January 2008

Things have been brewing here in Baltimore, and especially with The Light. While this blog is mainly about The Light church plant, The Light does not exist in a vacuum. Specifically, The Light is one of three churches that are integrally connected, that rely upon one another for resources, support and prayer. Even though I am currently the lead planter and pastor at The Light, demands and matters at the other two churches that are part of our network concern me deeply and create stresses on me. At times, I am required to step back into those churches to keep us on track with the vision God has given us.

Our leadership across all three churches went away on our semi-annual planning retreat last weekend, and had a great time. It was very relaxing, and provided a great time to gel with new staff and additions to our group: specifically John Kovacs and Jesse Johnson, whom I mentioned in my last update.
The biggest news within the network and for the Light has been that we will be adding a new full-time staff to further our work and to move it to the next stage of church planting: one of aggressive evangelism.

During the month of December, God presented us with a great opportunity – which we grabbed – to hire a pastor for The Light. He has been serving as a youth pastor at a mega-church in town, and as I have gotten to know him over the past 5 years, he has become a friend as well. I am very excited about this move of God, because for the past 3 yrs I have been asking this friend to join me in our church planting efforts but he’s turned me down until now! He brings with him years of ministry experience, creativity, and giftings that will complement mine.

I will introduce him more fully in a future update, but I hope that you will pray for us in this transition.

For other news at the Light, we have been taking a brief hiatus over the holiday season with the goal of starting the new year with a fresh vision. We are looking to move our location (just across the street to another room within the University of Baltimore) so that we can try some different things with our Sunday Services.

Our core group is in the midst of meeting and planning, dreaming and visioning, and hearing from God. At the end of 2007, our core group found itself burnt out and tired. As I mentioned in my last update, we had settled into "doing" Sunday Service, in part because we were tiring out and it was easier to do the same thing, week after week. But in the end, the routine nature of this and the lack of creativity were more tiring than staidly comfortable. Though the group is tired, there is a positive side to this. We have now learned, through experience, that we can never settle into this again, because "doing church" will never be satisfying. It is only in the pursuit of God that we can find our joy and fulfillment.

So please pray for us as we embark on this, that we would hear clearly from God. We also ask that you would pray for the new staff that we hired: for his transition into this role, as well as for the core group's adjustment to an additional leader. We are very excited to see how God will answer our "burn-out" prayers with a fresh and creative leader.

As always, we are continuing to develop more partnerships, and had a wonderful opportunity to meet with some pastors and DOM's from Kentucky today. Pray that we will find churches in Kentucky who God will call upon to partner with us.

Lastly, we have been developing our 2008 Spring/Summer Missions Opportunities. We are exploring several opportunities to connect with and impact the community in which God has placed us, and are looking forward to hosting teams and partners this summer. A .pdf of this brochure will be available shortly, if you would like to join us this summer as well.