Bringing In and Sending Out

Every week there are new people checking out CX. I'm so proud of our people because they keep inviting. I hope we're always that church that's easy to invite to. As a church planter, when you first get started, everyone is connected to you in some way. Our first Bible study was my neighbors, some friends from Sacramento and a guy who helped me move in. And while I still invite, it's the collective community that's the growth force. God continues to bring us lost people (which I love) and strong leaders too (which we've been praying for). I talked with one of our new patriarchs the other day after CX and he mentioned that he'd basically given up on church. This is a rock solid, Bible believing Christian, but he was tired of the mess. We have a few families that have recently connected with us that have been so deeply hurt by the church in the past that I can tell they are constantly guarding themselves. They don't know it yet, but CX is a safe harbor. It'll just take me some time to prove it to them. I try so hard to keep us from becoming a political, messy, complicated church. I know, that somewhere down the road we'll have some issues. My head isn't in the sand. But, when that day comes, I hope we handle it in the light. I hope we apologize honestly for where we screwed up and I hope the offended party (or parties) gives us the same grace that we extend to our people! Sometimes messes end up doing great ministry. It's all about how we handle them!

That was a bit of rant! Thanks for hanging in there.

So we have lots of new people and we continue to grow. But we recently lost an AWESOME couple. Jeremy and Lisa Wight accepted a call from GOD to pack up and move to Thailand. They literally sold everything but about 9 suitcases worth of stuff and headed to the other side of the world. They have their visas for the first year and they're trusting God to keep things going after that. Jeremy and I have become really great friends over the last year or so and this week I have missed him greatly. Although he did great ministry with us, overseeing small groups and preaching fairly often, it's the late night brain storming sessions and Tuesday morning prayers that I will miss the most. Luckily we live in a connected world and we can still chat often. CX is supporting Jeremy and Lisa's new ministry and we're stoked to skype them in once a quarter or so for our people to hear how their doing. I want everyone at CX to know who they are, to know what their doing and to see how their prayers are making a difference. It's one thing to put a check in the bucket at church, it's another thing to put it in there knowing it's going to serious missions ministry. It just makes it that much more joyful! BTW you can watch his vid, give and keep up with Jeremy at http://www.m300ministries.org/thailand_jeremywight

Keep them in your prayers!

We hate losing people at CX, but if it's to go spread the gospel to a country that's only 1% Christian, then we'll do our best to get by without them!

This week at CX we're talking about all our summer outreach events, the reorganization of our small groups and what it's going to take for us to grow forward! We'd love to have you join us.

This Weekend . . .

I gotta tell ya, I'm stoked about this weekend. Our worship leader is out of town (not why I'm stoked) so I get to saddle up behind a guitar again. It's been a while since I got to lead our people in worship and I miss it greatly. We had practice last night with the team and of the 8 of us scheduled for worship, 3 were first timers on stage! I love that. As we continue to grow, we continue get more people on the stage.

There's more great things happening around here. We got a call from the property owner this last week and he wanted to know if we wanted more space? The facility we're in has 6 bays and only three are being used (we have 2 and one other tenant has 1). For us to double our space would open up many new possibilities. The biggest win would be for our children's ministry. As of now we have 2 classrooms that are adjacent to the worship center. Our workers are having to keep the kids quiet, or at least try, while we're having service. Maybe you already know this, but kids weren't made to be quiet. But honestly, they don't bother us as much as we probably bother them. Our worship is fairly loud, so when we're singing, they are too!

Tonight we're doing a BBQ in the park. We have three of them scheduled for the summer. According to accuweather, there's a chance of rain later today. That's a huge improvement from the forecast yesterday. They were saying thunderstorms. I've been praying that we'll meet a couple new families tonight and our chances are much greater without the rain!

If you're in Boise and happen upon this blog, join us tonite at Settler's Park. Free food and live music starting around 5:30. We'd love to see you there!