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It’s been cool lately to see how God is definitely working in Easton and in our little sphere of influence, both by moving in people’s lives as individuals and also by bringing people together who have a lot of the same ideas and desires to work. It’s a pretty cool thing to see, and very encouraging.

We’ve spoken from the beginning as a church about the fact that we want to make an eternal impact that shows God’s power to work through our small size. One of the great ways we can work to do that is by teaming up with others with the same convictions… which makes our size that much larger. That’s been cool to see too.

We’re praying that the coffeehouse on 9/28 will be another good opportunity for people to invite friends out to hang out with us - people who are spiritual but perhaps a little skeptic about going to church. This is a great chance for someone with those concerns to come out & see what we’re like outside of church, and hopefully we can convince them to take the risk to come see that we’re the same people inside church too. I’m really praying that it’ll not just be a great night of hanging out, but also a great doorway for people to come through & help us make connections that will last.

I’m also excited about the coffeehouse because from now on, we’re going to ask people to take what money they would’ve spent on a coffee & donate it to a charity. This time up it’s “Bikes To Rwanda,” which Cosmic Cup owner Troy Renard let us know about. They provide cargo bikes to communities in Rwanda who produce great organic coffee. The bikes allow the people of those communities to transport their product far more efficiently, and bring a much better quality of life to the areas. We want the coffeehouse to be fun, but we also realize that we can do simple things and make even minor sacrifices, which will have an eternal impact.

Following Jesus is all about looking for ways to serve Him & glorify Him in all things, and for ways to show His love and grace to others in all situations. Hopefully this coffeehouse will be one such opportunity.

In other news,  Let’s Go Mets!

Last night we began a new “mini-series” (sort of a focused part of our overall series of the Revolution) talking about “superpowers” & how God wants to do super-powerful, incredible things through our lives. I believe that’s true, although I’m finding my own little adventure leading this new church to feel like it’s less than super-powered.

We spent time in Easton this week inviting people to come pay our new church a visit, and thus far we’ve not gotten any newcomers to give us a shot. I believe that many of the people who would come would find the church to be something they connect with, and something that they would want to return to, but the question for me seems to be how to connect with them enough for that first visit to take place. It’s a bit frustrating but we have to remember that we need to be faithful no matter what. We have to keep plugging away and keep inviting people and continue to do what we can to serve people, no matter whether the response we hope for comes immediately or not. There is a level of patience required here, a level that I wasn’t really prepared for — and I’m a very patient person.

We must trust God to draw people to us, but we can’t use that as an excuse for laziness, where we take an “if we build it, they will come” attitude and don’t take any initiative. The biggest thing we’ve been learning lately is that God wants to do these amazing things — through us. He does not plan to do it on His own.

So we have to continue in the humbling work of reaching out, serving, & putting ourselves “out there” regardless of whether there are a deluge of new faces or not, trusting God to work through us. We also have to keep praying for the people that we have spoken to, that God will move in them & stir their hearts to seek Him.

It’s hard and humbling and a bit frustrating, but more importantly, it’s an obedient act of worship to God.

I haven’t written here in a while because I’ve been going nuts finishing up a seminary class along with all the other “to-do’s” of life. It seems like every time I look ahead & see some relaxing time aroudn the corner, the wheels fall off. Literally. The wheel fell off of my tractor last week, so my lawn is only 1/3 mowed until I can fix it.

But the good news is that I finished up another class yesterday, leaving only 2 to go & then I’ll have earned my masters and a long break from being tested. I love learning, but I don’t like tests and being forced to write papers! The paper I had to write for this class was an interesting one, dealing with the problem of evil. I will create a sermon or 2 out of it at some point, because it’s good stuff. The existence of evil is one of the huge stumbling blocks for people when considering the Christian faith, and the opinion I share with a lot of unbelievers is that Christians haven’t done the greatest job of explaining it throughout history. I took a stab at it from a totally different perspective, and I think it’s Biblically faithful and a very strong defense, even if it doesn’t give the kind of “pat” answer that we usually want.

