Beautiful Shadows

GRACE IN MOTION

The shadows will take your breath away.  The simple echoes will stop you in your tracks.  The slightest touch will make you lose sense of time.  This world is not our home.  Everything we experience here is a shadow of a Reality.  It’s an echo of a Voice.  It’s a slight touch from a Person.  I caught a small glimpse of this glory when we moved out of our home and into a new one. 

Moving is not fun.   Especially with three little kids who cannot understand why they will no longer be able to play on their swings or draw on their driveway.  So Kristy and I did the best that we could to shield them from seeing us taking down their beds, hauling out their rocking chairs, and packing away their clothes. 

Kristy distracted the kids while I took apart what made up their bedrooms and hauled it over to the home that we will be staying in until we relocate to Milwaukee.  An extremely hospitable and generous family is allowing us to live with them as we transition.  And more than allowing us to live with them, they are making us feel like their home is ours. 

When I walked into what would be the kids’ room, I saw that it was thoughtfully decorated with pictures like this, one for each little heart. 

On our bed was a note that read, “Welcome Home.”  These little touches stopped me in my tracks and for a moment, made me loose sense of time.  Because this was a shadow, an echo, a touch of Eternity. 

Jesus said that He was going away so that He could prepare a place for us.  I cannot even fathom what we will see and feel when we walk into our new home on the New Earth, Heaven!  If even the shadows are beautiful, how much greater will the Reality be?  If Jesus made this majestic universe in six days, how incredible will the New Earth be that He’s been working on for over two thousand years! 

This is what we are here for.  This place is not our home.  As we prepare to transition away from what has become our home and family, God is allowing us to feel these great truths.  We weren’t created for this place.  We weren’t created to say goodbye.  We were created for glory.  To experience, enjoy and proclaim the glory of the One True King!  I cannot wait our faith becomes our sight! 

PLANTERS PROGRESS  

May was a crazy busy month.  In one 10 day streatch, we traveled over 600 miles and transitioned our family into four different homes that included staying with three different families.  And God’s amazing grace carried us through every step of the way. 

We spent the first week of May in Milwaukee.  During that time we hung out with our launch team, took prayer walks through our target neighborhood, and explored the city.  I was also able to preach at Woodridge Community Church, put a framework in place to partner with several churches during the launch team phase of the plant, and meet with many individuals who are interested partnering with us to see God raise up a new church on the west side of Milwaukee! 

When we returned to New Richmond, things didn’t slow down.  We packed up and moved out of our house.  On May 14^th, we closed on our house!  Yay God for wrapping that up!  And then on May 15^th we had our offer accepted on a new house in Milwaukee.  Talk about a whirlwind.  God has been moving mountains this month. 

That following weekend I had the privilege of preaching at Faith Community Church in Hudson.  Their elders graciously allowed me to share our church planting dreams with their church and even open up the door for us to develop more partnerships with more people. 

We have also been still pounding the pavement with raising support.  And God continues to stir up a heart of generosity in people.  To date, we are at 83% of our support.  Praise God and thank you to all of our faithful and generous partners.  I am humbled and amazed by how supportive and generous so many have been. 

Crossing the 75% mark was our last hurdle with support at this stage of our work.  Now, from our denomination’s perspective, we are able to move on site.  From our church’s perspective, though, we still have some things to wrap up.  But if everything keeps on progressing as it has, we should be able to relocate in August. 

Because we have crossed the 75% mark with support, we move into a different category of support needs altogether.  To this point, we have simply focused on raising our salary.  But we also need to have on our radar all startup funds and operational expenses.  I won’t be able to determine what those needs are until we are on site, so it will no longer be able to provide an accurate percentage.  Because of this, I will no longer be providing a percentage update with our support level.           

NEXT STEPS  

For the month of June I am going to try to “downshift.”  One of the concerns that our elders had about us planting is that I don’t have a “second gear.”  I’m all or nothing.  I either run 100 MPH, or sleep.  Over the course of this next month, I’m going to try to simply remain faithful to fulfill my job description and continue to raise support, but not run at the back-breaking pace that I have for the past several months. 

Kristy and I would really like to have the flexibility in our schedule to be able to spend some time with the people we love here before we transition to Milwaukee.  This won’t happen by accident, so we are going to try to be intentional to leave well. 

Thank you all for your support.  Thank you Jesus for caring us through.  Thank you God for being faithful to your Word!  We can’t do this without you – and we wouldn’t want to!