The Avenue

After talking this week of how our mourning for our community will lead us to action as Nehemiah’s mourning in Chapter 1 lead him to action I read this poem on my friend Kyle Costello’s blog.  Kyle is planting in Salt Lake City here is his blog -

http://web.me.com/kylecostello11/SLC_Project/SLC_Project.html

I found it very challenging for where we stand today!  Disturb us Lord so that our mourning leads to action so that the information we receive leads us to the obligation to love!

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

Sir Francis Drake -1577

We had a great night tonight for our 1st launch team training.  God is so good & it was great to worship together, pray together, open the word together & then eat & watch curling together!  What an amazing group of men & woman.

Here are the highlights of the night:

• We are not excited about planting a church – We are thrilled about planting Jesus!
• If Christ is missing from our understanding of the church He will be missing from our expression of the church.
• Too many communities of faith are defined by what they do & what they are good at instead of being defined by who they do it for!
• Ministry is often done for Jesus instead of by Jesus.
• Our definition of church starts with His presence.
• Although institutional success is alluring our ultimate purpose is faithfulness  not success – this changes how we approach church.
• You become what you celebrate – will we celebrate Christ or success?
• Nehemiah  allowed his heart to be broken because he believed that Gods reputation was at stake.
• We asked the question what breaks your heart & we discussed what breaks our hearts in the neighborhood we are moving into.
• Nehemiah allowed the information of the brokeness of his people to drive the obligation he had to action.
• Mourning leads to moving.
• Nehemiah risked everything to follow – What happens when we become a community that mourns & moves?

Then we learned that the Norweigan curling team wears funny pants & that we can get 35 people around one table @ Tumbleweed

Next week Nehemiah ch 2 – Come ready!

We dream of a church where… where generosity is embraced at every level.

For God so loved the world that he GAVE…

We express love by giving. God showed us he loved us by giving us his son Jesus. I show my wife I love her when I give her flowers, give her a shoulder massage, or when I give her a break and I clean up the living room. My friends show love when they give me their time and attention. Giving and generosity are directly tied to loving. You can’t find a relationship where true genuine love and true generous giving aren’t intertwined.

When we give our time, talent, energy, effort, and resources we are showing love. Let’s face it; if God is love, than God’s people should be the most loving and generous people on the planet. How strange would it be to tell a world about this radically loving and generous God and then not be that way ourselves? This is why one of our core values will be embracing generosity at every level. We will be generous individually as well as generous collectively.  Not because it is the cool thing to do, but because you can’t express love without giving.  What better thing to have said about us than that we are a generous people.

Generosity is at the heart of the gospel. When we are generous, we reflect God into everything and everyone around us. We make the good news truly good news.  Look back through the gospels and read how often Jesus gave something to someone. How often did he give someone their health back? How often did he give someone their dignity back? How often did he give the crowds a meal? How often did he give someone exactly what they needed? Everywhere Jesus went people were changed by his generosity. May the same be said of us as church in Louisville.

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.

-John Wesley

A few months ago when first started into all of this madness I wrote our new church manifesto.

It is a dream really of who we would like to become & the things that make us distinct!  Over the next few weeks a different person from our team is going to take a shot at posting their views on why these are our dreams & how we hope to make them reality.

Please give us your feedback, dream & pray with us.

Ephesians 1:11 (the message)
It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.

We are praying 1st that his overall purposes are being worked out in & around us!

If you had to explain your dream for your church in a sentence what would it be?

We are so excited to share with you how God is bringing together his people for his mission.  As many of you know our plant is a partner church with the new thing network.  Their vision is to be a catalyst for a movement of reproducing churches.  They offer a residency program for future church planters see here.

This year we have 2 residents joining our church plant as we plant in Louisville.  We are excited to add these guys to the team & we are even more excited to send them out & see what God has for them in the future.  Both of these men will be amazing church planters & both bring so much to the table.  God is good!

I will let them explain in their own words who they are & why they are excited about the Louisville project!

Jansen Nally –

I gave my life to Christ 8 years ago and feel a strong call to continue that gospel message to others. I am excited about the Louisville Project first of all because of the impact it is going to have for the gospel in this much needed area. Old Louisville can easily be considered the most unreached group here. I have lived in Louisville my entire life and have a great love for this city. I also know that this will be a great experience in refining my abilities to advance the gospel on a personal level and will prepare me for the next move.

Jeromie Jones -

A little about me. I am married to the best nurse in the world (Kim) and have the most amazing daughter (Elescia) who started kindergarten this year. It has been a dream of mine for the last two years to one day plant a church. I am extremely grateful to the Louisville project for giving me the opportunity to learn the in’s and out’s of church planting. I have the utmost respect for what the Louisville Project is doing and how they are going to be a blessing to the city. I’ve read a lot of books, listened to a lot of podcasts, and been to the conferences, but I wanted to gain some real experience in church planting. The Louisville project offers me the chance to participate firsthand in helping start something amazing. Everything I learn here, I’ll be able to apply when I launch a new church. I am so excited to see what God does through this amazing team of people who are truly living out the gospel.

Check out these great photos from our friends Jessica & Julie as they are taking shots of our new neighbors & neighborhood for some promotional material we are preparing for the church.  Begin now —– Pray for Old Louisville & The University of Louisville!

J Grace Photography

Julie Wiegand Photography

Hey everyone I would love to announce that the Louisville Project has hired it’s 1st team members.

Please welcome Chris Harper & Travis Whalen to the team!

Chris will be our community pastor & will oversee our serve value & will work hard to make sure that we are blessing to the community we live in & that we are a community focused on word & deed!

Chris has been an urban missions pastor for around 2 years, and has served in many ministries from all over the area.  He is the co founder of Spend Yourself an apparel company with a heart for social justice. Originally from Oklahoma, Chris loves fried chicken, cowboy boots & serving the marginalized poor.  He is married to Allyson & once dunked a basketball but we are sure the rim was only around 9’6.   He has his masters degree in social work from the University of Louisville and if this church doesn’t work out he plans on joining the UFC.

Travis Whalen is also joining the team as our campus minister he & his wife Natalie just had their first son Parker last month.   Travis has worked in ministry in several capacities from children’s ministry to overseas missions in Northern Ireland… But he has come to find that his passion is communicating God’s truth to the young adult generation.  He is a gifted preacher who has been the young adults pastor for Veritas and comes from North Side Christian church  in Southern Indiana.  Travis will oversee all of our age level ministry and will also be our future church planter as he will be sent from our community to begin to multiply the kingdom within the next few years!  I don’t think Travis has ever dunked a basketball because he is a UK fan but I am fairly certain that he would be a better cage fighter than Chris!

Please be praying for Travis, Natalie, Parker & Chris & Allyson.

They are amazing families with huge hearts not only for God but for the community we are moving into.  I could not be more excited to be journeying together in ministry with these men!