worked at the local Pub that Kelli and I occasionally went to and he was friends with the owner of the music store I worked with. I vaguely remember a time that he came into the music store and my boss was not there. I think I got to share the gospel with him... but I honestly don't remember for sure. Well, 2 years have passed... 2 years... and to be honest I have not thought much about Patrick. Then I received a facebook message.

He facebooked me and said that some tough things had happened in his life and he felt like he needed to explore God. He told me I was the first person he thought of that could help him with that... a sad reality about the state of our region (considering I barely know him)... and asked me if I knew of any good churches near him. Of course I said "YES!!!" and told him of a few great churches. We are going to meet up in the next week or so (hopefully) to talk about the gospel.

2 years. 2 years since I've seen Patrick. But God knows what he's doing. Patience and urgency. Excelling in one is not an excuse to neglect the other. We must live and share the gospel with urgency, patiently trusting God with the timing of the response.

Celebrating in Community

2011-08-15T09:06:00.000-07:00

The Bible is big on community. That's why the term "Biblical Community" is getting so much play in recent years. I think that's a great thing. However, over the last 2 years God has taught me and my family how to live in transparent and authentic Biblical community in a way that we have never experienced before... heck, we didn't even know this kind of community was possible. It is frustrating, heartbreaking and often very messy. It's family. You get the good and you get the bad. But, you get it all together under the Lordship of Jesus.

Well, yesterday we had the opportunity to live out the "good" part of Biblical community. Those who follow The Pathway pretty closely have probably heard about Gene before. Gene's 59 years old, has a grown son named Joshua with cerebral palsy and is raising his twin 5 year old daughters all by himself... that's right, all alone! I can't even imagine. The girls mother is in Tacoma and Gene knows how to find her. But sadly, she is living on the streets, stuck in the grasp of addiction.

What many people don't know is that Gene has another son, 7 year old Malachi. When Gene was with the girls mother they had Malachi but through a series of circumstances Gene found out that Malachi is not his biological son. This was a crushing blow and due to some other extenuating circumstances Malachi has been in foster care for several years. Well, over the last year Gene has given his heart and life to Jesus! Gene was baptized on Easter and has been giving everything... good and bad... to the Lord.

He had been told he wouldn't get Malachi back and the best he could hope for was an open adoption. But Gene continued to come to our Community Group with transparency about the entire situation... and we prayed. We kept praying together through visits and court appearances. Several adoption possibilities fell through and then Gene told us that at a recent court appearance the judge told CPS that even though Gene wasn't the biological father, he was the only Father Malachi had ever known. Gene is doing a great job with his girls and the judge told CPS that they needed to find a way to get Malachi home!

We all responded with shock and amazement and to be honest, on my part there was some skepticism. How could this all just come together after years of not happening? Duh Bobby... Jesus! We continued to pray as a community. At one point the church pitched in some finances to get Gene out to eastern Washington to visit Malachi and one of our other Community Group members watched Gene's girls for him while he was going to court hearings. Finally, last week the order came. Malachi is coming home the first week of September!!! God is so good and so faithful.

At one point it looked like it was imminent that Malachi was going to be adopted by a lesbian couple, now he is coming home to be raised by his adoptive Father... a follower of Jesus. We finally got to meet Malachi at worship yesterday as he was home for his first visit as they slowly transition him to living with Gene full-time! I am humbled and amazed. Our Community Group got to see over the course of months the faithfulness of Jesus in the most bleak of circumstances. There were times we were frustrated, times we lost faith that this could happen, but God had a plan and the celebration is so much sweeter in the context of transparent and authentic biblical community!

Discouraged.

2011-08-08T10:58:00.000-07:00

So it was definitely a discouraging Sunday. Anyone who has read the blog or spoken to me knows that as a church and as a pastor we don't emphasize the Sunday worship service above all else. When someone tells me they can only be a part of the worship service or a Community Group for whatever reason, I always tell them to get in community first! The reality though is that the worship service is significantly more public and you never know what you're going to get. For a pastor, that can be exciting and it can also be very scary.

Well, throughout the summer we have had amazing worship services. We've had our Community Group members coming, families coming, kids and teenagers attending like never before. We've had visitors popping in from the various serving opportunities we've taken part in. It's just been encouraging and amazing! Until yesterday...

I knew yesterday was going to be hard because it was our first worshipleader-less worship service in a long time. However, over the course of the week I started to receive calls and texts learning that a lot of our people were going to be working or out of town yesterday. I was expecting a slightly smaller crowd but when service time came it was just awkward. If you've ever prepared a sermon... for a congregation of people... and then have to preach it to 12 people... you know it is extremely difficult. Sermons aren't meant for 12! But, we are called to faith, we are called to worship, and we are called to press on.

We've been praying for leadership and we did have a visitor yesterday... which was somehow discouraging and encouraging all at the same time. The man and his wife are new to Tacoma but have been a part of a church plant before and are good friends of our local church planter strategist, Gary Irby. The bummer is that he showed up on a Sunday... the Sunday we had no music and no people!!! Ahhhhhh! Can you hear my frustration?

Here's the deal though. By God's grace he allowed me to go on a personal retreat Friday and Saturday and I was able to worship, truly worship and pray and seek the Lord in a way I haven't done in quite sometime. Of course I assumed he was preparing me for something huge... which I still believe he is. But I believe God also wanted to see my faith remain in the midst of seemingly pointless frustration. By the grace of God I can honestly say I still trust him. And if next Sunday we have no music and 12 people... I will still trust him.

Thanks for your continued prayer. God is still moving in Tacoma. One frustrating Sunday doesn't change that. But I want you all to know this is stinkin' hard! One week we have 6 salvations and the next week... seemingly nothing. However, I emphasize the "seemingly" part because I am believing the promise In Isaiah 55:10-11 that says...

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Salvation!

2011-07-30T23:13:00.000-07:00

I love what God has called me to in life. Being a pastor and a church planter is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. But in the midst of all the struggles, fears and trials there is also a joy that is unspeakable.

It's 11:17pm pacific time on Saturday night July 30th and I have been laying in bed watching an episode of House (thanks mom) and reading over my sermon for tomorrow's worship service (not at the same time). God brought to mind a sense of gratitude and amazement that there is a youth retreat going on right now... and I'm not there!

I don't mean that as horrible as it sounds. To be honest, Kelli and I were able to be there for a little while last night and it was amazing. But there was a time not too long ago that anything The Pathway did as a church required my direct involement. Not only was I there, but I had to organize it, plan it and invite people. While that is a joy, it can't last. The point of planting a church is to see it become a multiplying church. The only way this happens is if people start to take ownership of the vision and do the things on their own that were initially done only by me.

Well, shortly after God brought this sense of amazement and gratitude to my mind and my heart I received a text from Laura Stevenson, our amazing youth leader who organized and planned this entire retreat with the help of our guys youth leader Levi and our 4 amazing interns. Again I became filled with awe as I read the text that said 4 of our students had given their lives to Jesus. Ponce, Kiana, Michael and Manuel. 4 souls changed forever. 4 lives committed and surrendered to Jesus!!! Praise the Lord!

While all these are amazing I want to specifically point out Michael and Kiana. Michael is the oldest of 4 brothers... the McQuerter brothers. Over the last month or two we've seen 3 of the brothers become a part of our church. One of the brothers was already a believer but the other two have recently given their lives to Jesus. Last month the boys were evicted, along with their dad, from their apartment. We were able to store their stuff for them and several people in our church have given the boys a place to stay. Michael has been wrestling with God... knowing that he wants to believe but not being willing to surrender. To see the 4th and final McQuerter give his life to Jesus leads me to instantaneous worship!!! Thank you Jesus for bringing life change to the next generation of McQuerters!

Kiana is also very special to me because her mother Maria is a part of our Community Group. Maria is new to following Jesus and has been talking to me about baptism and many other deeper issues of discipleship. One of the things we've been focusing on as a church and in our Community Group is making disciples of our kids. What does that look like and how do we accomplish it? To hear stories of Maria reading Scripture to her kids has been awesome. Then she decided to bring Kiana to worship... then to youth group. Finally Maria began volunteering with our youth and now Kiana has followed her mom in giving her life to Jesus. Again, only two words come to mind...

Awe and Amazement.

Thank you Jesus. Thank you for bringing life change in Tacoma. Thank you for your grace!

Where's Waldo?

2011-07-25T08:26:00.000-07:00

Remember the "Where's Waldo" books? I sure do. I could stare at the pages for a long time but eventually, I would always find Waldo.

Right now we have several Waldo's in our church but the most pressing and testing of faith is our worship leader Waldo. We have been blessed over the course of the summer to have two phenomenally gifted interns who can sing, play guitar, play d'jembe and probably other things that I haven't even seen yet. The reality we're facing though is that in a couple of weeks they will be gone and we have no one to take their place.

I can honestly say that this isn't a lack of people stepping up. It's honestly not even directly connected to our newness as a church. I grew up in Texas. I went to a small private Baptist college. I could literally close my eyes and throw a pebble and 9 times out of 10 I would hit a worship leader. Not a mediocre worship leader... a talented worship leader. Of course, in a worship leader you need more than talent. God wants a heart that is pursuing him, a heart that loves him, a heart that is passionate about worship and leading others to worship.

In our church, unless someone is hiding it very well, we have no musicians. None. We have 1 singer and she is willing to use that gift praise Jesus. So, my question is "Where's Waldo the worship leader?" My prayer is that the Lord would not just provide a musician but a leader of worshippers. A person passionate about the gospel, passionate about the church, passionate about disciple making and passionate about leading worship. I appreciate anyone willing to join with me on praying for this person to show up!

3 Amazing Weeks

2011-07-12T16:10:00.000-07:00

We just finished 3 amazing weeks here in Tacoma. God is moving and it is obvious. We started our three week stretch with the arrival of a mission team from FBC Universal City, TX. There heart for missions is unbelievable an their willingness to be used how Tacoma and The Pathway needs them, instead of how they are most comfortable, is amazing. As outstanding as that group was, after a 4 day break a team with the same heart and the same selfless, servant-hearted approach arrived from Trinity Baptist in Ada, OK. The last team left on Friday and we are excited to follow up on all the contacts they made and see what God has in store.

Our main approach while both teams were here is what we called Community Gospel Saturation. Tommy Abbott, a member of our Leadership Team who will be heading to Seattle's U-district Friday to begin planting a new church, also just graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Washington (Go Dawgs!). Tommy, along with the help of our amazing interns, mapped out our community of Hilltop and divided into 9 sectors or zones. Over the course of 3 weeks and with the help of 2 teams we were able to cover 7 of these zones in prayer and begin saturating them with the gospel. Not "just" with love, prayer and serving, but with the gospel that salvation can be found by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus alone. It was amazing to see the teams knock on doors, walk up to strangers and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. We are praying for 20 salvation's and even more changed lives as a result of the obedient and missional work that was done.

We ended both mission team weeks with a community block party. The goal of these parties was to introduce the contacts that had been made with the people who are a part of our church in Tacoma. It was also a very practical way to get to know our neighbors and love on and serve the community. The block parties were an overwhelming success. Relationships were sparked, people came to visit both our worship service and our Community Groups in the weeks that have followed and our community is beginning to feel the presence of Jesus through our church in our community.

We are exhausted, humbled and overwhelmed by what God is doing. We are praying for those 20 salvation's and as a result we are believing God to begin 5 new Community Groups. I have no idea how that will happen but I know God can do it and I believe he will. Please continue to pray for the harvest in Hilltop and in Tacoma.

Through the Eyes of an Intern

2011-06-29T22:57:00.000-07:00

I have been in Tacoma for a little over a month now, and the idea of trying to put into words what God has shown me through this church plant is overwhelming. There is brokenness, lostness, and confusion like I’ve never seen before. But the thing is, in the midst of that heartbreak, there is also grace, life-change, and genuine love for Jesus like I’ve never seen before.

Let me begin by telling you what Tacoma, specifically the Hilltop district, looks like from my limited and southern perspective. There are several things I was unaware of coming into this summer as an intern for The Pathway.

First, the ignorance and confusion of the city. I do not mean that in an offensive sense at all. It’s simply that many of the people of this city haven’t been told, or rather, have been told wrong. They don’t know that Jesus is the Son of God. They don’t know that Jesus is The Way. They don’t know that His grace covers us and that He is the one that brings restoration and redemption. They don’t know that being a Christ follower is a faith and a relationship and not simply a religion. It’s heartbreaking.

Second, I was completely ignorant to the brokenness of the people of this city. Homelessness, prostitution, isolation, lack of resources, joblessness, poverty, mental disabilities, and health issues are all prevalent in this city to an extent and magnitude that I didn’t even know existed in the United States.

Third, grace and love are difficult for them to comprehend. I have to be honest, it’s often difficult for me to understand as well, but I was blessed with a home and a foundation that showed me what it was to love. I don’t know why the Lord gave me such a different life than some of the people here, but so many people have seen the exact opposite of love and grace from the people around them and have no way to grasp what love and grace is from a Heavenly Father.

The wonderful thing about these painful truths is that God provides redemption. I’m seeing it in action in some of the lives here. Because of the faithfulness and obedience of the people of The Pathway, truth is being spoken into the lives of the people who have been misled. Restoration is coming to those who hurt and struggle because of their circumstances. Love of Jesus, love that’s unconditional and perfect, is becoming something that people experience and depend on because the Holy Spirit has shown it to them. The Holy Spirit is infiltrating the hearts of the people of Tacoma.

Perhaps the most prevalent thing that I’ve learned since I’ve been here is how completely inadequate I am. My family and close friends can tell you that my giftedness is not with children. Of course, one of the tasks Ashley (the other girl intern) and I were given upon arriving is to help with Kids Ave., the children’s ministry. The cool thing is though, the Holy Spirit has equipped us and provided in ways I couldn’t have imagined. Not that I’m doing great at it or am an expert on talking to kids now. It’s just that there are times when the Holy Spirit just grabs ahold of their hearts and provides focus and understanding for them. They ask questions and say the most insightful and thought-provoking things. I'm even enjoying it. I’m inadequate. The Holy Spirit is not.

Last week there was a mission team here from Universal City, Texas. God provided a team that was so sensitive to the Spirit and that were simply awesome at taking initiative in loving on the people in this area. Through an impromptu Vacation Bible School at the Summertree Park Apartments that the mission team provided, we met a seven-year-old girl named Grace. There were only eight or so children there, but every bit of effort and money was worth it. The Holy Spirit grabbed ahold of her heart, and that precious girl accepted Jesus. Grace experienced grace. Praise Jesus :) The Holy Spirit is working.

The church is the body of Christ, the people, not the building or the bible study or the ministry or any sort of event. We are the church, and The Pathway has begun to show me what that looks like. We are a community of believers, which means that we share burdens, whether financial, emotional, or spiritual. We share our stuff as if we truly believe that they are just things that God blessed us with as one more way to glorify Him. We encourage one another, pray for and with one another, we point each other to scripture. We help each other in practical ways and in ways that make no sense to the outside world. It is messy and painful, but it is genuine and grace-filled. In John 13, Jesus tells us to love one another, and “by this everyone will know that you are my disciples, that you love one another.” We proclaim the gospel with our words and with our actions. If we allow unbelievers to experience the love of Jesus through a true community of believers, it’s difficult to deny the love of Jesus. The Holy Spirit works in and through us.

The thing that blows my mind is that somehow all of these things are so beautifully interwoven. The confusion and brokenness of the city, our inadequacy, the incomprehensible faith of a child, grace experienced in a community of believers, all point back to the gospel and the fact Jesus is the one that provides restoration. In each situation, the Holy Spirit continues to move. There is heartbreak, yes, but God will be the victor. I can’t explain how grateful I am that God let me, a completely inadequate and insignificant girl from Oklahoma, experience His love through allowing me to serve at The Pathway for an entire summer.

Please pray for this community of believers that speaks truth and seeks Jesus. Pray for them as they hurt and struggle, as they celebrate and praise Jesus.

I can't fix it

2011-06-21T07:26:00.000-07:00

I've never been a Mr. fix-it. My dad has that "manly" ability to trouble shoot, make repairs and fix almost anything around the house. Apparently that gift is not hereditary! Of course, it's ultimately not that big a deal. It just means I have to call my land lord more often, call my friendly neighborhood Mr. Fix-it, Scott Ignacio, a few houses down, and of course it means a bigger to-do list for my pops when he comes to visit from Texas. But really, it's just stuff around the house. Fix or no fix, it's just not a life altering thing.

Last night I was reminded of something else that I can't fix and it bothers me in the depths of my soul. I can't fix the brokenness of humanity. I can't fix broken souls, I can't fix broken families and I can't fix broken lives. While I do take comfort in the reality that I don't save sinners (including myself), that's God's job, when I see people, specifically kids and teenagers, whose lives are falling apart around them and there's nothing I can do to fix it, I struggle. I get mad, I get sad, and ultimately I have to put my faith in the sovereign God who "works all things together for the good of those who love him and who are called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28).

Last night we moved a family with multiple teenagers out of their apartment from which they were being evicted. The dad was there for part of the time but then he left... who knows where? I left 2 of the teens in their apartment, alone, electricity already shut off, praying that their dad, whom I had just spoken with on the phone, was really on his way home and had a place for the teens to stay last night. I told them if he never came or if they didn't really have a place to stay to call me and we would find them a place. I kept checking my phone as I lay in bed, making sure I didn't miss their call.

Sleep eventually came and a call from the teens did not. I guess they made it to their dad's arranged place to stay? I hope. This is one example. This is one situation of many that I have seen on a regular basis in my time here in Tacoma. If you're reading this though and you are thinking how sad things are in Tacoma, think again. These same things are happening all over this country every day. We all need to open our eyes and begin facing the reality that we live in a broken world. We can't fix it. We have to know that and accept it. But we can't ignore it.

What we can do is love these people... even when they don't deserve it. We can give them the tangible help we have but most importantly we can offer them eternal hope in Jesus Christ. That's the most important thing because even though we can provide material blessings to some, there are some whose lives will never get easier, will never get "better." Their only hope is in eternity and we can introduce them to our friend, our Savior, our Lord... Jesus.

Lots Happening!

2011-06-13T09:04:00.000-07:00

Wow! Talk about a lot going on! This is going to be a quick post but I wanted to make sure that all of you who faithfully follow and pray for what God is doing here in Tacoma know how to pray this week.

1) My son Jagen has been having a lot of health issues and we're hoping today will provide a strong first step toward some answers. Pray for Jagen this morning as he has a throat scope and biopsy to find out what kind of allergies he may be dealing with.

2) Salvation!!! God is so amazing and he is always doing supernatural things. We have a teenager named Daniel in our church who very recently told us he felt he needed a sign before he could really put his faith in Jesus. We told him about the story of Thomas and that Jesus can give us "proof" but he loves it when we follow him with out "seeing." We told Daniel we would pray for a sign if that's what he needed. Yesterday Daniel told me God spoke to him in a dream and showed him a picture of what his life would look like as a follower of Jesus, sharing his faith boldly. He told me he that he got his sign and he was giving Jesus his life! Praise the Lord!

3) A church that plants churches. We've been praying from the beginning of our church plant that we would be able to send out missionaries to plant more churches. The time has come. Tom Abbott has been with us since the church's inception and he just graduated with his degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Washington. He will be leaving Tacoma in a the next month or so to plant a church on the campus of the University of Washington Seattle. We are so excited not to be losing Tom, but to be sending him out to plant the gospel in Seattle's U-district.

4) We have our first mission team of the summer coming in this Friday. Please pray that God would do more than we can imagine!

Thanks for keeping these things in your prayers!

Provison

2011-05-30T09:00:00.000-07:00

I am continually blown away by God in so many areas of life. However, yesterday I sat in awe as I once again saw God provide unexpectedly for my children in a grace-filled way. As I basked in his provision, I also reflected on his past provision and was once again reminded of what grace truly is. Grace is not something I can earn. Grace is not something I deserve and it's not something I can strategically set myself up to be the beneficiary of. Grace is completely undeserved favor.

