The Branches- A deeper Explanation

I have had a couple of people in the past few weeks ask me to further explain what it would look like to be in a Branch on a day to day basis.

I can explain it like this.

We are all busy and lead lives that have many activities pressing on our time daily.  It gets very difficult and overwhelming to balance work, family, relationships, sports, hobbies, etc.

Now, a typical “church” thing is to saddle people with more activities onto these already busy schedules.  Be in a Bible Study, mid-week prayer meeting, Women’s ministries, Men’s breakfasts, etc.  Lately, you are expected to “be in community together”, or “do life together”, so that just adds to the busyness.  There is a pressure and expectation that you need to be involved and if you are not, your commitment to serving the Lord and the “church” is questioned.

At the Vine and the Branches, we have seen this as a hopeless situation, and a failure of the modern church.  It burns people out, makes you feel guilty for not doing more, makes serving a burden rather than a joy, and cuts you off from having any real impact in your community.

As a solution to this, the Branches will be operating in the Community that you are in.  Remember, we are defining community as the place you physically live, or the place you live your life.  There are all kinds of people in these communities we are connected to, and all have the same need:  to know Jesus and His revolutionary Gospel.  It does not matter if they are following Him or not, we all need the Gospel to transform our lives.

In light of this, a Branch will be someone (or more) from the VnB engaging in their Communities, intentionally bringing the Gospel according to their passion and gifting.  It will not be adding another activity to your schedule.  Rather, it will be incorporating Jesus and the Gospel into what you are already doing.  It will not be forcing you to be somebody you are not, or make you do something you are not interested in being a part of.  You are who God has made you to be, and He has placed you in the Community you are to introduce Jesus into it.

Therefore, the ministry of the Branches will be very flexible, very fluid.  It will look different from place to place, and Branch to Branch because we are all different in gifting, personalities and passions.  There might be other Christians in your Branch, and their might not be.  It doesn’t matter if they go to another church or not, nor does it matter if they choose to be a part of the VnB at our Sunday gathering or not.

We will all be working for the same goal, to introduce Jesus and His Gospel to people. 

For those of you reading this who like the idea, but feel like you are not equipped to do this, I will post another time about the role of Sunday teaching and Leaders in the ministry of the VnB.  

Post Migration

Hey all-

We have shifted the posts for this site over to the FB page as this seems to be a good place for the most people to hear about what we are doing:

http://www.facebook.com/groups/394480737277226/

You can also become a follower of our Main Page on Facebook here:

http://www.facebook.com/TheVineAndTheBranchesSpokane

The ultimate goal is to get our website up and running and have that replace our blog entirely.

I will post some of the items from the Facebook page over to this blog, but not every time.

Thanks for all the prayers and support you guys and gals have been giving to this point!  God is moving and it is exciting to see where he will go in the future with this church!

Back in the Saddle....

Crickey!

It has been a challenging, faith stretching past few weeks.  Whoever thinks the life of a disciple is tame or boring needs to check their pulse! Or maybe read their bibles... There has been so much going on sometimes I forget to breathe... welcome to church planting!

God has been revealing so much of Himself to our family, and me in particular.  He is teaching me about the nature of discipleship, what it means and the cost of following Him.  He is reassuring me that He desires fruit to be born through us so that His glory can be made known to the world; however, He is a master gardener and knows when His branches need to be pruned to bear the fruit that He desires.

I know many of you have been asking how the process is going and what you can be praying for.  These requests are in no particular order....

That our house would sell.  

 In our limited perspective, a lot of Spokane related stuff  is hinging upon what will happen with our house over here.  It makes us feel a bit in limbo. This past month we lowered the price a bit, repainted the upstairs, and pulled all the carpet to reveal the hardwoods.  It looks like a totally different house.  Now we need someone to fall in love with it like we did!

Lack of fundraising.  

