Yesterday was my first day in our brand new church offices.  It was awesome!  Market Delta and Trevor Harnett have been so gracious and donated the use of the space and then connected us with Interiors  for Business who has completely furnished our offices at no charge.  God really is amazing!

We are still in the set up and design faze, and haven’t got any of our systems in place, like phone, reception and so on, but just being out there in the community is nice.  We are located in the old Windmill Factory in Batavia right on river street.  Hopefully we will have everything up and running by the end of next month and be able to invite everyone out to see.

For now, keep up the good work.  God is doing so many amazing things in so many amazing people and He is doing it through you.

Greetings all,  Sorry for the confusion, it was my intention to talk about the need in Haiti this past weekend during service for a minute and share our plans for how we as a community to make a significant impact, but for whatever reason it just didn’t happen.  So I thought I would take a minute and share it with you all here and then again this Sunday.

For now we will partnering with Conduit Mission Church in Jacmel Haiti.  They are a church and mission that feed, clothes and educates over 100 children about 30 miles outside of Port au Prince.  There only lifeline was wiped out during the earthquake and their situation is desperate.  We will also be partnering with Hands and Feet project in Jacmel, which is a orphanage currently serving 38 children and their staff.  Most of the supplies going into Haiti are not making it to any of the outlying communities such as Jacmel.  Jacmel has a small airfield and port.  That is where we and ARC are going to be focusing our efforts.

This week we will be taking a special offering to purchase supplies and have them transported to Jacmel Haiti.  We still need to meet the financial responsibilities of our own community as well so we ask anything that is giving be above and beyond what you would normally give.

Please seek God in this matter.  What can you give to ease the suffering of a nation?

May God bless you as you seek to wrestle with this issue,

Sincerely,

Jerry

Father,

Help us today to re-present you well to our culture, to the world and mostly at this time to the nation and people of Haiti.  Let us show them and all those who will see, that You are real and really concerned with the suffering of all people.  May we find meaningful ways to bring glory and honor to your name during this horrible time.

If I am honest these times always fill my heart with hope and confusion, so I will chose Lord to act in Hope.

Your wounded son,

Jerry

Jan. 12, 2010 Haiti experienced a 7.0 earthquake.  This is the worst natural disaster in the Northern Hemisphere in over 200 years.  Most of Port-au-Prince (the capital of Haiti) was destroyed and there has been devastating loss of life and property throughout the country.

This Sunday the Well faith community will be joining with churches and organizations around the world to bring meaningful relief to a nation of hurting people.  This year our theme is to make our mark, to make the time and resources we have been given count for something bigger than ourselves.  This is our chance. Stay tuned to my blog for more details on how you can get involved with sharing Christ around the world.

With each new year we have the opportunity to reflect on the year we have finished and Hope and Dream about the year that lays ahead.  I thought I would do some of that with you and see what your thoughts are.

2009 was a year of peeks and valley’s!  We continued to grow at a ridiculous rate.  Each new family who has come and joined our community has taken my breath away.  They come with their gifts, talents and abilities as well as their pain, their history and their fears.  And some how God is taking all of it and weaving together a tapestry that inspires people to follow him.  It is a rare gift and a humbling reality to be a part of.

But there has also been sorrow.  This year we lost two family members to cancer, Joe Zarr and Ashley Souba.  Their death sent shock waves through our community and the entire community of Batavia.  Also Charlie and Johnny, two of our elders were both diagnosed with Cancer.  Charlie’s was opperated on and he has been given a clean bill of health.  Johnny has just undergone his fourth chemo treatment and will have his first scan since being diagnosed on the 14th of this month.  I expect good news.

In all, like our lives both the ups and downs have caused us to grow and I pray, God to be honored through us.

In this coming year we will have a new set of challenges.  We are starting to fill up our current facilities, we will be taking on the responsibility of an office space and I have just gone full time again for the first time since coming up here to plant the church.  With each new family comes greater responsibility and weight, but they also bring the answers to what is lacking in our body.

This year more than any other we will see new inidivuals and families being set free to pursue the true passions of their hearts for God.  New small groups will form, greater ideas and creativity than ever before and as each one of us add what we bring God will give us the clearest picture of what He is calling us to become and where He would have us serve Him this year.

I am confident of two things, last year was amazing, and I will never forget it, and this year is going to be one to remember.   I want you to experience it with me, but it will take you  committing everything you have to the process.  Be daring this year, through your whole heart into your pursuit of God and his purpose for your life.  Make this year like none so far.  Who knows, this could be your best year ever.

