The Good News in Cleveland

I did not get to visit my sister in Florida this month. My parents had found an amazing deal on a flight, but it got cancelled the morning of. It was a God thing though. It led to me meeting Nacho (Ignacio). As exciting as I am about the big things that God is doing in Cleveland, so much of ministry comes down to relationships. I had seen this guy once before at the City Life Center; bumping into him on the street this week led to several hours of conversation between him, Cardin, and me. Since then, it's been just about every day. The dude is hungry for relationship, and I hope that He can see through us to only relationship that satisfies: relationship with Jesus. "It is the thesis of my life that outside of Christ there is existence but no such thing as life." - Matt Chandler Nacho is the is the first post-high school guy we've met who lives in the community. (He literally lives down the street from me.) One awesome thing that has been happening in addition to ...

So much to say. You need to hear what God is doing! Though we have to back up to get some perspective. Jesse was feeling restless last Tuesday and left to study for his sermon at Gypsy, a local coffee place. Reading a Micah commentary there, he was approached by several ministry leaders who were meeting in the same shop. Jesse came to find that one of these men knew his father from many years ago. He spent hours talking there. One major note is that all of these men all spoke highly of a local pastor, Pastor Dean, and his church, Calvary Reformed. The name sounded familiar because Jesse had actually met with this same pastor briefly five months prior in order to talk about Jesse’s ministry with Youth for Christ. We would not think much of this encounter until later. Now we fast forward to Saturday. CityView West Bethel got kicked out of West Bethel, straight up. Our west side ministry was spurned by the Baptists just hours before our Saturday service was to begin. It was shock...

Back to the basics, moments of faith. There is a lot new coming at the ministry in the New Year. Our Crew has grown to much to be a small group, so we are dividing and conquering: Jesse will head up the Teen Crew and I will lead the college and young adults of the Elder Crew. It is like a breath of fresh air to have some dichotomy there; teaching more than twenty who span the entire spectrum of spiritual growth is some kind of challenge. I had a moment with God this week in the sanctuary of West Bethel before the madness swept in. I am back in that place where relationship with Him is the thing I want more than anything else. So here we are, back to the basics. He was getting me ready to trust Him, the calm before the storm. Just around that time, Pastor Ken was getting a call from Pastor Weems who is in charge of the building wherein we do a lot of our west side ministries. Evidently he and the two people in his congregation are upset with the reputation and behavior of the teens we...