Many of our readers have seen the letter we sent out about why we are trying to get some planting money lined up.  We have truly been "blindside blessed" by some of you.  That said, we are not getting much response at all to this point.  Faith stretching and humbling, especially since we are 5 weeks out from not having income.

If you are not at a place to chip in here, perhaps you can pass the blog on to others who might share in our common vision? 

That God would continue to move in the hearts of His people in Spokane.  

God spoke to Paul in Corinth (Acts 18) and told him to keep proclaiming the Gospel with confidence because He had many people there.  Both saved and yet to be.  How exciting and motivating to know that God is moving and the body of Christ connected to us is a part of that, for His Glory!

Amy and I can get some quality time.  

Life has been so busy these past few weeks, we are needing to take advantage of the limited times we have to connect.  I mean, she is totally awesome, magically babelicious, and wonderful to be around.  I would be a fool not too!!

Our girls would be comforted.  

The reality of moving is setting in for them.  It is my desire to help them be a part of what we are doing, to own the process according to their passions and gifting.  We are a planting family, not individuals.  Pray that Amy and I can be sensitive to them in the middle of the stress and that God can reveal to us how we can include them in the mission.

I will post again shortly some thoughts about how God desires fruit for His glory.  It has really been transforming my understanding of serving him, how it plays out in ministry, and what that would look like for a church.

The Mission Part 2: The Branches

The Vine will most certainly be an important piece to our passion to proclaim the Gospel and see disciples commit to Jesus.

I will say this right now, however.  We are not interested in just starting another "church".  A Sunday event where people show up, punch their spiritual time card and leave for their weeks.  A place with every conceivable program driven to satisfy all the consumers and the potential "felt needs" they might have.  There are plenty of these kinds of churches in Spokane, and they are fulfilling what God is calling them to do.  I am not knocking them, just saying that we are not interested in that model of "church".

Most of our ministry will take place in The Branches.  Here is our passion for what this vital aspect of our ministry is:

Because of Jesus' love for us, the branches grow from the Vine into our communities through the diversity of gifts God has given His people.

So lets unpack this idea a bit.

Again, first and foremost, it is the great love that Jesus has for us that compels us to love others for His sake and His glory.  Without loving people, we are not ministering or communicating the transforming message of the Gospel.

What we envision with the Branches are community specific, community driven ministries.  "Community" can be a misunderstood term in Christian circles.  At The Vine and the Branches, we view community from 2 angles: the place where you physically live and the place(s) where you live out your life.  With this definition in mind, a Branch grows from the Vine into the area you live, bringing the life-giving Gospel of Jesus to everyone who shares in that community with us.  

The main "Branch" will grow into the communities where our people live.  From there, offshoots will grow into other communities  (where we live out our life); each one tied into the Branch for nourishment, which in turn is connected to the Vine.

The forms that these Branches take on will vary from community to community.  There is no "one size fits all" approach to this.  That is because as ministers of  Jesus, He has uniquely gifted us to serve the people around us and to share with them the Gospel. 

Here is what we mean:

A branch grows from the Vine into the Manito area (a community in Spokane).  God's people in Manito unite together to minister to this unique community.  This could take on many forms based on the passions/gifting of the people there, balanced with the needs of the community around them.  Those are the offshoots.  They are still connected to the Manito branch, which is still connected to the Vine; but the ministry is focused on where they live, and the areas they live out their lives.  

The really cool thing about this is that because we are all connected to the same Vine, each Branch is very much tied into each other, modeling what believe the Body of Christ should be doing.

I will flesh this out more in another post for sure, but hopefully this gives you all some more understanding of what we are trying to do.

God is Good!!

The Method Part 1: The Vine

Our mission at The Vine and the Branches will play out in two arenas.  Our "hub" of ministry will be called the Vine.  Our outreach into the communities of Spokane will be called The Branches.  Both locations are intentional in their focus of introducing people to Jesus and teaching them the nature of discipleship.


