Echoes in Eternity

   "What we do in life, echoes in eternity." I love that line. In the movie "Gladiator", Russell Crowe's character, Maximus, makes that claim as he leads his troops into battle. The character had a different meaning but it's true none the less. One of the coolest things to me, as a Christian, is that I have an opportunity to impact eternity for others. I don't deserve it, it's not by my power or goodness, but I get to shape the eternal destiny of people every day.  The only way I do that is by striving to live for and as Jesus.
   The truth is, everyone impacts eternity. The question is, do we impact it positively or negatively? Do we push people towards hell or towards heaven? I have been blessed for many years now, to help point people to Jesus as a profession. I have struggled with the reasonings, the motives, the effectiveness, the pride struggles, the self-doubt; virtually anything you can wrestle with related to how we perform ministry and lead and train others for ministry. But I am coming to a place where I find peace in my role in the Kingdom. I savor it; I'm thankful for it. I see how God has made me to fill an important part of the Kingdom and how He's continuing to shape me to better fill that role.
   So it invigorates and humbles me to share this with you. This past Sunday, July 31st, I had the privilege to baptize Tanya into Christ! It's an honor I never tire of and each one is special. This one has another layer of significance, though.
   Tanya is the first person immersed in connection to The Knightdale Movement. That is huge. That is a sonic boom in eternity in my opinion. We hope it's the first of many more. In fact, I know it is. Not because I'm awesome or because our team is (they are awesome). It's the first of many because Jesus is Lord and His Gospel is powerful. How many "the many" are will be directly correlated to how many we get out and share the love of Jesus with. But the Gospel never loses its power.
   So pray for us, that we rely on Jesus for our power. Pray for Tanya and her husband Steven and their two boys. They are part of our launch team. It's growing and God is moving. So, no matter if it's a sonic boom or a tiny little echo, I'm glad to know the Knightdale Movement is echoing in eternity. Thanks for your part in the movement!

Tanya, fresh out of the Baptistry!

He Ain't Safe

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” 
― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

    That's a quote from "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", where the question is asked if Aslan is safe. In the story, Aslan represents Jesus. And, he's a Lion.  I love that quote. It's a question I've asked before and many of you probably have as well. We really want to know if it's safe to trust Jesus with our life and follow Him.
    I've battled with that question for much of my ministry and I've made war with that question over the last few months as we've contemplated and finally begun the church planting journey. Church planting is an exciting, exasperating, invigorating, and frightening endeavor. And I haven't truly gotten below the surface yet.
    The whole "Is Jesus safe?"question kept me out of church planting for years. I wanted to follow Him if the path was a smooth, well-marked, well-lit asphalt jogging path. However, I wasn't too excited about following Jesus up and down rugged mountain trails, inches from the cliff and certainly not excited blazing a new trail. Yet, here I stand, clinging to edge of all that's familiar and trying to do my best to blindly forge ahead. Jesus seldom (never?) calls us into safe lives. He calls us to leave everything and follow Him. For you, maybe that's across the street. Or across the yard. Or across town. For me, that is church planting.
    The fear isn't gone. Sometimes it's buried. Deep. Other times, it's the walking dead. It taps me on my shoulder and tries to eat my brains. Sometimes it succeeds. When that happens I have to send it back where it came from. I have to remind it and myself that my success isn't based on my strength, my personality, my skills, my good looks (praise God!), or my benchmarks. My success is based on my faithfulness to the God who is not safe, but He IS Good!
    So I will keep following Him on the paths that He leads me on, and I'll blaze the trails that only He has been on before me.  I'll press on knowing that He is Good and He is with me.

KnightdaleMovement.com

Old Dogs, New Tricks

    Have you ever seen a skeptic converted?  Well, now you have.  I have to admit that for some time I have been a skeptic about the Homecoming and Gospel Rally at MACU, my alma mater. It was formerly, when I attended, Roanoke Bible College.  Since graduation, I have attended sporadically but I have never made it a priority.  Most of my reasons were fairly legitimate. Like most of you, I lead a busy life with ministry or career demands. I have a relatively large family.  There's seldom enough time in the day to do all I need to do.  So it was easy to crowd Gospel Rally out of my To Do list.  I did not really see it as a valuable priority. Until now.
    I made it a priority this year. I was speaking in Delaware and had to drive straight in on Thursday. It took some scheduling and planning and jumping through hoops.  Just what you need, more hoop jumping, right?  But it was worth it. I needed to be there, I just didn't know how much.
    At the moment, my life is in a state of flux. We are attempting to get to know a new church family while constantly on the road and preparing to embark on one of the most, thrilling, terrifying, and faith-stretching adventures of our lives.  I had no idea how much I needed some familiarity, some stability, some comfort.  I needed to see some old familiar faces in some old familiar places.  God used that day and half to remind me that I'm not alone. We have support. There are people who are going through the same things, and there are those who have gone before. We are surrounded by a "great cloud of witnesses." So we will continue to fix our eyes on Jesus and not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 12:1-3)
    Don't misunderstand me.  If you didn't have time, I understand. If life was too busy, I understand. If your kid was sick, I understand. I'm not here to beat you down or guilt you. I'm here to say, it helped me; maybe it will help you. 
    So next year, if you can find time, do it.  Make it a priority. Like me, maybe you will find strength for the journey, a smile from an old friend, or a hug from an amazing saint. Possibly you'll hear that gentle whisper that you wouldn't have heard if you had not run far away for just a couple of days.
    You don't often see skeptics change, but I'm glad this one did.
 

