Processional Forgiveness and The Lost Virtue

Long ago in a galaxy far away, I went to a very fundamental, very conservative school. We had 7th-12th grade chapel 3 times a week, with a rotating list of pastors and speakers. As clear as the type face in this article, I can still remember this phrase spoken by one of the speakers at our chapel.

"I'm sorry, I was wrong."

It was spoken in context of when we sin against each other. For my middle school years I thought that was in essence the words of forgiveness, but the realization of Biblical forgiveness has left that phrase lacking. So hear are a few steps that have really been helpful to me as God has brought His word to bear in my life.

Step 1:The Book of Virtues by William J. Bennet used to sit on one of my grandmom's end tables, mostly for decoration I think. All told it has some good stories for kids about many virtues, but in keeping with our Western world values it misses one virtue...HUMILITY. This is where forgiveness starts.

Step 2: (when we sin against someone) Martin Luther in his famous Wittenburg graffiti started off his Protestant Reformation (if only he knew) paper with this simple concept: The Christian life of one marked by humble repentance. That's cause he also knew it was marked by prideful sin. Feel free to include I'm sorry,I was wrong in your forgiveness request, but follow it up with, will you forgive me? I'm sorry I was wrong is only good by itself when you make a mistake (i.e. Spill soda on someone, cut someone you didn't see off while driving to work, etc), not when you sin.

Sometimes we think that being ready to forgive means the person is forgiven, but that is not true. (Click to tweet)

Step 2: (if sinned against) Be ready to forgive, and if necessary confront. To quote Rex from Toy Story "I don't like confrontation!", but seriously I don't. Of these two I am far more willing to readily forgive than to confront, but that darn Jesus who loves me so well is always confronting me with His Bible...ever have a similar experience? NOTE: Sometimes we think that being ready to forgive means the person is forgiven, but that is not true. Being ready to forgive requires us to humbly give up our feelings of vengeance, or retribution, and to complete the process requires the need for humility on the part of the one who committed the transgression initially. Also, just because the process is complete doesn't mean trust and relationship must resume as it was previously. There are times when the sin demands trust be rebuilt from the ground up, and the relationship may need to stop for a season and resume in a dramatically different way then previously. Don't let the process of forgiveness lead you to foolishness.

 Just because the (forgiveness) process is complete, doesn't mean trust and relationship must resume as it was previously. (Click to tweet)

Step 3: You cannot forget. God cannot forget. When we place our faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. God then views our sin through the lens of the atoning work of His Son. When the process of forgiveness has taken place you must view the forgiven sin of the offender through the lens of the Love of Jesus that He has for you and the offender.(**Remember previous "Also" comment) If you have been forgiven, don't let guilt and shame shape your life. Instead, let the forgiveness and love extended remind you of the Cross that saves you. Remember, Paul tells us that "It is your Kindness Lord that Leads us to Repentance". Let the Cross "spur you on to love and good works" that change who you were to who God calls you to be. 

"Peter opened his mouth"

So Peter opened his mouth and said, "Truly I understand that God shows no partiality..." in Acts 12:34 we see the first time that the story of Christ is told to a person outside the Jewish community. But my point is not the "what" but the "how". I was thinking of a very prevalent pattern in many mainstream church's these days, the pattern is one of lifestyle evangelism that performs very well in good deeds and betterment but light on the reason and motivation behind them. Let me put it this way; if this story were written today, it may go something like this: "So Peter, upon receiving a clear mandate from God, went to this person and said nothing but tried to develop a relationship with them in order that, perhaps, someday they may understand that his deeds were Christian in nature and then they might start asking questions about his faith". </p>
Hold on there, Johnny!! You say: "I'm not Peter and I ain't Jesus, so who are you to tell me I have to actually speak my faith to someone so they might feel uncomfortable around me and erode my friendship with them?" I'm just saying that we should both live an speak the gospel and not leave it to chance that a person might stumble into faith accidentally, but that we become intentional in our actions and verbalize our reliance on Christ to complement our deeds. We are called to take the guesswork out of our lives. If we are not intentional in our gospel presentation than we are wrong in our understanding of our gospel call.