When Kelli and I first found out we were going to be having twins, the thought of providing for them was quite overwhelming. Then God showed me his provision. Our friends Robbie and Katie Britt have 2 beautiful children, a boy and a girl, who are several years older than our kiddos. They invited us over to their house while Kelli was pregnant, showed us a car load full of baby clothes, toys, formula, high chairs and more and told us to take whatever we wanted. We literally drove away with our 1997 Ford Explorer filled to the brim. It was an amazing experience of generosity, the grace of God through his people and ultimately his provision.

The story continues. Shortly after we had the kids Kelli and Tiffany went for a walk at the mall where a new baby and children's store was having it's grand opening. Crazy 8 is the name of the store and they were having drawings with prizes so Kelli and Tiff both signed up. Later we received a call that Kelli had won the grand prize... an $888 gift card to Crazy 8. Unbelievable! Again we sat in awe. It's a year and a half later and we still have money left on the card and we have been able to by clothes for our kids, gifts for our nieces and nephews and clothes for the future. God's provision comes out of nowhere at times and it is a beautiful demonstration of his love and grace.

Finally this weekend. A pastor friend of mine was going through some rough stuff with his family last week so he asked me to preach at their churches worship service Sunday morning. I was running a little early and was facing the wrong way to parallel park when I arrived so I decided to drive around the block. When I came to the end of the road I saw 2 little rocking chairs along with some other things in front of someones house. I pulled over to see if they were giving them away. The owner of the house came out and I told her I had two 18 month old kids who would love those rocking chairs and she asked if I need anything else. As I walked across to her driveway where she and her husband were cleaning out the garage I found 6-7 boxes of children's clothes... boys and girls... that she said I was welcome to have. She then said, "I have some unopened boxes of size 4 diapers if your kids haven't grown past that." Again, I was amazed as I told her that Jagen is in size 4 right now and Ry is still only in size 3.

I stress that God gets all the glory for his provision for my family because he is the grace-giver who made all of this happen. I know that he does not have to provide for us this abundantly all the time... that's why it is grace. But it has certainly been a blessing and an opportunity for our family to worship him for his provision and grace. Praise Jesus!

How are things going?

2011-05-25T08:01:00.000-07:00

"How are things going?" I think that's the question I get asked the most in regard to planting The Pathway in Tacoma. I also think it's the hardest question in the world to answer. A truthful answer would take hours to expound. A truthful answer is a different on a weekly if not daily basis. "How are things going?" is a completely legitimate question. Let me see if I can briefly answer it in today's post.

To pull from the ever famous remarks of presidents at the annual state of the union address, "The state of The Pathway is good." However, it doesn't end there. We are good today but we are not satisfied with "good." We want to see the "greatness" of God reflected in the lives that are being changed in Tacoma and the growth of his Kingdom.

I would describe the state of The Pathway as good for 4 specific reasons...

1) We are witnessing the power of God through changed lives. One quick story: Maria is the newest member of our Community Group. She has a relationship with Jesus but she comes from an all too typical Catholic background filled with frustration, guilt and bitterness. She gave up on "church" and the "mission of God" a long time ago because she felt that it was impossible to live up to all the rules of religion. She didn't think she was good enough so she was satisfied with a very small faith that focused on personal prayer and confession. Over the course of the last several months we are seeing a transformation in Maria. She is coming to an even stronger realization that she can't live up to the rules of religion but she is growing in hope as she learns more and more the true meaning of grace. She is even beginning to explore what it looks like to make disciples of her children. I was filled with so much joy a while back when she texted me that she had just read an amazing passage in Colossians and she decided to read it to her children! Praise Jesus for changed lives!

2) New Leaders are being trained and stepping up. I don't really know very much about how to plant a church in Tacoma. It's the first time we've done it. There are very few things I knew with certainty starting out. However, one thing I did know is that we had to train leaders and they would have to step up and lead. Another story: We met Levi last summer by hanging out at a local park and loving on people, meeting needs and sharing the gospel. Levi is young, has had a tough life in a lot of ways and came to Christ in jail. He has been growing in his walk with Jesus over the past several years and has expressed a strong desire to lead youth at The Pathway. He's had his share of struggles over the past year but he has been willing to do the behind the scenes, unrecognized grunt work and wait for God's timing for him to step up in lead. In the mean time he has taken the initiative to invest in the lives of youth and allow me to invest in him. Last week we finally came to the decision that he would begin leading the guys youth Community Group so that I can step back and focus on other areas of Leadership. Praise God for new Leaders!

3) Reproduction: God hasn't called us to simply plant a church in Tacoma. God has called us to plant the gospel in Tacoma and he has told us that the best and most effective way for us to do that is by starting Community Groups that start Community Groups that start Community Groups and so on and so forth. Towards the end of last year we hit some bumps in the road, we tried to reproduce when we weren't ready and we ended up going from 6 CG's to three. However, what Satan meant for his good our God turned for his good. Our Community Groups have grown in depth and some have grown in numbers. One of our Community Groups grew to the point of needing to reproduce and a new CG was birthed last week. We are already talking with Future Leaders and praying and planning towards the start of more new CG's. Praise Jesus for reproduction!

4) The hope of momentum through the summer. Hope in what has not yet happened is a good thing. But hope without faith is futile. We believe God is going to do some huge things this summer. Summer is unique in the Northwest. Due to the whether, you see very few people 9-10 months out of the year but when summer comes, people are everywhere. We are praying big prayers leading into this summer. We actually have a church this summer, as opposed to a Leadership Team and a few random people like last year. That is hopeful. We have 4 interns coming in this summer who will be living in 2 apartments downtown and their sole purpose is to plant the gospel in the lives of people. We have 2 mission teams coming to saturate our community with the gospel. But most importantly we have the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit that gives us hope and faith. Please pray for momentum and join us in praying for at least 20 new believers and 5 new Community Groups as a result of the work God does this summer. It's a big prayer but we serve a big God!

"How are things going?" The state of The Pathway is good. But we believe the truth found in Ephesians 3:20 that we serve a God who can do "immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine." The state of The Pathway is good but we are not satisfied with that answer. We want more for Tacoma. We want more for God!

Men

2011-05-17T09:46:00.000-07:00

The entire time I've been in Tacoma I've been increasingly burdened by the reality that "godly men" are an aberration at best when they should be the norm. We have men that have kids, but no men that have wives. We have women who have kids but those kids have many different fathers, none of whom are husbands of their mothers. We also have married couples who claim to be followers of Jesus but are not a part of our church or any other because the husband refuses. This is sad, heartbreaking, troubling, burdensome and it's killing the effectiveness of the gospel in our world. Something has to change.

After a lot of frustration and prayer I realized that I don't know how to fix this problem, but I had to start somewhere. God called me to start a men's Bible study with quite a few men who for various reasons claim to know Jesus but are not a part of a church (except one other guy who has the same burden I do and is a part of another local church). We just met last night for the second time and it was challenging and awesome. It was so good to get to converse over Scripture with husbands and fathers that are my age. It was challenging to hear their perspective on Scripture and frustrating to hear selfishness abound... in part because I know that I too am filled with selfishness.

This Bible study is not affiliated with The Pathway... it's just a passion of mine and a starting point. My prayer is that I will grow to understand these men and their frustration and aversion to "church." I pray that I will grow and find accountability with these men that I am currently lacking. And my ultimate prayer is that they would fall so passionately in love with Jesus that they would not be able to help being a part of his local church. Frankly, I don't care if it's The Pathway or some other missional church. I just believe the church is the way we fulfill our purpose as followers of Jesus... broken or not... the church is what God has designed for reaching the world with the gospel.

Do I have time for this? No. Do I have any guarantees that this will grow The Pathway? No. I just know that men need to step up and this is a first step. What can you do to address a problem where you are? Just start somewhere. Doing nothing is not the answer. Praise Jesus for giving me the courage to start somewhere! God is so good.

Focus on the Family

2011-05-10T07:46:00.000-07:00

I was asked an important question by a pastor friend of mine who planted Discovery Church in Tacoma 10 years ago. We were having lunch and he asked me, "What's the most important thing you need to accomplish over the next year?" I didn't have to think long. While I love the people who make up our church, I am certain that for us to grow, thrive, reproduce and be effective as a church going forward we have to begin reaching families with the gospel. Right now our church is made up of young adults, single parents and teenagers. They are the foundation of our church and Christ in them is the reason I believe we are going to be able to reach families. Their own families and the families that they know in our community and that they decide to invest in are the families we're going to be able to reach with the gospel.

So our focus and prayer through the summer and over the course of the next year is that God would bring us several families who already love Jesus who can pour into and invest in other families who will be encountering the gospel for the first time. For all you church-going Christians out there I want you to join me in prayer for this because it is no easy task. It is a God-sized task. Just think about it...

When you visit a church for the first time as a family, what do you look for? Other families? A huge children's ministry? An exciting worship experience? Well, I love our church but we don't have any of those... yet. Right now we have Jesus and the power and authority of the Holy Spirit. And you know what, I believe that is more than enough. I also believe that we have the opportunity to make Jesus and the authority of the Holy Spirit the foundation of our families, our children's ministry and our worship gathering now and into the future. What an opportunity!

Pray for us. We will be moving our worship service from late afternoon to the morning time so that it is more conducive for families. We will be using our mission teams and interns this summer to focus on sharing the gospel with families, developing Community Groups for families and staying accountable to our vision and the exaltation of Jesus all at the same time.

It's a big job, but it's what God has called us to do so that we can see Tacoma RADICALLY CHANGED by the gospel and so that we can be come a church that effectively makes disciples and plants more churches. Please pray that our "Focus on the Family" is effective.

Life Change

2011-05-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

So I love to celebrate the awesome things and I also genuinely love to share the hard things too. That's real life you know? The good and the bad. The pretty and the ugly. However, I definitely love it so much more when I get to share the good things. As you know, last weekend on Easter Sunday we got to worship and celebrate our risen Savior Jesus and we part of that was baptizing 5 people whose lives have been changed by the gospel.

Well, this past weekend we were able to take 10 students (6 boys and 4 girls w/3 adults) to the Northwest Baptist Convention student conference in Vancouver, WA. This was a first for many of our students and it was an awesome experience. 3 students vocally expressed their faith in Jesus for the first time (Austin, Heather and Jonathan) and all of us were challenged in one way or another. Two quick stories if you will indulge me...

First, Jonathan is an one of 4 brothers. He and his brother have been spending time with our church off and on for the past year. They have a rough home life to say the least. Their parents got divorced a couple years back and shortly thereafter their mom passed away. The boys dad isn't home much and things aren't always easy. However, Jonathan and his brother Daniel have been seeking Jesus. Both have a lot of questions and are very vocal about their questions. Both attended the retreat but when the time came for any new believers to stand publicly and declare their faith in Jesus, Jonathan stood proudly. It was so awesome Sunday at our churches worship service to hear Jonathan testify that he "got saved" this weekend! It was also awesome to get to explain communion to him and see him take the bread and the cup for the first time! Please continue to pray for Jonathan, Daniel, their 2 brothers and their father Jerome.

Another highlight of the trip happened when I was standing in line for lunch on Saturday. Two of our girls, Heather and Megan, came back from their break out session and Heather came running up to me to tell me what she learned. She told me that she learned that she is a "minister" too! She told me it wasn't just up to me to minister but it was the job of everyone in the church! I said praise Jesus! I thought, if only all believers understood, owned up to and lived out this reality. We are all called to be "ministers of reconciliation" and the Bible literally calls us ambassadors for Christ! It's awesome to see these kids learning these things for the first time.

Please pray for those whose lives were changed by the gospel this weekend. Please pray that the seed would take deep root so when the trials come they will not fall away. We serve a big God who is able to do big things! Praise Jesus!

What a Glorious Day

2011-04-25T10:28:00.001-07:00

Easter Sunday was a glorious day in Tacoma! It was hectic, had it's share of glitches, but I can honestly say when all was said an done God was glorified, our risen Savior Jesus was exalted and our church worshiped!

Our Community Groups really stepped up to the challenge of inviting their families and friends to our Easter service and dinner. We had more than double the amount of people that we typically have at our services. The heat in the new building was not working so we had to bring in space heaters on a cold and rainy day. The hot-water went out so the 5 we baptized and the 4 who did the baptizing had to grit and bear the icy cold baptismal waters, remembering that it pales in comparison to what our Savior went through for us.

The Easter message from an overwhelmed pastor was far less than glorious but by the grace of Jesus and the empowering of the Holy Spirit was filled with truth and authority. Families, parents, children and neighbors heard the glorious truth that our God lives. We had fellowship over a delicious dinner prepared by "Chef" Jamaal and orchestrated by my beautiful bride. We had double digit kids in "Kids Ave" who were able to learn about the resurrection (many I assume for the first time).

We worshiped, we sang, we baptized, we shared the truth of the resurrection power of Jesus, we stuffed ourselves with thanksgiving and then we departed. The prayer at the end of the day, the prayer the day after and the prayer into the future remains the same. God, please bring life change in Tacoma. Please join us in praying that the people who attended our worship service would experience the life change that only Jesus can bring and decide to become a part of our church!

We also included the testimonies that were played at our service of those whose lives have been changed by the gospel and were baptized yesterday!

A Building for Tacoma

2011-04-18T19:33:00.000-07:00

How many times have you said, "I'll never..." and before you know it God has placed you in a position to do what you swore you would never do? Well, I never said The Pathway would never have a building, but I certainly said I'd be fine if we didn't. I know in my heart I never thought we would have a building and I definitely didn't think we would have a building in our first 5 years.

Well, you guessed it. God has given us a building. Well, we don't own it, but we just signed a lease for the next 2 years! I'm not disappointed. I'm actually amazed, excited and curious. I'm curious to see why God has placed this building in our care and how he is going to use it to accomplish the vision he's given us in Tacoma. Although I don't know all the answers, I've already begun to see a little of what God has in store.

For starters, the owners of the building (the Covenant Church denomination) has allowed us to lease the building for the same amount we're currently paying to have a location 2 days a week. They have made the lease escalate slowly over the next 2 years, giving us plenty of time to get adjusted and grow into it. We made it clear to the owners that this building is not going to be "The Pathway." We are "The Pathway." We told them we would only take the building if we could use it for our community... for our city. They have given us green lights all the way. Their heart is for the Kingdom. It's beautiful.

Well, we signed the lease last Monday and that night I attended a board meeting for the Hilltop Action Coalition (HAC) a crime prevention and neighborhood enhancement organization that is well respected in our community. They told us they were excited to have a new church in the neighborhood and they wanted to help get us engaged with the community! They were having a neighborhood clean-up this past Saturday and asked if we would be willing to host their pot-luck... I could barely contain myself. Engage the community? Host their potluck? Thank you Jesus!

Well this Sunday, Easter Sunday, will be our first Sunday in the building for worship. We have challenged our people to team up and invite their friends and families to have Easter dinner and worship with us. Our people are nervous and excited! Kelli and I have invited a new family and I just found out tonight that they will attend. We will be baptizing at least 5 people. I'm so excited and I believe if we band together in prayer, the Holy Spirit can use our presence through this building to saturate the community with the gospel. Can't wait to see what happens!

Lorenzo

2011-04-05T08:40:00.000-07:00

Lorenzo is not just a name to me anymore. Lorenzo is a man. Lorenzo is a blessing. Lorenzo is a child of God. Yesterday I was sitting in an associational meeting when I received a text from a buddy of mine. He asked, "Do you know a cheap place for a guy to stay around the hospitals?" I said immediately and without thinking too much about it... "He can stay with us." My friend replied, "Define us." I thought that was strange because how many ways could that offer be taken. I clearly meant that he was welcome to stay with my family. After all, we have two extra rooms, two extra beds and live within a mile of 3 major Tacoma hospitals. We seemed to fit the profile for what he was looking for and I knew our place was cheap... free to be exact!

The texts went on to explain that Lorenzo was a homeless man that is having some health problems and was hoping his doctor appointment tomorrow (now today) would lead to scheduling the removal of his gallbladder. My friend said his house doesn't operate in a way where he could or would bring a strange homeless man in for the night. I stopped and reflected for a moment on how blessed I am as a man, a husband and as a follower of Christ. Now I realize that my mother and my in-laws are probably cringing right now, but I cannot read Matthew 25 and Acts 1:8 and proceed to turn the Lorenzo's of the world away. I combine Matthew 25 with Acts 1:8 because I obviously don't house every homeless person that I come across. However, the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, as promised to us in Acts 1:8, provides a great deal of discernment and faith in regard to loving and providing for "the least of these." I would say that more often than not, followers of Christ (myself included), ignore the Holy Spirit and therefore ignore a chance to love and provide for "the least of these," and by extension Jesus himself! My reflection in that moment was not only on how thankful I am for the abundant grace of Jesus in my life, but for a wife who trusts God, his plan and his protection enough to open our home to anyone and everyone that the Spirit leads to our door.

Well, it turns out that referring to Lorenzo as "the least of these" feels somewhat silly a day later. Lorenzo sat in the waiting room all day until I got back in town from my meeting at 6pm to pick him up. Did he complain? Not once (and believe me I know plenty of people who would not have hesitated to complain). I told Lorenzo that I had plans to watch UConn beat Butler with some friends (did I mention I picked UConn to win it all on my bracket) so he would have to come with me. Did he complain about that. Nope. That also led me to be thankful for the men in my church who also welcomed Lorenzo, a 55 year-old African American homeless man, into their home... no questions asked.

To bring this long story to a close, Lorenzo spent a great night in a warm bed last night. I believe he was blessed and encouraged in a small way and I hope and pray that he is coming back for our Community Group tonight and may spend another night with us. However, in all of that do you know who was the first one to bring up Jesus? It was Lorenzo. He began sharing his testimony with me. This morning he prayed for me before he left and he prayed for Kelli and Jagen who had already left for a doctors appointment.

Here I was thinking I was blessing Jesus by loving "the least of these" (and it did bless Jesus), but in reality Lorenzo was blessing me... one of the least... and teaching me a lot about real faith. Thanks Lorenzo. Whether I see you again or not. Thanks. And praise Jesus.

Exahusted.

2011-03-29T07:39:00.001-07:00

Have you ever been more than tired? Have you ever just been exhausted, drained, spent. I think Kelli and I are in a phase like that. Jagen and Rylan are growing like crazy. They're walking, talking a little, and becoming more and more active. Along with that growth comes more ability to throw temper tantrums and fight with each other... you gotta love brothers and sisters!

The Pathway is in an exciting adventure right now. We're not seeing extreme growth at this point but we're really seeing some awesome and effective leadership development. Along with that we're witnessing the people of our church taking ownership of the church's mission. They're hungry to gain boldness through the Spirit for sharing the gospel. Spiritually hungry people require a lot of time and energy. I think about my kids again. They're so young in life. They are learning to do things on their own but they still need constant help, continual encouragement and a watchful eye to keep them on track. Planting a church that reaches the lost and unchurched is a very similar growth process. Our people are growing, they're hungry, but they need constant help, continual encouragement and a watchful eye to keep them on track. Praise Jesus Kelli and I don't have to do this alone. We're so thankful for the Leadership Team God has put in place around us. But it's exhausting. It's draining.

This is probably a little bit of a selfish post but please pray for our family. We genuinely love where we are and love what we're doing. So many people encourage pastors to disengage with the world and just focus on themselves, their families and their "ministerial duties." That's just not who we are. We believe our lives are meant to be lived with people, in biblical community, for God's glory. Sometimes that is extremely hard and sometimes it's very easy. But to live missionally, to truly "be the church" is exhausting. It's worth it. But it's exhausting. Pray for strength as things will probably not slow down until after the summer. Thanks for following our journey.

Life Change

2011-03-22T16:03:00.000-07:00

Those of you who have followed The Pathway from the beginning know that our prayer for the people of Tacoma from the very beginning is that God would bring about "life change" at the very core of who they are. The parable of the soils has become more applicable in my life on almost a daily basis. Those in whom the gospel is planted but does not take root are ineffective at best and are not believers at worst. We don't just want "butts in the seats." That's not our prayer at all. We have been praying, continue to pray for and want to plead with you to pray for genuine, deep-rooted life change in Tacoma. Here are a few stories of how that is happening and a few stories where it is not yet happening. Please pray for all of these and remember to be planting the life-changing seeds of the gospel in your own families, neighborhoods and cities!