The Vine will function as the place where we will gather together for corporate worship.  Here is our Mission Statement for the Vine:

With Jesus’ love as our source, the Vine exists to be a place where people gather together for Worship, Teaching, and Training

In breaking this down, here is what we intend:

First and foremost, Jesus is the reason for all that we do.  The life and vitality of our entire ministry is due to the fact that we are rooted and attached to Him.  If we were to separate ourselves from total dependence on Jesus, we would wither and die just like a branch that is removed from a tree.  Moreover, it is because of Jesus' great love for us that we are compelled to love others and introduce them to Him.

So The Vine will be a place that is drawing its strength, mission, vitality, and passion from Jesus.  He is the whole reason we exist.

Now, when we gather at the Vine as a community of people, it will be for 3 primary reasons.  These will be broken down in more detail in the posts to come, but here are some initial thoughts:

Gather to Worship together 

We all worship something.  It is how our Maker created us.  Even those of us who are still rebels worship, it is just not God.  We want the Vine to be a place where all people can be introduced to the majesty of our King.  A place where all people can experience their Creator and have their minds and hearts touched by the "eternal" that has been placed there by God Himself.  He has truly set eternity on our hearts, and when we worship together, the seeker and the disciple both can and will have their minds and hearts touched by God.

Gather for Teaching

Our primary goal in our teaching/preaching at the Vine is to proclaim the Gospel.  The Gospel is not simply the "Romans Road to Salvation" or the 4 Spiritual Laws. Nor is it purely knowledge.  It is the glorious Good News of God's story enfolding from Creation to Restoration.  It should challenge our thinking, touch our emotions, capture our imaginations, convict us of our sins, and encourage us in our hearts.  We need to see how the Gospel intersects with our daily lives and those around us.

Gather for Training

We also need to be trained in how to follow Jesus.  Our nature as fallen rebels makes the way of Discipleship foreign to our thinking.  Now, in our opinion, Sunday morning sermons are not effective for training people to follow Jesus.  A central ministry of The Vine will be training people to walk with Jesus outside of Sunday.  This will happen in The Branches.  It will also happen in The Vine.  This process will be very dependent on the needs of the people God has given us.  It could be training sessions at The Vine during the week.  It could be one of The Branches hosting something at The Vine.  Very flexible.

In reality, much of our ministry will take place in The Branches....

Our Mission

Mission statements all seem to sound kind of the same. Because in reality, we are all shooting for the same target. Well, usually.

We thought and prayed about how we can summarize what we feel God is leading us to do in one sentence. We wanted to incorporate both our passion for how awesome Jesus is and our dependence on Him with the Vine and Branches terminology. After many re-writes, here is our mission statement:

Fully dependent upon Jesus, the Vine and the Branches exists to proclaim His Gospel, making disciples that will go out and bless the city of Spokane for His glory

Let me break this down briefly.

As stated in the last post, we are all about Jesus and His Gospel. Everything we do is to give Him glory and focus people to the one hope for all humanity. He is the reason we have hope for eternity and joy for living. Therefore, we are fully dependent on Jesus and exist to proclaim His Gospel.

Our mission, our mandate, our job, is to make disciples. Jesus told us as much in His Commission. We believe that the Scriptures teach this is a lifelong process, not one that starts after a certain level of maturity is reached.

If you think about it, for most people who come to know King Jesus, the process of discipleship starts before "conversion". They are friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors who see our transformed lives and something stirs in their hearts to know more. What is so great about this is that we get the opportunity to introduce them to Savior of the world. The true hope for humanity. God's Spirit grips them and the Rebels throw down their weapons and fall down at God's matchless Grace given to us through Jesus.

But discipleship does not end there. We are called as a people to shepherd each other in the new life we have been given. Some need to learn the basics of our faith, as newborns need milk. Some disciples are ready for solid food and growth from just milk. Some are mature and need to step out in faith to disciple others. This is a lifelong process, happening all around us. Our goal is to make disciples.

