My favorite Bible story is about a guy named Ezra. Ezra was a Priest and Scribe [preacher and scholar] who lived about 400 years before the birth of Jesus. In those days, God’s people were in captivity, and Jerusalem lay in ruins. A man named Nehemiah had been allowed to return to the land with a group of exiles and rebuild the city. They faced constant danger. The Bible says that they rebuilt the walls with a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other! Right after they completed rebuilding and dedicating the Temple, Ezra showed up. Ezra had been sent from Babylon to bring spiritual leadership to the returned exiles, and he was faithful to his task.

When he arrived in Jerusalem, Ezra saw that the people weren’t following God, and that they knew little or nothing of his Word. Ezra had a platform erected in the city square, and on a certain day he had all the people gather in front of the stage. Ezra opened the scroll of the Torah [the Hebrew Bible] and began to read to the people. He read aloud from daybreak till noon and the people were captivated. While Ezra was reading, his assistants were moving through the crowd explaining the Scriptures to the people. As Ezra continued to read, the people became heartbroken and started weeping because they knew that they were not following the Lord. But Ezra, Nehemiah, and the other priests told the people to stop crying because this was a happy day. Yes, they were guilty of breaking God’s Law and Commandments [sin], but now they knew the right way and could begin to follow God’s Word. So the people dried their eyes, straightened their clothes, and began a celebration to the Lord.

The world is in similar circumstances today: People don’t follow the Lord because they are ignorant of his ways. They want to know, and if they are told the truth of God’s Word, they will become captivated by it. That’s the whole point of The Love Story Ministry: To bring the Word to the people so that their hearts might be broken, and they might begin to seek God.

Take a little time to learn about Ezra and Nehemiah. The two books are located back to back in the Old Testament of the Bible.

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My youngest daughter has become a model!

I just finished setting up our store.  It’s a humble beginning [like the rest of this project], but it’s a start!  I’ll be sending off an announcement email to about 150 people tonight to try and stir up some interest in this ministry.  Pray for us, we need it!

Peace,

I went to bed Sunday night with the full intention of actually visiting churches and bringing them into The Love Story vision this week.  Who’d have thought there was so much to just starting a small business?  Every person or entity I deal with needs some kind of documantation [that I never seem to have] that I had no idea was required before I visited them.  One of the craziest is PayPal.  They want all of this documentation to set up a merchant account.  They are very nice [and extremely patient] about it, but it’s hard to fax them proof that I’m really doing the business I say I am when I have to get started selling before I can order any product.

The classic “catch 22.”

But everything is coming together and we are more excited than ever.  This t-shirt is going to change lives!  Praise God for this vision!  If you are reading this, I hope you feel like you are part of this vision too.  You certainly are as far as we’re concerned.  Your prayers, support and interest mean a lot to us. The plan is to [ahem] start visiting churches Monday.

God Bless Y’all!

Wow, another busy day around here!

I’ve been meeting with suppliers and getting quotes for The Love Story t-shirts.  I think I found one today.  Their bid has been the most expensive so far, but they also seem to have the highest quality operation.  It’s important to us that these shirts be excellent quality at a reasonable price, and these guys seemed like they would be good partners.

Price has been a headache.  We’re working hard to balance our family and ministry money needs with costs, so we can come up with a price point that gets these t-shirts into as many hands as possible.

Speaking of partners, I had a working lunch with the Missions Pastor of a large church near here today.  I brought him the idea of our two churches partnering so that we can better reach the lost and hurting here in Cash.  Our church has good facilities and resources, but not enough “bodies” to have a meaningful outreach.  We have some wonderfully faithful people in our church, but they are old, and it’s physically hard for them to do much.  This large church has a passion for missions and lots of people who would jump at the chance to be involved, so we hope Cash can become something of a mission field for them.  It’s not going to happen overnight though, this process will take several months to a year to get up and running, so be in prayer for us.

For a few months, I have been reading Pastor Eugene Cho’s blog beauty and depravity.  Eugene is the pastor of Quest Church in Seattle.  One of the main thrusts of my ministry is to reach out to unchurched people in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s.  Eugene has found a wonderful way to do just that.

Anyway, Eugene, his wife Minhee and his children have thrown themselves into the fight against global poverty in a HUGE way.

They inspire me.

Okay, I’ve activated the link to thelovestory.org 1.0.  Since money is [ahem] tight right now, I’m actually using a wordpress blog for a platform.  It’s a humble beginning, but God will bless this work!

Please bookmark thelovestory.org and spread the word to all of your friends!

Peace,

Well, I’m back from exile.  I’ve been having a lot of computer problems [especially with my dial-up!] but I’m on high-speed now, so as that cooking guy would say, “BAM!”

Let me give you a little update:  Since losing my job and all its benefits, I’ve we’ve been forced to pretty much re-think our lives.  We’ve decided to take The Love Story and bring it to the world.  We don’t know how this will work, but we’re being faithful.  I’m working on thelovestory.org, and a very basic version of it should be up before the end of the week.  A HUGE part of The Love Story vision is putting up a comprehensive website for seekers, and those who want to learn better and fresher ways to live out and share their faith.