I had the opportunity to meet last night with two amazing women, Darlene Marcuson, the founder and director of Lazarus House, a homeless shelter, for starters, in our community and Beth Bilsley, who runs a free medical clinic in DuPage Co., on how we could be more involved with meeting the needs of the poor.  And the end of the two hours I was spent.  I had run the full gambit of emotions. excitement, defeat, praise, conviction, sorrow, and joy, but the more we talked the greater weight I sensed to do more.

This year as a community we have joined the Advent Conspiracy, to Love Everyone, Spend Less, Give More, and Worship Fully.  What I want us to see is that these concepts are not stand alone ideas that you can pick or chose, but a holistic approach to reclaiming what is great about what this season has become.  If I spoke in terms of straight economics, I could, perhaps, persuade you to spend less money, incur less debt and feel more peace for yourself and your family.  And while that all by itself has merit, it misses the point.

This season, this Holy-day is about a gift that was given, God gave himself to us!  And we take this time to worship and celebrate that gift in some fitting way.  What better way than to do the same.  This year, lets give ourselves to each other.  Instead of sending some mindless gift to some elderly relative, go get them and bring them into your home for dinner.  Instead of spending more money on the kids, spend time with them making cookies to take to their teachers, or neighbors, or to the homeless shelter.  And just so we are clear, I did mean, make them WITH them.  I know it is faster, easier and cleaner to do it on your own, but again, it isn’t necessarily about you.

Give more this year, more time, more love, more presence in the moment, more thought, more pain and joy, give yourself completely, without endulging that erge to just throw money at everything.  We want you!

Father,

Help me to give myself completely, even as you did through your son.  Help me to see those around me who need an extra touch this Christmas season and be present enough in the moment to be able to be there for them the way you have always been there for me.  And Lord, please be there for those I can’t.  I ask that no one would be alone this most Holy of all Seasons.

thanks, and Happy Birthday,

Jerry

What does that mean?  Worship Fully?  It seems to imply that my worship is divided.  Could that be true?  If it is true how?  Is my worship divided between multiple things?  Are there other things I worship, maybe not as much, but by virtue of the fact I worship them at all, it would have to be taken from somewhere.  Am I holding back?  Are there ways in which I would love to….love and don’t out of fear, cynicism, doubt or pride?

Maybe I am asking the wrong questions.  Perhaps figuring out what is wrong and who is to blame isn’t really helpful, after all once I figure all that out, the problem will still be there.  What if I ask this question: How could I worship more fully?  Yeah, I like that, it is a breaking away and moving towards, not just answers but resolution.

This year during the Advent/Christmas season how can I worship, bring glory to God, more fully?

Now some of you silly people may be thinking of answering this question for me…but that isn’t the issue is it?  No…So how will you worship more fully this year.  Maybe we could share some of our ideas, not for one another, but for ourselves.  And maybe if I share with you what I will do, somehow it will spur you on to think of your own way to worship Him in some fuller way.

Let me know your ideas.

Dear Father,

Forgive me please.  I am really thick sometimes.  It is so easy to take this season and make it about so many silly things.  And in the process without even realizing it I have taking something Holy and great and beautiful and made is common, simple and small.

Jesus breath the wonder and mystery back into this season and into our hearts.  Let us remember you and what you have done, and what we are capable of because of it.  I want to live up this year, not down, I want to be light, and not darkness, I want to worship you fully, from a full heart.

Hmmm, maybe that will be my gift to you.

Your loving son and brother,

Jerry

Tension, it is such a dynamic part of our faith.  And yet one of the hardest things for us to embrace.  Since the dawn of the Modern Age, men have sought to streamline our thinking, our processes and our Theology, the problem is the God of the Ancient Scriptures is a tad bit messy, organic and lets be honest vague.

No where does this seem more apparent than within the new testament struggle between a faith of Grace and a faith of Works.  We have spent a month discovering and reciting that God isn’t into my behavior he is into my becoming.  That transformative work that He does through the power of His own Holy Spirit and work within us.

Ephesians 6:8-9 say for it is by grace we have been saved through faith, not works so no one can boast (Jerry’s loose paraphrase) but verse 10 says, because we were created for good works!?!  What?

Here is the challenge, And don’t tell Eddie I told you this because I may be stealing a little of his thunder, our behavior isn’t going to get us anywhere with God!  But if we are getting anywhere with God it will definitely show up in our behavior.  Ask yourself, do I look like Jesus?  Does my life reflect the man I see in the pages of His story?  If someone were watching me could they confuse me for Him?  If the answer is no, the solution isn’t to change my behavior, that it ultimately a lie.  The solution is get filled up with Him so there is noting left of me to come out.