As uncomfortable as discussion
So let me offer some suggestions as to why it's easier to live a silent gospel life:

1) We would rather "fraternize" than "eternalize".  What the hey does that mean??  I mean that we would be much more flamboyant about our faith if we knew how good our ending is. A proper internalizing of eternity is what would drive us to want all those in relationship with us to join us in forever with Jesus. If we care enough to build relationships here,  why wouldn't we want to offer that relationship a lasting hope in the presence of God. As Paul Tripp rightfully teaches we should live with eternity in view. And...

2) We would rather play the odds than say the words.  The Easy part is appearing good in our relationships. We play against the odds that they will just assume we are better than most,  thus fulfilling our spiritual obligations as a good soldier. Odds are people will figure out your a Christian by a Bible comment here and a church comment there but that's about the extent of it.  This is not the gospel call to make disciples.  You can't make followers without sharing whom they should follow,  but odds are your actions won't distinguish you apart from all the other good deed doers in the world. Odds are in your favor that you won't have to be overt in your faith. And...

3) We would rather call ourselves hypocrites than show how we repent.  It's easier to be a good person than to be a real person who struggles and repents.  We often think that after a long time of showing visible good works and hopefully building a relationship that then we could show them the chunks in the Armor.  If we show them too early we will just be labeled a hypocrites and written off.  I dare say that a Christian who first shows them self as as good repenters first could establish a deeper friendship from the get go.  To hide our faults in order to win an opportunity to build a relationship would be called manipulation.

Regardless of why,  I know I must become less content with mediocre attempts at relationships and be determined to verbalize my acts,  both good and bad,  in light of the grace of the gospel.

EJ
John Gruber

Teaching: covenant community vs membership

AAA, the gym, Sam's Club,  fraternity, NRO, PTA, QVC- all things you could hold a membership in.  You pay a fee and become a member. Such is our perception of the word "membership".  We pay and get benefits.  I've been thinking in regards to our perception of being a "member" in a church.  It's been my observation that, by and large, the "pay a fee get a benefit"  membership style is what mostly permeates the majority of Christians I know.  I don't mean to condemn but do mean to challenge the biblical premise of adhering to a local body of believers known as a church in the form of membership.

As a church member,  how often do we go,  give, participate, and expect a return. "Return",  You say? Yes, a return.  I give my time,  talents, and tithes and I get a sermon I like, a comfortable group to share common life experiences with, and a staff to meet my neediness.  I have the right to evaluate my investment and decide to continue or shop for a better membership. If it sounds like consumerism you'd be right. But heck,  we're Americans after all, we have the freedom to worship wherever the heck we please. Right? Really? I guess so in a sense; but I think of those early,  first Christians,  who had no other churches to choose but the one they were in. What did "membership"  look like to them?

For one,  I don't think they would understand our idea at all because Paul never taught it.  Nowhere do we see a principle of due paying membership. What we do see is a covenant mentality and verbiage that glued those early believers together.  Covenants are some serious stuff in the scriptures. God made them with all the iconic men of the Old Testament. David, Moses, Noah, Abraham, and even Adam. A study of each of these covenants always had a binding agreement that could not be edited, changed, bought out, or misinterpreted. Some of them were based on conditions, some were unconditional. So what,  you say? God knows, uses, and prefers a binding agreement over a flea market style of membership where allegiances could be bought, sold, traded, or passed over.

One covenant in The Bible stands out as the paramount of all covenants. Jesus said,  "take and drink this,  this is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you."  New Covenant??  What Jesus is meaning is that He is the fulfillment of all those covenants, He is saying that "I am the one promised in the Adamic covenant as the one who will crush Satan's head",  "I am the one covenant keeping creator that will not destroy the world"  to Moses. "I am the deliverer of all the nations that I promised you, Abraham", "David- I am the Covenant King promised". The New Covenant is why we can even consider what church is.  The New Covenant allows us to see our binding agreement of faith in Christ as final, unchangeable, and sure. I am a part of the family of God that is bound in covenant.

Membership will never carry the weight of being a covenant community. One of the greatest defenses in the current church culture is that of discipline.  Part of membership is to be able to allow the process of church discipline to take place.  If your not a member of the local church than you are unable to be called out for your habitual,  rebelliousness.  No dues paid,  no ability to touch you.  REALLY? On one hand the need for reconciling saints in rebellion is a great and terrible responsibility of all churches.  But this is a weak argument for the membership idea.  First,  all believers qualify for being disciplined from the godly leaders whom God has placed in qualified roles.  Second,  the covenant community must function far more deeply than just the threat of discipline as the glue that holds the structure together.