Antwon Grodon: Most of you have heard me talk about Antwon. He was one of the first people I became friends with here in Tacoma and after a time of questioning and refusal to believe that Jesus would take him just as he was, he became a follower of Jesus. Antwon is devoted to becoming a passionate follower of Jesus. He changed his work schedule so he could be a part of a Community Group. The CG had to change their meeting night and Antwon works at 5pm on Sunday's (worship service is at 4pm). However, he is so hungry for the word that he reads the passage on his own and comes to worship from 4pm-4:50 every single Sunday.

Jamaal Lee: Jamaal was homeless when our intern Cris met him and he is still homeless. However, by the grace of God he has put his faith completely in Jesus, humbled himself to the point of taking a job at McDonald's (he was formerly a chef in some nice establishments), and is so hungry for God's word that he meets with one of our guys on a weekly basis just to study God's word more (he also attends worship and Community Group).

Rodney: We connected with Rodney through the boldness of our mission team from FBCUC. They knocked on a lot of doors and came across Rodney, homeless at the time, and desperate for help. They prayed with Rodney and the next day he found a place to live. He immediately began to seek God out and became our most consistent Community Group member. However, Rodney has since fallen into deep struggles with depression. He is 65 years old and disabled and can't understand that Jesus still has a purpose for his life. Many of our church still call him, check on him and he'll show up at worship from time to time, but so far his roots are not deep. He needs that deep-rotted life change.

Susan Haunhorst: We met Susan because her daughter Heather is a part of our youth group. Susan recently lost her job and struggles with many things that have a hold on her life. She has spent time with our family several times over dinner and has come to one of our Community Group meetings. She knows the gospel and understands that Jesus wants her but so far she has not experienced the life-changing power of new life in Jesus.

Monica Hansen: We met Monica because our church spent a year loving on the people of a transitional housing community in Tacoma. By God's grace I was connected with Monica's son Andres just a couple of weeks before they moved out into their own place. Through that relationship Kelli was able to get to know Monica and she has surrendered her life to Jesus. Monica's life is hard. She recently lost her job due to cutbacks and is raising 3 boys on her own. However, she is still pursuing Jesus because he has changed her life. She is choosing to put her hope in him instead of losing faith due to her situation.

True life change is a powerful and undeniable thing. It does not mean we won't have bad and faith-less days, but it does mean we will continually walk toward Jesus despite our circumstances because who we are has been changed. We need to see more life change in Tacoma and in our world.

Prayer for boldness

2011-03-14T13:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at our worship service our former pastor from Lifepointe in Snoqualmie came down and preached through Acts 4:23-37. For anyone who is a pastor... and this is new for me... it is a great blessing when you get to be taught the word of God from another perspective. It is a good thing. It is a healthy thing. It is an introspective thing that must be expressed outwardly in a changed life in the same way that I call our people to on a regular basis.

Long story short I want to ask you to pray for some specific people. Chris preached on boldness for Christ from a unique urgency as a result of the reminder of the fragility of life that came from Friday's double tragedy in Japan (earthquake and hurricane). I read an email from another pastor that said less than one half of one percent of the people in Japan have a relationship with Jesus. That makes for a triple tragedy.

The message Jesus preached through Chis was powerful throughout but one of his main focuses was where we are to start in the process of preaching the word of God with boldness. The starting point is prayer. At the end of Acts 4 we see that the believers gathered together in prayer and the Holy Spirit was so powerfully present that the place where they gathered together was shaken. Did you know that's not just a beautiful word picture? That actually happened. Have you or I ever prayed with a boldness and a faith worthy of God shaking the entire place in which we sit. Wow. I want to pray that way.

Well, at the end of the message I was reminded of a Scripture that rocked my world this week in 2 Corinthians 5:14 that says, "The love of Christ controls us." I have to ask myself if his love really does control me on a day to day, moment by moment basis. Instead of continuing on with a time of singing we allowed the Spirit to move, by the grace of Jesus, and we split up into groups of 3 or 4 and prayed individually for the people God has been calling us to share Jesus with boldly. We went one at a time in our groups and prayed for boldness this week. We also told the unbelievers in the group that they would need to be bold and admit that they don't yet believe, and we would pray for them (if there were any unbelievers in the group).

I want to ask you to pray for some specific people that God is calling us to be bold with.

John-- our next door neighbor who comes from a family of Lutheran pastors, experiences deep depression, yet sees no need for "religion." Pray that I would be bold in telling John I agree with him, I just believe he needs a relationship with God through Jesus!

Micah-- This is a friend of ours who claims Christ but does not live for him at all. Pray for his wife whom Kelli is getting to invest in and who is actually seeking Jesus right now.

Keanna-- This is a woman that Kelli has been investing in who we don't believe knows Jesus. Pray for Kelli to have patience and know how to pour out the love of Jesus on her.

Monica & Maria-- These two women are followers of Christ but are very new to their relationship with Jesus. Pray for Kelli to be bold in love with them about what it means to live for Jesus.

Who is God calling you to be bold with. Pray for them but pray also for boldness in you so his Kingdom would grow!

Filled with the Spirit

2011-03-08T10:30:00.000-08:00

This weekend our Leadership Team went to a conference in Tacoma hosted by the church of a pastor friend of mine, Bo Noonan. The church is New Communities and was planted in Tacoma 4-5 years ago as a part of the New Frontiers family of churches. The conference was called "Reformed, Charismatic, Missional..." an intriguing title to say the least. We attended for two reasons; One, I always try and take our leadership team to at least one conference a year to challenge us, develop unity and spawn creativity. Second, I didn't want to take everyone to a conference where we already agreed with and knew everything that was talked about. To be honest, as a Southern Baptist born and raised, the "Charismatic" in the title scared me and intrigued me the most. I knew it would step on our toes a bit and force us to look at Scripture. Boy did it ever?

Terry Virgo is the founder of New Frontiers and he was charged with speaking biblically on the filling of the Holy Spirit. He did the most amazing job of taking a biblical look at what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. He began in Acts and walked through several different examples. Beginning of course with Acts 1:8 he pointed out that the believers were filled with the Holy Spirit in a unique way that day. He noted that, "prior to the day of Pentecost, Jesus told his followers to "wait" on the Holy Spirit. After Pentecost, no one was ever told to wait again." In other words, as believers we all have free access to the Holy Spirit's indwelling power. But, the question is do we all receive the Holy Spirit at the moment of salvation, as I have always believed and taught?

That led Mr. Virgo to take us to Acts 19:2. Paul asked the "believers" at Ephesus, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" "And they said no, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit." That is a very interesting response to focus in on for someone like me, who has always believed that the Holy Spirit comes at salvation. How could these believers, recognized as believers, not have the Holy Spirit?

Mr. Virgo also walked us through several other passages. Acts 9 for instances shows us that Paul was "saved" during the famous supernatural experience he had with Jesus on the road to Damascus, but it was not until several days later that he received the Holy Spirit.

However, Mr. Virgo also pointed out another passaged that showed another way in which the Holy Spirit came on believers. In Acts 10:44 we see that as Peter is preaching the word to the Gentiles that the Holy Spirit came upon them. In this particular passage the Holy Spirit came as the the people were hearing the message. However, that is clearly not always the case.

So the question remains-- are we "filled with the Holy Spirit" at the moment of salvation or is that something that happens later? The answer... I haven't figured it out yet!!!

Based on the Scripture I've looked at so far it seems that there is not one way or moment that the Holy Spirit comes but it is very possible that a person can be saved without being filled with the Holy Spirit. However, the Scripture also seems very clear that there is no reason not to be filled with the Holy Spirit. All we have to do is ask and believe. Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 1 that it is his responsibility to fan into flame the gift that he has been given. Mr. Virgo contends that this gift is obviously the gift of the Holy Spirit. However, many would contend this gift refers to specific spiritual gifts. If this does refer to the gift of the Spirit then it would lead me to believe we can have the Spirit but we can quench the gift through a refusal to use the power of the Spirit. I also notice in the beginning of Acts that Peter is filled with the Spirit at Pentecost but then again in Acts 4:8 he is "filled with the Spirit" before he speaks to the court of the High Priest. Does this show we can be filled with the Spirit multiple times? Tough questions that need to be asked but are obviously not easy to answer.

All this and we haven't even gotten into speaking in tongues, a topic most of us think of immediately when we hear the word charismatic. One thing I will say is that when we read of conversion experiences in the book of Acts they are not always followed with speaking in tongues, but it is undeniable that they are "often" followed with speaking in tongues. It's something that as a Southern Baptist I can't ignore. I don't want to be content with being faithful to my Southern Baptist roots... of which I am very grateful... but I want to be faithful to Jesus through my faithfulness to the Word of God. There is absolutely a charismatic... Holy Spirit filled... element to the Christian life that far too many of us have ignored for far too long.

I don't have it figured out but I'm not ignoring it anymore. I believe in the Holy Spirit and the power that he brings. God promised him to us for so many reasons and I want to use his power and filling to the fullest measure for God's glory. Ask yourself this question: have I ever looked objectively into what Scripture says about the filling and purpose of the Holy Spirit or has my opinion been shaped by those who have gone before me? I've been challenged to seek the Scriptures for answers. Will you do the same?

Living intentionally takes time...

2011-02-28T11:26:00.000-08:00

Anyone who has ever read something I've written or talked to me knows that I'm a firm believer in intentional living. I believe everything we do as followers of Jesus should have a purpose behind it... that purpose is to give God glory and to spark an opportunity to be able to verbally share his love and grace with other people. The great thing about living intentionally is that there are no rules that come with it. You just bring that purpose to whatever you do with your daily life.

If your a mom, you intentionally spend time with other moms. If you're a college student, you intentionally sit next to someone you don't know in class. If you're a high school student, you intentionally sit with people at lunch who do not go to your church. If you're a business professional, you intentionally spend time with your employees and co-workers outside the office and during lunch so you get to share life with each other. If you're unemployed, you intentionally work on resumes and contacting potential employers while using the free Wifi at Starbucks instead of at home alone. When you live this way, the pressure is off because you just look for who God brings across your path and you start to get to know them. You may share the gospel the first time you interact... it may take longer... but if you live intentionally, God will respond.

This last week I was encouraged in an area of intentionality that has been somewhat discouraging for me. For most of the time that I've lived in Tacoma I've played basketball on Tuesday and/or Thursday afternoons for two reasons: First, I love to play basketball and it's a fun way to stay in shape. Second, I knew it would be a great way to get to know guys in my city and hang out with them over and over again... week in and week out. Well, there are a variety of ways God has used this to open some doors but for the most part I haven't seen the "results" I've been looking for. However, this past Thursday I went to work on some stuff at a coffee shop in town called The Mandolin. When I walked in I saw Chris, a guy I've been playing ball with for a year. We got to chatting and I found out that he used to go to church and hasn't in a while because he bar tends at a hotel down town on Saturday nights and simply doesn't want to get up Sunday mornings. I was able to invite him to our worship service... Sunday's at 4pm. We'll see what comes of that, but I was encouraged to know that God is faithful and he is working behind the scenes in ways we see as well as ways we don't see. My prayer is not just that Chris would come to worship, but that I would continue to get to know him and take the opportunity to share the gospel with him. Then he will crave going to a worship service! Keep living intentionally and sharing Jesus every chance you get. Be bold. God will respond.

Tiffany

2011-02-21T14:33:00.000-08:00

Most of you who have been following the Higginbotham's and The Pathway for any amount of time know about Tiffany. Tiff came to live and be a part of our family about a year ago now. She left us in December after multiple times of intentionally deceiving our family and refusing to stop. Several months before she left us we found out she was pregnant. It was a very emotional ride because we were so excited about the new life but so sad about how it came about and the reality that this child would not know her father.

A couple weeks ago Tiff called my cell phone just to check on us... interesting. Then we found out she attended one of our churches Community Groups with Becca (who had also become like family to Tiff). She then spent an entire afternoon at the house with Kelli. We didn't really know what to think. Our hearts are very guarded after being hurt by Tiff so badly but we also love her so much and want her to know the love of Jesus.

The baby was due on Valentine's day but Tiff's water finally broke this Saturday night. She had told us that she wanted us there when the baby was born but things were still very awkward and it is just so hard to know how to love her. Kelli visited her in the hospital immediately and I went up to see her on Sunday with the kids. When it became apparent that the baby was coming on Sunday night Kelli went back up to just "be there." Kelli texted me about 1:00am that Tiff had asked her Grandma and Becca to be with her in the room during the birth. Kelli was in the waiting room... hurt but also supportive and full of grace... the way Kelli always is for those of you who know her personally.

My heart broke for Kelli because I know how hard it is to have someone you love continually push you away. I rolled over in bed and prayed. I said, "God, I love you no matter what. Even though I don't understand why this is happening and why we have to keep getting hurt, I love you. But Lord, please give Kelli something by your grace. Please give her something to be encouraged by."

A couple minutes later Becca called me and told me that Tiff had asked for Kelli to be with her during the birth of her daughter. I was near tears as I lay in bed. I told God that I honestly did not believe he would do that. I thanked him so much for his grace and at 2:00am Pacific time, Payton Marie Clifton was born into this world. She is beautiful. She is healthy. She has a lot working against her already in life. But the grace of God is working for her and I believe that grace is sufficient.

Please pray that Tiffany would surrender her life to Jesus. Pray that Kelli and I would continue to be granted wisdom to know how to love her and pray that Payton would grow to love Jesus as well.

Thank you all.

Breaking the Cycle

2011-02-15T07:51:00.000-08:00

We have to break the cycle. There is so much sin in our world and it is birthed from a cycle of sin by people who are ignorant of the reality of grace and the true impact it can have on them and their families.

This "sin" cycle is impossible to overcome... without the intervention of the Holy Spirit. Entire families have been believing the lies of Satan for so long that it just becomes natural for the next generation to believe it as well. All the time I'm meeting people who feel so guilty for their immorality that they find it unbelievable that God or the church could want them and welcome them. We have to break that cycle. We're all sinners and until the Holy Spirit breaks the cycle of guilt, generations upon generations of families will live in hopelessness and end up in hell.

Porn. Porn is a cycle of sin that is crushing men, young and old, in Tacoma. It affects their relationship with Jesus, it affects their ability to lead their families and it affects their ability to lead the church. It leads to other sin and it is a cycle that was passed onto them by men they looked up to and it's a cycle they will pass on to those that look up to them. Porn has become normal in our culture. I was listening to local sports radio the other day and the hosts were talking about the quarterback of the Seahawks, Matt Hasselbeck, who is promoting software for computers that holds men accountable to the websites they look at. They weren't bashing him, they just couldn't fathom why he would care if a man looked at porn. They didn't understand why that would be bad at all. I talked to one man whose addiction is so deep that he finds porn on cell phones at the cell phone store. I talked to another man who gets it at the library. My heart breaks. We have to break the cycle.

This weekend Kelli and I took the kids and the pup for a walk and 4 houses down from us we saw a couple arguing outside their car. We saw the man hit the woman and throw her into the car. I sent Kelli down another street with the kids and Addie and told her to call the police. As I approached the car I saw the woman inside the vehicle hitting the man. There was a toddler in the back seat and another adult in the front seat. As I yelled for them to stop the other adult said, "It's okay, they're married." That's seriously the view people have. The couple beats each other and people think that is okay. That's normal. We have to break the cycle.

I could go on and on but I think you see my point. Sin and therefore Satan is winning the battle. We know he won't win the war, but he is winning the battle. Even in our most clean-cut families in our "best" churches we know there is often sexual abuse at home or fraud at work. How do we break this cycle? Honestly, I know of nothing else that will work outside the reigning down of the Holy Spirit. I believe we will only see the Spirit come in power through pointed prayer by the church. Will you pray? Will I pray? Lets pray that the Holy Spirit would reign down in Tacoma, and in your city, and that this sin cycle would be broken and whole families would follow Jesus! It starts with prayer... and we have to allow the Spirit to break the cycle of sin that has been handed down to us. We must look at our own lives!

[14] if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

(2 Chronicles 7:14 ESV)

Superbowl Sunday

2011-02-08T10:40:00.000-08:00

When God put it on our hearts to begin meeting weekly for Community Groups and worship services, I overlooked the fact that our first worship service would be Superbowl Sunday. Normally that would not be a huge issue except that our worship service starts at 4pm... 30 minutes after the 3:30pm kick-off time. Ahhhhhh!

To be honest, in a normal situation we would have just had a super bowl party and gone back to normal worship services the next week. However, we had not had a service in 3 weeks, we had told everyone we would have one on the 6th, and frankly we were all excited about a time of gathering to worship Jesus!

Well, my attitude was not good. It's not like we have a massive amount of people to begin with and the thought of Superbowl Sunday had me envisioning maybe 6-8 people in attendance. Well, I was dreading it, doubting God and even a little frustrated to prepare for 6 people. What a sinner I am! Thank goodness for God's grace. Several days before the service God got a hold of my heart. By his grace I realized that I should practice what I preach. Our worship service is not a show for our people, it's an opportunity to bring praise and worship to Jesus in unity. God softened my heart, I repented, and became excited just to worship the Father. I also prayed that God would do more than I could imagine... which in this case wasn't very much.

Well, Sunday came and we had more people than we've ever had for a worship service!!! One of our newest guys had DVR'd the game and invited us over to watch it at his apartment afterwards. I told him we would probably have 10 people there. Well, after a fantastic time of worship, teaching and prayer we brought about 20 people to the apartment. We had a blast and no one ruined the score for us. God is so good and worshipping with his people is so amazing.

Thank you Jesus for teaching me to be satisfied in you while not remaining content with the lostness that's all around us.

Amazed

2011-01-31T22:05:00.000-08:00

I don't have much to say tonight. I've written this post twice and deleted it both times. I'm just kind of sitting in awe of Jesus tonight.

This afternoon I was able to have lunch with the new director of the youth Late Nite program at the YMCA. Pray for him, his name is Rich, that he would lead by the power of the Holy Spirit and we would have open doors to preach the gospel at the Y.

This afternoon there was a fight right outside our house that escalated rapidly from high school tough-kids to gang violence. I was afraid for the first time in a long time as we brought two of the kids who had been jumped into the house. My faith was tested this afternoon as I feared for the safety of my wife and children. I always say so boldly that God's grace is sufficient for me. That his power is made perfect in my weakness. This afternoon that claim was put to the test and I was very afraid.

Tonight I was able to attend a "Jesus and Justice" seminar on the campus of the University of Puget Sound, a campus that everyone I've talked to has told me is completely closed to the gospel and nearly impossible to get on. God has opened doors for Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and is allowing us to serve along side them. As I sat there in a room full of college students that are not supposed to be "reachable," I was amazed at who came with me: three teenagers that God has impacted with the gospel through the planting of The Pathway in Tacoma along with a 22 year-old future pastor and a 34 year-old new believer.

The grace of God at work in a city is extraordinary. His grace is surely sufficient. I am amazed.

What Would Jesus Do?

2011-01-25T20:23:00.000-08:00

Does everyone remember the cheesiest campaign ever??? "What would Jesus do? Bracelets... shirts... hats... just about everything you can think of.

Well, as cheesy as it is I've had to ask myself that question the last couple of days. Most of you know my wife... she's amazing. She has the gift of hospitality and she makes our home the most open and welcoming home I've ever seen. Everyone we know understands that they are free to stop by, hang out, eat dinner or stay the night whenever they need to (it annoys me at times... but Kelli loves it!!!).

Well, over the last year we've been burned pretty badly... as many people have... through our hospitality. Two people in particular have been welcomed into our home for extended time periods and have proceeded to be fake, lazy and at times have straight out lied to us. Their deception was put into practice so that they could get what they wanted. That has left us with the haunting question... do we still open our home when we know there is a good chance we will be used and abused?

I know the "church" culture that I have been raised in would start to give a very spiritual sounding diatribe about boundaries in ministry, protecting your family, etc. etc. To be honest, while there is some wisdom built in there I just can't find backing for it in the Bible.

However, some people allow themselves to be used and abused to the point of bitterness and the breakdown of their marriage and family. I definitely don't see that in the Bible.