We also have a strong desire to bless Spokane. A great city, coming into its own identity. But like any city, there is more work to go around than bodies to do it. We are a part of the city, we receive good things from the city, we participate with the city as it grows and changes. As good citizens of an eternal Kingdom, we have the opportunity to bless our city and our neighbors by engaging with them to make Spokane a more beautiful place.

Ultimately, it all goes back to Jesus though. It is for His glory that we do all of this. Not ours. It is His story, not ours. It is His mission, not ours. Everything we do should be a spotlight pointing people to Jesus.

So What Are We About?

Ok, so this post is getting into the meat and potatoes. No more "back-story". These next posts will come in rapid succession.

What is the Vine and the Branches all about?

First and foremost, we are all about Jesus and His Gospel. We truly believe that Jesus is the only hope for the entire creation. We believe that through His work on the cross (his life, death and resurrection), He is in the process of restoring all things back to the perfection we had before sin entered into the world.

He is reconciling broken rebels back to their Father, restoring us to relationship with the Creator of the Universe.

He is creating a new humanity, tearing down the man-made dividing walls our cultures have created and making a new people whose lives are identified in Christ and His Kingdom.

Ultimately, He will also restore the creation back to the balanced perfection it had before sin subjected it to futility.

The Gospel contains all this in glorious depth. It is His power for salvation to all who believe. Everything we do: every sermon we preach, song we sing, program we form, outreach we attempt, and gathering we have, are to proclaim the Gospel in a relevant way to the people God has placed in our lives.

Therefore, The Vine and the Branches is first and foremost all about Jesus.

We draw our name from Jesus Himself in John 15:1-11. Jesus is our source of life. If we attempt to live as a church apart from Jesus, we will bear no eternal fruit, and eventually wither and die. If we stay rooted in the Vine:

we will draw all the nutrients and strength we need for the mission,

we will be fruitful,
we will be secure when trials and hardships come,
we can ask God for miraculous transformation in Spokane and He will answer,
we will glorify God.

There really is not much secret to having a lot of people show up on a Sunday morning and grow a "Church". Get the most dynamic speaker possible who tells people how great they are, have a rocking band, and set up every conceivable program to appeal to the consumers. Use established business models to accommodate the budgets and growth and Bob's your uncle. Mega-church.

Not interested in that.

The next posts will describe how we are taking this Vine and Branches thought and applying it to church ministry.

Faith

There are many aspects to the life of a disciple that are very opposite to our upbringing and nature as fallen rebels. Think about it....

Loving people. Really loving them. Sacrificially. Whether or not they love you back. Or if they are even lovable in the first place (never mind that we all fall into this category!). Even your enemies and those who persecute you.

Serving people. Even when it is inconvenient. When no one will recognize the service. When they take advantage of your generosity. When they won't serve you back.

Both of these are hallmarks of Christian discipleship, yet are so difficult for us aren't they? Never mind the difficulty of overcoming our rebellion and inherent desire to worship ourselves. It is also hardwired into our psyche as Americans since we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Really, the American Dream caters to our idolatry and rebellion, but that is a topic for a sermon series at The Vine and the Branches, LOL.

Faith is another major facet in the life of discipleship. I would like to share with you how faith plays such a major part of my life and how a life of faith will be intertwined in the life, health, and vitality of The Vine and the Branches.

I have never really had difficulty accepting some of the more challenging parts of Christianity. The Virgin Birth and how that actually happened. God created everything out of nothing by simply (?!) speaking it into being. Even the existence of God, angels, Satan, or whatever. I have always been OK with those questions and not having all the perfect answers.

If you think about it, we all live lives of faith all the time, we just don't want to admit it. When you get on the freeway, you have some faith that your car won't blow up and that the other cars won't come into your lane and smash into you. You can't explain your confidence, don't have all the answers at your disposal, or at least answers that make empirical sense. But this does not stop you from believing.

Anyway, one part of faith that is particularly powerful is having faith that God will provide all of our needs according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus and that if we seek his kingdom and righteousness above everything else, He will provide all of our needs.

