Probably the End

A lot of things have happened since the last time anyone came here or wrote anything.  Sarah and Nate have had a baby, Justin and I have moved to another apartment, several people have graduated, our small groups do not exist anymore as a church entity.  I do not doubt that God will bring people to Madison someday, and I do not doubt that many of the people who were once so active on this site will end up serving the lord there, we just will probably not really do it together. 

I wonder what happens to the fire of the youth?  Does anyone know, probably not its probably written in a book somewhere.  But a story and an analogy come to mind, In my head I feel a loss of the child like faith Jesus talks about.  It occurs to me that there is a very specific reason Jesus says that the Kingdom of heaven belong to such as these (children).  When you are not hindered by life, or money or expectations there are so many dreams and accomplishments you can do.  But for those of us who have passed into the land of responsibility there will never again be talk of amazing adventures or crazy and unexpected plans to reach the world.  Now decisions will be calculated, and talked about in the secret of the night for weeks with only one other person.  Gone are the days, and here is the end of the excited talks of young men behind closed doors of going out and living crazed existences with out a care in the world except for lost souls.  Gone are the days of all night sleepovers where anything can happen and plans are laid for their fruition. 

We now will go to work and plan our budgets and great plans are waylaid by finances and night with our spouse, the only other person to here of our plans.  Maybe I will always wish for the forgotten days, not those of high-school or childhood but of my college days.  I now understand that those were great years.  Alone in the world with my thoughts and plans, free from bills and jobs when everything was possible.  the knowledge to do anything for God was right around the corner and everyone was excited about every day.  A movie describes this state of mind as “The Happy land of make-believe”  Thats where we have been my friends, and know we are moving in to the world of grownups , the world some of us swore we would never enter.  I am sad to see dreams be marred by checkbooks and jobs, but it is the way of the world and one can only hope that the faith of living with no money and trusting only God will not soon disappear from our minds.

Maybe some day we will all end up doing what we had planed together, from where I sit and where the light looks to be heading that future is gone.  I don’t know if it was the right path or not; God only lights our feet not the way ahead.  To be honest my future is up in the air and I have no clue what will happen but there is little excitement anymore.  This is the end of the years of carefree living, we a responsible now and that is not a bad thing.  We must watch this era pass as the others have with dignity and gratitude.  For what we have learned about our selves and what we have learned about one-another.  I will always pray for all of you, and thank God for your faith, and your trust even if it looks different now.  Do not forget the days of your youth, for they were there for a reason, but we are no longer the children at Jesus feet.

Long Time

Hey all ya’ll out there just wondering how everyone is and what your up to.  Let me know if there is anything I can pray for you.  If you would like I need some prayer about a cituation where I am totally not trusting God and I am getting mad eventhough I know it’s not really my buisness.  Hope you are all well and school is treating you great.  Talk to you soon.

Andrea N

Gideon Fear and God’s Glory

 This is the story of Gideon.  Our pastor Steve Nelson gave this yesterday (Sunday) It was a message on God’s glory but also about the trust our whole church is putting into our plant to El Paso.  Some of the group is already in El Paso and Steve has his house up on the market.  This is a story about how they are going down there with 30 people and if they do this on their own strength they are going to fail, but when they do succeed the Glory will only be given to God because he made all things happen. 

Then at the bottom are some notes from the message, please tell me what you all think about this.

1Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. 2Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. 3Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. 4 They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. 5 They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count the men and their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it. 6Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the LORD for help.

11The angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. 12 When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.”

 13“But sir,” Gideon replied, “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian.”

 14The LORD turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”

36 Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised- 37 look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.” 38 And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water.

 39 Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece. This time make the fleece dry and the ground covered with dew.” 40 That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew. 1Early in the morning, Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) and all his men camped at the spring of Harod. The camp of Midian was north of them in the valley near the hill of Moreh. 2The LORD said to Gideon, “You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands. In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her, 3 announce now to the people, ‘Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.’ ” So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained.

 4 But the LORD said to Gideon, “There are still too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will sift them for you there. If I say, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go; but if I say, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.”

 5 So Gideon took the men down to the water. There the LORD told him, “Separate those who lap the water with their tongues like a dog from those who kneel down to drink.” 6 Three hundred men lapped with their hands to their mouths. All the rest got down on their knees to drink.

 7The LORD said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. Let all the other men go, each to his own place.” 8 So Gideon sent the rest of the Israelites to their tents but kept the three hundred, who took over the provisions and trumpets of the others.
      Now the camp of Midian lay below him in the valley. 9 During that night the LORD said to Gideon, “Get up, go down against the camp, because I am going to give it into your hands. 10If you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah 11and listen to what they are saying. Afterward, you will be encouraged to attack the camp.” So he and Purah his servant went down to the outposts of the camp. 12The Midianites, the Amalekites and all the other eastern peoples had settled in the valley, thick as locusts. Their camels could no more be counted than the sand on the seashore.

 13Gideon arrived just as a man was telling a friend his dream. “I had a dream,” he was saying. “A round loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed.”

 14His friend responded, “This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands.”

 15 When Gideon heard the dream and its interpretation, he worshiped God. He returned to the camp of Israel and called out, “Get up! The LORD has given the Midianite camp into your hands.” 16 Dividing the three hundred men into three companies, he placed trumpets and empty jars in the hands of all of them, with torches inside.