So this week, when a member of our church. who has not proven himself the most diligent employment seeker, needed a place to stay for an indefinite amount of time, we had to ask a familiar question. Not, "What do we want to do?" Not, "What would our family and friends tell us to do?" Instead we had to ask, "What would Jesus do?"

Here's what I came up with... "I don't know." That's where we are. In the meantime, there's a church member staying with us because there's one thing I do know. If I want to do what Jesus would do, I must always error on the side of compassion. To God be the glory!

Backing up our words

2011-01-17T11:02:00.000-08:00

The Pathway had a worship service yesterday afternoon and Kelli and I were challenged to practice what we preach in an unexpected way. God has really taught us a lot about what a worship service is supposed to be. It's not hard or complicated but for us it is profound. A worship service is actually about worshipping God. It's not about good preaching, what we can "get" or even "give" at the service, it's truly just about lifting God on high and praising him for being God.

Kelli and I know that The Pathway as a whole, and our worship service specifically, is not dependent on us but at times God gives us a chance to show him that we really believe that. We were expecting more kids and families than usual yesterday simply because of how God has been working. Kelli and Laura had really been working hard on our kids program and it was Kelli's week to lead. They were really looking at our kids program... Kidspath... to become a tool for discipling children, not just a place for "childcare." Well, we had our Community Group over to watch the Seahawks lose Sunday morning and Jagen and Rylan just got too excited. They were all riled up and they would not sleep. No nap + 4pm worship service = 2 screaming 1 year olds! I called Kelli about an hour before the service and heard the kids freaking out but she said she was still coming... she was determined not to let Satan win and she said she needed to be there for the families that were coming.

After we talked we both remembered our commitment to Jesus. Our worship services should never depend on us. We always want to let the Spirit work and move as he chooses, not based on anything we do or any plans we have made. Kelli and I decided God wanted us to trust him to take care of those kids and families without us, and that Kelli would be more effective staying home and taking care of our kids. Whether they were screaming or not, she would hit her knees and pray at 4pm for our worship service. That would be a step for us as a couple in keeping God as the object of our worship and would ensure that Satan would be defeated.

Well, our worship service came, Kelli prayed, we had one new family and 2 other kids and you know what, God was worshipped! The kids were taken care of... one even came into the worship service and showed me his sermon notes at the end. One of our other leaders stepped up and led in Kidspath, and most importantly our worship service remained about worship!

We don't get this right all the time but I know God is teaching us about true worship for a reason. As we grow it will be harder to keep this focus and flexibility but we are committed to being faithful now so that we will remain faithful later.

Could this be Biblical Community?

2011-01-10T07:42:00.000-08:00

We have a Community Group that meets in our home every other Sunday afternoon at 4pm. Ever since we sent two of our Leadership Team members out to start a new Community Group on Mondays our Community Group has struggled to find its identity. We've had as many as 7 or 8 people and we've had a few times where it was just Kelli and me. However, it's no surprise that God has been at work. Over the Thanksgiving Holiday a couple people in our church were outside playing in the snow and they met a man and his 4 year old twin daughters. I drove up shortly after and was able to give them a ride to Safeway. Gene and his daughters Geanette and Geanella have become friends and Gene has a great deal of difficulty facing he and his family right now. He struggles, but he is seeking Jesus and has been becoming a part of The Pathway.

I have a teenager, Andres, that I mentor through the Tacoma Rescue Mission. He and his family have since moved out on their own but God has given me and Kelli great favor with Andres' mom. We have stayed connected with them and over the last month God has been breaking Monica. She has been coming to our Community Group, opened herself up to accountability with Kelli and is using her position with the Metropolitan Development Council to help us serve and share Jesus with a local apartment community.

Last night we sat at our house not just for Bible study, but experiencing genuine biblical community. None of the 4 adults in the room look alike. None of us have a lot in common. However, the common ground we share is a recognition that apart from Christ we have no hope. We laughed, we prayed, we talked about our role as "witness" from Acts 1 and we worked together to figure out how to reach our community for Jesus. It wasn't perfect but it was community. I needed that. We need that. God is up to something in 2011. Please don't stop praying for The Pathway.

Also-- a quick shout out to our best friends Matt & Erin Dugan back in Ft. Worth. Of all the people we have met in Tacoma we still don't have any friends our age, our situation in life (married with young kids) who are also passionately in love with Jesus. I never realized how vital that is until I lost it. Matt and Erin love us and pray for us and they asked us if we wanted to start hanging out once a month to play games. You ask, how do they do that from Ft. Worth? Well, welcome to the wonderful world of skype. This past Saturday night we played games over skype, we laughed, we showed them around our house... it was so fun! We needed it. Technology can be such a blessing when we use it for Jesus. Thanks Dugan's!

Worship without "worship" is still Worship

2011-01-03T13:38:00.000-08:00

Most of you know that in October The Pathway began having worship services twice a month. It has been a unique experience and we are learning that worship is not supposed to be about what we "get" from the service but about what we "give" to God. If it's about us, it's not worship. Ask yourself how many times you've left a worship service displeased because you didn't really "get" anything out of the message or you didn't "get" anything out of the music. I am embarrassed and humbled to admit how many times I have said those things.

Well, a good friend has led us in worship through song for the first 3 months of our worship services and has done an excellent job teaching the people of The Pathway how to worship God in song. The one downside to my friend helping us was that he wasn't a part of our church he was simply a part of our worship service. Everything we believe God wants for us comes from being the church instead of going to church so I decided that we would not do worship in song anymore until someone from within our church was ready to lead it. That's a scary thought because what is worship without worship?

Well, let me tell you that yesterday we learned exactly what worship is without "worship." If it's focused on the glorification of God through the power of the Holy Spirit... it's WORSHIP! We spent an hour and a half yesterday, as a church, praying, studying God's word, fellowshipping and sharing honest testimony of what the Lord has been doing in our lives. God was glorified, God was worshipped, and in turn he allowed most of us to "get" something out of it. Ask yourself what you're looking for when you go to worship. When you're honest it is very humbling for most of us but I'm hear to tell you, true worship is in Spirit and in Truth and has nothing to do with music.

Praise Jesus for worship!

Yes.

2010-12-14T09:39:00.000-08:00

I've been sharing with people a lot lately about the reality that inviting people into a relationship with Jesus, inviting people to Community Group, inviting people to dinner often ends with a very familiar word... "no." That sound pretty discouraging and honestly it is. As a Christ-follower I am passionate about sharing my faith in Jesus with people but constant rejection can be hard to overcome. You get tired of being told "no," even if you understand the reality that they are not rejecting you, they are rejecting Jesus.

Thankfully, God knows the amount of "no's" we can handle. Honestly, I've been discouraged lately and wondering if I would ever hear that beautiful 3 letter word in response to any invitation again. Kelli and I have been reevaluating our Community Group as it seeks to find an identity. We decided to add dinner to our group this past Sunday and see what happened. We still opened the word and prayed for each other, but we invited people to share a meal as well. As we called & invited people that have been a part of our Community Group we were amazed at the number of "yeses" we heard on the other end of the phone.

In all we had 6 yeses in addition to the two of us not to mention the 10 kids that would come with those yeses! When Sunday night finally arrived we had 2 "yeses" turn to "no's" (reality & the testing of our faith), but God brought the right people. We ended up with 7 total people at our group (1 new face & 2 that we haven't seen in a long time) and 8 kids! We dug into God's word, and were all stretched and challenged. We took a big step forward in becoming a "community" of believers. The group that was there will probably never be "best friends" but we can live in biblical community together. All it took was the willingness of people to say "yes."

Thank you Jesus for the "yeses."

Prayer

2010-12-07T10:31:00.000-08:00

Jesus prayed a lot. We should too.

I know that sounds obvious enough but too often my prayer times are rushed by other obligations. Too often I ask and ask and ask God for things but I seldom listen to what he wants from me. Prayer "meetings" often become a time of gossip or simply heart felt sharing instead of Spirit led, two-way communication with God. Whatever the problems are with my approach to prayer I learned last week (more accurately it was confirmed to me last week) that God has surrounded me with a leadership team that understands the NEED for humble, worshipful and extended times of prayer.

As many tangible things as God did in the first 6 months of our ministry here in Tacoma it seems things have slowed down that much in the last 6 months. My family, our team and our church have been spiritually attacked from all angles and we have realized that we are nothing without the leading of the Holy Spirit and the confidence that being in his will is enough... results are up to him. With that in mind I felt compelled to have a guided time of prayer at the beginning of our leadership team meeting last Thursday. When I told everyone we would be spending more time in prayer than the usual "opening" and "closing" of the meeting, there was an excitement and a bit of relief that filled the air. Everyone knew we needed to spend some time together with Jesus... completely submitted to him.

I've shared with a couple of people since that night that I have been guilty in the past of determining whether or not I would pray allowed in a prayer meeting based on the time, other things on the agenda and how many others were praying for a particular thing. My leadership team does not share that struggle. We prayed through multiple areas and topics from repentance to revival and it seemed that every topic led to multiple prayers being voiced by each individual with no regard to time or schedule.

I don't say this with pride but with humility because I did not lead out in this. The leaders were God's people, our team, burdened to speak to God and hear from God because we have no where else to turn. I share this because it was powerful, peaceful and beautiful. As we prayed, minutes turned into hours and the agenda went out the window. We never did get to the "meeting," but for once we did not miss prayer, communication with and worship of our God.

When was the last time you truly prayed with no pre-determined end? I'm convinced that is where revival is birthed and awakening begins. All glory to God through his son Jesus!

Failing Forward

2010-11-22T11:15:00.000-08:00

So I was at my in-laws house last month while we were in the midst of our partnership development trip and I saw a couple of John Maxwell books on the bookshelf including one I had never heard of , "Failing Forward." I was immediately drawn to the title because anyone who has been around church planting knows that you will see many failures on the road to growth!

Well, I bought the book for our leadership team and we are about to go through it. Honestly, I have not started it yet and I am chomping at the bit. It has been a "season" of failure for myself personally and for The Pathway. Hear me clearly, I don't believe I'm a failure or that The Pathway is a failure. An optimist would say we're in a time where the successes are fewer. However, anyone who knows me knows that I am a realist (i.e. pessimist) and I try to shoot straight. We are in a season of failures. However, I believe God has a plan for these "failures" that will refine us and make us into who we are called to be.

Here's how I would ask you to pray. Pray for myself and my family. We feel like we have failed with Tiffany in so many ways. We understand fully that it is not us who will save Tiffany but the reality is we hoped that she would move out of our house stronger and closer to God than when she came and that's just not the case.

Also pray for our Leadership Team and Community Group Leaders. We had a tough Community Group Leader meeting last night. We came into the night with 5 groups and ended the night with three. That can be seen as failure but because we are confident that it was the Spirit's leading I truly believe that these three will be significantly stronger than the other 5 and will allow us to develop new leaders and multiply more effectively than had we hung onto the groups as if stopping them meant that we had given up on God.

Finally, pray that by the power of the Holy Spirit we would "fail forward." Pray that God would give me direction as the pastor of The Pathway on where to go from here both with my family and as a church. The Spirit is stirring here in Tacoma. It's obvious because there is so much spiritual attack. Pray that the Spirit of God would fall on Tacoma and this time next year I would be blogging about how much stronger we have become through the fire of being refined!

My Prodigal Daughter

2010-11-15T10:15:00.000-08:00

I never thought I would be on the Fatherly end of a prodigal story... at least not at the age of 29. However, most of you know that God gave us Tiffany about a year ago and he supernaturally implanted in us the ability to love her as one of our own. It's unexplainable really. Nevertheless our love for her is undeniable.

Most of you also know that a while back we learned that Tiffany had been living a lie, a double life almost, that came to a head when she found out she was pregnant. By the grace of God we were able to love her through the pain and continue to walk with her, showing her the grace that our God shows to us daily. Some of you know that after a short time we found out that she was still deceiving us, living another life behind our backs and lying to us at every turn. That discovery was especially difficult for Kelli because while I had held back a little of my heart after the first round of deception, Kelli had opened her whole self to Tiffany. I truly believe a piece of Kelli died that second time because she could not believe someone would deceive her so maliciously. However, by the grace of God we fulfilled our promise to Tiffany that she would always be a part of our family, no matter what she did or didn't do. She is our daughter and no amount of hurt or hate will ever change that.

Well, we have shared with some that the last few weeks have been wonderful. Tiffany had been showing us love, talking to us about her relationship with God, and answering tough questions when we asked them. However on Saturday... our "family day"... things just didn't add up. We finally caught her in the midst of more blatant and malicious lies and are still in a great deal of shock. Call us ignorant, call us crazy, but we chose to trust her again and for a third time she proved to us that her words have been empty and that she has never felt for us what we feel for her.

Sunday I had to have one of the hardest conversations of my life. I told Tiffany that we still love her, and I meant it. I told her that she will always be a part of our family, and I meant it. But I told her that I could no longer allow her to rip our family apart from the inside. I told her that God had placed this family in my care and I could not allow her to destroy us purposely and maliciously. I told her that I would never throw her out because people have done that her entire life but I truly believe that through her actions she has made the decision to leave.

I told her that we still want to walk with her through her pregnancy. We are still family. She is still welcome to call and come by but that she could no longer live in our house, purposely destroying us from the inside. We told her that everything in her room is hers, from the bed to the hangers, from the clothes to the bassinet. It's all hers and we will help her move it wherever she decides to go.

What are we feeling right now? I don't know that I can categorize it. I gave much more of my heart to Tiffany this third time. I feel like I've been taken into an alley and beaten to a bloody pulp, left for dead but still very much alive. Someone I love with so much of my heart sat across the table from me on Sunday and told me that she did not want Jesus. She told me she did not want my Savior, her Savior, my God and the one true God.

It feels as though Tiffany has punched my wife in the stomach and taken a lot of the spark out of her eyes. There is anger, frustration and pain... but honestly, we're mostly sad and broken. We're sad because we know Tiff didn't choose to be born into the life she was born into. We're sad that she has so many obstacles to overcome yet she continues to build more obstacles in front of her. We're broken because she confirmed what we had feared; that her relationship with God, much like her relationship with us was a scam, a way to survive. It was a show. It was fake. We're broken that this daughter that we love with all our hearts is on a path to hell and she seems completely okay with it.

Please pray for our family. We can honestly say that we have "hope" right now. A supernatural hope that only comes because of our relationship with God through Jesus. I don't think we are yet at peace with this. We want to hold Tiffany close but we know we have to let her run if she is ever going to decide to stop and come home. Pray for Tiffany. Pray that the Holy Spirit would draw her and that God is not through with her yet.

We have a prodigal daughter. Her name is Tiffany. Please pray that someday she makes the choice to come home. But even if she does not, we will not stop preaching the wonderful name of Jesus who works everything for the good of those who love him.

Hope

2010-11-08T23:52:00.000-08:00

God has filled me with hope today.

The Pathway had our 4th worship service yesterday and God did things we did not expect. First of all, my 2 babies were not the only kids in our kids ministry... God brought a new family! Second, a guy who is about to move to Tacoma was in town last month on a Sunday and saw our sign (our only sign). He checked out our website and then came on his own to our worship service. God is moving. Hope.

I was also filled with hope as I attended a pastors conference today that is a lead-in to the Northwest Baptist Convention's annual meeting. I'm going in to this time an open skeptic about whether or not the SBC is headed in a direction that I can truly believe in. However, I talked with a number of guys today who truly desire to be a part of Kingdom work... bigger than themselves... and their ready to be in it for the long haul. That gives me hope for the Kingdom of God in the Northwest.

Finally, my wife has been struggling. Today I called to check on her and she shared with me what God has been teaching her the last couple days. He is increasing her faith, reminding her that we can't get jaded, we just have to believe, and he was obviously confirming in her the call he has placed on her life.

Hope. Yeah, it's a good thing. Praise Jesus.

My Day of Worship

2010-11-01T14:54:00.000-07:00

Sunday's are commonly referred to as a day of worship in the evangelical world. It's a time held sacred by some. It's a time to rest and a time to gather for worship. It's a time I don't think I will ever again take for granted.

As most of you know our church only recently began holding Sunday worship services and we only do it twice a month. So far it is small but passionate. The last 2 Sundays my family was in Texas and we were able to be a part of the worship services that we were accustomed to growing up. We went to a really nice building, with a bunch of really nice people, we sang amazing and truly worshipful songs and we were challenged by a really good message. Although imperfect, God's people were gathered for worship. God was the focus. His glory our aim.

Most of my Sundays in Tacoma are a bit different. Yesterday was truly a day of worship but in a very unique way. Generally on our off Sundays we sleep in a bit and have some good family time. However, this week one of our leaders sent out a text saying he felt burdened to pray more and invited anyone who wanted to join him to meet at a local spot to pray for our city. There were 5 of us. We prayed. We worshipped.

After that I received a call from a man I had been trying to get together with. It's a man going through a lot of pain that I know about and probably more that I don't. I didn't want to spend more time away from my family since I knew I had a busy afternoon but I know this is what Jesus wanted me to do. As we sat and talked over coffee I noticed that he wasn't making a ton of since and he just seemed very distant. I came to find out that he was high as a kite. I encouraged him to give his life to Jesus and told him that we should get together again when he was sober. I left frustrated at him for wasting my time. But I know it wasn't a waste. He needs to be loved. He needs Jesus. I worshipped.

After that I headed to lunch with Antwon, the first man we saw come to Jesus in Tacoma who has battled to continue walking with him. We hung out, talked about how he was doing spiritually and how he could be more involved in the church. We ate, we watched football, we prayed together. Worship.

That night I sat at home with my wife. We live in a sketchy neighborhood so although we were prepared for tricker treaters, we only had 4. We hung out together, somewhat under the weather. We ate chicken and mashed potatoes and watched Titanic until Kelli couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. It was a wonderful night. It was actually a wonderful day.

Worship.

Exhausted!

2010-10-28T10:32:00.001-07:00

It's Thursday but I can honestly say the first thing I wrote in this post is "It's Wednesday." That's how exhausted we are after an amazing trip south. Me, Kelli, Jagen and Rylan were able to spend an amazing 10 days in Texas and Oklahoma and we are still recovering! I can honestly say this was one of the best and most encouraging trips we have taken since moving to the Northwest in 2008. We were able to meet with some of our current partners and share with them in person how much their support is impacting the people of Tacoma for the gospel of Jesus and to honestly share with them that we need their continued support into the future.

We were able to meet with some new churches as well, some of whom have already decided to partner with The Pathway and some that are praying about the role they will play in the Northwest. We also got to spend some time with the Lohman and Campbell families in Oklahoma who are like a second family to us. They pray for us, support us and encourage us in so many ways and it was refreshing to spend 24 hours with them just getting loved on!

Thank you all for your continued prayers for The Pathway. Sorry for the sporadic posts the last couple of weeks but we'll be back on schedule with posts this Monday! Please pray that Jagen and Rylan recover from our travels. And remember, NEVER take 11 month old twins on a plane!!!

LDS at UPS

2010-10-12T08:29:00.001-07:00

As many of you know God has finally been opening some doors for The Pathway to connect with college students at the University of Puget Sound (UPS). Right now we are just showing up to Intervarsity meetings on campus (they are the only outside Christian influence allowed on campus), hanging out with students, learning what Jesus is up to and trying to walk through any open doors he gives us. Well, last night Tommy and me were able to hang out with some of the guys before the meeting which was great. The meeting was good and we brainstormed ways to partner with an organization in India called Freeset whose sole purpose is to buy back women who have been sold into prostitution and employ them in their factory making t-shirts and bags. Pretty amazing... but that wasn't what stuck out about the night.

Before the meeting a student named Jasmine told me that she was so excited that finally, this Wednesday night, all the Christian organizations on campus (all 6 of them) would be doing something together for the first time. They are having a prayer time around the big fountain in the center of campus. I asked her what other Christian groups were on campus and she went through the short list but one of the groups she mentioned was the LDS club... as in Latter Day Saints... as in Mormon. That's right, a Christian club! My mind went back to my first meeting a year ago with the UPS chaplain when he gave me a list of the Christian clubs and the LDS club was included.