I am going out on a limb here and say that one of the reasons we followers of Jesus are so lukewarm, ineffectual, and lifeless in our faith is that as American Christians (and American's in general) we order our lives in such a way that we never have to rely on God for anything. Perhaps developing that thought further will be another sermon series at The Vine and the Branches....

Anyway, I don't know about all of you, but the times I am most alive in my walk with Jesus is when I don't have all the answers. When I have to rely on Jesus and not myself to live. When I take Jesus at His word and believe that if I seek His Kingdom and righteousness, He will provide what I need, what my family needs, exactly when we need it.

When I moved to Eugene from Philadelphia years ago, I had to live this life of faith daily. Moving down there, I did not know anyone other than my uncle who lived about an hour outside of town. I arrived with my dad to begin my life there with no real place to stay, and not knowing anyone. I figured that I was an ex-missionary, so if there was one place that would take care of me it was a church. We looked in the Yellow Pages (remember those things??) and found First Baptist Church of Eugene. I showed up on Sunday morning with a backpack, a guitar, 250$ in my pocket, and an unshakeable faith that God would provide the miracle. By that night, I was staying in a men's Christian house tied into the church to get my feet on the ground. Needing a place to stay for the summer at least, the next day I went to the public boards at the U of Oregon and saw that God had provided a room for rent, written in marker complete with flowers and Hippy-chick writing. 250$, cash up front. That night, I had a place to stay with a great older single mom and her kids, meals everyday included. Then, I needed a job. People told me there were no jobs in Eugene. Yet that day, God happened to lead me to a T-shirt printing company that had just opened the day before and needed a sales guy. Hired on the spot, at the first place I went to, in a place where there were supposedly no jobs. This is just one period in my life of many times where God has consistently provided for all my needs.

A guiding principle in my life of faith is a quote I heard from a pastor years ago in Eugene OR named Steve McKracken. He said that God wants us to do the possible, so that by faith He will do the impossible. Read through all the great stories of men and women in the Bible and throughout history who demonstrated great faith in God and you will see over and over how they participated with Him in the miracles He performed. It is a great way to approach some of the more familiar stories in the scriptures with a fresh light.

So what does this mean for planting The Vine and the Branches?

This whole endeavor is an exercise of faith. We don't have all the answers.

We have ideas and dreams, but will they work out exactly how we think they will?Thankfully, I know that in His graciousness, they probably won't. Or maybe they will. God knows. But we are called to the possible so that by faith He will do the impossible.

Our model for ministry assumes we will have people joining us. At this point, it is the Beumer's and the Bayley's. We have faith that God is calling us to this and that He has been preparing people (already or not yet Christians) from before the foundation of the world to join us. So we plan the possible and by faith, God will perform the impossible and bring His people.

It is not the most ideal time to sell a house and start a new life across the state. That's true. But God is calling us to do this, and He promises to supply all our needs when we seek His Kingdom.

We are raising financial support for this mission so that Amy and I don't have to have the stress of working separate jobs and trying to plant. If you have not heard from me yet, don't worry... ;-). So we do the possible by asking for funding so that in a down economy, God will do the impossible and provide the resources we need.

Where will we meet? In a home or a rent a building? Where will we live? Where on the South Hill of Spokane will the Vine start? Will our house sell in Lynnwood? Don't know.

What I do know is that our God is a provider and that He will take care of us.

By joining the Vine and the Branches, whether in person or through finances and prayer, you are joining us on this adventure.

Join us in this exploration of the dynamic life of discipleship as we place our total faith in Jesus!

So why are we doing this?

So Why Are We Doing This?

This is a question that anyone considering planting a church should spend a great deal of time thinking about.

I am not trying to reinvent the wheel with this post. There are a great deal of articles written about reasons to plant a church. I would direct you to Tim Keller's excellent post about reasons why to church plant here as a good place to start.

