The Good News in Cleveland

I signed the lease this week. Jesse and I are moving into Detroit Shoreway. God, please help us to make rent. It seems tight already, but kingdom people have come up big... I'm almost getting used to Him coming through in some weird way only just in time. It has already become clear that this move into Cleveland is so worth it from a kingdom perspective. A woman on our floor literally starting crying when she found out that pastors were moving into here building and were shepherding a congregation across the street! From just being able to talk to JP through my window to connecting with my new neighbor, Emmanuel, being right there means so much. Not that it is so glorious... I mean, JP is a trouble-maker and E-man is a pothead. The place wreaks actually! However, this move is right in line with the vision. "Pray constantly and courageously... Reach and disciple... see life-long, Jesus-following leaders raised up." We are not an extraction team from white suburbia. Tac...

Being a leader is harder than it looks. I recently heard a secular podcast measure leadership in ability “to oppose the system you are a part of one necessary.” [1] In that sense, stepping out to follow Jesus is one of remaining true acts of leadership that individual can make in this culture. Little Theo is still jarred by me and Jesse's open betrayal of the pursuit of wealth, fame, and pleasure. "Of course those you will be happy when you have those things!" says the teen who has only known rugged life circumstances. Praying for God's provision, I jumped on it when the couple in front of me at the dollar store offered me $10 to help them move their furniture. I ended up walking into waste zone complete with crying babies, filth up to the ceilings, dead mice, dirty diapers on the floor; they were heroin users. When I sit down at Man Time and see some not-so-great kids that I still truly love, I know that God has a better vision for their futures than bondage to...

It's unreal sometime. Brandon became a believer this past week! And Ronald has begun studying the gospel of Mark; I pray he stays on it! You just wouldn't expect God to work in the unlikely ones while "good" kids stand idly by. They don't know why they want or need Him, but Brandon and Ronald are among several who are being called out and drawn in. Meanwhile, Jazzy is in the hospital. She is eight, walks around in the cold a lot, has asthma, but now the breathing troubles have worsened. Little Sam was in that same hospital today after he and Cardin got in a car accident. It wasn't their fault, and everybody is okay now, but walking through hospital hallways always reminds me of how fragile we are. We are so ignorant! The same God that keeps the world spinning is intimately involved in our lives. Big, eternal things are happening in Cleveland, but I have been anxious after paying my first month's rent at Franklin Manor and buying a new muffler for ...

Ronald was kind of emotional after the service yesterday night. I had all but given up on him; he comes off as a typically unfazed apathetic. Ronald is seventeen and has been with CityView since he was twelve. Looking around at the many other teens, I realized that Ronald is the one in whom I have invested the most... Yet he remains spiritually dead. And while the ministry has seen spiritual life in the form of many other teens being stirred up to faith and repentance, Ronald and his girlfriend have remained utterly stagnant. Most of the time they put up with the Bible, while at other times we get some push back against it. However, something clicked yesterday. I talked with him for a long time after the service. (And Julia talked to Mikayla even longer for similar reasons.) Ronald was dealing with a range of emotions from a tough home life and school scene, but he spoke about realizing the love of God. For the first time of his own initiative, he told me that he wanted to get real abo...