Covenantal imagery is a deeply robust function exemplified by a covenant keeping God. Covenant community is best seen in Ephesians 5 in the famous, or infamous depending on your understanding if submission, passage of the husband and wife as paralleled by the church and Christ. If we approach the wedding vows like a membership,  what would that say about our marriage to Christ? But if we approach the wedding vows that Christ and I have made in respect to a covenant... How much deeper and rich is my understanding of His love for me. How much more will I faithfully serve him in my vow, promise, covenant.

If I am in a covenant relationship with Christ,  then how are you and I in a binding agreement? Let me throw some things at you.  If the church,  all believers,  everywhere and "everywhen", are bound in a covenant marriage to Christ,  then by association we are bound to each other.  Next the verbiage of the New Testament is one of binding community.  Ever read the "one another's"  of the NT.  Over 38 times this Greek phrase is used.  Literally translated "of (belonging to) each other" or "of one another".  Our literal understanding is that I am of you and you are of me.  We are part of the same spiritual entity.  Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12 would say we are all parts of the same body.  We are bound together to make up one body.  We are, covenant style, bound to each other.  We are of one another. This is why we must love, confront, confess our sins to, honor, who?... One another!

This is much deeper than membership to a group, this is covenantal love and is why we live in covenantal relationship as a church.

Bootcamp decompression thoughts

Bootcamp Blog: Reorientation

I've been thinking of how God uses anything at His disposal to warm I a person's heart.  At the Acts29 Bootcamp this past week I watched about 600 men sing with passion songs about their God.  Some raised hands,  some bowed their heads, some were on their toes, but most all were singing loudly to God.  What the heck was that about. 

In the real world men are solitary, territorial souls that mingle only over hobbies, sports, or common interests. This week I met men from all over the country,  whom I knew nothing about, shared no connection with, or who knew me; interact through the only common thread that stitched us together: faith in Christ. This seemingly tenuous thread has broken through the stigmas of maleness,  blown apart the stereotypical ideas of manhood, and destroyed our cultural bent towards machismo. This thread of salvation can make grown men sing like seraphim, pray like holy men of old, and weep with the most derelict of repenters.

My point is that there is a movement that God is growing that is making true men,  manly men that actually sing passionately instead of just moving their lips,  who love Jesus,  cherish their wives, and forsake those childish things that take and consume instead if give and build up. These are the men I observed and interacted with.  These are the types of men that God is raising up in this country to begin new,  vibrant, gospel centered communities called churches.  I was blessed to be part of this grand and godly movement.  Thank you,  God,  for encouraging my heart through Your work in the hearts of my band of church planting brothers.

Lunch with a Fellow Planter

bootcamp diary entry: Thursday lunch

LUNCH WITH WESTON
digest this for a lunch: I saw an opp yesterday to meet with a young church planter who is currently working with Epiphany Church in Philly. I exchanged numbers and we texted back n forth to see when we could meet. We landed on lunch today. We met him on the steps and introduced ourselves.  I must say,  we instantly connected. We ended up walking and talking of how God was working in our lives. We ended up walking several blocks before we realized we needed to actually eat during our lunch break.  We ended up at Uncle Bill's breakfast restaurant. We each shared our story over various styles eggs.

Weston shared his heart for the Germantown section of Philly- his only hesitancy was it wasn't "hood" enough.  What do you mean it's not good enough"? "no, not HOOD enough! " you see,  Weston is an urban church planter.  His burden is to reach into the hurts and needs of the inner city neighborhoods. He has spent several years planning and being trained to plant a church.  I have no doubt that he and his wife and 1 and a half children (one is due in March) will be used in Germantown to proclaim the Gospel.  We were so encouraged by him and look forward go being with him the his first Sunday he meets. A new friend was made and we can all use new friends to complement our old ones.

Dinner and a movi... ng message!

bootcamp diary entry: Wednesday Dinner

We found a great local spot called "Local Harvest" and I had a Missouri Meatball stuffed with all kind of goodness. But what we really devoured was a conversation about the mission and vision of MD.  WE ARE DETERMINED TO NAIL THIS DOWN ASAP!  We bought dome wine and local homemade icecream and had desert in the apartment. My head is swimming with encouraging stuff and my heart is ready to get back and tell Pat this crazy notion that we are full steam ahead.

bootcamp diary entry: Thursday

bfast in the apartment consisted of leftovers: last of the icecream,  finished of the bottom of a sweet Riesling,  bagel with cream cheese,  and coffee. arrived at the conference to have Darrin Patrick speak into the marriage aspects of a church planter. OUCH! started off with familiar stuff from Ephesians 5 and I thought "man I got this thing nailed"!  wasn't too long though that I realized I had been hoodwinked into a very convicting sermon on just how poorly I've included my wife in this church plant notion- and most other areas of my life ad well.  I have some repenting to do when I get home. Darrin's wife ended the session speaking from her heart about what a a husband can do and be in this planting process- man did that help me!

