Building a Great City Through a Gospel Movement

This last Sunday we met again at a community center in West Los Angeles, and I got a chance to talk about the vision for Cityscape. This is our new vision/mission statement for the church:

Cityscape exists to build a great city for all people

through a Gospel movement

that is producing individual transformation, community restoration,

holistic peace, cultural renewal

and world wide impact in and through Los Angeles.

Over the past several months, I've been actively seeking to discover what exactly God has called us to in Los Angeles, and what I've found is that vision can't be developed but only discovered. In other words, God's already given us all the vision we need in the Bible, and I think we simply need to be open to discovering what that vision is as we come to a deeper understanding of Christ and the Gospel.

That being the case, I've researched literally dozens of different church's vision, and as much as I love many of the directions a lot of churches are going, I'd have to say that Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City is the most compelling and inspirational vision I've seen on the present cultural landscape of the church in America.

Tim Keller and his theology of the city and his Christocentric expositional preaching (another way of saying he likes to use the Bible to give people a deeper understanding of Jesus) have had a huge impact on me over the past several months.

I highly recommend checking out this link to a page with many of his best sermons, articles, and blog posts.

http://www.stevekmccoy.com/reformissionary/2005/07/tim_keller_arti.html

I never want to over exalt one person or one church, but frankly, Redeemer's situation in NYC is so close to our situation in LA that I'm really hard pressed to not follow in their footsteps. Their vision is to not only be a church of small groups but to actually participate in hard core urban cultural renewal in the middle of Manhattan. In other words, they have a vision for not only influencing NYC but actually helping to build it's physical, cultural, and spiritual landscape.

I want the same thing for Cityscape. We don't only want to influence Los Angeles, but through a movement of the Gospel, we want to help build the emerging physical, cultural, and spiritual fabric of this great city.

But remember, though the product is a "great city," the means to building a great city is EVERYTHING! It's only through a Gospel movement that we can accomplish our vision.

Over the next several weeks, we'll be going into greater detail on what exactly we mean by a Gospel movement in LA, especially in the context of the globalized, post-secular, post-Christian, urban centric world we're living in today.

I'm working hard on adding more and more to our church website. Keep checking it out when you get a chance.

www.cityscapechurch.org

Encouragement

Yesterday we met for the first time as a church outside of a living room. The community center where we met turned out to be a great location, which was a huge answer to prayer, and we had 25 people show up which was more than I expected (I figured it would be more like 20). Of the 25 people, only 11 of them were regulars, so we had more new people there than regulars which was fantastic.

Our worship band was able to finally play together, and I think everybody really enjoyed a time of authentic worship. I taught on finding our satisfaction in the true bread of Christ, and the Gospel being essential and ultimate to finding any true life.

The new people were from all kinds of walks of life. Some were believers who are looking for a church, some were believers who have been burned by church but were ready to test the waters again, some were young (our drummer was 14!), some were older (our drummer's parents came, have been looking for a church, and want to keep coming). Some were even at a place where they're skeptical about the Gospel and God and Jesus and Christianity and church. But overall, most of them are interested in coming again and learning more about who we are as a church. We were really encouraged!

I'm so thankful for all the prayers, encouragment, and support we've received from so many of you over the past few months. Though I realize that the journey is long, yesterday was a huge step forward.

Please continue to pray for Cityscape, for Mindy and me, and for the movement of the Gospel in LA.

Sunday, May 20

Sorry I haven't updated this thing in over a month! Man time flies. I've been as busy in April and May as any other time I can remember.

Please be praying for us this week. On Sunday, May 20, we're meeting outside of the living room for the first time! That marks a major step forward for us as a church. After several weeks of frustration trying to find a place to meet, we finally were able to book a little clubhouse at a park in southwest Beverly Hills. Not an ideal location, but everybody's excited about it.

We're also starting a Bible study on Tuesday nights that will be taught by an older missionary from Korea we call Paul. My good friend Jason and I have been meeting with him over the past several months, and we've been really encouraged as he's shown us the supremacy of Christ in all of the Bible. Again, we're really excited about locking arms with him.