I don't even know where to begin with how my heart feels about this. I'm sad that Christ is so masked in our city and on this campus that Christians don't know a cult when they see it. I'm frustrated that the so called "christian" chaplain encourages students to chose whatever faith or lack of faith works for them... and he thinks they'll be okay in the end. But I'm also hopeful.

First of all, the Holy Spirit is working in Tacoma and that always brings hope. Second, at the end of the meeting last night Jasmine invited not just me, but our church to come to the prayer meeting on Wednesday night! You better believe we'll be there. Finally, the Bible says in the last days so many false gospels will be preached. But we know who already has the victory won and his name is Jesus. Pray for us on Wednesday at 9pm pacific time. Pray that we would have opportunities to speak truth. Pray for boldness. And pray that the true gospel would win the victory at UPS and that the LDS students would put their faith in the real Jesus!

Red Lobster and Small Prayers

2010-10-05T11:32:00.000-07:00

If you've been following The Pathway or the Higginbotham family for the last month or so you know it has been all but an encouraging time. We have been under what feels like constant spiritual attack as a family, a leadership team and as a church and we have really been fighting discouragement and frustration. Well, things are not all roses and we are still battling but God encouraged our hearts in a major way on Saturday and reminded us how much he cares, how much he knows us and how he always provides in every way.

The week had been rough and Kelli came to me on Thursday night and told me she really needed to go out on a date with just me. No babies, no friends, just me and her. She asked me to take her to Red Lobster. Most of you know that my wife and I date pretty regularly. Thursday morning is date morning at the Higginbotham house and Saturdays are family days. However, with twins and a Tiffany our dates are not always just the two of us! On top of that, Kelli has never asked me specifically to go to Red Lobster. Those of you who know Kelli well know that she is incredibly indecisive and her favorite line is when I ask her where she wants to go or what she wants to do is, "I choose that you should choose!"

Well, I set up for Tiff to watch the babies Saturday night and I asked Kelli to go out to Red Lobster. Thankfully we had just gotten paid on Friday but Red Lobster is not McDonald's. It's a little pricey but when my wife makes such a specific request I know it needs to happen. Well, Saturday morning came around and we were spending time as a family as usual. I went outside and checked the mail and we had received a card from our local church association. Here's where God is just so intimate, so personal, so relational, so good. I opened the card and out fell a gift card... to Red Lobster! Kelli and I just laughed... as we often do... when God provides in a way that we never would have asked. Not flashy, not extravagant... just God. Praise Jesus for Red Lobster!

Please continue to pray for all of us going forward. This past Sunday at our second worship service I prayed a small prayer beforehand as I often do. It's a small prayer but a dangerous one. I prayed that God would bring the "right people" to our service. We had a great turnout the week before but I really wanted the right people to come this past week as we were going to be preaching on our specific vision as a church (you can hear it at www.thepathwaytacoma.com). Well, not many people showed up and I found myself doubting God's answer to the prayer. Small prayers can be dangerous, can be risky, but God's answers and his ways are always right. Please pray that I would have the faith to believe the right people were there and that those people would buy into the vision God has given us in such a powerful way that we would begin to see dramatic life change and the church in Tacoma would flourish!

A Glimpse of What our Church will be

2010-09-27T11:57:00.000-07:00

Last night was The Pathway's first worship service. I had no idea what to expect. I absolutely love worship services but I think they hinder "people" from being the church at times because they think that "going" to church is what it's all about. That being said, I never planned to have a worship service before 2011. I so wanted to focus on building and developing our Community Groups that the idea of having a worship serve so early on didn't even seem like an option. Have you ever tried to tell God what to do? It doesn't work. God made it evident a couple months ago that having a worship service would open the door for more people to connect to our Community Groups and to Jesus. It was also something our people were "yearning" for... so we did it!

Last night as I looked out at the people gathered together I could only smile at the reality that this group of people is not yet our church. All of those people were attending our worship service... but church is so much more than a worship service. However, the reason I smiled is because God gave us a glimpse of who our church will be. As I looked at the chairs inhabited by souls in need of a Savior I saw a man that was homeless until just last week. I saw several registered sex offenders. I saw a small group of college students from 2 different Tacoma campuses. I saw the families of some of our youth whom I had never met before. I saw young couples, I saw singles, I saw the employed and the unemployed. I saw teenagers, children, young men and old. I saw black, white, Native America & Asian. Most importantly I saw Christians... genuine followers of Jesus Christ... worshipping God and lifting high the name of Jesus while welcoming unbelievers, doubters, skeptics into our fellowship.

It was messy. It was diverse. It was beautiful. Thank you Jesus.

All those people aren't yet a part of the body of Christ. All those people aren't yet a part of The Pathway. But God faithfully showed us and told us last night, "Yes, this is the church I've called you to plant." WOW! I stand amazed in his presence.

Overwhelmed

2010-09-21T22:38:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the late post this week. Satan has definitely been on the prowl. My heart is broken tonight in so many ways.

Ephesians 6:12 reminds us that "... we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."

I don't know that I have ever felt the presence of this darkness more than I have this week. We've seen a life forever changed as the result of sin. We've seen a mom literally hand over her two teenage daughters to two girls in their mid 20's because she could not put a roof over their head. We've seen a young girl removed from her home because of multiple kinds of alleged abuse only to be placed back in that same home a few days later... scared, confused and alone.

I am broken for these peoples but I refuse to relinquish the authority given in the rest of Ephesians 6. I will not set down my shield of faith to defend against the flaming arrows the devil is hurling at us. I am confident that these attacks are coming in an effort to thwart the work God is doing through our church, to take the excitement away from our first worship service this Sunday and to steal the glory that our Creator God is due.

Well, it's not going to happen. We are going to charge full speed ahead with the sword of the Spirit attached to the belt of truth and we are going to preach the gospel of Jesus for the glory of God and the transformation of our city. Please go to battle with us through prayer. Pray for a bigger shield of faith and that lives would be changed as we continue to press on. Pray for the name of Jesus to be lifted high in our Community Groups and through our worship service this Sunday at 4pm pacific time.

Initiative

2010-09-13T10:05:00.000-07:00

One of my most consistent prayers for our church is that everyone who is a part of it would begin to take ownership of the mission of the church. The way I believe I will know the church is taking ownership of the mission is when the church begins to take initiative in accomplishing the mission. By taking initiative I simply mean anything they do, personally or as a group, to develop other mission-minded Jesus followers in our community without asking me about it or needing me to come up with the idea and push them to act on it.

Well, it happened. This may seem small to everyone else but it is huge to me. It's honestly not the first time someone has taken initiative, and I did know that they were talking about it, but it was the most prominent step that a group within our church has taken to make disciples without my "permission." I loved it!

Here's how it went down...

Yesterday we had a bunch of people over to our house to watch the Seahawks actually win a game! One of the girls that came over does not know Jesus and one of our other girls has been trying to get to know her. This morning her facebook status said... "okay God, I'm listening." Pretty amazing. Well, I asked our church member about it and she said "yeah, she is so excited about attending our new group tonight." I immediately responded, "What group?" She said, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I thought you knew we were starting a new group tonight."

I said I knew there had been talk but I did not have any idea it was happening and I definitely didn't know it was happening tonight! I told her that I would be praying and I was genuinely so excited about. Three people from our church got together, without the approval of a "committee" or the "permission" of a pastor, and decided to start a new community of people for the purpose of living out the mission of God. How cool is that? I believe with all my heart that this kind of initiative is the only way we're going to see Holy Spirit sized Kingdom multiplication in Tacoma and beyond!

Please pray for this new group that will be meeting on Monday nights at 7:30 beginning tonight. Pray for the girl who will be there that has decided to "listen" to God. Pray that more people who are a part of The Pathway will start taking the initiative to accomplish God's mission for our church. Finally, ask yourself, am I taking initiative for the gospel?

The Missionary Heart...

2010-09-08T12:16:00.000-07:00

Cares more than some think is wise.

Risks more than some think is safe.

Dreams more than some think is practical.

Expects more than some think is possible.

I was called not to comfort or success but to obedience.

-Excerpt from a letter from Karen Watson, 1973-2004

Mission worker killed by terrorists in Iraq

Wow. Do I have this commitment to the cause of Christ?

"The Fellowship"

2010-09-07T16:47:00.000-07:00

Acts 2 is one of my favorite passages of scripture for obvious reasons. The glimpse it gives us into the way the early church expressed itself is awesome to say the least. So often I share with people that The Pathway is founded on Community Groups of people who are "doing life together" but to be honest living in true biblical community is something that requires sacrifice, transparency and work. Because of that, it is something that we work for but don't always experience.

Well, this past Friday I experienced being a part of "the fellowship" of believers as mentioned in Acts 2:42 in a way that I never have before. It happened in the most unexpected place. I think I've mentioned in a post before that one of our guys, Tommy, recently started a Community Group made up of his landscaping co-workers and his boss on Friday mornings before work. Their shop is near our house so they meet in our kitchen about 7:00am. Well, Kelli and I were invited to be a part of the group this past Friday and it was amazing. We sat around for about 30 minutes drinking coffee, eating muffins and sausage McMuffins from McDonald's and talking about life. A little while later we began to read through the first chapter of 1 John and it really spoke to one of the ladies hearts. She opened her heart up and her pain just spilled out. She shared honestly, without holding back, of the pain she has been through and is going through with her father. We all listened, she received encouragement, scripture and counsel. The rest of us were able to then feel more comfortable opening up. Prayer needs were voiced authentically, we continued through the word and we were genuinely experiencing community as a part of "the fellowship" of believers.

It started off slow, it took one person making themselves vulnerable, and the Holy Spirit was present... really present. I want to challenge you, don't just talk about being a part of "the fellowship" of believers. Initiate it. "Fellowship" is from the Greek word Koinonia and it is translated "sharing." Who do you "share" life with. Someone has to start it. Will that someone be you? It's not just a suggestion, it's the way the church is called to function as the carrier of the gospel, the hope of the world!

God is definitely up to something...

2010-08-30T16:45:00.000-07:00

I didn't have a specific topic in mind for this weeks post. Because I'm not usually one who struggles with what to say I decided to sit back and think a little about what God has been doing. It's been a lot. We've had our fair share of pains and struggles over the past several months but there has been no shortage of joys and it is obvious that God is moving. Let me give you 5 ways that I see God moving in Tacoma. Hopefully it will encourage your heart but even more than that I pray that it will give you some specific ways to pray...

1) Tommy is on our leadership team. He's 21, bold and working on a landscaping crew. His mission as a landscaper overlaps with his mission as a Christ-follower. He wants to see Jesus infiltrate his crew. Over the course of the last several months he's learned that all but one of his crew claim to be Christians but none of them go to church. He asked his boss if they could begin a Community Group before work on Friday mornings to pray, hang-out and talk about God's word. Guess what? His boss said yes! God is moving.

2) We discussed our purpose as a church last night at our Community Group. One of the guys, in his 60's, living in a shared housing for registered sex-offenders said that he is realizing his purpose but he's scared to take action. He made breakfast for the guys in his house yesterday and he said everything inside him told him to share the gospel with them. He didn't. Missed opportunity? Yes. Failure? No. He wants to share the gospel with these men. Men most people won't even look at. God is moving.

3) I had the opportunity to take the 5 members of our Leadership Team to a Catalyst Leadership Conference on Thursday in Seattle. One of our mantras as a church is always take someone with you so of course I told everyone to feel free to invite someone. We took 10 people to this all day Leadership Conference and it was incredible. I sat with Vinny at lunch who I have never had a full conversation with. He is a member of on of Tommy's Community Groups. Vinny told me that he was saved when he was a kid but at 18 he started running. He's now 28 and ready to come back to Christ! He told me that he knows people on the streets and believes God can use him to reach people that I could never reach! He wants to start a Community Group at his apartment. God is moving.

4) I shared a few posts ago that we are going to begin monthly worship services. Well, God showed us he wants more than that. We are now going to have our first worship service the last Sunday of September and then we'll be having worship services the 1st and 3rd Sunday's of every month at least through the end of the year. God is moving.

5) We haven't seen anyone saved recently but we are praying & believing that God is moving. Will you join me this week in praying for salvation & life change?

God is moving.

God is dead.

2010-08-24T10:41:00.000-07:00

A shocking statement to say the least. As a believer and follower of the one true God to read that statement much less to hear it uttered literally twists my stomach in knots and I almost don't know how to respond. We have a 15 year old girl that is a part of our church that asked for help this week in getting out of a living situation with her mom who is addicted to drugs. The situation has become worse and worse and it is heart-breaking to say the least. She is currently staying with other family members and as we sat around their table after a discussion about what to do next I asked if we could all pray together. The conversation went from somber to awkward as it was obvious this was a new concept for the family.

What followed was a sad testimony to the reality of the world we live in. The 6 year old daughter of the family asked in reference to prayer, "What is that?" I told her that it is how we talk to God and ask him to help us with tough situations like the one her cousin is going through. This little girl then said with complete confidence, "God is dead." While not much could hurt my heart more than hearing those words come out of a child's mouth I was even more disheartened by the response of her mom, a strong and obviously loving wife and mother. She said with all sincerity, "God is not dead, Jesus is." My heart drop and my voice, shocked and not nearly as passionately as I wish it had been said, "Jesus is not dead, he died but he rose again."

How do we live in a world, a country, a nation where a 6 year old child can believe that God is dead? How do we live in a culture where a loving and "good" mother and wife could whole heartedly correct her by saying that God is not dead, Jesus is?

This is our calling. This is our purpose. We must proclaim passionately, urgently and in a loud voice that Jesus is not dead, for he has risen!

Praying for life change. Believing even when it doesn't happen.

2010-08-18T11:18:00.000-07:00

Well, so many times as a church planter I enjoy writing about, reflecting on and sharing the stories of hope. The stories with good outcomes of changed lives and people who have chosen the narrow road. Unfortunately, the sad reality is that so many more people choose the wider road. I don't know the "real" numbers but I share with people quite often that for every one life we see changed by the gospel we've probably walked with 20 or more who have left somewhere on the journey. It is hard, it is sad, it is frustrating. To ask why is futile other than to say in belief that it is all for God's ultimate glory.

I've been asking for prayer over the last couple of weeks for Shannon. Shannon is an abused, addicted paraplegic who we have been walking with, sharing the gospel with and encouraging to chose life... to choose Jesus. Unfortunately about a week ago I dropped Shannon off at her hotel knowing in the back of my mind that I may never hear from her again. I knew that as much I can and should fight for her, I cannot change her and I cannot choose for her. That is a hard reality to accept. She must choose Jesus for herself and the power of the Holy Spirit is the only one who can change her life. Wow!

Now I'm faced with the reality, as I have been so many times before in our short time in Tacoma, that there is a precious life out there wandering the streets. She's hurting, she's broken and she has knowingly rejected the God of the universe. How do we keep going? I'm not completely sure. I know it's only by faith and only through grace that we can persevere on the journey in the midst of great loss.

Thank you for your prayers. Please continue to pray for Shannon as you think of her because as long as there is still breath in her lungs the grace of Jesus is available to her.

New Territory

2010-08-10T05:42:00.000-07:00

God is such a provider. He is always directing our paths. His plans are perfect and his ways are definitely not our own. One of the next steps for The Pathway is beginning a worship service that meets every other month. The problem is, the Methodist Church that has been such a huge blessing to us for meeting space is becoming less and less accessible. That means we have to find a new place to meet consistently. However, the Methodist church was cheap and provided all the chairs, sound, video, etc. that is needed. It even has a nursery that we can rent with all the kids stuff provided. Well, the "plan" was to have our first bi-monthly worship service the last Sunday of August but August was already here and I had no idea where we would meet.

One afternoon everything was going wrong and I was actually kind of frustrated so I went out for a drive. I just started praying as I drove and praying about where God would have us meet. Of course he took me through a couple of obviously closed doors and then brought me to the Temple Theater... a huge meeting space right down town... central to everything. Surely this was too big but I figured I needed to go check. Long story short they have all sorts of meeting space sizes in the Convention Center and we found a room that is perfect for us. It is actually cheaper than the Methodist church and comes with chairs, set-up and clean-up when we're done. It also allows us to stay in the same location as we grow because they have space that can seat hundreds! However-- no sound, video or kids stuff!

Well, why doubt God. Unfortunately one of our church planting network church plants died recently and a couple of weeks ago our church planter strategist asked me if we could use their trailer with sound, screens and kids stuff!!! Since we're not using it on a weekly basis we're still working through the details of possibly sharing it with another plant or exchanging it for something smaller in the future, but either way I've been guaranteed the things we need for our worship service! Praise Jesus! It's just amazing to see how God pieces the puzzle together.

A couple things to pray for...

1) Pray for our first Worship Service on Sunday August 29th

2) Pray for Shannon from last weeks post-- we are still working with her and she has an appointment with the Tacoma Family Justice Center this morning. We are still trying to figure out how to get her to her daughters place in Oregon.

3) Pray for our Community Groups-- 2 are doing awesome, 1 is struggling through infancy and 2 are just struggling!

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, [4] even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

(Ephesians 1:3-4 ESV)

What? I actually have to live what I teach?

2010-08-03T08:55:00.000-07:00

So here's the deal. Sunday morning we were invited by The Commons, a church plant up in Arlington, WA, to share what God is doing in Tacoma. I am always excited to get to be a part of another church's worship service and especially to get to share the vision of The Pathway and all that God is doing. As I spoke Sunday morning my main emphasis was that at The Pathway we are learning to "be the church" instead of just "going to church." Another thing I emphasized was that part of "being the church" is not drawing a line in the sand between personal life and ministry life. Ministry is personal. It's messy, it's painful, it's hard on your family. But when you truly let the two collide, God is glorified and brings life change.

Well, God didn't even let me finish the day before having to put my money where my mouth is. That night, as Kelli and I were falling asleep I got a call from a homeless man named Pat who is a part of our Community Group. He is a great guy. Honestly, he is busting his hump to get off the streets. He loves Jesus and is sharp mentally, he just has a really bad back and struggles to provide for his own needs. Well, Pat called and said he had been staying with some people the last couple weeks and the husband was beating the wife so he finally just took the wife and left. The wife just happens to be a paraplegic who struggles to live independently. They were borrowing a phone just to get ahold of us but they needed help... now.

Well, I could have not answered the phone. I could have said, "Pat, my wife and I are in bed, we have a busy day tomorrow, our twins are asleep and our oldest daughter Tiffany is already in bed too." I could have said, "Pat, we'll just figure this out tomorrow. You left so you're going to have to figure out tonight." Fortunately, by the grace of God, not 12 hours earlier I had claimed to be learning to "be the church." Well, we rolled out of bed, woke Tiffany up and gave her the baby monitor, and we went out to the park to meet up with Pat and Shannon.

Long story short it is a messy, painful and sad situation that I'm certain does not have an easy solution. We were able to get a voucher in the middle of the night from the YWCA to get Shannon a hotel room in a safe place. Now, my normal southern baptist self would never have agreed to allowing Pat to stay with her in that hotel room but God had set out a perfect plan. In talking with Shannon privately Kelli learned that she really couldn't easily stay in a hotel room by herself. She needed assistance. Still, Pat? A man? Not the husband? Well, Not 6 hours earlier God had taken us to another church service to hear a friend preach. They were teaching on the story of Ruth and Boaz. I was reminded of how Ruth lay under the covers at Boaz's feet and because it was God's plan, Boaz's heart was pure and she was safe. Although it was not the ideal situation that you would advice every woman to put herself in. God had put Ruth their for a reason. The same was true for Shannon and Pat. They are not Boaz and Ruth, but Pat was able to be there for her in a way that we could not. More than that, he was willing and his heart was pure. On top of it all, we were able to share with Shannon the hope she can have in her true Kinsmen Redeemer... Jesus Christ.

Being the church.

Is it messy? Yes.

Is it beautiful? You bet.

Thank you Lord for your providential hand.

Please pray for Shannon as we are still working through the possible situations to keep her safe and keep her off the streets. Specifically pray that she would be open to going to live with her daughter in Oregon and that her daughter would be open to having her.

Riding in a Uhaul

2010-07-26T21:38:00.000-07:00

Today was good. Today was sad.