ACTS29 LEONCE CRUMP GOOD STUFF

Bootcamp diary entry: Wednesday afternoon

Speaker: Leonce Crump: The real mission: people meeting Jesus! "to what end" How can we not tell a person about Christ as the reason for our kind acts of mercy.  A powerful communicator with a powerful message that being a Christian means verbalizing the "why" behind the good actions we do.  It's not the gospel if we think we can just continue to do good to others and somehow think that they will eventually figure out that we are Christians. We are called to proclaim the good news in both deed and word 1 Peter 2:9 "that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light". "Preach the word, if need be use words" is commonly touted by Christians and attributed to Fancis of Assisi, however; truth be told this isn't biblical nor can you find a place in his writings that he actually said it. The point Leonce made was compelling- we are called to speak out and not merely perform acts of kindnesses toward others. on a personal note, Having seen the response to hurricane Sandy in NJ I have not seen evidence of any real impact for the sake of the gospel by churches that have supplied aid to the hurting and displaced. The outpouring of volunteers and supplies have been enormous from organizations and individuals,  yet the deeds of unchurched efforfts are equal to those of the church if Chdristians remain silent about the good news of Jesus. There is no difference in the benevolence of saved or unsaved unless Christ is made known in our actions.  Good stuff indeed!

Wednesday ACTS 29 STUFF

bootcamp diary entry: Wednesday wake up
That great pizza last night had great lasting effects on me but I am so psyched to get rolling with the conference. It starts at 1 so we have the morning to acclimate to the setting. It's a beautiful section of the city and the conference is literally a walk in the park to get to.

bootcamp diary entry: Wednesday Conference begins
Had an awesome bfast with Justin n Nathan. At the journey church chatting with acts29 staff. Already made some good connections planning on making more!
First session
Wow!  Worship is ernegetic in a way I've never seen before! "Praise the Lord oh my soul, oh my soul. Worship His holy name"

Speaker John Bryson: "Don't just plant a church, plant a teaching church! One that teaches and trains leaders to plant another church". "itvs better to mot planta church than to plant a jacked up church" . "Church plantingbis miserable and awesome all wrapped up into one".  Matthew 5 (feeding of the 5k) "Your ability to plant a church is like 5 sardines and a few saltines". "Boys take and consume: men give". "There were only 4 peoplr in the garden God, Satan,  Adam, and Eve. . . and Adam still couldn't pin it on himself! "

A29

bootcamp diary entry: Wednesday wake up

That great pizza last night had great lasting effects on me but I am so psyched to get rolling with the conference. It starts at 1 so we have the morning to acclimate to the setting. It's a beautiful section of the city and the conference is literally a walk in the park to get to.

From St. Louis With Love

I was just mulling over the content from the preaching of Dwayne Bond (thus the James Bond reference in the Title). He is an Acts 29 pastor in Charleotte, NC, and spoke on Lessons Learned from Church PLanting.
He gave us a list of things that we can be tempted in as we walk down the road to church planting (or anywhere in leadership for that matter):

Perform, Pretend, Control, Worry, Hate

The interesting thing that I kept thinking was how UN-remarkable the list itself was. Much like the qualifications for an Elder (1 Timothy 3:1-7 , Titus 1:5-9) are required of all believers elsewhere in the Bible, the difference in them is the call God would put on individuals lives. Thus this list is a potential pitfall to any in leadership of our formative years, but also to any that attend and find themselves called to the mission of Missio Dei. It is very insightful to lay these ideas out since for many of us we can relate with several if not all of these lines of thinking to the detriment of the gospel work in our lives.

Here is the core lie that we work from in each of these 5 bad fruits:

We perceive our reality in light of our expectations instead of re-calibrating our reality and expectations around Christ.