Mindy and I have certainly had our share of lows over the past 18 months of living in LA, but right now, we're very encouraged, our spirits are high, and we feel as close to God as ever.

I really will try to be better about keeping this updated.

Check out our website at www.cityscapechurch.org when you get a chance, and please keep us in your prayers!

Next Steps

This morning I went to the secretary of state's office and filed our articles of incorporation for Cityscape. I pick them up on Friday, and we will be official. Of course, there are still other steps we have to take before we can start receiving tax exempt contributions again, but this morning was a major step forward.

Here's a picture of the Hollywood Hills on fire, taken from our rooftop! It was crazy...





















Our church is going great. Right now, the biggest obstacle in front of us is trying to find a place to meet in a city where places to meet are really expensive. It's a little frustrating because as long as we're meeting in a living room, we feel cramped and limited. It's hard to invite new people when you're not sure if there will be room for them. So the location search is pretty frustrating, but hopefully we'll find a place soon.



There is so much going on right now that I want to tell you about. I'll give you some pretty cool stories in the next posts, but for now, please continue to pray for us and Cityscape. Things are going good right now, we're excited, we're growing, but we're also very vulnerable every step of the way. So your prayers are invaluable to us!

Cityscape Community Church

Well after months of brainstorming names (and a morning of computer glitches that just about drove me crazy), we have officially picked the name for our church.

CITYSCAPE COMMUNITY CHURCH

A cityscape is like a landscape in a painting only it's a picture of a city. We wanted a name that would reflect the culture we are living in out here in LA. Not only is the artistic community prevalent in the area, but more importantly, the urban/metro motif is huge.

Though there's no official logo yet, our website is up. There isn't much there yet, but check it out when you get a chance.

www.cityscapechurch.org

I'm so glad to be done with the whole name process. Now I can focus on getting our incorporation status secured, and finding a place for us to meet. Last week we had 23 people for our worship service (we need a new name for "worship service"), and another 20 something people came to a baby dedication we did after the worship service. So we saw over fify people come through the door on Sunday night. It was crazy, but it's definitly an exciting time right now as we watch God really begin to move us back out into the public light. What an incredible, exciting, difficult, scary, remarkable time we're in right now! I can't wait to tell you more stories about the changed lives we're seeing right in front of our eyes, but for now, I've got to go get to work on our website!

And the new name is...

coming tomorrow (Thurs.) afternoon...

so get excited!!

New Name

After weeks of pondering every possible name for our church that you could imagine, I think we've finally arrived at one. We're shoring up some websites right now and finally beginning the much needed non-profit incorporation process. Assuming everything goes smoothly with that stuff, we'll make the name official and public by the middle of next week.

We're also searching everywhere for a place to meet since the living room has become so cramped. So we're staying busy.

Mindy and I are doing pretty good though with every step forward I think we feel the weight of the burden more and more right now. If you know any seasoned old couples who have been believers for 40 years who want to come and help start a church in Los Angeles and take some kids under their wings, please send them!

In the meantime, we're working hard to do what we can for God in LA and thankfully, we're not alone out here.

Guarding the Oscars

A couple weeks ago, Mindy started a job working for the security agency that's in charge of the security for the Oscars. It's really impressive when she walks around with her massive, over sized badge that has a little picture of her with the massive letters "SECURITY OFFICER" blazing across the bottom. But Mindy will actually be up at the Kodak theater (or at least a parking lot next door) this Sunday, so it should be an interesting night.

Not much else to update right now. We're continuing to meet together, and things are rolling along pretty good. We've had new people show up, and we're getting closer and closer to having to meet somewhere other than a living room.

It's hard to not play the numbers game at this point. I've really come to believe that one of the biggest plagues infecting the church planting movement right now is the numbers game. It seems the only way to validate yourself as a new church is by having 100 plus people showing up on Sunday and becoming self supported through them. It absolutely drives me crazy, and yet every day I struggle to not cave in to the temptation to just invite people to a program on Sunday.

