That being said, I have always wanted to work with wood in some way to help pay the bills, and that is a very tall order! One of the draw backs of market capitalism is that it is hard for any small-timer to actually earn a reasonable living building things like dining tables, coffee tables, or even front porches, when places like Pottery Barn can mass produce a nice looking, decent quality table in less than 1/2 the time, and at a much lower price. Not a soap box, just a reality. Hey, I would buy the Pottery Barn table, too!

Nevertheless, in our recent move to Spokane, we’ve had the great fortune of living next door to an accomplished carpenter/contractor, and I’ve been able to spend some considerable time with him (and hopefully secure a job!!…still working out the details)! Pete, is his name, and he can build anything. I’m so excited for what may be in store for our future relationship, and we look forward to sharing life with him and his family. The main reason I mention Pete is because 2 weeks ago he took me to his go-to lumber store, and bought me some very nice Black Walnut. He encouraged me to build a coffee table with it, and try to sell it. So, below are the fruits of some recent labor in the Old Hat Workshop…

A close up of the arched end.

A few clipboards and a letter writing box I made a while back (these are for sale, too!).

A full shot that kind of captures the tapered legs, and matching shelf.

So, I’m hopeful that I can sell this piece. Not in a big hurry, and not sure there is much of a market for handmade coffee tables in Spokane, but I’ll keep my eyes peeled. If you know of anyone…

Also, here are a couple of shots of my recently finished workbench/work area! Colby is hard at it.

This is Riverfront park, just north of downtown Spokane! A future place of frequent frisbee throwing, jogs, and ice cream cone eating.

I apologize for the gap in updates. We’ve had a full past couple of months in preparation for our move to Spokane. First off, thanks for your continued support and love. We are grateful for the notes of encouragement and letters and financial support!

As you may know, we are wrapping up our months of training here in Moscow/Pullman with Resonate Church, and will be relocating to Spokane, WA in late June/early July. We are in the process of creating a lot of the content that will communicate the vision of our church and its place in the body of Christ. Basically, that means we have a lot of meetings that require coffee, big tables, prayer, research, long conversation, and notes written on scratch paper. However, we’ve found it to be a real joy to put vision into writing, and look forward even more to seeing that fleshed out in Spokane as we hit the ground running this summer.

Leaza has also been working hard with Moscow School District as a paraprofessional, helping students with disabilities, each weekday morning. On top of that, she meets with a few girls each week to talk about Jesus and faith, which is pure joy for her. We’ve had the opportunity this semester to host a small group (Village) in our home with the Mills’ family. Each week we have 10-20 folks over for a meal and conversation about the teaching that took place the previous Sunday. It has been a privilege to share in this season with all these friends.

I’ve continued working 2 or 3 days a week with the bookstore at WSU, and in between church planting meetings, I have started a little woodworking side project that will hopefully get its own post in a bit!

Leaza and I will be traveling back to Texas in June for a couple of weeks! We will be scheduling partnership meetings with churches/individuals to share our vision and hope for the church in Spokane! We would also love to see you during this time. If you or anyone you know of cares about missions and starting churches, we would enjoy the opportunity to share what’s going on up here. That means small groups, sunday school classes, churches, or any other combination you can think of. If you are already on our support team, we would absolutely love to take you to dinner and catch up on life!! Thank you so much for who you are.

That’s all for today. Love you guys.

We understand that Texas was hit with a nice sized snowstorm a few weeks ago. That sounded like a bunch of fun! We in Idaho have been hit a few times too. Leaza and I are getting into ice sculpting! My first creation looks like an icicle, but I’ll have you know I spent hours sculpting this dagger/giant toothpick into a useful tool. What would a church planter need a dagger for you ask? The Bible says, “the Word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword.” It’s as close as I could get. Let’s call it a devotional illustration.

Done.

Soothing presumptions: First, let me say that disagreement is expected and encouraged, for the sake of the Gospel. I’m not mad at the Church or any local expression of it. That would be sad, because I belong to her. I love the Church. She’s the Bride of Christ and I’m so stoked that we are invited, as part of New Creation, to reconcile humanity (and other non-living things) to God by the Spirit. I don’t consider myself to be emerging in my theology, even though I went to school on the west coast. Most days, I’m still plagued with some carnage from seminary. If you’ve been, you know what I mean. I believe that the Scriptures are a critical part of the Word of God (even the black-lettered parts) and ought to shape every part of our lives!  I enjoy being a part of a local church body, and I’m especially fond of the churches that have helped our team get where we are today! I know next to nothing about the following matter, but I have opinions and thoughts that need shaping. So I’d love your help?

The argument: I want to argue that we subtly ignore Jesus as it regards ecclesiology. We would never admit this, but the trend of our modern/late modern, evangelical church models are to consult Peter and Paul (Ephesians, 1&2 Timothy, 1&2 Peter, Titus) assuming that we are consulting the whole council of Scripture. It is after all logical that we read Titus when we are thinking about how to choose elders, since Paul is explicit. But, is that all the Bible has to say about leadership or governance? Most church planters quickly discuss roles like “lead pastor” or “worship pastor”, create hierarchies of ministry (not unlike the early church), and assign non-pastoral roles to fulfill the activities that don’t require teaching/shepherding. I don’t believe these steps are bad or even wrong, but I do wonder why these are the most visible issues that we need to address? I keep coming back to the question, “Does Jesus know anything about Church?”