So now that class is done, I feel like maybe I can finally step out & enjoy the summer. Summertime can be tough on churches because everyone goes on vacations & is busier on weekends. That’s definitely been the case for our little crew. We’ve been missing everyone as they’ve all gone away. We had to concede a bit to summer by cancelling 7/13’s service and instead focusing on a different kind of service, since so few people will be around. Rather than meeting for worship & Bible study, we’re going to step out and volunteer to help out with the festivities of Easton’s Heritage Day on 7/13. Hopefully that will be a fun way for us to get plugged into the community a little better and maybe give us the opportunity to communicate what we’re all about.

We have 2 big needs right now from my perspective as a church: 1) to grow together as a core group, and 2) to get the word out to others who would be interested in checking us out. We’ve been focusing on catching the vision for the type of church we want to become, but growing together is difficult when many different people are away from week to week. Nonetheless we’re trying to build relationships and get on the same page.

To become the type of church I believe God is leading us to be and to have the impact that I believe He desires, we will need that core group to grow quite a bit, and to be mobilized to serve in various ways. To do that, we have to “get the word out” to the area that a new church community exists and pray that God will draw people to it. We really don’t want people to pull away from an existing church in order to join us, so we need to pray that God will draw perhaps new people to the neighborhood or people who are not plugged into a church for whatever reason. We are planning to do some small-scale “get the word out” marketing to try to connect with those types of people, and we’re praying that God will provide them to us and that we can get some new people assimilated & plugged in. We really want to reach people on the small-scale right now, one life at a time, which will put us in the best position to gain momentum and really get rocking further down the road.

Speaking of rocking, do any of you play drums or bass?

Well we had our 2nd meeting in our lovely new meeting place this week, and we discovered something that old buildings lack: air conditioning. On a 93ish degree evening we sweated it out together. I’d especially like to thank the fans, which kept blowing my notes all over the place. But I suppose that if all we have to complain about is that we couldn’t meet in glorious air conditioning, there are about 1,950 years worth of Christians around the world (and a few million modern ones as well) who would say to us, “shut up.” They’d make it sound more spiritual than that, of course, because that’s what we Christians do. They’d say something more like, “peace, be still with thy tongue.” Then we’d all listen in awe because we thought they were so pious, and they’d laugh to themselves because they just totally served us. And not served in a good spiritual way.

It was really encouraging this past week to have several people show up so early and help us clean & dust our new space. Thanks so much to them all because it really needs it! Next time, we vacuum! We have also been really encouraged to see people stepping up to give items to support our adopted soldier, PFC Ojeda. Keep that stuff coming and we can show him our deep appreciation for his sacrifice & that of his wife, Janel. We want to give them our love & support and hopefully make their lives a little brighter in the name of Jesus.

We’re off this coming week since half of us will be up in Vermont celebrating Ryan & Amy’s wedding - very exciting! We’ll be back in action on the 22nd, continuing to let Jesus work on us & transform us into people who He can use to make a tremendous impact on the world around us, reconciling it to God - and in the meanwhile, allowing Jesus to transform our own lives as well.

Let there be no doubt that God is at work! I was very, very pleased to get the final word today that we are “in there like swimwear” to rent out the St. Peter’s Lutheran Church building that we’ve been eyeing from day one. God provided it for us at a price that we can afford and we will begin meeting there on Sunday June 1st. We can even leave our gear set up there during the week (for the foreseeable future anyway) which will ease the strain on us as far as setup & teardown, and allow us to spend more quality time with the people that God draws to us.

We are really excited - it’s a beautiful building which gives us great room to grow. It will be very humbling there at first, a handful of people meeting in a beautiful, historic sanctuary room that easily seats around 250. But I want it to be motivation for us to begin “getting the word out” and inviting people to come check it out. Slowly, one person at a time, I’d like to see God fill that room with people who come to love Him and live for Him through Jesus Christ - people whose lives have been eternally impacted by what God is doing through One Truth, and people whose lives will then go out & impact many others for eternity.