I'd rather see lives changed, and if you were to ask any of the people who are in our little church, you'd here some incredible stories about changed lives. So that's what we're laboring in right now.

We still haven't come up with a church name yet. I'm kind of anti-name right now. I'm thinking Community Community Church or C3 for short. We really just need a name to get us by for the time being so we can incorporate and get the much needed tax exempt status.

By the way, I'm picking my beloved Astros to run away with the NL Central this year for anyone who's keeping tabs.

The Search for a New Name

We are excited. As the group continues to meet together, the possibilities seem endless right now. We've walked with one another through the valleys of last year and helped one another through some significant hard times. We've tasted what true community is, and we've seen amazing things take place in our lives, our hearts, our church.

As new people continue to come, we have begun to work again on establishing our identity as a church. One of the things that always struck me about Watermark, our church in Dallas, was how effectively they articulated their identity as a church through their name, mission statement, and core values.

This Sunday we're gathering ahead of our normal worship service to discuss what the new name of the church will be. We've been chewing on it for awhile now, and we're getting closer to deciding on one, but we want a name that will communicate to others who we are as a body of believers.

Feel free to give us any ideas you have for a new name in the comments section!

But what we really want to be focusing on as a body of people right now is the question, "How are we going to define ourselves?" We're seeing the example of true identity beginning to emerge as we plow through Luke and look closely at the life of a disciple and the foundation of the life of the Christ. Our identity, even as a church, is wrapped up completely in our identity in Christ. We are progressing disciples, each a part of the greater whole -the body of Christ or the Church. And because of Jesus and His scarifice we have been restored back to a moment by moment relationship with the God of the universe that begins right now, not just sometime in the future.

These are exciting times. Scary times, but exciting. Please continue to pray for us!

Mobilizing

Sunday we had our first official new person show up. It was kind of cheating though because I knew the guy already, but it was great to see him immediately feel welcomed and accepted. He's really excited about the group, and wants to be a part. Kind of a ceremonial beginning, but the doors are open, and we're anticipating new people starting to come.

So just in case I haven't been clear in the past, I want to be crystal clear now:

Yes, we are planting a church.

So what's the plan? Every revolution of God begins with prayer. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to disprove that statement. I’m really hard pressed to find an exception. The normal experience of the Church is to constantly bathe the advancement of the Gospel in prayer. When Jonathan Edwards reflected back on the beginning of the Great Awakening, he concluded, “When God has something very great to accomplish for his church, ’tis his will that there should precede it the extraordinary prayers of his people.”

We must make progress in our spiritual lives right now, as a church. And the truth is, prayer is the predecessor to progress in the spiritual life. Why? True prayer places us flat on our faces before the Father in the throne room of God. True prayer centers us in the presence of the King. True prayer and the presence of God are intricately linked. Where there is prayer among the people of God, there is power from the presence of God.

That’s why, you show me a thriving church and I’ll show you a praying church. You show me a powerful church in public and I’ll show you a desperate church in private. A church flat on their faces in utter helplessness before the Father who alone can provide us with all our needs, and give us the power through the Holy Spirit to walk moment by moment with Him.

Prayer is essential to the health of the church. You’re beginning to understand why this is true when you begin to understand that we have been given moment by moment access to God through Jesus. Prayer is a moment by moment encounter with the presence of God. The Gospel didn't just give us eternal life with God in the future, but right now.

So from the very beginning we are mobilizing in prayer. What we are practicing today will determine the culture of our community tomorrow. If you were out here with us, you'd see us gathering on Sundays in formal prayer, men meeting on Wednesdays to lie flat on our faces in honest heartfelt prayer, some of us walking through public praying quick silent prayers over the thousands we pass by everyday, women sitting in silence just to learn to be with God, other people studying Paul's prayers just to learn the difference between asking for bread or asking for a rock (cf. Luke 11:11-13).

Every revolution of God begins with prayer. So before schemes and programs and plans can have any chance of success, we will mobilize in prayer.

Please, we need your prayers. Would you take some time to pray for us. Ephesians 3:14-21 would be a great place to start, not only for us, but for you too!