My Hope: Was that too bold? Probably so. The heart of my question is not to be reactionary for the sake of simply owning my postmodern viewpoint, but I do want to unashamedly ask us to let Jesus speak to our ecclesiology as much as we let Paul or Peter. I hope that at the foundation of my reaction is the Gospel, not nothing. As our team develops our ecclesiology it is my hope to ask a few questions that still end up with a Gospel-centered answer, and also honor the heritage of faith that gave/gives us the support we have today:

• How do the red letters influence our leadership structure?
  • What if our qualifications for leadership were also based around the Sermon on the Mount, instead of only Titus and 1&2 Timothy?
• Do we see Jesus as the ethical/moral strategist and Paul as the church strategist?
• Do we need to bridge the gap between Pauline talk and Jesus talk or simply acknowledge their differences?
• Was Jesus “seeker-friendly”? If so, what should that do to our gatherings?
• Is church something we do or is it something we are?
• Is there even such a thing as a “church-planter”?
• To what extent should 1st century ecclesiology inform 21st century ecclesiology?
  • Are you being unfaithful to the Scriptures by even asking that question?
• Can we allow the teachings of “the Kingdom of God” to be predominant in our governance/structure & polity and actually gain traction with the broader culture?

Well, those are some off-the-cuff questions for your chewing and perhaps your spitting out…I’d love to hear your thoughts, because we are in the fire as we speak. We are praying and seeking wisdom from almost anyone (please join us in that!). I write as a freshman, who just walked through the high school doors, not a senior walking out of them. So, what thoughts does this question/post spark in you?

trainingseason.wordpress.com

Three people putting on chains is laughable:

There you have it!

*We will need more experience before we have more comprehensive list.

Also, this past week our team took a 1720 mile jaunt over to Oregon (#ORtour) to visit a few potential plant cities. The trip is certainly worthy of its own post, which I will write and post to our team blog (located to the right under “friends”) this Wednesday, God willing. Gig ‘Em.

As you know our duplex is teal on the outside, in true south of the border fashion. Leaza worked really hard to make it homey! She did a great job. Then, after that, I built a fire and smoked everything out…oops.

Please continue to pray for our team and our progress, because we don’t know much, but we are excited to learn. Things have started so well, and we are blessed with community. We will begin chewing on some of the overload of information that we gathered from our conference last week and it will surely be a trying, but potentially very fruitful for the health and growth of our future plant.

Again, thank you so much for your love and support.

We love you all.

The crew up here (Mikey, Laura, Colby, Mackenzie, and D.O.) helped us unload the truck in about 45 minutes and we even got to sleep in our own bed on Friday night. We went to the last farmers market of the season the next morning and are still benefiting from tasty produce! We spent the next 3 days unpacking and fixing up the little things around the house that were either broken or ugly. Then the real work began…

We had a church planting “Basic Training” with our team, that started on Wednesday, October 27th-Saturday October 30th. It lasted from early morning and usually went until after dinner, so needless to say we slept hard. “Basic” is a program put on by the North American Mission Board, SBC, and the Northwest Baptist Convention in conjunction with a few other wild hairs. Therefore, we came into the week with several stereotypes in full working order. We left the weekend with several of those stereotypes broken and feeling convicted by our tendency to judge those we don’t know. Our training with the SBC doesn’t necessarily mean that we will plant with them, but it is a great way to make some connections up here and learn a ton.

The conference was held for about 10 church planting teams, 3 of which were couples and a few that were only attended by one of the planters of a larger team. So, our team of 7 (still missing Blake and Mere!) was at times a bit of a distraction, but that was kind of fun. During the conference we discussed several major themes like prayer, worship, administration, partnerships, small groups, team development, leadership, outreach, etc…

We got the chance to talk for real about vision, values, strategy, discipleship, which was so great. While the days were long and some of the sessions were a struggle, it was still very effective and meaningful for us all. During the week we met several people who totally smashed our foolish stereotypes.

Kinne is a “roper” by the looks of things. Red top Anderson Bean boots, leather belt, Wranglers, and a mustache that is not bad. He is tan and short both in stature and in speech. And, normally I would think, “He’s legit,” but at an SBC church planting conference, automatically, I thought, “he’s gonna be hard core, stuck in his ways, and probably won’t like many of our ideas at all.” Wrong. He was awesome. Kinne is planting a church among Harley riders in Bend, OR. Ha. We got a chance to connect and pray together and I was just blown away by his heart and his desire to know us and to point others to Christ. This was only day 1 of breaking down our immaturity. We had several more just like that. The week was a very defining time for everyone, and we look forward to hashing out a lot of the questions that it stirred up.

We are taking a few more trips this month to scout out some possible plant cities and we’ll be meeting with Resonate staff weekly to discuss our progress.

So much more to say. Leaza and I will be developing and sending out a newsletter this next week, so keep checking your inbox! We can’t thank you enough for your prayers, cards, and support. Y’all are great!