Monday, September 19, 2011

Grace Church Spokane

It’s only ten and half months now until we make the move to Spokane and the countdown feels like it’s gaining speed. The training I’ve been doing (Church Planting Training, a great opportunity offered through Newfrontiers USA) is progressing nicely and I feel like God is honing me significantly through this. I’m currently reading Aubrey Malphurs’ book Planting Growing Churches For The 21st Century and the Redeemer Church Planting Manual by Tim Keller and Allen Thompson. They’re challenging me to communicate a very clear vision for what God is calling us to do in Spokane. While I’ve had a pretty clear vision internally it’s been extremely helpful to have to write it down! I’ll give a brief summary in a minute, but here’s what else is up these days.
The kids and Becca are back in school and the fall schedule is in full swing: Irish dance for the girls, Boy Scouts for Gabe, church activities for all of them and our Community Group kicking off tonight. (The Community Group is our church’s version of smaller home groups since not everyone can really grow by just showing up at a meeting once a week on Sunday morning – in fact, no one really grows much that way!) Our Monday night group will focus in on relational evangelistic outreach into Missoula while also gearing up toward the church plant into Spokane. We’ll be asking anyone interested in joining the Spokane plant team to join us on Monday nights for prayer, training and outreach into Missoula.
We spent most of the summer getting our house ready to sell and it is finally on the market as of September. We had our first “open house” yesterday afternoon to show it. The place looks great and should sell itself if we can get people through the door. (If anyone knows someone looking for homes in Missoula send them our way – we’re selling this house ourselves. Don’t worry, we sold our last house ourselves too and it worked out great.) Please pray that we can connect with the right buyer for our home!
Okay, here’s a little sneak peak into the future of Grace Church Spokane. (Yeah, that’s still a potential name, but it’s gaining momentum. Let me know what you think of it!)
Why We Are Here:
Grace Church Spokane exists to glorify God as we enjoy and serve Him, each other, our city and the nations of the world.
I know you expected to read more, but there will be much more on the way soon. For now, notice two key words: “enjoy” and “serve.” These will be very important to the success and future of Spokane Grace Church. We will enjoy God, enjoy life together, enjoy the city of Spokane and enjoy connecting internationally. We will also be intentionally involved in service in every one of these areas. Sound like a challenge? Come with us. It will be hard work but it will also be greatly rewarding.