Questions and Progress?

I finished reading Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and I was actually pretty impressed with many of the ideas about community in the book. It's not an easy read, and it's certainly not a perfect book by any stretch of the imagination, but it is very helpful when you try to think about the Biblical theology of community in the Church. I'd love to give some of my observations about community but I'm not sure this is the right forum for those discussions. I might start up another blog, I might not. I haven't decided.

For now I think this blog is better when it's used to share what we feel like God is doing through us out in Los Angeles, and through the support of many of you who read this regularly.

We just celebrated Mindy's 30th birthday on Monday! Yes, my beautiful wife is thirty, and yes she's still smoking hot. It was another fun time with our friends...



We are just now starting to get back into the swing of things with our meeting together. The break was good, but as we've regathered ourselves, and reoriented back to the realities of our lives in LA, we're face to face with several critical questions we have to answer in the coming weeks.

We've been meeting together since October, it took us all fall just to recover from the trauma of the summer and our break with the Wagners, and now we're back, ready to resume an all out push to plant a church in West Los Angeles. Yet the challenge is staggering. Probably the biggest question I'm wrestling with on a daily basis is a simple question:

What does "progress" look like right now?

I have to ask this question for several reasons. The most important is that if people aren't making progress in their spiritual lives as a result of our teaching, equipping, and community, then I'm doing them a disservice by continuing. We are always striving to grow. But the issue is complicated when you start trying to describe what "progress" is. Is it numerical growth? Is it better Bible knowledge? Is more social action? Is it more time of prayer and worship together? A better management of sin? Etc. etc. etc.

I'm convinced all of the above are important, but none is primary. Numerical growth can be an indicator of God's movement in your church, but it can also be an indicator of misplaced priorities. I've seen both. Numerical growth is what I want to see most often because I want to see lost people saved, a buzz about what's happening, and shamefully, at times because I'm financially supported by people on the outside, and let's face it, showing them 500 people at the church looks a lot more exciting then showing them 15 people at the church.

So as we open the doors, I want to take growth serious, but numerical growth is NOT the goal. Making disciples is the goal. The growth is an overflow of that goal.

So keep us in your prayers. None of our people are reluctant to invite new people into the church if we are truly experiencing the presence of God in our community. That's what we're constantly pursuing with one another in this journey.

Back in LA

Our trip to Texas went great minus the whole me being sick the whole second week. But now we're back in LA and I'm feeling better and we're just trying to get back into the swing of things. Thank you to everyone who bought us lunch or dinner or coffee or anything else and who listened to our stories and encouraged us and made us feel loved and empowered to continue with the mission out here. We really appreciate it.

Here are a couple of Texas things we got to do.

1) Play with a nail gun in a backyard (backyards don't exist in our neck of LA!)


2) Fry a turkey

3) Meet our new niece Paige and play with our other niece Taite

We love Texas, but it's definitly good to be back in LA. Hope your new year and your Christmas was fun. We'll be sending out our January support letter in the next couple days, and we'll probably be sending out a New Year's letter to all of our friends and family. Haven't decided yet.

I've got some thoughts on community I'd love to share on here so stay tuned. Been reading Bonhoeffer's Life Together and it's really challenged me in some big ways.

In Texas

It's actually raining and cold as I write this in Lindale, Texas. I haven't seen rain in a year! Crazy. Our trip is going great, and I'll update more on Friday when we finally get to Mindy's parents house in Cleburne (if I can find an internet connection). If you're actually reading this, then please pray for the rest of the get togethers we have set up between now and Friday. And please continue to pray that Mindy and I would be rejuvinated on this trip. If you've been praying for us, know that we've been EXTREMELY encouraged and energized so far this week.

Texas Christmas is Coming

Mindy and I are limping towards the end of a long and difficult year. We knew that church planting would be hard. We didn't know that the attack would be so relentless. The good news is that we are leaving to visist Texas next Saturday and will be there for two weeks. The break is MUCH needed.

Here's a picture of some of the people in our little Bible Study. It's been going great.