Today was about Jesus. However, I couldn't help but think about Trudy, a lady I have never met. God has really made it obvious that he wants us to pour our individual lives and the life of our church into an apartment community known only as 435 Fawcett Apartments. It's a low income facility run by the Metropolitan Development Council (MDC). It's high crime has made the management open to any possibility of possible change. They are coveting genuine community. Enter The Pathway!

As I stood talking to the MDC housing Director last Wednesday at their Community Meeting I once again offered our help anyway they needed. That's when she asked if we could help clean out Trudy's apartment. Truly was a mentally challenged woman who was 66 years old when she was hit by a car this past July 5th. She died just last week. Trudy was all alone in the world. No family. No friends to speak of. No funeral. No one to clean out her apartment. Honestly, no one will miss Trudy. That is sad.

However, God has used Trudy's life and untimely death for his glory and to open doors for gospel community in her former apartment complex. As we cleaned out her roach infested and cluttered apartment (she was a hoarder) we were able to have fun. Why? Simply because we love Jesus and we love each other. Our group of 6 Christians were able to work for 4 hours along side 1 person from the complex and 3 case workers to bring joy and purpose to an empty moment. Jesus was talking to his disciples and he told them a new commandment... that is to love one another, for the sole purpose of allowing others to recognize them as Jesus' disciples. I truly believe that is what happened today.

I wish some of those people would have chosen to follow Christ today... they didn't. But God is moving, opening doors and using seemingly purposeless and tragic events for his glory. As I was riding in a Uhaul back from the dump, where we left all of Trudy's belongings, I looked to my right and saw my church. A 35 year old new convert to Christianity who lives in Trudy's apartment and a 16 year old new believer who is so passionate about growing in his walk with Jesus he attends 4 churches that meet at different days and times just so he can learn more! Bible scholars? No. Quiet time everyday? Probably not. Desire to love one another. Starting to look like it!

I love my church. I love the Jesus is using us for his glory in disgusting and tragic circumstances. Pray for Sindy, the apartment manager at Fawcett, that we would continue to develop a relationship with her and that she would give her life to Jesus. Pray for the MDC as we are hoping to receive approval from them this week to hold a Community Group for their residents in their community room. Praise Jesus for what he is doing here and please, look for your Trudy and your 435 Fawcett Apartments. There are broken people who need Jesus everywhere. We just need to go to them with the gospel and love!

Where does the time go?

2010-07-20T11:26:00.001-07:00

I was sitting at the breakfast table this morning with my kids and they were so full of personality! Jagen was sitting in a high chair instead of in our laps and I thought to myself, "Where does the time go?" They're getting so big so fast. The same can be said for this summer. I cannot believe we're almost to August of 2010. We've been serving in Tacoma for more than a year now and we will have lived in Tacoma one year November 1st!!! So crazy! Where does the time go?

It's been a couple weeks since my last post and I have to apologize for that. God has definitely been at work though. Where to begin? I guess without boring everyone with all the details of the past few weeks I'd just like to praise Jesus and reflect on the reality that we are slowly becoming a church! Of course we are already a part of God's church but we are still very much a church plant. The Leadership Team has been doing most of the work and we are definitely only able to survive by the generous support and prayers of our partners. But still, we're showing signs of truly becoming the church God has called us to be. A few examples...

We have a guy in our church who is a believer but has gone through a rough patch the last 3 or 4 years of his life. One of our students actually invited him to The Pathway and he has since become plugged into our church. He really believes in the vision God has given us to reach Tacoma with the gospel. Well, we don't yet take up an offering from the people attending The Pathway. We will hopefully begin that in January. Right now our Leadership Team gives faithfully but of course no one else is chomping at the bit to give away the little money they have. But... this man came to me and said that The Pathway is his church and he'd really like to give financially to support his church!!! And he actually did! Praise Jesus for the heart as well as the giving!

We've also begun to see our vision taking shape for being a church made up of small Community Groups. What began as one mid-sized gathering and then turned into a youth gathering and an adult gathering has now become 1 youth gathering and 3 adult Community Groups with a 4th about to begin if the Lord opens the door! The number of groups we have doesn't really matter but the fact that we are really beginning to "be" the church instead of trying to just "go" to church is really starting to show itself!

Finally, as a result of the new groups beginning there are more and more people who are a part of The Pathway that I have never met! Some people may balk at that and think, "How could he not now the people attending his church?" For us though, that's the point. The church is not about Bobby Higginbotham or any one person on our Leadership Team. The point is not for me to know them, the point is for Jesus to know them. If I have to know and engage every person that connects with The Pathway our growth will have major limitations. However, if we simply focus on training leaders who can and will lead people to know and follow Jesus, the sky is the limit for the Kingdom growth through The Pathway.

Becoming a church looks much different than I ever imagined but it's happening right before my very eyes. Jesus I'm in awe!

The Gospel

2010-07-06T08:09:00.000-07:00

We recently finished a month long study in our small groups about the vision of The Pathway. One of our 4 sessions was spent on sharing the gospel. It's ironic how central sharing the gospel is to the continuation of Christianity yet out irregularly the majority of Christians actually do share the gospel. We defined the gospel as the good news that we can have eternal life simply be putting our faith in what Jesus did for us on the cross and through the grave. It's pretty simple really. The results of the choice to believe the gospel is life changing.

Over the past few weeks my heart has been incredibly encouraged. We had 2 mission teams come to Tacoma. One was from Trinity Baptist in Ada, OK and the other from FBC Universal City, TX. Our only objective while they were here was to put them around people and give them the opportunity to share the gospel. I honestly did not know how this would go since so many people don't share the gospel, or even know how to share the gospel. However, God blew my pessimistic expectations right out of the water. These two groups obviously came from churches where the gospel is central and sharing the gospel is expected. The were bold, excited, equipped and faithful to share the gospel!

Praise Jesus for the harvest we believe he is preparing to bring in Tacoma and for the faithfulness of his people to simply share the gospel!

Jayla

2010-06-29T23:53:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the late post. We have a mission team here from Ada, OK. Life is busy but God is really good. We met Jayla a few days ago when the mom who was babysitting her came to our Community Group. We found out the next day that Jayla's mom had dropped her off 3 days earlier and hadn't been heard from since. Jayla was sad, scared, confused and uncared for. Her diaper had not been changed in days and she was very hungry and thirsty. We're in Tacoma, WA... the United States of America for crying out loud. This isn't supposed to happen here... but it does. It's far too common a tale.

The church must step up to the plate. James instructs us to take care of the orphans and the widows. Am I doing that? Is my religion pure and undefiled? Are you doing that? I saw Christians go to bat for Jayla this week and it was a beautiful sight. She spent the day with our family and the mission team as we worked with CPS. Jayla was changed, bathed, fed and most importantly... loved.

Long story short, Jayla is back with her mom. Is this the best place for her? Only Jesus knows. She experienced love though and we will not forget her. We will keep praying for her, fighting for her and others like her. All of us as American Christians have been taught all the reasons not to take care for the poor, needy, broken, orphan and the widow... we've even learned to rationalize it. It's time we stop making excuses, stop turning a deaf ear and a blind eye and start taking action... the way Jesus did.

Pray for Jayla and specifically for salvation for her mom Kayla.

Spiritual Warfare

2010-06-21T17:52:00.000-07:00

Whenever Satan attacks a person or a church there is mixed emotions involved. On the one hand, it's a spiritual attack. It's painful, personal, discouraging and challenging in many ways. On the other hand, Satan doesn't make a habit of attacking things that aren't a threat to his mission. Therefore, when Satan attacks an individual or a local expression of the church, that is a pretty good sign that the person or church is doing effective Kingdom work by the grace of Jesus!

Well, this weekend we experienced some serious attack. Some of it was just as a result of human nature but I have no doubt that some of it can be directly attributed to the spiritual battle that is being waged even as we speak. This week was actually a great week for our youth gathering. We always have some random questions during Bible study that are so far off track I usually don't address them in the moment. However, this week some random questions were raised by focused and sincere hearts so we ended up spending the whole time addressing questions. The kids were engaged, focused and challenged. You could genuinely feel the presence of the Lord!

Well, the end of the night was somewhat discouraging because when we started to clean up Becca realized her ipod was missing. My heart just sank as we all knew what happened. It could have been anyone who took it but that's really not the point. Even though Becca could care less about her ipod, it is seriously like a spiritual stab in the back when you pour your time, energy, love, prayers and resources in to peoples lives and then someone in their midst steals from you. Becca handled it with grace, but it hurt.

Heading into the weekend we were very excited because our adult gathering was growing to the point where we started a second community group. However, by the time Sunday came we could tell that we weren't going to have much of a turn out at one of them... discouraging. Then, just hours before our two adult groups were going to start, we found out that one of our teenagers was being thrown out of his house... discouraging. Three of our leadership had to go and deal with that very serious situation which meant we had to call on two others to lead the groups with about an hours notice. Honestly though, it was very encouraging to know that we had people we could call on who would step up and the meeting with the student and his parent went as well as it could possibly have gone.

Finally, Monday morning came and I had to have a very difficult conversation with one of our people. Again, it ended as well as it could have but the situation was discouraging. Finally, to add fuel to the spiritual fire, Becca received a call this morning from a number none of us recognized and the person called her one vulgar word and then hung up. Again, not the worst thing in the world, but a painful spiritual stab in the back when all she has been doing is selflessly investing her life into others.

Pray for us. Pray that our new group would take off this week. Pray for spiritual and emotional encouragement for our team. Pray for perspective. Pray that we would remember why Satan is attacking. Pray for the student and his parent as they struggle with their relationship. Pray for another new group that will be starting the beginning of July. Pray for encouragement for our team. Please Pray.

Thanks.

Innocence Revealed

2010-06-15T12:09:00.000-07:00

This past week we had a mission team from FBC Universal City come and spend a week with our church. They were amazing... and I'm not just saying that. They were bold, faithful, ready and obedient to share the gospel. Two men made professions of faith in Jesus Christ and we ended the week with a cook-out with 30-40 people in attendance! Praise Jesus for his faithfulness and pray that we are able to follow-up with numerous connections that were made. Pray as we start a new group this Sunday and as we look to start at least 2 more over the next month!

Although I intended to tell you all about the week, God has again led me back to the girl I've blogged about several times in the past few weeks. She is the one who had attended and disrupted our church multiple times, jumped Tiffany after school one day while drunk, and then came face-to-face with Tiff 2 Fridays ago when she came to church. Her heart appeared to be made of stone and then Tiffany said three words to her, "I forgive you." God used those three words to begin to break that heart of stone. We shared the gospel with her but she was not yet ready to place her faith in Jesus.

Well, I received a surprising call last week from this girl's social worker because she is in foster care. The social worker called to find out details about our youth retreat so that this girl could attend (the mission team was helping us put on a one night retreat). I said I was surprised she wanted to go and the social worker said the girl really wanted to. Well, sure enough she showed up, slightly cold and obnoxious at first, but then my Jesus showed up!

After we had been there for the evening the girl came up to me and asked if we could do this every couple of weeks because it was so awesome. That sounds innocent enough but my heart broke because I know she truly desired to be there as often as possible, removed from the difficult, unloving street life that she had become accustomed to. I wish I could have said "yes, we can stay here forever," but the reality is we couldn't. I would go back to may safe, loving home, and she would go to her new foster home, nervous to see how she would be treated.

Before our final session on Saturday morning I asked if anyone wanted to share what God had been doing in their life that weekend. To my surprise this girls hand was the first to go up. She looked at the entire group and told us with complete transparency that her idea of fun had always involved alcohol, drugs and sex. She said she had more fun this weekend than she ever imagined and none of those things were involved. She said, she never knew she could have fun like that.

Once again my heart broke. This bully of a girl who I genuinely believed was unsavable and unchangable, is being broken before my very eyes. I am having the blessing of watching this 15 year old girl being drawn to Jesus. She is being transformed. What does the Bible say? "What is impossible with man is made possible with God" (Matthew 19:26). I am a man of little faith but I truly believe my God can do the impossible.

Forgiveness

2010-06-07T23:04:00.000-07:00

Has someone ever done something horrible to you or hurt you in a deep way? I'm sure we've all be through some sort of experience where we were wronged and the pain was almost too much to bear. However, in those painful moments of life, how many times have you chosen forgiveness over retribution, bitterness and rage? How many times have you chosen to forgive when you had no idea if the person who wronged you was or ever would be remorseful.

A couple weeks Kelli and I were spending the afternoon with some friends in Bremerton, WA. We got a call from our oldest daughter Tiffany in tears because she had just been jumped after school in the park by a young girl who also attends are church. The girl punched her in the back of the head, tackled her to the ground and bit her finger before one of Tiffany's friends was able to pull the girl off. The police were called, the girl took off and Tiffany ended up at the E.R. for her finger.

Well, to make a long story short, Tiffany had the opportunity to press charges against this girl but she chose instead to show her a real life demonstration of grace by choosing to forgive her and move on. Of course, the girl had fled the scene so she had no idea what Tiffany had chosen to do. Now, I was very proud of Tiffany for her attitude and decision but I also wandered what would happen if the girl showed back up to church. She did this past Friday.

The tension was there and instead of allowing it to linger I took the girls to a back room and asked if either of them had anything to say. The girl said no and then Tiffany spoke up. She said, "I want you to know that I forgive you." You should have seen the entire demeanor of this girl change as the words rolled off Tiffany's tongue. The girls body language changed, her eyes softened and her attitude disappeared. She looked at Tiffany and as sincere as she could be said, "I'm really sorry, I was drunk that day, it won't happen again." From that point on the girls were able to talk about the situation and we were able to explain grace to this girl and point back to Jesus and share the gospel with her.

The girl did not accept Christ on Friday but something changed. God is working and it was a direct result of forgiveness given in a situation where no one expected it and no one would have looked down on Tiffany for not giving it. Forgiveness. What a concept? I think it could change the world!

I can't "fix it!"

2010-05-31T08:27:00.000-07:00

So here's what God has been teaching me over the past few weeks... "I can't fix it!" Now those who know me might assume I'm talking about all the things that can break around the house. I'm known for not being a handyman (just ask my Dad who is given a list of things to fix every time he comes to visit). However, I've been learning that on top of the things around the house, I'm also completely inadequate and incapable of fixing the brokenness in people's lives.

This may be obvious to some but it has been a liberating revelation to me. Almost daily I encounter people by phone or email who need something in their lives "fixed." Because the church is often known as a place of restoration (which is a good thing), people come to the pastor of a church to "fix" them. Whether they have physical, emotional, financial, psychological or spiritual problems, they come to me wanting to be fixed. Most of the time we've lived in Tacoma I thought that if I could just "fix" whatever was broken in their lives, they would see the power and grace of Jesus and give their life to him... I was wrong.

What I found instead was that by acting in my own strength not only was I not helping them, I was stealing glory from God and getting myself more and more frustrated. Does that mean I refuse to be there for people in the midst of their brokenness? Absolutely not. That is what the entire church is called to do (not just the pastor). We can often provide a "patch" (Matt. 25) while God brings the eternal "fix." However, over the last few weeks I've stopped trying to fix people and just been really honest with them. I've told them that the only thing that can fix them is a relationship with God through Jesus. Some people are interested in what that looks like, some people move on to the next place they think they can get a quick "fix."

Don't get me wrong, we still meet physical, emotional and spiritual needs. I've just switched the order in which I offer things and I've changed the expectation of where the results lie. I first offer Jesus, and only Jesus. Then if we can meet a felt need we will do so. However, I've learned to make it clear that Jesus promises brokenness, hard times, and junk in our lives. It's guaranteed. If you disagree, read the beatitudes in Matthew 5, or read James or 1 Peter. Our lives this side of heaven will never be completely "fixed." However, we can have an eternal "fixing" that will give us hope through our worldly struggles.

What I've learned is that only Jesus brings that kind of "fixing." Only Jesus can give that eternal hope. I can't. I can just point people to Jesus. So can you.

Starting to "get-it"

2010-05-24T13:00:00.000-07:00

Monday started rough. We began another adult small group a while back on Monday afternoons at one of our guys apartments. We would usually have 4-6 people but no one really "connected" and it was often a different 4-6 people every week. We restarted it a couple weeks ago but it has just been me and the guy whose apartment we meet at. Not bad, but not effective. I think the host of the Monday group is going through a lot of personal struggles and I'm seriously praying about pulling the plug on it and encouraging him to reconnect with our other group for a while. That feels like backward movement? I'm just not sure.

Then comes Friday. I think Becca Hurst might disagree with me when I say Friday was good. I know she was thankful for it, but it was much harder for her than it was for me. To be honest, the girls we are reaching can be the most self-centered and obnoxious group I've ever been around in my life. That's hard for the one (Becca) who is pouring her life into them. I'll give you a brief example of what we see most weeks.

The way our student gathering works is we eat dinner together and then we all meet together in a large group for a teaching time and then we break up into guys and girls groups for discussion. Right now we have more girls than guys by far, but the guys are actually a great deal more reserved than the girls. Well, this past Friday when I was teaching in the large group, one of the girls who was wearing huge baggy sweatpants, sagging them like you would see many guys do, and a tank top reached into her bag while I was teaching out of 2 Timothy 2 and pulled out a stick of deodorant. She preceded to raise her hand as if to ask a question but instead she applied her sweat guard right there for everyone to witness. How do you keep teaching during that? How does everyone keep from being distracted? How can God be glorified during that? Only the grace of Jesus!

We went on from that and the Word was spoken. Being the teacher, I have the blessing of being able to look into everyone's eyes and know that while a few were in another world, the majority were engaged this week. Both small groups bore some fruit but the girls was also a continuation of the distracting challenge I just described. Pray for our students. Pray that they would catch the fire that is the Holy Spirit. Pray for myself and Becca. Pray that we would trust the sovereign working of our Lord Jesus in the midst of "deodorant" distractions!

Sunday was what made the week truly great! I know it is the first day of the week but for me in many ways it is the end of the week. We had a great group, somewhere around 12 or 13 people but that is not what made it good. The goodness came from the fruit that we saw and the evidence that at least some of our people are finally starting to "get-it!" Every week (not Sunday to Sunday... but almost everyday of every week) we emphasize, teach and challenge people that the Kingdom of God will not grow until they begin reproducing themselves... simply taking the gospel and what they've learned about it and sharing it with others. We also continue to remind them that the church isn't just a place you go on Sunday. We should be there for each other everyday of the week and available to meet each others needs as well as the needs of the people in our community.

Well, an example of reproduction is Anthony. Anthony is 15 or 16 years old and he is always sharing the gospel and inviting people to The Pathway. It doesn't matter if the person is 5 years old or 50 Anthony will invite them. Well this week he invited to our adult Bible study (remember, he is a student) a homeless man he had met the previous week. It was awesome to see that man come, share some of his story and admit that although he acknowledges God he has not been a part of a church in a very long time.

We also have a man named Orlando who has recently become a part of our church. I am constantly telling him that he can call on our church to help others who have needs. He took me up on it this week and introduced us to a friend of a friend who was in the hospital and all alone. Kelli and I both were able to go visit this woman and as a result both Orlando's friend Maryanne and her friend Deborah who had been in the hospital came to The Pathway on Sunday. It is a beautiful picture of God's church in action and it had nothing to do with me or our leadership and everything to do with the Spirit of God.

An awesome side note is that two of the 3 new faces at The Pathway are homeless. God continues to remind me that homeless does not equal unredeemable. The third has been clean and sober for a little over a year now and is vocal about the role Gods grace has played in her transformation.

Truly beautiful.

Confessions of a Church Planter

2010-05-16T22:32:00.001-07:00

A quick update on how our small groups are going. Our Friday night youth gathering is going awesome! We had to draw a line in the sand regarding the ages of the people who were attending in order to assure spiritual depth over numerical growth. That is a test of faith to say the least but even though our numbers have definitely dipped, we are seeing a new depth of Bible study, discussion and spiritual growth that gives me great confidence that numerical growth will soon follow.