The new building is at 225 Porter Street in Easton - in the heart of College Hill, around 2 blocks from the Lafayette campus (which is ‘uge!), and just around the corner from our friends at Cornerstone Evangelical Free church. The sanctuary is being leased to us thanks to the generosity and community spirit of Green leaf Productions, the new owners of the building. We are very thankful to them!

We’re really blessed & thankful to have some new folks joining the little OTC core crew. I’m praying that everyone who comes meets with Jesus and will grow, and also that everyone who decides to stay will really buy-in to the vision we have to reach the community, and jump into the thick of it. God has people that He has chosen since the dawn of time to be a part of what he’s going to do through One Truth. Isn’t that ridiculously amazing?

In location news, I was finally able to contact the owners of the Lutheran Church building that we’ve been eyeing. I hope to get a little tour early next week, and hopefully God will open the door for us. I’m hoping that our use of the building would be a benefit to the owners as well as us. It would be great to have a steady, dependable location that is located in a very good part of town, walking distance from the Lafayette campus, and that is able to support us as we grow for what should be a very good while. It’s an exciting possibility but we have to wait on the Lord to see what happens and to see His provision. He might have other plans for us that aren’t what we expect.

The other thing on my heart/mind is that May is a crazy month & will be an interesting test for us. We’re off for Mother’s day, then my wife & I will be away on vacation for the 18th. We’re going to have OTC that night featuring regular attendee & my best friend, Ryan Harrington speaking, along with my sis Ryan McCrea leading worship. I pray that everyone still comes out and has a great night that night. OTC is not about me and this is the first test of whether our community really gets that. Then we’re off again for Memorial day weekend, finally getting back to a little more normal groove the first weekend of June. Interesting stuff!

We had a busy, but very rewarding, weekend at One Truth Church! We’re very thankful to have met around a dozen new people (and see a couple familiar faces also) between our normal church service on Sunday evening & our special coffeehouse at Cosmic Cup on Saturday. Thanks to Andrew Salib for a great performance at the coffeehouse. We may be seeing more of him on occasion.

We pray that we will be able to build relationships with the people we met & that perhaps God will call some of them to join us long term in our mission to build a church community through which God will transform the lives of many many people in our area. It is exciting to have people find us & we know that God is at work!

We’re still waiting to hear from the owners of the Lutheran church building regarding our offer to rent it out on Sunday evenings. They would have to come down quite a bit from their desired price to meet what we’re able to afford right now, so we’ll just have to wait & see. We hope that if we do get to use that building, it’ll be a blessing for them as well as us.

God is moving and it’s exciting! I hope He’s moving you too… I know He wants to.

God is moving.

We’re praying that the doors will be opened for us to make use of the building that used to house St. Peter’s Lutheran Church up on College Hill, about 3 blocks from Lafayette. It looks like God is working and will do this and we are excited about the possibility, or dare we say, probability. However we must understand that since we’re so small, we can make very fast decisions, whereas the larger, more established institutions we’re working with take longer to tackle these things. Likewise while this is extremely important to us, it’s lower on their list of priorities. So we wait and pray!

A short blurb about our outreach to Military families went in the paper this past Sunday (3/30). We are praying that people will respond and allow us to serve them in some way, but also praying that the news will help to awaken some hearts in other ways as well. May God not only allow us to serve some people who deserve a break, but may He also draw some people to Himself even by reading the information in the paper. It is possible that we won’t have much response as far as opportunities to actually do something nice for some folks, and if that’s the case, perhaps it’s an error of aiming too low or too narrow. A supportive network like what we described for military families might be something that as we grow and have some more resources, we could offer as a blessing to single parents.

On a side note, I’m guest speaking at Rider University’s Intervarsity on 4/16. I think the title of my message will be, “Why you should all move to Easton when you graduate and join One Truth Church.”

esterday was what the Christian subculture refers to as “Resurrection Sunday,” or as the rest of the world knows it, Easter (I think they renamed it because of the whole egg/bunny commercialization thing). For some reason, our celebration of Easter doesn’t always coincide with the Jewish celebration of Passover. That makes no sense to me. Anyway, it was “Resurrection Sunday” and we celebrated the historical fact of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

In John 11:25-26 Jesus says “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” Then He goes on to ask this tiny little question: “Do you believe this?”