It’s going to take a lot of grace, prayer, and money to make this vision a reality.

We’ll rely on God for the grace, you and our other friends for prayer and anyone who can help out for the money.

Man this Internet is fast!

Peace,

Look, something has to change.

In the church today, we have billions and billions of dollars worth of resources and infrastructure.  We have modern buildings, colleges and seminaries, excellent music and ministries as numerous as the sands of the sea.

What we don’t have is a heart for winning lost souls to Christ.

In 2003 it took 43 Southern Baptists to lead one person to salvation.

Something has to change.

It makes us uncomfortable to talk about evangelism.  We don’t know how to bring the subject up.  We are afraid of being rejected or ridiculed.  We are afraid we’ll get mixed up and make fools of ourselves… So we don’t evangelize.  We just sit there feeling guilty, hoping the preacher doesn’t bring the subject up.

Something has to change.

I’m not accusing anybody here, I’m the world’s worst at “evangelism procrastination.”  If you think you feel guilty about not sharing the Gospel, try being a pastor!  It’s not that I’m ashamed of the Gospel, it’s just that I’m so busy with my family, and my church, and my day job that it’s easy to run out of daylight before I find someone to share my faith with.

Something has to change.

I have prayed and meditated long and hard that the Holy Spirit would give me something, anything that would help me reach out to the lost.  I’ve struggled, and wrestled, and screamed, and cried and rolled around on the floor begging God to let me have my vision.  You know what I’m talking about… You’ve been in that place where you knew God had something in store for you, but you didn’t know quite what it was, so you pushed and pulled with the Lord trying to make him give it to you. 

The funny thing is, when I stopped struggling and went to a calm place in my spirit, God spoke to my heart.  He gave me the vision for an evangelism tool that I call The Love Story.  It’s nothing new, it’s the Gospel presented in its simplest form:  We are separated from God by our sin, God showed his love for us by sending his son to die and take away that sin, and his death washes away our sin and makes a way for us to be saved.

That is the real Love Story.

This is the vision God gave me to tell that story:

I’m going to take this “Love Story” graphic and put it on t-shirts.  I’m also going to develop a GREAT website where people can visit to learn about God and his provision for us.  There will be resources for seekers, students, and anyone else who wants to hear or share The Love Story.

You might be thinking that using t-shirts to spread the Gospel somehow cheapens the message or is in just plain poor taste.  I’m sorry you feel that way.  The Love Story is a conversation starter.  Every time someone looks at your shirt, you’re presenting the Gospel.  If they ask you what the triangles mean, you have the perfect opportunity to share your faith.  If you get scared, mixed up, or can’t think of what to say…  Just look down at your shirt!

If you can memorize three Bible verses, you can share your faith with The Love Story:  For all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory. [Romans 3:23]  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. [Romans 5:8]  For whosoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.  [Romans 10:13].

Something has to change.  This is my vision for that change.  The fields are white with harvest, but the laborers are FAR too few.  The Love Story is a way to bring new harvesters into the field.  If one new name is written in the Lamb’s Book of life, it will all have been worth it.

Peace, and God bless you.

The past two weeks have been something of a watershed in my life.  I went to the Southern Baptist Convention [where I got a totally new perspective on ministry], I got fired from my day job [over the phone none the less], I got a new job and started to work, and I got religion.  Well, I already had religion, what I mean is I got revival.  My heart was made new.  When Sami and I went to the Convention, we made the trip a retreat where we took inventory of the good and bad things we had in our life, opened our hearts up to the Holy Spirit’s call, and made plans on how to proceed [I am such a nerd!].  God did not disappoint.

We came back refreshed, revived and inspired: Ready to do the Lord’s work.  Then I got the call [not face to face mind you] informing me that my services were no longer needed at my day job.  Needless to say, we were shocked.  Everything [including me] could have fallen apart, but it didn’t.  The job loss disaster seemed almost comical.  Does the devil think something like that will make us give up?  Hah!  It only strengthened our resolve!

The point of all this is to let you know this blog is changing [just like my life].  In the past my blogging has been very personal, and that’s not going to end completely, but it’s going to be less about my feelings and opinions, and more about ideas and information.

We [my family and I] are starting with a clean slate: We have no money, no power and no status [secular or religious].  We pastor a church made up of about 20 old people and 8 or 10 kids.  We are not positioned for growth.

But all of this means that we are primed for success.  When God acts, he uses the most unlikely people in the most unlikely of circumstances to accomplish his greatest work [just check out the Bible].  If that pattern holds, he’s going to do a mighty work here!

From this post forward, my blog is going to be the story of my ministry, and how God is working in and through me.  I’ll write about the successes and the failures, the ups and the downs, the good times and the bad, the tears of joy and the tears of sadness.

Welcome!

God bless you.