 17 “Watch me,” he told them. “Follow my lead. When I get to the edge of the camp, do exactly as I do. 18 When I and all who are with me blow our trumpets, then from all around the camp blow yours and shout, ‘For the LORD and for Gideon.’ “

 19 Gideon and the hundred men with him reached the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after they had changed the guard. They blew their trumpets and broke the jars that were in their hands. 20 The three companies blew the trumpets and smashed the jars. Grasping the torches in their left hands and holding in their right hands the trumpets they were to blow, they shouted, “A sword for the LORD and for Gideon!” 21While each man held his position around the camp, all the Midianites ran, crying out as they fled.

 22When the three hundred trumpets sounded, the LORD caused the men throughout the camp to turn on each other with their swords. The army fled to Beth Shittah toward Zererah as far as the border of Abel Meholah near Tabbath. 23Israelites from Naphtali, Asher and all Manasseh were called out, and they pursued the Midianites. 24Gideon sent messengers throughout the hill country of Ephraim, saying, “Come down against the Midianites and seize the waters of the Jordan ahead of them as far as Beth Barah.”
      So all the men of Ephraim were called out and they took the waters of the Jordan as far as Beth Barah. 25They also captured two of the Midianite leaders, Oreb and Zeeb. They killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb at the winepress of Zeeb. They pursued the Midianitesand brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon, who was by the Jordan.

God wants our lives to Glorify him.     Isaiah 43:7

God gets the Most glory when we get the Least.      2 Corinthians 12: 9-10

Living a life that glorifies God is Frightening.

Fear is overcome be Confidence in God.          Proverbs 28: 25b-26a

Confidence in God is gained by knowing that you are in his will.            Mathew 28: 19-20

I hope that encourages ya’ll as much as it did me.  Hope everyone is have a great day.

Andrea

The Wait

These last few months have been an emotional roller-coaster for me. To be fair, I’ve been digging deep into my memories and getting alot of childhood/early adolescent memories healed up and addressed, so that’s been the cause of some of it. Alot of it, though, has centered on this whole Madison Plant concept/idea.

A year ago I would have told everyone I met that I was going to be a pastor some day, “not because anyone told me I should be one - in fact, no one has that I can remember - but because I have the drive within me to get there”. The first time I wrote that down in my journal and looked at it, I had several red lights going off in my brain. That’s the wrong reason to be a pastor.

What I’ve recently realized is that I wanted to be a pastor to prove to everyone in the world that I can be “someone”. And mixed in there was also the thought that “no pastor in our whole movement is ever gonna care about Madison, I’m gonna have to man up and do this myself.” I’ve thought about the potential Chicago Plant and how one of the factors that kept them from going was the lack of strong leadership. And I thought “Not on my watch. I’ll lead if I have to, but we’re going.”

And now here I am. With quotes like, “We’re gonna need at least one, if not two pastors experienced in church planting…”, and “I dunno, maybe a decade of being a pastor in Ames before you’d be ready…”, and “We just don’t have the quality of men yet to lead a church plant of this difficulty” running through my mind. And I have alot to sort through.

I realized recently that I don’t want to be a pastor. My ego does. The chip on my shoulder does. The competitor in me does. But in my soul, there is no call to ever do that “work”. In my soul there are only two very distinguishable things - I need to know God more intimately, and Madison has something to do with that. And as much as I hate it, I don’t know anything else besides that.

The other stuff that I do know is that we need two “seasoned” pastors to lead us there if we’re going to plant a GCM church, that Tony Hill will probably be on faculty in UW Madison in ~2.5 years, and that the team that I wanted to go will probably be long gone before anything concrete falls into place. I don’t think God is screwing anything up, I just think his pace is different than mine now, I guess.

I don’t want anyone reading this blog to put their life on hold for a plan of mine. So I want to publicly disolve my plans here and now. I’ve said “I don’t know when it’s gonna happen” in the past, but I’ve followed that thought with alot of musings and optimism. I’m gonna repeat that phrase again here, but without the happy follow-up.

I don’t know when I’m gonna go to Madison, and I don’t know who is going with.

This could take 15 years or 2. And it’s completely out of my hands. I’m not going to lead the plant. I’m not going to be a pastor. Alot of things are changing in my heart, and the deeper these changes go, the less I really even know who I am. It’s all changing for the better though.

I’m personally going to wait this out. I’m giving up on trying to convince my leaders to move on this. This is God’s issue. If He lead me, He’ll lead others in His time. I’m just going to watch now. I’ll let you all know if anything changes.

Anyone else planning on waiting?

Prayer Request

This morning our Church heard a message from the newly recognized, soon to be associate Pastor of a Church Plant to El Paso, TX.  In the following months Summitview Greeley, and Summitview Ft. Collins are sending 30 or so people down to El Paso for a brand new church plant.  Tom was recognized in Ft. Collins on Friday at their Rock service.  I would just like to ask that you keep them in your prayers as houses are on the market and everyone is trusting God with Jobs and Homes down there.

It’s an awesome group of people and it has been great to see the two churches come together to reach the world.  It has also been great to watch God work in the lives of two people from my own small group as He showed them his plan for their lives, and watched them take the step in trusting Him.  Praise the Lord.  Thank you for your prayers.

Also Happy Birthday to my wonderful and amazing Husband, Justin!!!