Church as Family: 3 of my friends who are pastors and leaders in EFCA sharing about their journey into more organic forms of being the church on the mission of Jesus.
Good stuff.
Hey everybody here’s a video update about my upcoming trip to Kenya.
The dates: June 22-July 5th
The dealio: I’m helping teach and train leaders at an Appleseed Ministry Conference (appleseedministry.com) in Kitale, Kenya for leaders from Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi who will all be coming in for the conference as well as leaders from Kenya where we focus on:
Equipping indigenous church planters in the developing world to multiply disciples and simple churches among the lost and broken.
Preparing these same leaders to empower the poor using strategic development projects that come from listening to God and seeing Him use the gifts God has placed in these communities of Jesus.
The prayer requests:
- For God to be preparing the leaders from the 5 countries from Eastern Africa who will be coming to the conference to understand and learn how to apply these principles of highly reproducible, disciple making organic church planting.
- That God would be raising up spiritual dads and moms in villages, towns and cities all over Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi who want to incarnate the gospel in their hometowns and see a movement of vibrant families of Jesus within easy access both geographically and culturally of everyone in these countries and beyond.
- That God would prepare Roger and Brooks (the founders of Appleseed Ministry), Dawson and Elizabeth (Amazing Kenyan Church Planters and also our hosts for the conference), and me for what He would want to say through us.
- That God would be glorified by His name being exalted and a disciple making movement starting among the pooerest of the poor.
- For God’s continued provision this trip. I’ve seen about $1000 come in and I’m still about $2500 shy right now but I know He’s going to provide.
- That I will take in all that God wants to teach and show me
- For peace at home for Rose and the Kiddos while I’m gone.
please join me in praying for noah and kate cremisino, our friends who were house church leaders here in denver that we had the privilege of commissioning/sending to christchurch, nz to help network and plant organic churches, be missionaries to the largest city on the south island, and work with ywam by hosting an outreach house for them in the city.
here’s their latest update video. you can get more info about what they are doing, how to pray for them and how to support them at noahandkate.com
So my friend John White had his iphone handy and recorded this awesome story of what took place when Nick responded to the call to come and be prayed for during a denver house church all-gathering we had this past weekend (friday & saturday, may 21st and 22nd). Crystal felt the Lord wanted her to pray for Nick’s knee to be healed. Awesome stuff ensued.
One of the coolest things was that both of these two were skeptical and yet God broke through this skepticism and increased all of our faith in His mighty power.
Soli Deo Gloria.
Sorry about the sound quality. Turn up your speakers.
This weekend we had a city-wide gathering called Hearts of Fire. Here is one of the special stories from the event. (I was standing just to the left of the screen :)
here’s a video i just shot a couple days ago of our friend jimmie sharing about how she came to be a part of our network of house churches.
a team of college students from faith evangelical free church in fort collins came down for a weekend to reach out to two inner city neighborhoods with us a couple years ago by going door to door with food for easter and inviting people to become a part of our community of organic churches.
we met jimmie that weekend. it was two shy college gals and i that went up to jimmie’s door and i made the girls do most of the talking and jimmie’s been with us ever since. what a sweetheart she is.
From South Carolina To Southern Colorado
photo by: techsoup for libraries
Last Tuesday, March 2nd 2010, we met with 3 great young guys from South Carolina who feel God is leading them to Pueblo, CO to plant house churches. It looks like sometime in April or thereabouts Marshall, Brandon (aka Moore), and Jeff (along with his wife who i look forward to meeting when they move out here) will be making the trek to follow the Lord’s call on their lives.
We had a sweet time sharing what God used to move us into organic church life and planting as well as what God has done in bringing about coloradohousechurch, our wide network of simple churches spread across colorado(fyi: i use the terms simple, organic and house almost interchangably wehn describing church. not all house churches are simple nor organic but that’s what i’m praying for among the house church movement: a Spirit led movement of indigenous churches where God is glorified and He leads our lives and meetings in such a way that everyone can easily play the part they are called to and things are so simple that multiplication can take place rapidly.).
please join me in praying for these three guys (and jeff’s wife too) as they come to Colorado to follow Him in living out the mission of seeing disciples made and churches planted in an often neglected city in Colorado: Pueblo. looking forward to helping them get connected here in Colorado and walking with them as they pursue listening to God, doing what He says and teaching others to do the same.
anyway here is what marshall posted to his blog: marshallnorthcutt.tumblr.com.
So Tuesday we got together with a bunch of other Christ Lovers who are living out the “organic” Church life out. It was awesome to join together with others who are already doing what God is calling us to. So we heard everybody’s stories and told ours. Then we ending our time with just prayer and listening to God to see what He has to say to us and for Pueblo. Here’s some notes of what came out…
From Tim: Marshall, You are special. Wait on me and You are free. All of you be gentle with yourselves.
From Desi: desistarr.com Don’t try to make anything happen. Wait on me. I will renew your strength and give you rest. Fruitfulness will flow naturally from being with me. I am the missionary God. You can trust me completely.
From Margee: What is God already doing in Pueblo? How to enter into that? Pray for the people that God would have to be involved. Big need for youth. Pueblo is a dry and weary land where there is no water.
From Sean: ”For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit.” (John 3:34) God has sent you. Speak His words boldly for he gives you the Spirit, all of Him without limit. Your boldness is going to be what limits you. So be bold. I am proud of you.
From Marty: treasurefield.wordpress.com You can’t teach a Kid to Ride a bike at a Seminar. God will teach us thru personal discipleship and God will teach thru us, not by us talking at people, but thru discipling and loving people. Put your faith into action.
From John: storiesfromtherevolution.blogspot.com Mission flows from listening. If you listen to them they will listen to you. If you become world class listeners people will line up at your doors to hear what you have to say. Also learn to listen to God for everything and focus on teaching others how to listen to God. ”Be quick to listen and slow to speak…” (James 1:19)
From Hobby: revolutiondenver.com You are one. You are sent. You belong to one another. West Pueblo???
This just might be another answer to our prayers for vibrant families of Jesus (churches) in close reach both geographically and culturally of every person on the planet starting right here in Colorado.
Click on the title to read Marshall’s story about his upcoming trip to scout the land here in Colorado while discerning God’s call on the life of their “band of brothers”.
Looking forward to meeting you in person, my new friend.
———————————————————————————————————————
As some of you know…Me, Jeff, and Moore are heading up to Colorado for a week to do some scouting, praying, and meeting up with the “big dogs” that’s already out there. Just wanted to give a lil post of what we are doing during the week so that all of my prayer peeps can be prayin more…
Reggie McNeal, author of The Present Future and Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church and many other books talks about our (mis)understanding of the nature of the church and how we need to transition in our thinking of the church from a what to a who, and how traditional churches can be involved with house churches or missional communities, etc.
check it out and let me know what you think.