Saturday my grandmother (on my mother’s side) passed away. Her answer was, “yes.” She believed it and because of that, we have absolute confidence that she lives even though she died. Her spiritual life (the Greek zoe) goes on.

The first time OTC got together, we talked about whether or not Jesus told the truth about who He is. We determined that He did, and thank God He did, too - otherwise right now I would be in grieve with no hope. I would be numbing myself with empty words about how my loved one is “in a better place” and “at peace” - without being convinced of the truth. Instead, I have the humble confidence that my grandmother is with Jesus in heaven, and that because my answer to His question about belief is also “yes,” I too will live even though I die. I have hope that my spiritual life will continue after my physical death.

The word Jesus used, that we translate “believe,” is really interesting. It’s the Greek pisteuo, which is a “holistic” belief. It involves the mind being convinced, the heart being convicted and the will being committed. This is what we need in order to be saved and to know spiritual life. It’s not mindless or “blind” faith - it is informed and a conscious rational decision. The mind must be convinced that Jesus is the truth. It is not strictly head-knowledge, however. We must believe in our hearts with our emotion and conviction. And finally we must commit - willfully place our trust in Jesus and make a commitment to Him. Many people “convert” to Christianity due to an emotional experience, but their mind might not be convinced and their will has made no commitment to Him. That’s a dangerous place to be. A similar inbalance can take place with the other sides, a commitment with no knowledge, or knowledge with no belief, etc. is not what Jesus desires. But when we believe in Him fully, with all that we are, the hope of eternity fills us and changes our lives forever.

So I have lost a dear member of our family. But I am filled with hope because Jesus is who He said He is - the Son of God who gave His life as a substitute for my sin, and rose from the dead to prove His superiority and authority over it. And because He did, we now know that we who believe in Him with all that we are will experience the same. Life eternal - the great mystery of a man or woman who lives even though He dies.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 - And now, brothers and sisters, I want you to know what will happen to the Christians who have died so you will not be full of sorrow like people who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus comes, God will bring back with Jesus all the Christians who have died.

Mildred Harker is alive.

Haven’t posted here in a while - this is more of a journal of the process for myself than anything else, since I doubt it gets read… but life has certainly been crazy lately. I’ve been swamped under a lot of work & also wrapping up a seminary class. As a result, we had a coffeehouse night last sunday (3/2) rather than a normal meeting since I had zilch time to prepare a message. The coffeehouse was a lot of fun and we had some very cool visitors so thanks to everyone who came & invited people. And of course, thanks to Troy @ Cosmic Cup Coffee, our gracious host. We will definitely have to do that again!

God is definitely moving - we’re checking out a couple possibilities for a more effective meeting space on Sunday evenings. I had a very encouraging meeting with the pastor & an elder of Cornerstone Evangelical Free church, a great & growing Easton church we’d love to partner with.

My heart is stirring with the need to get out and get among the community to be able to connect with folks and hopefully build some “redemptive relationships.” We’re about to look at Matthew 5:13-16, where Jesus says:

“(13) You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it useful again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. (14) You are the light of the world – like a city on a mountain, glowing in the night for all to see. (15) Don’t hide your light under a basket! Instead, put it on a stand and let it shine for all. (16) In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.”

The temptation to get under a basket is so very strong. You can sound very spiritual doing so, as well. We can glory in our “inreach” and “discipleship” and pray fervently that God would “draw people to us.” I am fighting to resist those temptations and fight back by obeying Jesus and putting the light out on a stand and visibly performing good deeds that encourage people to see and worship God. How exactly will that look? I’m not sure quite yet… but I believe it will start with simply talking to people and being nice for a change. That “ah ha” moment might come, where we have a great idea of something to do that will really make a difference and an impact, but it would be sinful to sit around doing nothing while I wait for the idea.

Come join us on a very challenging and uncomfortable journey - which glorifies God!