So that when the day comes that what is in my heart pierces the filters of my sou what others see is a likeness of Christ, the Image of God, a Son of Man.

Let me challenge you, dance with the Divine this week.  Spend time soaking in his love and his nature.  Let the waves of his eternal nature pass over you and remake you in His own image.  Be new in Him.

Dear Father,

Forgive me when out of arrogance or pride I try to imitate your life.  Forgive me when in a cloud of self indulgence I seek to serve you with my strength.  Forgive me when I have the twisted notion that there is something in me worth offering to others.

And then fill me with your divine nature.  Transform me into a perfect likeness of my creator and King.  Teach me to humbly allow you to do your work through my life.  Show me what a life fully turned over to you looks like and fulfill the purposes that you had in me before the foundations of the world.

I in you, you in me, Perfect!

Stunned,

Jerry

Jesus shocked everyone with his simple arrival some 2000 years ago.  Since then we have found some unique ways to celebrate that first big surprise.  But I am so excited that after all these years we are finally getting our chance to enter the story.  This year The Well will be joining a global initiative to reannounce the gift of God to the world called Advent Conspiracy.

It is a few simple steps to recapture the majesty of this holy season.

Step One: Worship Fully

Step Two: Spend Less

Step Three: Give More

Step Four: Love All

To Get a better sense of what all this means check out the video on our web page, you can also log in for the full experience at adventconspiracy.org, or just come and join us this season at The Well.

Father,

Thanks, for everything, but mostly for the gift of your son.  And thanks for allowing me to be apart of your story.

With profound Humility,

Jerry

I got an e-mail today asking about a unique passage of scripture in Mark 10:28-31.  In the passage Peter says he and the other disciples have given up everything for the call of Christ.  It is really more of a question, “what is the pay off?”.  The person writing me was interested in the first response Jesus gives, 100 times whatever you have given up. (Jerry’s paraphrase)  But it was the combination of answers that captured me.  The second part was, an persecution and then eternal life.

What if the answer is something like this, following Jesus will sometimes take you to the greatest heights.  You will have memories, experiences, and tangible rewards that are too hard to express and count.  And it will cost you memories, experiences, and tangible losses that are too hard to express or count.  But in the end, eternal life.

Well, you know me, I don’t have many answers, I am just like you and searcher, a fellow sojourner, on a life long walk with the author of life.  But I will say, if it cost me everything, and rewarded me nothing, I would still do it.  Because something deep in my heart and soul and everything I have read and learned and studies demonstrates that He is there, and He is good, so I will bet my life on Him! But He is a rewarder of those who seek Him!  So I will hope, as big as the wide world, and I will dream as high as the heavens, and will run and jump for the heavens without fear.  Come with me, lets Expect good things, lets Expect Everything.

Father,

Help me to be ready for whatever reward or persecution that may come my way.  More importantly, help me to reflect you perfectly either in want or in plenty.  Teach me Lord, to live today like eternity, needing nothing but you, and using everything you have given me as a new way to say thanks and I love you.

Thanks, I love you!

Jerry

It never ceases to amaze me what great length God will take for the simplest things.  I find myself this morning sitting at The Journey, an amazing cutting edge church of around 700 in North West Arkansas.  I came to Ark to attend a conference, that was promoted all wrong and so for me the event, the time, the money…….a bust!

Until late last night I had the opportunity to be a part of a conversation with couple old friends who are struggling to navigate a particularly difficult situation.  Sitting there have the privilege to enter back into the lives of my friends I realized, this is why I am here.  Of course there is the obvious question, why couldn’t they just have called me?  But as I sat at dinner looking into a close friends eyes sharing from the heart I knew, you just can’t get that over the phone.

There is no end to what GREAT lengths God will go to, to touch and speak to your heart.  Open your hearts this week.  Live wide open with wild expectancy.  Listen to everyone, watch everywhere, live really present in the moment and if you are careful, I bet you will see Him.

I did!  In the eyes of my friend.

God, Wow!  You just amaze me.  How do you always know what we need and what is really important.  I know the question sounds dumb, but you know it’s what I think even when I don’t verbalize it, so, hey, why not be honest.  Thanks.

P.S. If you could get me home quicker that would be cool too.

You Biggest Fan,

Jerry