Perform

The snare in performance is when we allow our performance to make us feel good abut ourselves in our accomplishments. OR conversely we let our performance make us depressed because of our lack of accomplishments. Our identity is based on what we can and cant do, when instead it should be on Jesus and what He has and will do through us despite ourselves.

Pretend

In essence this is basically "painting on a happy face". Often in Christianity we like to look better than we actually are. We believe that by pretending to be "better" we will somehow magnify the amazing power of the Gospel into some Holy elixir that cleans up all our crap and turns it into roses. In reality all this does is rob the gospel of it's power by making it UN-appealing for all those people who are actually broken and know that there is no way they will ever be clean. These people are right, they never will be clean, so how bout we show them that we aren't actually clean, but simply holy, set apart by Jesus because of His perfection not ours.

Control

Somehow if we can exercise authority over all the areas in our lives we can maximize our opportunities and it will all get done right. NOT! In leadership this mentality robs people of the opportunity to grow, minister, fail, learn, and lead by giving opportunities and then re-claiming or scrapping them at the first sign of mis-managment or failure, or gives the opportunity but not the authority thus keeping it under our control as the leader (micro-management). In general when we attempt to control even our own lives it sets us up for the ultimate failure by replacing God with ourselves. When we are on the throne that is God's it only goes one way. BAD.

Worry

Have you ever worried about the worry that worrying causes? I know. It's bad, right? Worry in leadership sucks you dry! When you worry you take the Sovereignty of God away from Him and make Him as frail and capable of failure as you are. Let me help you out, whether in leadership or not, YOU WILL FAIL, hard and often. But God won't, in fact He is so the complete perfect that He takes our fails and makes than His successes (Genesis 45:4-8). Yep He's that good.

Hate 

Players gonna play; Haters gonna hate. In leadership this is when we seek out anyway we cna downplay the success that others have, or highlight our successes in comparison to others failures. The point is to blow up our ego while shattering others. This is a common practice whether inside or outside leadership. One-Uping, humiliation, false humility, sarcasm can all be tools of the well versed hater (all of which I feel i am very good at, unfortunately). The Kryptonite to Hating is contentment. Being content where God has us and in doing exactly what He has called us to. After all it's all about Jesus any way. His glory not my name.       

 

More stuff from my head n heart

bootcamp diary entry: Tuesday flight
I was wondering when one comes to grips with being identified with the idea that you now introduce yourself as a "church planter"? What in the world must that sound like to someone who is unchurched. Heck even the term unchurched is foreign to the unregenerate. Crap! Unregenerate? When was the last time you used any of these words in a sentence outside of church?

bootcamp diary entry: Tuesday Arrival at apartment
Really nice section of town. God provided a great location for us- within walking distance of our conference. We ate at a local pub and had awesome pizza and a beer- turns out we think it was a gay bar. Anyway, I was thinking over the day. Work, then a funeral, then vote, then pack, then fly here, then eat with my buds. God did some amazing things today.  He powerfully forged ahead of my wife as we attended a very tense funeral. A time that I thought would fill her with fear and strangle her with inferior thoughts turned out to be wonderfully smooth. She summed it up on the way there, "if fear controls us then there's no room for Christ to control us". Pretty good day.

On Mission at ACTS29

Some thoughts on our church planting trip:

bootcamp diary entry: Tuesday night flight

In the air now, somewhere over western PA, with two fellow church planters. How do I know they are going to be good planters? Well, one has their bible open to the first letter Paul wrote to the Thessalonians and the other is reading Community by Brad House. I am highlighting in The Meaning of Marriage by Tim Keller. I am wondering what God will do after we return. I guess I am concerned about this crazy notion that the God of creation actually needs our help to build His church. I find out tomorrow how this thing works from people who have already navigated through the struggles, sacrifices, and special blessings of starting a church.

Study Session

As I was studying for nursing school at the Barnes and Noble for Rowan University in Glassboro, I was secretly studying the people around me as well. I went to B&N on a mission: to familiarize myself with the culture Misiso Dei is trying to reach. I watched two younger guys make spreadsheets and discuss finance two tables down. To my left was a girl  sitting "coffee shop-style" in an oversized lounge chair reading a book. As my study session progressed, I realized that this is doable. 

Church planting has been a huge (exciting, but huge) task in my head for the past few weeks. Glassboro looks a lot bigger when I look at it as a mission field, a warzone. But watching the people in B&N, I realized these people were just like me. That fact alone gave me peace. Jesus came to save people like me, so there should be absolutely no reason why I need to be intimidated about the seemingly daunting task of planting in Glassboro. But I still wondered, What does it take?