Movement Makers!!!!!!! Sign up!

Sign ups for Movement Makers is here!
If you are willing to commit to praying for The Knightdale Movement when you receive a text or email, please sign up and we'll send you urgent or important prayer requests as they come up.

A few important things:
1. We wont' text you every hour.  Every two hours, tops. ;)
2. Don't feel bad if you can't commit. This is not for everyone.  You don't have to do a guilty sign up.
3. Thanks for considering being a Movement Maker Prayer Partner!
4. Of course, if you don't sign up, still pray!

Follow the link for easy sign up!!

http://vols.pt/661Gru

We're using VolunteerSpot (the leading online Sign-up and reminder tool) to organize our upcoming Sign-ups.

Here's how it works in 3 easy steps:

1) Click this link to see our Sign-up on VolunteerSpot: http://vols.pt/661Gru
2) Review the options listed and choose the spot(s) you like.
3) Sign up! It's Easy - you will NOT need to register an account or keep a password on VolunteerSpot.

Note: VolunteerSpot does not share your email address with anyone. If you prefer not to use your email address, please contact me and I can sign you up manually.

We are excited to see what God will do through The Knightdale Movement as God's People pray!

Exciting News!!

We are excited to announce that we have an earth-shaking, Satan-scaring way for you to help the Knightdale Movement. It's called Movement Makers.  This is a way for some of you prayer warriors to help the Knightdale Movement make a huge impact in Knightdale and the surrounding community for the Kingdom of God! God is going to bless this effort only as much as we ask him to and we will ask!!!  We have learned so much about prayer during this time in our lives and we are so blessed to know that so many of you have been praying for us for some time now.  Movement Makers is an opportunity, for those of you who sign up, to receive emails or texts with major or urgent prayer requests. We understand that this is not for everyone.  If you can't commit to praying when you receive the alerts, don't feel obligated to sign up.  You have helped and will help in so many other ways. If you will commit to praying, we will begin sign ups during the next week and begin to share prayer requests after that. Thanks for being awesome and stay tuned!!

Question #3: When is your first service?

   When's the baby due?  When is a good time to ask that question of someone that you don't absolutely know is pregnant? The rule is: Never, Never, Never, Never, Never! Oh, and if you feel confident they are expecting...Never. It is however, perfectly fine to ask when the new church will begin meeting in Knightdale.  The look I get when I answer this question in person is something like this:

The answer to the question is sometime in the Fall of 2017.

    You, like others, may be wondering why it is so far in the future.  The simple reason is, there is a tremendous amount of work to do.  We are truly starting from scratch. There is no team, yet. There is no building, yet. There are very few potential attenders that we have met. But the people are there. We are already meeting some really great people that we want to share Jesus with and train them to do the same with others. The perfect space is out there for us. The team is out there and ready to go, whether they know it or not.  God knows it all and He has been revealing each part so far, as we need it. He will do the same for all the other pieces.  

    So, start praying for our launch in the Fall of 2017. God is listening!

Question #2: Where's the church?

I've had a lot of people ask, "Where is your building located?"  The answer is, I have no clue!  The church is scattered around the Knightdale area, some may already be a part of Christ's church but most are not even Christians yet.  That's why we are here in Knightdale now. We want to build a community of believers using Jesus' blueprint to shine for His glory!  We won't know for quite some time where our physical meeting place will be. We will most likely rent a space for some time. It will probably be a location where we set up and break down each week, such as a school.  Pray for us, as God already has in mind the perfect space for the perfect time when we gather together!

Question #1

I'm finally getting around to my posts of questions I've come across (see here). Here's the first one. These will be in no particular order, but here goes.  

Are you leaving to work at another church?
No.

Thanks for tuning in!

I'm kidding.  I am leaving my awesome church family at Plymouth Church of Christ to plant a local church that does not exist yet. There is no building, no staff, no core group, except me and my family. We will however, be going to train for a year with LifePointe Church in Raleigh, to learn the nuts and bolts of church planting. It's quite different from serving an established church where things have been running rather smoothly for quite some time.

See, that wasn't so bad. Stay tuned for more!

Prayer Movement Tip #1:  Pray that my kids make good friends quickly to help them adjust!

You've got questions, I've got answers. Maybe.

    There are times in our lives when we just don't have a clue.  That time for me has encompassed the last 39 years and 3 months.  It has been a mind blowing adventure seeing God unfold His plan in all of this over the last couple of months.  I understand a little more every day. But the next revelation unveils the next question.  But the "not-knowing" makes life... interesting, to put it mildly.
    Through my learning process in all of this, I'm learning a lot of you have questions too.  So over the next week or so, I plan to answer some questions I've come across in talking with people about our journey and church planting in general.  I'll try to keep'em short. But, I'm a preacher.  I'll do my best.  Stay tuned!