2010 is underway

It is hard to believe that we have spent over one year now in Wisconsin. So much has happened. We are keyed in on a location for the start of The Journey Church. This new church will be a satellite, of sorts, partnered with our current church New Life Community Church in Plymouth. The Journey Church will be coming to Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, hopefully as early as next Fall. We are calling it the church for people who don’t like church. So many people in our culture today have problems, issues or distrust of organized religion. We like to think of The Journey Church as disorganized religion with a very specific purpose. That purpose is to take down as many barriers as we can that stand between so many people and church.

The Journey Church will be a place where people can approach God without being judged, hassled and hopefully without being bored. If you are not comfortable in most churches Journey may be just the place for you. We hope people from all kinds of backgrounds will attend. Journey will truly be a place where you can come as you are. We believe all people are on a spiritual journey. So whether you are a skeptic, an un-convinced observer or a fully devoted follower of Christ you will feel right at home. Questions about God, faith and spirituality will not only be tolerated but welcomed.

At Journey we believe God radically loves people, all people and has an awesome plan and purpose for everyone on the planet. We look forward to getting to know the people of Falls and hope to make many new friends as The Journey Church begins its journey next Fall. Thanks to all of our friends, family and faithful supporters for all you are doing to make The Journey Church a reality.

Hey guys id like 2 keep u in the loop on what is happening here as we plant The Journey Church. I will make short mobile post like ths 1, 2 keep u up 2 speed.

Drive In Movie

New Life Community Church held a drive in movie night in Plymouth Friday night. We showed National Treasure 2 on this 30 ft screen we hung over scaffolding. It was great.

Around 70 cars showed up, that's somewhere between 200-250 people. The crowd was mostly made up of people not from our church. We had a chance to meet several people from surrounding communities, several from Sheboygan Falls. We hope to do this again in the spring, but this time we will show a film in the city we will start the new church in. I can't wait. Cool things are happening here and we are meeting more and more new people. I really believe God is going to do something cool in peoples lives as The Journey Church gets underway. Thanks for all your prayers and support.

We are getting close to taking our first steps

I can't thank you guys enough for all your prayers lately. We have pretty much settled in on a location for the new church plant. We hope to be focusing our efforts on Sheboygan Falls and Kohler. Both of these cities are side by side and we believe, are a great place to start a new church. It looks like the name of the new church will be, The Journey Church. This name keeps coming back to us as a name that seems to capture what this new church is all about. We are all on a spiritual journey but just at different points along the way. It is our desire to connect with people who are not yet Christ followers on their spiritual journey. We desperately want to connect with people who are spiritually confused.

I met a really neat guy in Sheboygan Falls just a couple of days ago. He shared with me some of the reasons that he is not all that interested in church. After explaining what we "do" at New Life here in Plymouth and what The Journey Church will be like he genuinely seemed interested in checking out a church like this. People like my friend in Sheboygan Falls are all over the place. They just need someone to tell them about God on terms they can relate to and come to grips with. Thanks for all you guys do in slowly but surely making this God sized dream become a reality.

Wisconsin Summer

Summer has been a great time for the Parker clan. We are LOVING this cool weather. Wisconsin has had maybe 3 or 4 days above 90. The rest of the summer has been cool and breezy. We are keying in on what we hope to be the place we will plant The Journey Church (That's the working name at this point.) We believe it will be in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin. Please pray through that location with us. We are starting to dream big dreams about what God might do in this small Wisconsin town. We will keep you posted.

Life in the country

We are LOVING living outside of Plymouth, Wisconsin. Actually we live outside of Saint Cloud which is outside of Plymouth...that's country. Things are going well. We are set to begin an internship with New Life Community Church with the goal of starting a new church in one of the towns surrounding Plymouth. Please pray for us as we prayer walk communities and get a feel for where God plans on planting the next church in our area. The original plan was the Port Washington area. If we have learned anything over the last year it is, if you are going to soar with God you better get used to flying by the seat of your pants. We are excited about all the possibilities.