"Glassboro looks a lot bigger when I look at is as a mission field." Post to Twitter

Then a man with a limp started tripping down the escalator. 
I shot up and got to him (the only one who tried, which astounded me). The poor man's cane had fallen the 30ft down the escalator, and I accompanied him the rest of the way down, making sure he didn't' follow all his belongings down as well. After he was situated, I rode back up the escalator and continued studying.

That's what Glassboro needs to see! They need to see Missio Dei in the community, helping to make it better, and sharing Jesus as we go!

We're currently forming a mission statement, but it's only for legalities. We know what mission we have! As we look forward to our soft launch November 4th, lets not forget it! See you Sunday.

Change- by John Gruber

This post was written by John Gruber back in 2008. The truths still apply today, so we'd like to share them with you. Enjoy!

I used to think there were only two certainties in life- death and taxes. While the one is inescapable the other is a constant drain on all the oppressed who are blessed with an income. There is however another definite constant that is unavoidable. It is undeniable and blatantly obvious. It goes on in us and around us everyday. It even happens while we are sleeping. It is change. I write this as a person who is changing and I am writing to you, a person who is different today than you were yesterday, last week, last month, last year.

To say we do not change is to deny a fundamental truth of human existence. However, of all the ways that change happens to you and me, the spiritual changes are often the hardest to recognize. It’s not hard to see the change that marriage makes, or the change in income between the old job, the new job, or no job at all. It’s not hard to see your child change from crawling to walking to running. Yet if you evaluate how you are better suited to live this thing called the Christian life, you may find it a little more difficult to see those areas of needed change.

"To say we do not change is to deny a fundamental truth of human existence." Post to Twitter

One Bible professor said it this way, “Only one word describes the life of a believer, and that word is “change”.” Now I would have said “saved”, “redeemed”. “born again” and so on. The word change truly captures the essence of our spiritual journey and resting place in the Savior, Jesus Christ. I was changed from lost to found, from dead in my sin to alive in Christ, from sinner to saint. As grand and glorious as salvation is, change does not stop upon our acceptance of the free Gift. No, change defines the actual life of true believers. Change from self and the old man to Christ-likeness and towards living out of our new nature. This change is testimony of a God who is alive, active, and pursuing all those who are his children.
 
Often times His desire to change us goes unnoticed, and then there are those ordained moments when He desires to change us in ways so deep and to the core that we wince, cry, and even kick against it. After all, although we can’t deny that we need to change sometimes we just feel safe that things are the way they are. So infinite and deep is our God’s knowledge of what is good for us that change takes on dimensions that are unfamiliar and down right scary to us. 

"So critical is our need to be changed into the image of Christ that God has a no-holds-barred approach in our sanctification process." Post to Twitter

I think of the changes over the past several years in my own life. It seems that the most dark and troublesome times brought about the most deep and lasting change. Those things I feared greatly were used to strip me of the nuts and bolts that I thought life in Christ was all about. My journey began as my wife, Pat, regressed into depression- a depression so deep that our lives were turned inside out. What used to be safe and secure was stripped away. Confidences in finances, job security, physical health, family, friends, church, home, and worst of all, faith evaporated in a few horrific months. Feet that found safety on the firm ground of “normal” found a slippery slope that slid down to a dark, foreboding pit.  Hope in God met squarely with hope in medicine. Faith in God looked face to face with reliance on self. There was no comfort, there was no relief, there was no joy, there was no light. Looking back, I still shutter at the shear horror of that time. I don’t wish it on anyone, in fact I would rather trade places with someone in the pit of depression. I can say this because I know that lasting change has at its very core in a God who changes what we call bad and arduous into something good and holy. So here I am, changed. Seeing in retrospect what was the only solution possible to mold and make Pat and me into children of the King that look more like Him and function in ways that bring Him glory. Those of you reading who know me, know that this child of the King isn’t perfect yet. I need more change, don’t I? Perhaps it will come slow and comfortably, perhaps it will come swiftly and painfully. There are no guarantees as to how God will grow us, but this one fact shows His great and abiding grace and power- He will change us and He will change us for our good and His eternal purposes. Isn’t that worth rejoicing over!

welcome to missio Dei.