Why are we planting a church, though? It is one thing to agree with idea of planting a church, but another altogether to actually do it.

The first way that I can answer this is to share with you the process of how we got here.

As stated previously, I have been called to be a pastor for God's people. Now, some pastors are called by God to perform different functions for His people, according to how they are gifted by Him and empowered by His Spirit. In Ephesians 4:11-13, Paul tells us that God has blessed his church with Apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers to equip His people for the work of ministry, building and strengthening the body of Christ (His people, the "church") until we all attain to the unity of the faith.

Teachers can take on many roles. At Grace, we are blessed with a great teacher named Scott Golike. He is the primary preaching pastor here at Grace, and God is doing great things through his faithful teaching of God's word. Now, Scott and I are great co-workers in the vineyard. He has mentored me and shown me what it really means to shepherd God's people. Through Scott, I can see why God waited so long to fulfill His calling on my life to be a pastor because I was not ready in my late 20's and early 30's. As much as my pride wanted to deny that!

That said, Scott and I are very different. Different upbringing, different backgrounds, different stories of salvation, different communicators, different personalities. I mean, in hindsight, it truly is a testimony of how great God's Spirit is in uniting two very different men together for the shepherding the people of Grace Fellowship!

The problem is, God has called us both to proclaim the Good News about Jesus in the role of a preacher, and as a visionary leader. All of us elders at Grace affirm Scott's calling to lead this ministry here. We all agree that this would be best for Grace moving forward. We are also blessed with another gifted teacher named Kristian. Unfortunately for him, his work is preventing him from preaching more than we think he should. Really, with my calling, there is a redundancy of gifting here.

I have often said that Christians are like manure. Manure is great for causing growth. You have a dead lawn, put manure on it and watch it grow and become alive. Like us Christians. You spread us out and growth happens. You put us into a dead world, and God brings life through our proclamation of the Gospel. But what happens if you don't spread the manure out? The dump truck comes and deposits this big pile of it on your driveway, and you do nothing with it? What do you have on your driveway now? A big pile of.... manure. Not doing what it is designed to do, just being a stinky mess.

To make this analogy really work, I have to admit that I am manure. I have been gifted and wired by God for leading His people by proclaiming His Good News in a public forum. But like manure, someone like me needs to be spread out for those gifts to manifest in the way the God wants, and in the way that is best for the advancement of God's Kingdom.

So the next question was should we plant a church, or go on staff as the preaching pastor at an existing church? I am sure I will touch on this more in later posts, but I can say this much.

I have talked with several godly men who have transitioned into taking over an existing church. I just can't do that. Christians can for sure be very gracious and loving, be we can also be pretty nasty to each other. Especially when someone comes along who is different than the previous leader, or someone who comes in and brings about wholesale changes. Those of you who have been around church ministry for any length of time know how well some people handle change.

We have great dreams of what God can do through the Vine and the Branches, but it is pretty different than most typical evangelical churches. I sense that it would be very difficult to move into an existing work, with all the history, baggage, tradition, etc and bring this new vision. You would spend more than half your time trying to change the mindset and "culture" of the church as you would actually leading people into the mission God has given.

I love the idea of starting from scratch. From the ground up. To hard wire into the DNA of God's church the mission He has called us to. No baggage. No "this is how we have always done it" or "that's not how pastor so-and-so did that" comments. To see people come to know Jesus as Savior and Lord and to build into their discipleship process the mission without the baggage of tradition. How cool is that? How cool is it that God is blessing us with this opportunity?

In looking back over my life, I can see that the times I am most alive in my walk with Jesus is when I am operating in faith that He will provide all my needs. The next post will show how this has played out and hopefully will give you another reason why we have been called to plant the Vine and the Branches in Spokane.

From Salesman to Pastor

From Salesman to Pastor…

I have a confession to make. I have known since I was 14 that God wanted me to be a pastor. I was sitting at the church I grew up in, and was listening to Charles Shields preach a sermon. I heard an undeniable voice from God tell me that this was what He had in mind for me. No, it wasn’t the food I ate the night before, either.