We've often called Los Angeles the frontlines of the mission field in the world. I think that's true for the most part. Yet living in Los Angeles isn't exactly like living in Darfur, or even like living in India or China. We're free to do what we want whenever we want. We have enough money to eat, pay our bills, even go to a movie every once and awhile at the Grove.

We don't have a lot of money, but we do have a lot when you consider how most of the world lives.

But the issue with living in Los Angeles is that in all this abundance, there is a very deep and serious spiritual blindness that has enslaved so many people living here. What you see on TV being packaged as the real world is nine times out of ten, a product coming out of Los Angeles (did you know even shows like CSI: Miami and The Office are filmed here).

In some of the places like Sudan, where the poverty is rampant, the government is doing nothing about it, and Christians are actually being physically killed and persecuted, it's easy to see the need for missionaries, and the need to bring light to those dark places. The veil is thick, it's obvious, and you can see it a mile away.

But in places like Los Angeles, where the abundance is evident everywhere, the government is working for the people, and Christians are only persecuted socially and I guess sometimes professionally, it's much harder to see the need. It's much harder to see the need for light in a city where the billboards illuminate the way down streets with affluent names like Sunset Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard. The veil here is still thick, but it's not as obvious, hidden by all the stuff of the world that this city provides so abundantly. If you aren't careful, you'll fixate on the glam and glitter, the fame and the fortune, and never realize that a powerful and well disguised veil is being pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

It's a battle we are fighting on a daily basis, and honestly, we've taken a beating. You don't attack a stronghold of the Enemy without expecting a fight. That's what we're in the middle of as we come to the end of 2006.

That's why we can't wait to recuperate for a few weeks in Texas.

The New Way

Thanksgiving is upon us! Can't believe it. We had a party last week since so many of us have birthdays in November. Here's a pic of the girls (and the little man, Hudson!). Fun times!

We are continuing to devour Luke. It never ceases to amaze me how clearly Luke portrays Christ to us. It's interesting that Jesus makes it a point that the pupil will become like his teacher in Luke 6:40, and that's exactly what happens with the disciples through the rest of Luke's stories in his Gospel and in Acts.

But what we're seeing up front is that Jesus preached a gospel that goes beyond just simply the fact that He died for our sins. The substitutional atonement of Christ is critical, but it isn't the complete story. So we've been trying hard to define what the "Gospel" is.

You see, for too long many of us have been taught that the Gospel boils down to the fact that our sins have been forgiven and so therefore we will spend eternity with God in Heaven sometime in the future. In the meantime, our job is to do good things for God. To be good Christians. To knuckle down and do the right thing.

But the Gospel goes beyond just eternity with God in Heaven. The reality is that there is a whole new way of life we can live NOW. When Jesus burst onto the scene in places like Luke 4, He was bringing a WHOLE NEW SYSTEM OF LIFE AND LIVING with Him. Prior to Christ, access to God came through the Law, through your pedigree (ie. were you Jewish), and through external acts of obedience. But when Christ burst onto the scene, He began to preach a new way. A new economy. What DTS calls a dispensation. What is often called a new covenant. The fact is ultimately, the Gospel Jesus brought is that now, access to God is available to ALL WHO BELIEVE.

In other words, we now have access to the presence of God because of Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross for us. And because we now can be in the presence of God, the Christian life isn't about practicing good works and waiting for eternal life, but practicing the presence of God. The Christian life is not a compartment in our lives as if we have our vocation, our marriage, our social life, and our Christian side. The Christian life is about walking moment by moment with God so that ALL of our life is consumed with Him.

That's what Jesus brought. That's what Jesus preached. That's what Jesus modeled. And ultimately, that's the life of the disciple. A moment by moment journey through life in the presence of God.

So that's what we are working on out here. To be people who don't compartmentalize God into certain areas of our lives, but allow Him to saturate our entire lives. There is so much more to be learned about being a disciple by looking at Jesus' life, namely that along with this new way of living comes a power in the Holy Spirit that is available to every believer. It's a power we will see that can be all encompassing, and is absolutely critical. There's so much more to learn!!

