Rumors Are Such Terrible Things... It Doesn't Rain Here At All

Lakewood Towne Center Entrance

Hello to all the people who are keeping up with us and welcome to another update from Calvary South Sound brought to you by Landon! So I moved up here three weeks ago and its just been awesome! I'm all settled and love living with the Barbers and playing with the kids. I love how green it is and how many bodies of water are so close. And also, as the title suggests, I have yet to be convinced it rains here. Three weeks and not a single storm, clear and bright, shiny skies. Its been pretty awesome.

This is where we host our Bible study.

Some really cool stuff has happened in the last couple weeks so I want to share a couple stories. First off was our study last Thursday. As you know, last week one guy showed up, and this week, no one showed up. So after the kids went home Cam and I did a short study on the beatitudes (Matt. 5) and decided to go out into the town center to see who we could find and see if the Lord wold bless our efforts. We spotted a couple people but they were completely uninterested in talking to us and actively avoided us. Then we found a guy sitting outside of Safeway charging his phone. We asked if we could talk to him about Jesus and he told us that he knew Him as his personal Lord and Savior already, but gave us permission to talk to him. His name was David and He began to show us pictures of his 6 year old son back in the Philippines. We offered him some food and after some deliberation, he said he wanted a hot dog from the nearby Seven Eleven. We agreed and as we walked he began to spill his life story. In February he had started doing meth and since then had lost his apartment, his job, his truck, he had missed a court date, and was obviously kinda new to this whole homeless thing. He had even tried to commit suicide in Seattle by jumping off a bridge, but he heard his son call his name and as soon as he got down, his son called him from the Philippines. He told us that he felt like God was punishing him somehow. Cam was talking and I was praying and literally as we were walking down the street some guys pulled up in a car and yelled at David offering him "crank" aka, meth. Cam just kept on encouraging him and we were able to walk away.  By the time we got back to Safeway so he could continue charging his phone, he had been completely encouraged by us.  He said that he was sitting there and had just thought, "Man, i'm hungry" when Cam and I walked up and offered him some food.  He said that he was going to call his wife, then flag down the nearest police officer and turn himself in, do his time (60-90 days), get out, get a job, and turn his life around.  He said that he thought he just needed a bolt of lightning to get back on track and he thought that God used us to be that bolt.  We've been looking for him and can't find him so we believe he really did what he said he was going to do.  The Lord used us to bless David and we were blessed in return.  This is front line church planting. God is moving here.

...because all other right turns cost you something?
(This is my favorite sign in all of Lakewood)

Okay, one more story for you guys.  Cam and I have been talking about how we want to try and do free breakfast on Sundays before service when we launch.  One problem we were facing was the cost.  As you guys know, Cam is a cashier at a local Walgreens, so he gets to see a LOT of people during the day.  But there was this particular lady who was buying a peculiarly large amount of milk and Cam asked her if she wanted each carton in a separate bag.  She said yes because she is part of an organization that drives around in a delivery truck and gives food to homeless people.  Cam thought that was pretty cool and told her that he was a church planter who had just moved here.  She was astonished and asked if we did anything with homeless people.  Cam said he would love to help her out sometime and mentioned the breakfast thing.  She was ecstatic and asked for his business card so she could email him a bunch of information.  She said that when we get started she wants to help us with breakfast, that she can help us get food, cost covered, and tell everyone about it who needs to know about it, and she is totally cool that we are a church and want to do this.  Can you say Godsend?

Well, those are my stories for this blog update.  Thanks for all your prayers and we're continually excited to see how God moves up here.

Here are some things you can keep in prayer:
1.  Kenzie and her school
2.  Britt's headaches and the two young ones
3.  I'm on the job hunt and Cam is looking for one with more consistent hours.

- Calvary South Sound Church Plant Team

He needed to go through.....

Last night was the first meeting that we had for the church plant.  We wanted to get into the Lakewood Town Center and hold something there.  We decided on the coffee shop in the Barns and Noble book store.  It always has people and is a great place to sit and talk, open a book, and hang out.  I had been planning this for a few weeks and had gone back and forth about exactly what to do on these nights where we are out looking to find people and introduce them to Jesus.  At first I wanted to just hand out some flyers a few days before and show up totally open to what God wanted to do.  Britt really felt that the Lord was wanting us to hold somewhat of a Bible study.  I was kind of mixed up and did not have a clear direction about what to do.  After some time in prayer I decided to just show up and see if we could meet new people and make some friends.

But then a funny thing happened.  On my way home from work I was listening to the radio and the lyrics of a song really hit me.  "I want to heal, I want to feel, like I'm close to something real, I want to let go of the pain I felt so long, somewhere I belong."  Through this "secular" song, the Lord started to speak to my heart.  I immediately was reminded of Jesus' conversation with the woman at the well.  When I got home I told Britt and Landon, my wife and church planting partner about what the Lord was speaking to me.  When we got there we were the only people who had showed up, which did not surprise me, but I got a phone call from Ian, a guy I met at the Harvest America event last month and prayed with, telling me that he was running late and would be there soon.  After Ian got there the three of us sat and chatted over coffee and studied John chapter 4.

There was no real breakthrough day for us.  Just three guys sitting and talking about Jesus, studying the Word.  What was significant though was what was communicated to me through the story of Jesus and a sinful woman of Samaria.  John 4:1-4 describes Jesus leaving and making His way to Galilee.  The funny thing is that most if not all Jews would go around Samaria because they were an odd sect of their religion and wanted to go around them.  But John 4:4 says that, "He needed to go through Samaria."  Jesus certainly did not have to go through there, He would have gone around, but He needed to go through.  After that He meets this woman who has been passed around from man to man her whole life and is probably that lady in town who everyone avoids.  Jesus sits right down at Jacob's well and waits for her, has a conversation, and reveals that He is her Messiah.  She then has the honor of sharing this news with her whole town, and her life would never again be the same.

Why am I going over a passage that all Christians know?  Because it spoke to me in a new and profound way.  I have been wrapped up in thinking about how to get the Gospel to this young hip, and eastern spirituality obsessed culture the surrounds us in Washington.  But, what about the culture  beneath that one?  The one that I see every day at work, yes I work in the hood.  I have witnessed more drug addicted and destitute people in one week than I ever have in my life, granted I have lived in a pretty well to do culture for most of my life, but by most standards, it's pretty bad.  So what if we went to those, "women at the well."  There is no bring the law to the proud conversation with these people, they are not proud, they know they are sinners, it's written on the shame I see in their eyes.  What they need is hope, and to come back to the song, "somewhere I belong."  What if this church plant created the place that they belong?  What if we actually went to the one's that are not the cool, trendy, and spiritual, but the down and outs, drug addicts and sinners like Jesus did right here in John 4?  The nice thing about being the new guys in town is that we don't have to worry about what the other churches are doing, and what they might say.  We can provide that "somewhere I belong" place for them.  And in case you might wonder just what it might look like, I believe in a God who can radically change lives, and have seen it before.

So while I thought I just accepted the first job offered to me , God was working, and placing me right where He wanted me.  It's not pretty, it's not trendy, it is hard and people already let me down and don't fulfill my expectations.  But it is what I believe Jesus wants to do with us in the Northwest.  It's what we are called to do, and we are so excited to watch Jesus move!

Oh, and we are working with the slogan of, A Refuge from the Storm, because Jesus truly is just that.

In Him,

Calvary South Sound Church planting Team.