We started a Monday afternoon small group a while back that grew to about 6 people but it was always a different 6 and then kind of faded when bad weather hit because we were having it outdoors. Antwon and I brainstormed and restarted a few weeks ago. So far it is just me and him so please pray that we would be faithful to invite more unchurched and lost friends. Antwon has agreed to work towards leading that group which is very exciting!

Our Sunday group is where I want to spend most of my time and honestly confess my backwards heart. Those who know me and anyone on our leadership team you know that we have prayed for a diverse church from the very beginning and at the core of our church we have a heart to bring spiritual & physical restoration to the poor, broken, forgotten, needy... the "outcast." Well, a lesson I should have learned a long time ago... be careful what you pray for because God just might give it to you... has become very relevant in my life!

I think in my heart I truly wanted a diverse church that included the "outcast" as a part of the church and not just a "ministry" of the church, but I wanted God to birth the church in the order that was convenient for me. I wanted him to connect us with lots of cool, young, techsavvy people who would bring innovative ideas to the table so we could have a church "worthy" of church planting in 2010. I truly wanted God to bring us those people who have a heart for the "outcast," and then together we would begin to bring diversity to our church... How ignorant I am!

What God has decided to do instead is bring us a church where I am the minority in every way... ethnically, economically, marital status... our church is diverse, but the lost, unchurched, poor "outcast" has become the foundation and it is hard for me to accept. One of the most difficult things about reaching the poor is that it is almost impossible to communicate with them. Every church planting class I took in seminary and since has emphasized the importance of social media. Okay seriously, the people God has brought to The Pathway seldom have a home phone, much less have a clue how to afford a cell phone or stay connected via our website,facebook and twitter! Talk about frustrating! Now I could ramble on and complain about this for ages, which is my sinful tendency, or I could accept what God has beautifully begun to piece together and trust him with the results.

What has God taught me through this unusual church birthing process? That's easy. Everyone, including our 30 year old schizophrenic, our 2 brothers with mental handicaps, single mom full of questions whose rebellious & recently saved daughter brought her to church, our 21 year old Montana intern, our 19 year old homeless guy, our 50 year old Cuban single dad and everyone in between, every single one of them is a soul, created by God, separated from him by sin and desperately in need of a Savior. All of these people need Jesus and I have decided, no matter what order God decides to piece together our diverse church, I will be thankful and faithful to the call he has placed on my life.

Jesus-- I'm sorry I wanted it my "selfish" way. Thank you for moving despite me. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your church.

Hitting the Wall

2010-05-10T08:45:00.000-07:00

There are all kinds of walls in life and I believe running into them at times is a virtual certainty.

I believe we have hit our first wall in Tacoma. To be honest, if you asked our leadership team I don't know that they would agree because of all the things we are seeing God do. However, I believe the fact that God is still moving does not have any bearing on the existence of a wall in the life of our church. Walls pop up at many points along the pathway of life but God never stops moving. It's simply an obstacle that must be recognized and overcome.

What is our wall? Our wall is one of leadership. I have alluded to this wall before but it is becoming more evident everyday. Our church is built on the idea of reproduction. We want to reproduce believers, reproduce disciples, reproduce leaders, reproduce small groups and reproduce churches. The only way we can do this is if people, from all different backgrounds and experiences, lead. There are two major problems with this at The Pathway (and maybe in your church as well).

1) Many people don't want to lead.

2) Most leaders have been taught to look for the potential in a future leader rather than to create a future leader by believing in the power of the Holy Spirit.

What do we do about this? The short answer is "I don't know." If I did, we would already be through the wall. What I do know is that we can't start by working on problem #1. The only way to change #1 (which is built into others), is for us to change our own struggle with #2 (which is built into us). We have to realize that if we wait for leaders that show "potential," especially in unreached and pre-Christian cultures, we will be waiting a long time. God has called us to take fisherman, tax collectors, prostitutes, persecutors... sinners... introduce them to Jesus and teach them to believe they can lead. Only then will they want to lead. Only then will we break through the wall of leadership and begin to see rapid reproduction.

The wall is before us.

The question is, how will we respond? Will we lay at the foot of the wall stunned and unresponsive? Or, will we find a way to climb over, go around or break through the wall we have encountered?

Completely Inadequate

2010-05-03T13:28:00.001-07:00

This week flew by so fast I don't even know what happened. My desire is that this post be a testimony to God's desire and ability to use us in our weakness. I laugh with Kelli on a regular basis about how inadequate we are for the calling God has placed on our lives. We genuinely don't mean that in a self-deprecating way and we're not throwing out a lame attempt to get sympathy. It's just that the things God is doing through our church, in the lives of the lost, it's simply amazing and most of the time we have no idea how to handle the situations that come up. We literally just have to keep our feet moving forward and trust that God is going to provide the answers.

We were reminded of our inadequacy about a week ago when we were fortunate enough to be able to attend the Catalyst West Coast Leadership Conference in Orange County, CA. It was an amazing time of learning and refreshment. Kelli and I even got to spend one awesome California evening walking barefoot on Laguna Beach... but I digress. Most of you have heard of Louie Giglio and Christ Tomlin (The Passion Events). Well, they are now planting a church in Atlanta, GA and Louie Giglio was speaking at Catalyst. His comments really hit home and reminded us of the small role we play in this whole process and the huge role the Holy Spirit plays. To sum up his comments he basically said, "I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing!" To hear a guy like Louie Giglio say that, and really mean it, was awesome! Not because he or we want to be a part of an "ignorant" church planting movement. But because we want to be a part of a Holy Spirit led church planting movement. And when that happens, you literally have no idea what your doing, you just bask in the grace of Jesus and watch lives being changed!

That's how we feel here in Tacoma right now. We truly believe God is preparing our city for something great. Something deep. An awakening. We don't believe it will be because of us or The Pathway. We believe it's going to happen in spite of us and through the church. We believe that the Holy Spirit has been at work here for a long time, using many churches and church plants, and for whatever reason we believe he has chosen us to be workers in the harvest field. I think though that the key is our complete inadequacy. We're nothing special... on our own. But through the grace of Jesus and the Acts 1:8 power of the Holy Spirit we can be used in a special way.

Keep praying.

The Harvest is Growing... Lord bring the workers!

2010-04-26T00:36:00.000-07:00

I'm beginning to feel like a broken record but I have to say it again... God is so great! This week we get to praise Jesus because two more have been added to the Kingdom! Michael Cornelius, a 15 year old self described atheist has been attending The Pathway with friends for months and months. Over the past few weeks it has been obvious that the Holy Spirit has been drawing him to salvation. Today I was mowing the lawn and Michael came walking through our gate. We started chatting and he began telling me how he and about 5 or 6 other students want to form a leadership team and start reaching more students and stepping up in their leadership roles. I said, "That's great Michael... so have you decided to place your faith in Jesus for salvation yet." He said he really thought he was going to be ready soon. I asked him what he was waiting for and after he began sharing his story with me a bit he said, "You know what, I think I'm ready now!!!" Praise Jesus... now he is ready to lead!

Jessica is also a teenager that Tiffany has been sharing Jesus with. Becca H. has started a new high school girls Bible study on Thursdays and while Kelli and I were at a conference in California this week we got a call from Becca and Tiffany telling us that Jessica had put her faith in Jesus!!! Well the story doesn't end there. Jessica spent the night at our house this weekend and I was able to talk with her mom on the phone. Her mom had tons of questions for me and I was able to share the gospel with her and invite her to place her faith in Jesus and come to our Sunday night Bible study. She has not yet decided to follow Jesus... yet... but she did come to Bible study yesterday and she showed a lot of excitement. Please pray for Vitha and Jessica!

God is continuing to grow our current groups. He has provided us with more leadership for our Friday night student gathering and new direction for our Monday and Tuesday studies. We've been averaging 10 at our Sunday night gathering and tonight we had 20!!! Please continue to pray simply for "life change." That has been our prayer since The Pathway's birth and God has been so faithful to provide exactly that!

Finally-- I want to leave you with an excerpt from an article written by Francis Chan, author of Crazy Love & The Forgotten God, describing what God has been teaching him about the church. It sums up beautifully our vision for Tacoma & beyond. Please feel free to leave comments with your thoughts, agreements & disagreements about the true nature of the church.

Practically, I'm toying with the idea of starting a network of gatherings that meet in homes in order to practice the commands of Scripture. They could watch sermons via DVD or have a leader give the lesson. They may even sing together. But the gatherings wouldn't stop there. They would discuss how to live out the sermon in their neighborhood. They would also pray for each other. They would take communion and remind each other of the mission. They would meet the needs of the members of their group and their unsaved neighbors. Rather than coming to church, they would be the church-- not in a sacred building, but in their neighborhoods. Occasionally, we could all gather in an auditorium or stadium to celebrate and worship collectively.

"I want to be one of your first church members..."

2010-04-19T22:49:00.001-07:00

This week we began to see the first fruits of the harvest we believe God is desiring to bring through our relationship with the Tacoma Rescue Mission's transitional community called Tyler Square. We have been hosting "Family Night" at Tyler Square the last Thursday of every month. Our prayer has been that through those times we will be able to make friends, share Jesus with people and eventually connect them with existing small groups and then start a small group at Tyler Square. The long term prayer is that Tyler Square will become a launching pad for new believers being sent back out into our city.

Well, Kelli has connected with very nice single mom who is extremely interested in getting to know God. She has come to one of our Bible studies and has joined us for dinner at our home. Most recently God has connected us with Orlando. Orlando is from Cuba and has recently found himself at Tyler Square with his young daughter Mariella. The first time I met Orlando I was inviting him to Tyler Square and he yelled at me to go away and that he was not interested in that kind of stuff. Over time and through the power of the Holy Spirit Orlando began attending our Family Nights and he and his daughter came to our Good Friday Gathering. Finally, last week, he called me and told me that he knows God but hasn't been living for him in a long time. He said, "I want to come back to Jesus. I want to be one of your first church members."

Wow! Orlando and his daughter came to our small group Sunday night and he is excited about helping us start a group at Tyler Square.

Something to be praying about is our Monday group that was started by Antwon. After growing to about 6 in attendance it has dwindled and Antwon has been struggling to keep his passion. Please pray that a new shot of energy will be shot into the Monday group and God will begin using it to reach people for Jesus!

What to do?

2010-04-11T11:59:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday morning just becoming afternoon and I'm sitting at Tully's Coffee feeling incredibly excited, somewhat anxious and slightly overwhelmed by all that God is calling us to be and do. It's a testament to God's grace that I'm able to function on a daily basis because my mind is constantly bouncing back and forth between what I WANT to do, what I'm SUPPOSED to do, what I NEED to do and what GOD has actually told me to do. I'm pretty sure if there were 42 hours in the day instead of 24 hours my dilemma would not change.

Leading is CHOOSING.

Following Christ is SUBMITTING.

If we are to follow Christ AND lead others in a lost and dying world to do the same I'm convinced that we will have to CHOOSE to SUBMIT to Jesus and ignore what we want to do, need to do and are supposed to do and just do what God has told us to do. Doing this, or even considering this, leads to my original statement...

I'm "incredibly excited, somewhat anxious and slightly overwhelmed."

So what does this mean for The Pathway? Well, if I knew for sure I'd be in really good shape but here's what God has been doing and how you can be praying. First-- we are committed to being an EFFECTIVE and MULTIPLYING church. We believe God has called us to do this by starting small groups throughout our city that live and function individually as the church but are just as much the church when gathered together. We are also CERTAIN that God has not called us to reach the reached... he's told us to reach the lost and unchurched. So here's the question...

How can we start small groups (churches) throughout the city of Tacoma (and beyond) if we're only reaching the lost and unchurched?

1) Those of us who already know Jesus must focus not only on reaching more lost people but teaching new believers how to share their faith, teach what they know, and lead small groups.

2) We MUST, amazingly enough, TRUST the HOLY SPIRIT! If we continue to set the "spiritual" bar for leadership so high then we cannot reach the lost, poor & broken of our world and expect them to reach others. We must lower our bar for leadership and raise our FAITH in Jesus to a whole new level. New believers must be empowered to lead and reproduce themselves from day 1, not after they've gone through years of "discipleship" and theological training... that is why we are losing the battle.

Ask me in a week if I'm living this out. I'm going to be asking our leaders if they're living this out. We all need accountability. We all need to sacrifice. We need to lead. We need FAITH!

I'm "incredibly excited, somewhat anxious and slightly overwhelmed" but my FAITH is increasing by the grace of Jesus.

A Taste of the Harvest

2010-04-06T13:50:00.000-07:00

Thank you all for continuing to pray for us as we do our best to follow Jesus and specifically for praying for our Good Friday gathering. As usual God did not do things the way I had it planned out in my head but he did answer our prayers and do more than we asked or imagined!

Friday started out a little rocky to say the least. First of all it was one of the nastiest, cold and rainy days we've seen in a while. Because God has been saving souls we were excited to be able to baptize some people Friday and The Commons Church up in Arlington, WA allowed us to use their portable baptistery. Unfortunately, when we went to put it together Friday morning I realized we had forgotten a major piece!!! Arlington is about an hour and half from Tacoma if there's no traffic so we hit the road and thankfully The Commons Pastor (Tim Corbin) met me half way so we didn't waste the entire morning!

The complications had already begun because one of our leadership team came down with mono the week before (Becca E.) so she was not able to come and another one of our main helpers (Matt B.) got a new job and had to work. Things were shaping up to be pretty rough. However, somehow God kept me calm (not usual for me) and we were able to remember how much he has done without us to this point... why let our worries and attitudes get in the way!

Well, long story short we had a great turn out (not really sure of the numbers) plenty of help setting up and tearing down, the baptistery was perfect and we were able to baptize 8 people... 2 of whom made a public profession of faith that night for the first time! Now the work begins as we attempt to follow up on the connections we made and see if God desires us to start a new group or two. The journey is far from over but another milestone has been accomplished. Praise be to our God and Father and our Lord Jesus Christ for the work that is being done. God alone is the initiator and the redeemer. It's fun to walk with you all through this process!

Praying for GREAT things on Good Friday!

2010-03-30T14:17:00.000-07:00

Sorry I'm a day late on posting. My lap-top had an unfortunate run-in with a cup of coffee... the coffee won but we were able to salvage my hard drive... Praise the Lord!

This will be a short post because I'm a playing catch up (thanks to the coffee incident) and we're getting geared up for our Good Friday Gathering. In a nut shell, God has been doing some amazing and difficult things through our church and in the lives of some people in Tacoma. In the past couple of weeks we've seen 3 people put their faith in Jesus for salvation. Although that is not the thousands that we read about in the book of Acts, we truly believe that time is coming! Please pray for Nate, Brandon and Raijoneah as they begin walking in the eternal security of the amazing grace of Jesus!

We have also seen some disappointment this week as we have seen some people take steps backward in their journey with God. Please pray for three unnamed people who are very angry and are running from Jesus. We no God's grace is big enough for them, please just pray that they would jump into the arms of his love.

This Friday is our Good Friday Gathering called "The Passion" for Haiti. We will be watching a portion of "The Passion of The Christ," taking communion, presenting the gospel, baptizing at least 4 and opening it up for new believers and taking a love offering for the people of Haiti. Please pray 3 specific things.

1) Pray that our people would invite their friends and family who don't know Jesus!

2) Pray that those people would choose to follow Jesus (or at least begin the journey)

3) Pray that we are able to start at least 2 new small groups after this gathering!

Preparing for the Harvest

2010-03-22T11:17:00.000-07:00

We really believe God has been working in Tacoma for quite some time and a great Harvest is coming that we are just blessed to get to be a part of. On that note we have a huge praise to report. You have all been praying for Nate over the past month and he finally gave his life to Jesus! I was so excited when he called me and told me and I know God has great things in store for him.

Our weekend small groups were fantastic. Friday's with our students are beginning to show some fruit and are becoming a much more effective place for making disciples. Becca H. & Becca E. are leading the girls group and they finally feel like they are beginning to break through some barriers and connect with the girls. I am leading the guys group and we are starting to show some signs of spiritual growth which is very exciting.

We had a great turn out last night and we're starting to see some adults come back that we had lost on Friday nights with the influx of students. One of those returning adults is Cindy, in her 40's I would guess and very spiritually confused. She had disappeared for a while but has come the last 2 Sundays. I challenged her to invite her boyfriend of 20+ years to our Easter gathering and she said there is no way he would go. I challenged her to pray for him for the next week (and I would pray for him too) and then to invite him next Monday and see what God does. His name is Mike and I would ask that you all be praying that the Holy Spirit begins drawing Mike to himself and his response is a testimony to Cindy and many others.

We are very excited about our Easter gathering and we are expecting God to blow our expectations out of the water. We are doing much traditional publicity because we really believe in the relational aspect of ministry. We are challenging and equipping our people to invite their friends and family so please pray for a great spiritual awakening to begin April 2nd!

Thanks for all your prayers!

Moving Forward...

2010-03-15T11:43:00.000-07:00

We are continuing to move forward... walking in the grace of Jesus, trying to stay the course and at the same time flex where God calls us to do so.

Our Monday gathering has begun to take shape without structure if that makes sense. Antwon started it and has really take ownership of it. It is a direct out flow as what he passionately describes "my mission." We generally meet at Wright Park and play a little ball before having Bible study. This past Monday Antwon was running late so we decided to crack open God's Word at the park... in the snow! It was really cold but it's amazing what God can do in the most awkward of situations. We had 2 new guys there... a new Nate and a guy named Jerry. We just looked at the first part of Ephesians 2 and talked about the beauty of grace. Jerry gave his life to Jesus! Please pray that he continues to come on Mondays and grows in his new found relationship with Jesus!

Friday has been... unique! 2 Fridays ago we had about 10 people total and only 1 girl. This past week we had at least 9 girls and 9 guys and the Holy Spirit seemed to bash most of the usual distractions. It is very hard to know what direction to go with this group but we are continuing to pray for spiritual depth to precede numerical growth. We'll see what God does.

Sunday nights have not been what I expected but better. Last night we all sat around and hung out, just talking about life in general for about an hour. It is turning into genuine community which is what we have been praying for. However, please keep praying that we don't get too comfortable. We want to grow, reach out, and multiply.

This week please pray for our leadership team. We are really harnessing our callings and shaping our vision. God has been stretching us all and we have all been sharing the gospel a lot more which is amazing. Pray that people will respond. Also pray for our Good Friday gathering April 2nd. We're combining all our groups and using it as an opportunity to worship together, baptize, invite new friends and family... really just a time for more people to know Jesus. Pray that God has his way and that it is a spring board for new groups!

My Kingdom or God's???

2010-03-08T12:05:00.000-08:00

Sorry I missed last weeks update. I was in a training class Monday through Thursday and completely forgot! Well, God has been rocking my world the last week or so and my prayer is that he has been doing the same for all of you. I don't have a great update from our Friday and Sunday gatherings this week because I didn't attend either of them. I'm so thankful for the leadership team God has given us because I know that our church is not founded on me. It is the body of Christ and it's foundation is Jesus. When I need to be gone the church continues! Praise Jesus for that! One thing that you can specifically pray for though is that Nate would come to Jesus. He's truly on the verge he just needs to surrender!

The title of today's blog is "My Kingdom or God's???" because although God's kingdom is what we desire to grow through The Pathway, if we don't change the way we are approaching "church" we will continue to focus on growing our churches kingdom instead of the Kingdom of God.

Here's what I mean. If we continue to approach evangelism, discipleship and church planting the way we do right now (and when I say we I mean the majority of evangelical Christians) then we have no hope of impacting the rapidly growing number of lost people living in our nation and North America as a whole. The way we approach these subjects right now is entirely too systematic. Why? Because that's the way we have been taught to think.

We think we have to learn something completely and become an expert before we reproduce it. There are a couple problems with that. If we have to be fully discipled before we begin to make disciples we will never make disciples. If we have to become a self-sustained church that has a "mature" believer who is seminary educated before we can plant a new church, we will never plant any churches (or maybe 1 in our lifetime if we're lucky).