But at least we are starting to build a more solid foundation on which to build our Church! What we are offering people isn't just eternal life in the future but a better way of life right here and now. And that's something LA is interested in.

Defining Vision

Well, Mindy and I will be in Texas at the end of December, so we're looking forward to some time away from our beloved little wasteland on the West Coast. Check out these pictures from the Halloween Party in West Hollywood literally 100 yards away from our front door. Over 500,000 people in costumes showed up! It was crazy at 7:00 when Mindy and I ventured out. I can't imagine what it was like later that night!

And in honor of the election, here's a guy dressed up like a devil holding a "Cheney/Satan 2008" campaign sign. Now that's a Cali culture study if I've ever seen one!

Between now and Christmas, we are meeting with our little group of people and refocusing our thinking on "discipleship" and what we are called to in this mission field out here. When you work in a church, go to seminary, and then go plant a church, one of the things you are exposed to on a constant basis is "vision" for the church. I've heard every type of vision you can imagine, some of them fantastic and inspirational (like the vision set forth by Watermark in Dallas), some of them nothing more than glorified business plans for the imperialistic expansion of what amounts to a Christian country club. As we move forward out here, we are basically studying vision for the church in a relatively unique way.

Rather than looking at statistics and trends in church planting, we're looking at the life of Christ.

It's a little selfish of me when it comes down to it. You see, statistics and trends bore me. So I don't like them very much. Jesus doesn't bore me. And since I like him quite a bit more than I like statistics and trends, we're going to focus on Him. When it comes down to it, I could spend my energy and time convincing people in LA that there is a need for a Missional Emerging Conservative Evangelical Bible Community Church on the West side, and show them the demographics and talk about the latest clever ideas for launching new programs that will target people who like to be targeted by clever new programs, or I could spend my time and energy teaching, encouraging, and inspiring us to be disciple makers. I'd prefer the later though it isn't always neat and pretty.

So here's our vision for the immediate future. Learn about the LIFE OF CHRIST because it is the foundation for the LIFE OF THE DISCIPLE which in turn is the backbone of the LIFE OF THE CHURCH. It may sound overly simplistic to some people, but for us it's critical. Most of us out here have significant experience programming. Honestly, if programming and planning were all it took to be successful at planting a church, these guys would be superstars. We're surrounded by some incredibly gifted and talented people. But there's more to the Church than it's programs.

So we're studying the life of Christ to see if it helps us be better disciples and ultimately better disciple makers. Of course, it's one thing to know about it and whole other thing to actually do something about it.

So please pray for us. Much like anywhere else in the world, being a disciple maker ain't exactly rocket science. But then again it ain't exactly child's play either.

Refocus

Mindy and I are doing fantastic. Yesterday, I finished a job as a grip on a short film in Hollywood. Basically, because I don’t know anything about gripping, I got paid to just guard a big truck full of expensive lighting equipment since we were filming in a pretty rough part of town. The nice thing about “guarding” the truck is that I got a chance to sit there with some other guys for hours at a time. Not much to do except talk about life. By the end of Monday, one of the younger guys wanted to get together with Mindy and me since he and his girlfriend don't know many couples out here. Excellent discipleship opportunity.

Which brings up a great question. What is true discipleship? Lately, we’ve been challenging ourselves to define much of our Christian lingo. Even words like “gospel” and “salvation” are completely loaded terms that many of us don’t understand, let alone can aritculate if put on the spot.




So one of our primary goals as we move forward together as a group is to assault our lingo. I wouldn’t call it a deconstruction of our language. I’d say our goal is to simply refocus some pictures that have become blurry. To push through the cliches in the Church and get to the heart of the spiritual life.

We’ve been listening to a series of sermons that Howard Hendricks did on the dynamics of discipleship. I HIGHLY recommend that you listen to them yourself. You can download them for free here. But in them, Hendricks says, “Discipleship is the spiritual life. And the spiritual life is the life of Christ, reproduced in the believer, through the Holy Spirit. Therefore, master the Master's life.”

I couldn’t agree with Hendricks more.