Who would have thought that I would finally answer that call 20 years later by becoming a pastor at Grace Fellowship here in Lynnwood, WA? There were times over the years where I thought that God was maybe giving me and my family the green light to be a pastor, but for various reasons, it never panned out.

Surprisingly, one of the biggest hurdles in this process was that I loved my previous job selling water for Crystal Springs. I never thought I would ever enjoy a job that was not paid for by a church. Yet there I was, at a great job that taught me so much about myself, my faith, what motivates me. Plus, I was paid a lot of cash to do something that was easy and enjoyable for me.

Yet all the while, I had that experience at 14 where I knew God wanted me to be a pastor.

In October of 2006, my wife Amy and I were fully on the same page, and were ready to make the leap of faith to join the staff of Grace Fellowship.

I love doing puzzles, especially with Amy. They are great because you get the opportunity to talk with your wife and do an activity together at the same time. My friends make fun of me because I get really into them. They call me the “Rain Man” and that I need to buy some more underwear at Target. But I love it when you match the shapes and textures. When the pieces start to come together and the full picture emerges. When you put the pieces together in the way they are supposed to work. The best part is right at the end when there are like 5 or 6 pieces left. They all fall into place and the picture is complete.

Becoming a pastor was like finishing a puzzle. Everything about my life came together just like the pieces of a puzzle. The picture was complete. I saw my life as it was designed by God to be- serving His people.

This puzzle was not like the other puzzles, though. It does not end with this initial picture. This was only the start of a much grander, more majestic picture that now includes starting a church from the ground up.

My next post will have several parts about why on earth we would plant a church.

The Journey Begins

We each have a story, a journey of how we got to where we are. This is because we are a part of a larger story, the Story that God has been telling since before the creation of, well, everything.

The center of God’s story, the hero if you will, has been and always will be Jesus. Not me. Not you. Jesus.

This is my story of how I first came to know Jesus…

A crucial part of all our stories is that at our heart, we are fallen rebels. We have each chosen to go our own way, to place ourselves at the center of the story. As if we are writing it or something. Sure, some of us hide our rebellion better than others, or we somehow have convinced ourselves and others that we aren't so bad as the next guy or gal. But in our heart of hearts, each one of us is on the same rebellious playing field.

Growing up in Southern California, I was rebel just like the rest of us. I lived my life as if I was in charge of everything. I made decisions based on MY story, not God's. Sure, I was ignorant of God's plan for my life. But that is no real excuse. A short look at my life and it is plain that I was living for my own personal gratification. I abused alcohol, and smoked a lot of marijuana. I lied and deceived my parents. I learned how to manipulate people to get what I wanted. I put up a facade of being generally a good kid, but in my heart I was still a rebel.

When I was 18, college was not in my future. My dad and I remembered that there was a man named Tony Campolo who spoke at a church retreat we had gone to. He talked about a non-profit he had set up in Philadelphia working with at-risk inner city kids. It seemed like a good avenue to pursue.

In reality, it was a miracle that I was able to join this work. One of several times over the years where I can clearly see the hand of God at work in my life. I was definitely not a follower of Jesus. Sure, I had gone to a youth group and was a fairly regular attendee at the church it was tied into. But my profession of faith in Christ was in word only. I was an unchanged rebel, living my own story, my own life.

In Philly, I lived with a community of Christian men and women. 26 of us under 1 roof. It was to this day the most radical experience of Christian living in my whole life. We shared meals, money, devotions, life, and ministry. Part of my salvation story is tied into this reality of community. I saw a love present there that was unlike anything I had ever experienced. While I was certainly not convinced that Jesus was the answer, these brothers and sisters had something that was so attractive to me, and as so unlike the "community" I had experienced back home.