Here's the idea and the paradigm shift that has been occurring in my life and the life of our church. What if we all began sharing our faith weekly (daily would be better but we'll get there) and did not worry about having all the answers or finding ourselves in the perfect relational situation? What if we just shared our faith with the lost people around us and trusted God to do the saving? Then, what if we began discipling these new Christians? What if we began teaching them how to pray, read the Bible and share their faith the day after they got saved? Then, what if we did not wait for them to understand it all, be competent at Bible drill, or even be able to fully articulate the doctrines we strongly believe? What if as we are teaching them all of these necessary aspects of discipleship we challenged them to start sharing their faith weekly (or daily) and begin discipling those in their life that find Jesus? Why don't we do that?

The answer is fear and control? Number one, we are honestly afraid of what these new believers might teach the lost. Although that concern is genuinely motivated it is completely erroneous. If we are continuing to disciple that person they will have someone to come to with the answers to the questions they have and your responsibility becomes keeping them one or two steps ahead of the people they are discipling. This issue leads right into the issue of control. As believers, and especially as pastors, we feel like we have to control the church and the environments in which the Bible is taught and ministry takes place. Again, although this is rightly motivated (at times), it is not biblical and it has no hope of impacting the vast lostness we see in our world today.

So, what do we do?

We have to decide whether we want to "control" what God is doing or if we want to see a "movement" of God. I believe a true movement of God that I have no control over resembles what God did in the book of Acts far more than an impressive church where I call the shots (even if it is growing and succeeding by "our" standards).

Do I have this all figured out? No. What I pray is that we would all be challenged to quit sitting around making excuses, waiting for the perfect scenarios and instead that we would simply start sharing Jesus with people and teaching them to share Jesus with people! What a concept... kind of sounds like the Great Commission to me?!?!

What a Weekend!

2010-02-22T10:18:00.000-08:00

Thanks to all who prayed for our weekend of multiplication. We successfully made it through the weekend with plenty of ups and downs. We can honestly say that God was glorified through it all.

Friday was... interesting. We had about 5 girls who just seemed to come in "ticked off" at the world with a desire to bring all of the rest of us down with them. We definitely battled some spiritual warfare but I'm encouraged that Satan sees what God is doing through The Pathway as something he needs to battle! After a time of praise and worship with the group we split into 2 smaller groups of guys and girls. After just one week I can already tell that God is going to use these smaller groups as an opportunity to dig deeper into the Word in a much more practical and relevant way for these students.

Sunday nights is our new adult gathering and it blew my expectations out of the water! We had old and new faces and the atmosphere was exactly what we prayed it would be... low key, comfortable and more mature than Friday nights. We prayed this would be a time where adults felt welcomed instead of overwhelmed by teenagers. We just sat and chatted for about 15 minutes over a game of "Jenga" and then we opened God's word and studied from John 4 (Jesus and the Samaritan Woman) for 45 minutes or more. We went deep, it hit home, we were able to get some misconceptions out in the open and see what the Bible had to say about them, and the gospel was preached.

Pray that God continues to grow both of these groups. As a side note, God has been doing some other amazing things that has been fun to watch. One of our guys just became homeless and he is staying at one of the local shelters. I have been working with him to find a job and he comes over for lunch every day. This weekend he asked me for some Bibles because he talked to the director of the shelter and got permission to start a Bible study in their conference room... he's going to be leading a few guys through the book of NUMBERS!!! Also-- we're continuing the random group that started last Monday at Antwon's apartment so that we can dig deeper and reach more people. Finally, Tommy has been leading a men's group on Tuesday nights that continues to grow.

Praise Jesus for all he has done and is doing!

Here we go...

2010-02-15T10:34:00.000-08:00

This past Friday marked the end of The Pathway chapter 1 and the beginning of chapter 2. We concluded our final combined gathering and are preparing for our first attempt at multiplication. This week our Friday gathering will be for students and our Sunday gathering will be for adults.

One of the issues we face in our particular demographic is a lack of boundaries and separation between age groups. A question I ask myself daily, "Is this wrong, or is it just different?" I'll give you an example. Over the past few months our gathering has added many high school students. These students have been brought by friends and are bringing friends of their own. However, there is an interesting trend developing and that is the age range of these friendships goes from literally 13 years old all the way into their early-mid twenties. I am learning that in urban settings, at least urban Tacoma, the people categorize themselves not by age but by neighborhood.

We literally have 16 year olds hanging out with 22 year olds and 17 year old girls having babies with the Father being unknown or in his early-mid twenties. Obviously there is a problem there but overall it is hard to explain. These people don't even recognize the age difference. They simply grew up together. They played together, went to school together, got in trouble together and often dropped out of school together. They see themselves as family more than friends but the blinders they've placed on their "age" eyes is causing the youth to get involved in issues that are far beyond their maturity level and the young adults are remaining so immature that you have a hard time believing they are not still in high school.

The question for our leadership team is, "what are we going to do about it?" Again, we don't have it figured out but we believe one of the first answers is separating the men from the boys and the women from the girls. For those who have come to our gathering you know we are a pretty laid back church but we feel like Jesus is calling us to be pretty hard nosed on this for the sake of our people & the gospel. We want to see the children grow into godly young adults and the adults to go from spiritual milk to solid food. We've already gotten some kick back from the young adults but we're moving forward. We're just praying and believing that God has a plan.

Please pray for our 2 new gatherings. Specifically that the separation will result in greater spiritual growth and that these new gatherings would grow quickly so we will be able to multiply again for God's glory!

Multiplication

2010-02-08T09:11:00.000-08:00

One of the main goals of our church is multiplication. We get excited when a person puts their faith in Jesus Christ and when someone gives their life back to the Lord, but we get even more excited when we see those people begin sharing their faith with others. Once those people begin to respond we've left the realm of simple addition and entered the world of spiritual multiplication!

Friday night was powerful and encouraging because we saw signs that multiplication can and will happen at The Pathway. Antwon has become a fixture in this blog because of the drastic transformation God has brought in his life and that continues to be the case. I get together with Antwon at least once a week and every time he tells me of someone else he has shared his faith with or invited to our Bible study. This week he told me about his friend Nate who he ran into at the park. Nate is 18 years old and searching for the role God wants to play in his life. He is not yet a believer but he came with Antwon to Bible study on Friday and the three of us are going to be getting together to talk about Jesus this afternoon. I'm praying for and expecting Nate to put his faith in Jesus!

Josh is one of the newest people at our Bible study and he is getting excited about telling others about Jesus. Josh moved to Tacoma from Ohio and has only been in town for a few months. He's been attending The Pathway for about a month and this past week he brought a friend who doesn't know the Lord. It's just amazing to see and I know once these first few begin placing their faith in Jesus, the flood gates will open and spiritual awakening will break out.

Finally, in a little less than 2 weeks we will multiply our Bible study group for the first time. We usually have about 20-25 on Friday nights and we are gaining more students all the time. With that in mind we began praying about what direction God wanted us to go. We felt him calling us to multiply so that's what we are doing. Beginning February 19th Fridays will be a student Bible study and on February 21st we will begin an all adult Bible study. This will shrink our groups back down and we will work to grow them up so we can multiply again.

God is so good and he teaches me so much all the time. We came off a span of about 3 weeks where I was really questioning what God was doing. Friday's were becoming very chaotic and I was wandering if spiritual growth would ever actually occur. It seems that God has been working though and he has taught me the importance of prayer and spiritual warfare. If we're not battling, through prayer daily, then Satan will bring confusion on Friday nights and in the lives of those we are ministering to. However, if we battle, through the power of Jesus, the confusion disappears and the name of Jesus is lifted high.

Please pray for Nate this week. Pray for his salvation. Pray also that I will receive a phone call today from the director of the YMCA allowing us to use their facility on Easter. Pray that we will live intentionally and see Jesus take over our city!

A Full, Productive, Up & Down Week...

2010-02-02T00:25:00.000-08:00

It's now Monday night and I am just now sitting down to reflect on the week that has already come and gone. It started out with a night of brainstorming with our leadership team about the church, the summer, direction, vision, passion and calling. It was an exciting night that brought to light a desire to have more intimate and biblical community within our leadership team as we take the gospel to Tacoma.

Thursday night was our first "Family Night" at Tyler Square. Thanks to all who prayed-- God was faithful! We had 12 people attend from The Pathway and had over 30 people attend "Family Night" from the Tyler Square Community. It was a great first step into this new relationship with Tyler Square and we were able to meet a whole lot of people. As I began to make new friends I realized their were a whole bunch of mom's and kids but no Dad's. I asked the Tyler Square Youth Services Director about my observation and he said it was not surprising. Out of 27 families living in the Tyler Square Community there are 4 dads... that's right 4. How sad a reality that is but I am so thankful that we have a chance to bring in some Christian men to love on these families. As I sat speaking with one of the moms God gave me the opportunity to share truth with her about the gospel, the Bible, Jesus and her need for a personal relationship with the Lord. Please continue to pray for the people in that community.

Friday night brought another difficult but God honoring Bible study. As the weeks have pressed on our gathering has become decidedly younger. The loud exuberance of the youth has seemed to drive away many of the adults who were previously attending. This Friday night was filled with distractions and I am honestly struggling with knowing how to handle them. The 3rd weekend of this month we will officially be dividing up into two groups so that youth can gather... loud and obnoxiously on Fridays and the adults can gather on Sundays. Please pray for this transition.

Finally, pray for what God has in store for the people of Tacoma this Easter. We are planning something BIG, unique and challenging for our small church so pray that the pieces fall into place, God gets the glory and people join the Kingdom.

Tomorrow is a new day so lets begin investing in the Kingdom!!!

Slowly learning...

2010-01-25T20:13:00.000-08:00

Thanks to all who faithfully pray for The Pathway, specifically on Friday nights during our gathering. Each week it seems like God throws us a new curveball. I truly believe he is sharpening us, refining us by fire. Just when I reach what I believe to be my threshold of patience, he brings a spiritual break-through.

This week we were looking at the encounter Nicodemus had with Jesus. We were discussing the fact that Nicodemus truly believed with all his heart that he knew what it meant to know God. He really believed he could achieve right standing with the HOLY Father through knowledge, "righteous" living and religious tradition. As I was teaching on Nicodemus' misconception of what it meant to be born again, the question was raised "Is there anything that we must DO to be born again?" One of our younger girls (14 or 15) said that in order to be born again you had to be baptized by the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues. One of the things we emphasize at The Pathway is that everything we believe is founded in Scripture. So I asked Shawndrea... "Where does the Bible tell you that?" She really impressed me by saying, "Acts 2:34... I think." Well, she didn't have the verse just right but she did take us to the appropriate chapter. So, we all turned to Acts 2 and read.

After finishing the section about the Holy Spirit coming down and the Apostles speaking in different "tongues," I asked the question, "Does this passage tell us that we have to speak in tongues to be born again?" Shawndrea, along with all the rest, some of whom profess to speak in tongues, said "well, no!" Shawndrea said that was the passage she was taught proved that all believers will speak in tongues. We had a great opportunity to briefly share a correct biblical interpretation in Acts but we also learned 2 important lessons.

1) Never be afraid to go back to Scripture and allow it to teach you truth, even if it's not what you thought was true before.

2) Jesus teaches that being born again is "spiritual." It is about faith and is contrary to what Nicodemus... and many Americans... believe to be true.

We ended the night challenged, thinking, learning and growing in the knowledge of God's Holy Word. I would challenge you to take a look at your convictions just as Nicodemus did 2000 years ago and just as Shawndrea did 3 days ago. Are your beliefs completely founded in Scripture or are they simply sacred traditions handed down to you by well-intentioned believers?

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Pray for us this Thursday night as we have our first "Family Night" at Tyler Square. We have 7 people outside our leadership team signed up to help. Pray that the Gospel is shared and relationships are built!

Walking Humbly

2010-01-18T15:16:00.000-08:00

"Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves..." --Philippians 2:3

This past Friday was unique, somewhat painful, but I truly believe it will increase our effectiveness as a church in the long run. Over the past month or so I've become increasingly discouraged by the lack of humility displayed by many of the younger people that have been attending our church. There is often an attitude of selfishness and arrogance that displays itself on Friday nights. Not only is it sinful, it has started driving away people who are genuinely seeking out truth.

This past Friday the majority of the people who came fell into that category and I really felt the Lord telling me that they needed to hear what the Bible says about humility. Being the "preparer" that I am, I struggled for a bit with whether or not to go with the Spirit. Thankfully in this instance the Spirit won out over my pride. We were able to spend about 30 minutes talking about Philippians 2 and learning how true Christ-like humility displays itself. I do not know what kind of fruit the message will bear. I have to be honest and express that it was not an easy message to give. I had to look at my own life first because I know how full of pride I often can be.

Only time will tell if The Pathway will genuinely begin to reflect the type of unified, bond-servant, selfless humility that Paul saw in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. However, I would ask that you join me in praying that The Pathway will become just that kind of church. We don't have room for vanity and selfish conceit. We are trying to reach people for Jesus and I believe it will take nothing less than humble love.

Friday Update

2010-01-11T09:09:00.000-08:00

This past Friday was one of great faith! Thank you to those who joined in praying that my faith would be increased and that God would bring 10 people to salvation. I can honestly say we had a phenomenal night and my faith was stretched to a point where it had not been before. Praise Jesus for that and thank you for your prayers to that end.

We were going through the end of John chapter 2 and looking at Jesus' passion for his Father as demonstrated by his cleansing of the Temple. We had a great time of study and discussion about the peoples reaction to Jesus. The Bible says that after he performed many signs at the Passover there were many who believed but that "Jesus, on his part, was not entrusting Himself to them..." (John 2:24). This passage stumped me at first but as I studied and prepared I realized that Jesus does not accept purely emotional and intellectual professions of faith. Although many salvation's begin there, they cannot end there. If they do, they will most likely be a part of the sad group of people in Matthew 7 who hear the Lord proclaim, "I never knew you." We must have faith that stretches across our emotions and intellect and deeply invades our hearts.

After Bible study we had a great response time where several people met with our leadership team for counsel and prayer. I know of one guy in particular that expressed his need for salvation but was not ready to take that step of faith yet. Pray for Tommy this week as he follows up with him.

Why did God choose not to bring 10 people to salvation last Friday? I honestly don't know. But I do know he could have. I also know my faith was increased a great deal just by walking through the week leading up to our Friday gathering. As I contemplate God's power, love and goodness I'm reminded of one of my favorite Old Testament stories about three men full of faith: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Daniel 3). Even in the midst of certain death they believed, truly believed God would save them. However, they proclaimed to the King that even if God did not save them physically, they would not bow down and worship anyone or anything else!

That is the kind of faith I pray will be found at The Pathway. God did not save 10 this week but he moved mightily and I am certain we will be reporting hundreds of salvation's soon! Please continue to pray for the people of Tacoma and the work of Jesus through The Pathway.

The Pathway 2010

2010-01-08T12:58:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting in the Mandolin Cafe going over a few things before our gathering tonight. God has really convicted me that I am not demonstrating nearly enough faith that he can bring salvation to the people we are reaching. Yesterday I began praying for the faith to believe and God really laid it on my heart to ask for salvation at tonight's gathering. He asked me to pray for 10 people so that's what I am doing. That's such a BIG request in my mind and heart but such a simple task for the God of the universe.

My ultimate desire is that God be glorified in and through those who are a part of The Pathway. I also happen to believe that one of the ways God gets the most glory is when sinners are converted to Him! If you happen to read this blog before tonight please join me in praying for 2 things: 1) Pray that I don't get in the way of what God wants to do because of a lack of faith. 2) Pray for those 10 people. Pray that the Holy Spirit would be stirring in their hearts and drawing them to Jesus.

I believe that God is faithful. I believe that Jesus is Savior.

What is a Church?

2010-01-04T16:40:00.000-08:00

The question "What is a church?" is one that has been posed to me time and again over the last several years of my life. Although there is a specific definition that I should give according to the statement of my denomination on biblical ecclesiology. I've come to the conclusion that we... and by we I mean all humanity... have complicated the issue to such an extreme that I'm sure God is looking at us with a sheepish grin as to say..."They think they have it all figured out don't they?"

Well, I do believe in the New Testament church but I've learned and I am continuing to learn that it expresses itself through so much more diversity than I've even begun to wrap my mind around. Before you read my thoughts on this topic I would ask that you refer to the book of Acts, the churches at Ephesus, Corinth, Philipi, etc. and tell me if they all looked the same... falling neatly into one category that is "church." Don't misunderstand, the foundation must be the same (The Bible as authority, Jesus as Savior and the only way to salvation) but the expression is as diverse as the day is long.

The reason this is so fresh on my mind is because I believe that the members of our leadership team... Kelli and me included... are struggling to fill the "church" void in our lives as we plant this unique expression of the Kingdom in Tacoma. For those who have been to The Pathway you know that we are very much a "church plant" at this point rather than an established local church. However, we are a plant because we have the seeds of the body of Christ (i.e. Christians) and we certainly worship the Master Gardener (i.e. God). And by the grace of God we will soon be a fully established, evangelizing, disciple-making, autonomous, giving, worshipping, baptizing, communion taking missional CHURCH. However, I believe God is stretching us to the point where we recognize that the "church" is not a service, it's a people on mission. And, the service held by the church is not as much about emotion and experience as it is about a choice to worship the God of the universe in community with other believers.

Although I believe this to be true, I believe the "churched" on our leadership team... again, myself included... will always struggle with the fact that we are not walking into a "church" building, led by a dynamic worship team, and going through the typical "order" of worship found in most American churches today. Thankfully, I believe God has put our leadership team in urban Tacoma for a reason. He wants us... and you... to step out of your "church" box for a moment and take a look at the New Testament church as Christ established it. Did they all have church buildings...? no. Did they meet in houses...? often. Was every church in every city the recipient of a weekly expository sermon???

My point is absolutely not to bash church as we have come to know it. I tell people all the time that I'm probably more proud of traditional Southern Baptist Churches than I should be because I am a product of the efforts of many an SBC church... from Texas to Hawaii... from Colorado to Guam... many have had an enormous impact on my calling to live a Great Commission life and plant Christ-centered, Bible believing, reproducing missional churches!

However, I think if we accept the idea that all churches must look as neat and tidy as our upper-middle class church mindset has come to tell us it should, we need a swift kick in the pants from the Senior Pastor of us all, Jesus Christ!

This issue came to a head for me as I sat in the worship service of the Church of 2nd Chances-- A Church of God congregation that I was invited to be Antwan (the guy I shared was saved most recently). His sister brought him to that church for years as she prayed that he would find Jesus. He continued to ignore Christ for years but that "church," which looks very different from what the majority of my friends and family would describe as "church," planted the seeds that initially led to Antwan joining the Kingdom of God!

What did the church of 2nd Chances look like???

- A worship service that was carried out with anything but "professional excellence"

-Location: a store front right next to the industrial park in Tacoma

-The service:

-singing led by the praise team (2 ladies and a drummer!)

-Multiple times of shouting praises to God.

-Communion

-Offering (everyone filed out by rows, led by an usher, to place their offering in the bag at the FRONT of the room)

-Preaching-- not expository, not hilarious, not incredibly deep... just SCRIPTURE.

-Fellowship (I was a visitor on that day and I was asked to stand and introduce myself. After my introduction I was swarmed by children and church members welcoming me and giving me hugs!)

-More singing!

-A time to praise God for what he had done in our lives

-Corporate prayer proceeded by all in the congregation being anointed with oil

Three hours after I arrived I walked out refreshed, filled with the power that comes from the Holy Spirit after worshipping God in the context of his church. Was this church perfect...? no. Do they have the market cornered on what the church should look like...? no. Were there certain theological and doctrinal issues that need to be addressed...? yes.

Did they love and worship Jesus proclaiming that salvation is found in no one else??? YES!

Was this a church? Absolutely!

I love the true CHURCH no matter what it looks like. I want The Pathway to be an authentic CHURCH. I will admit to you all right now that I'm not a deep theologian. I do have a seminary degree but it is in Missions rather than divinity or theology. I screw up all the time, I don't have all the answers and I am learning something new about the Church of Jesus every day. I'm a disciple, a learner, a follower of Jesus... and I happen to have been called to be a Pastor too.

My desire is for The Pathway to be a local church that brings glory to God... that worships above all else. The church is messy. It is made up of people after all. Thanks for praying for our church. All praise be to Jesus!