Here’s the logic we’re following as we begin a pretty intensive study of the Life of Christ over the next several weeks. The backbone of the Church is the Life of the Disciple. The foundation of the Life of the Disciple is the Life of Christ. Therefore, we need to master the Life of Christ. Before you can truly understand Acts, you first have to understand Luke. Before you can truly understand the Church, you have to understand the foundations for the Church. So we are going to look at the Life of Christ and talk in detail about why Christ had to come in light of God's greater program, what model He provided for us in His life, what He accomplished for us in His death, and what are the implications of His resurrection.
We want to live the spiritual life. We want to take discipleship seriously. We want to see people not only put their faith in Christ for the first time, but to live the abundant spiritual life that’s available to all of us who have entered into the Kingdom through our faith in Him. It's not just about eternity in Heaven in the future, but it's also about life in the Kingdom of God now.

In West LA it is critical that we are able to articulate our faith with our words and our lives. If we can't, we run the risk of being swallowed by the thousands of other messages all competing for people’s allegiance out here.

If you get a chance to listen to those Hendricks sermons, I'd love for you to share your comments on them.

Please keep praying for us!

A New Approach

For all of you who have been praying for Mindy and me over the past few months, we really want you to know how much we have felt God's love and your encouragement. We are doing great, life continues to unfold in some fantastic, challenging, crazy, beautiful ways, and we are still here in LA trying to be a light in a sea of darkness.

We arrived in LA almost a year ago, and honestly, it's taken us a year just to acclimate to the cultural climate out here. Life is so different than it was in Texas. Not only is everything faster and louder and busier, but the culture is so diverse and chaotic that we're just now starting to feel like we have managed to scratch the surface. I went to a park the other day and counted over 30 different groups of people, each with their own culture.

Needless to say, I can spend all day telling you about Los Angeles life but in the end I guess it's like most places. You really need to live out here and experience it before you can truly get a feel for it.

But even in the midst of the chaos, our hearts continue to pound for the people here. We've met some incredible people who have become like family to us, who love Jesus and are truly giving their lives away for Him. We've met other people who are so far from God that it breaks our hearts. So many of them are desperately trying to navigate their way through this spiritual wasteland and it's sad to meet so many people who are completely lost.

The other day Mindy and I had a conversation about whether it was time for us to leave LA and look for jobs somewhere else. With all that's happened, we are leaving the option open. But in the end we both realized how much we are drawn to this place, to these people, and we really couldn't imagine leaving right now.

So we're going to stay as long as God lets us.

Not because it's beautiful here.

Not because it's just a fun place to live.

Not because we want to be famous, or rich, or powerful.


We're staying because God is alive and at work and changing our lives and the lives of the people we've linked arms with. I hope you're finding the same passion in whatever sphere you're running in right now. I can't tell you how excited we are about the future, even if that future looks completely different than we thought it would. We feel closer to God than ever before, and surely there is no greater life than the life lived in His presence!

Okay, enough sermon.

I'm going to create another blog to try to start some discussions on a few of the issues we're dealing with the most, whether cultural, biblical, theological, or all three. We'll probably also start a MySpace page at some point for those of you who like MySpace. Check out the "First Theology" blog to get a feel for what I'd like to do with the other blog. I think Josh is a great synthesizer of ideas and one of the more brilliant young theologians I know. I'd like to focus mainly on discipleship/spiritual formation issues since that's what we deal with constantly in a city where people couldn't care less about whether something makes sense, and are simply looking for something that works. That's why our lives are our number one apologetical tool in a postmodern world.

So stay tuned, and please keep praying for us.


And finally, just because I can, check out our friggin' nieces. Awesome.

Letter to our supporters

I'm finishing up a letter to our supporters that should go out tomorrow (Wed). I want to give it a few days for them to receive the letter, and then we'll update the blog about what all is going on.

In the meantime, if you want specific info about what's up w. Mindy and me right now, email us:

Bill
billmagsig@hotmail.com

Mindy
mindymagsig@gmail.com

We'd LOVE to hear from you!

A whole lot of changes coming...