But I was still a rebel. In my rebellion, I made the type of request that I would never tell people to do. I told God that He needed to reveal Himself to me or I would go back to LA and live my life for me again. In hindsight, what arrogance, right? What had He been doing my whole life to this point? Being a passive observer?

After opening my eyes to the vitality of Christian life, on December 8, 1990 God performed a miracle to get my attention. I call it "the 2x4 of the Holy Spirit". One of those times we all need where God has to clobber us to make us pay attention.

My friend Dave and I were taking the kids from our community recycling. In Philly back then, people would just drop their bottles of Olde English 800 and Colt 45 where ever they were done with them. At a busy intersection, we had all the kiddos line up to wait for the light. Two girls, Brianna and Theresa, decided to run out into the street. They both got plowed by a car. Theresa flew across 3 lanes of traffic to the opposite sidewalk, while Brianna took the brunt of it and bounced down the road.

Jesus at that point shut off my emotions. Numbly, I saw that Theresa was crying on the ground and figured she was alive. Brianna was splayed out on the road, still as death. Dave and I knelt over her and I did not know what to do. Dave said we should pray, but I was thinking in my head "what for"? She was dead. Dave said something to the effect that God can do anything and that I should pray for her. I was thinking he should be the one to do the praying, because he claimed to follow Jesus and it was lame that he was passing the buck on to me.

But I did pray. I asked God to not let this sweet little 8 year old die. Right after we said Amen!, her eyes popped open, she started to look around in confusion, and asked where her mom was.

After that, everything was kind of a blur. The police wanted to talk to me and drove me to hospital in the back of a car. Being 6' 4", I remember deciding that I never wanted to break the law and ride in the back of a squad car. Ever. We went to the hospital and I was struck by the fact that several people from my Christian community were there for support. So between praying with them and having some smokes with the girls’ parents, several hours passed.

After a while, Brianna's mom came out of the emergency room crying and told me I needed to go see the girls. To this day, I remember dreading that moment. I went to the room they were in, and saw two little piles of hospital gear on the cots, but no girls. Turning to leave, I see Brianna and Theresa with huge grins on their faces. They ran up to me and jumped on me with the squeals that only excited 8 year olds can do. It was then that God decided to remove my numbness. I was so emotional, I almost passed out. But I succeeded in breaking a medicine cabinet as I fell on it, so I guess that is cool.

When we got home about 6 hours later, I found the Community praying and singing, rejoicing that God had worked a mighty miracle. Now remember, I had not told anyone about my foolish challenge to God. One brother made a comment that changed my life. Whether or not he knew what he was saying, he looked me right in the eye and said God had revealed himself to me and provided a miracle. He then went back to singing the song "Jehovah Jireh, My Provider" and was dancing around the room along with the rest of the crazy Christians who loved Jesus, but couldn’t dance.

I went upstairs and wept. I wept for the rebellion in my heart. I wept for the sins I had committed. I wept for the people I had hurt. I wept for the grace of God to a wretch like me. I wept for joy. I wept for the freedom that washed over me.

That night, a broken rebel threw down his weapons, his pride, his self-centered existence at the foot of the one place we are all equals.... the Cross of Jesus. That night I set my hand to the plow of discipleship and I have not looked back.

My next post will be about what happened after that, and what led me and my family to the place where we are planting a church in Spokane.

Thanks for reading.

Hello....

Welcome to The Vine and the Branches!

We are a new church that will be planted in Spokane WA, setting our roots down in the South Hill.

We will officially be arriving in Spokane after the 4th of July, using the rest of our summer time to lay the final groundwork for making this vision a reality.

We will be having our first public time together be

Sunday September 9, 2012.

I am hoping this blog will accomplish several goals:

A way for you all out there get to know me, my fellow planters, my family, and our vision for seeing Spokane transformed by the Gospel of Jesus.

A public journal of sorts to chronicle our journey of faith and trust in Jesus

A vehicle for keeping in touch with friends and family near and far who are supporting us in prayer and finances.