Meanwhile life is good and we are enjoying a new place, a new church, and most especially many new friends. God has truly blessed us and we believe He has BIG plans for the region over the next few years. It is really cool to get to play a tiny part in what God is doing in church planting in this area.

Moving day one of two. Wow what a long but amazing week. It feels like were onto something now.

Testing out ping.fm for all my posting needs. Thanks Aaron for the info.

Back to Blogging

Hey Guys

Sorry it has been a while since my last post. I kind of lost track of blogging in the midst of getting settled here in Wisconsin. Many of you are receiving our monthly newsletter, however. If you do not get the newsletter and would like to just shoot me an email to danellandjim@yahoo.com and we will be glad to add you to the list.

I will have a more detailed post within the month, I hope. We are once again transitioning. We are moving 30 min. north to be closer to our parent church, New Life Community Church. This will allow us to focus more on our internship there and begin to plow fresh rows toward a future church start. I will give you details as we settle in and know a little more of how all of this will take shape. Thanks for your continual prayers. We will keep you posted.

Some really cool things have been happening here in Wisconsin. We are meeting new people all of the time. I work with a guy that I have a lot in common with. We both like 80's metal and hair bands. It is so neat to see how God takes conversations about who is singing lead in Boston now, and sculpts them into spiritual conversations.

One of the greatest things God is teaching me right now is how gigantic the scope of the mundane is to Him. Shane Claiborne in his book Irresistible Revolution, describes the summer he spent living and working with Mother Theresa. One of Momma T's (as he calls her) favorite sayings is "We do not need to do great things only small things with great love." I'm convinced more and more that this is what God wants from us as we make our spiritual journeys here on this planet. Whether it is a conversation about the guitar stylings of Richi Sambora or serving the neighbor across the street by helping them with their snow blowing (Which I have yet to do). We need to be available to do small things with great love every single day.

There is no greater feeling than to wake up and recognize that you are living in a strange land. To daily be aware that anything of spiritual weight of eternal consequence that happens through the day will be absolutely dependent on the action of God. It is great to start your day with that overwhelming feeling that if God doesn't "show up" that you will be powerless to bring change around you. Here I have no contacts, no influence, no network to form a community of people from. All we have here is God and a handful of new friends who love us deeply and are passionate about what we are here to do. But every day that pushes us to fall in front of God and ask for His movement throughout the day. That's a pretty good place to be in my opinion. In fact that is the place we are all at. Sometimes, if your hard headed like me, we just need some of our comfort zones ripped away to remember just how much we need Him. I hope daily I will learn to let God use me in small ways to do things with great love. I hope I will recognize that the mundane is major to Him. And, I hope to see God do things that are huge with the tiny mustard seeds of trust that I learn to daily offer Him.

Hey family and friends. I thought I’d take a moment to give you a quick church planting update. The beginning of our putting down some roots here in Saukville has been kind of like a roller coaster. Bailey and I were able to make it to a Packer game this weekend. That was an experience of a lifetime. There are lots of moments like that, that God has given us that brings great joy. The flipside of the coin is this “Pioneer” church planting as they call it is hard stuff. Pioneer planters move to an unfamiliar area, begin to build relationships, and eventually plant a church there. We are meeting lots of new and nice people which is what we are here for. That’s the great part.

Our first Thanksgiving away from family and friends was really hard. We have great friends here in the McCaskills and the Martells. Bill and Kathy let us do Thanksgiving with their family which was so encouraging and much needed during a time of tough transitions. Still our first Thanksgiving without MeMaw’s dressing at Danell’s Mom’s and not getting to see all the Parker clan we see only twice a year was a little sad. Danell and the girls are troopers but this move has really been tough on them. As most of you who know me well know, I try to stay positive about where we are in life, but I mention all this because we really covet your prayers right now. Just keep praying for encouragement and friendships for Danell and the girls. I need wisdom in knowing what job I should settle into. I have a couple of options now, which is great, but we want to know which is best.

It’s a weird thing. Our lives right now are kind of like they are plugged into an amplifier. The highs are much higher and the lows are much lower. Everything, for lack of a better term, is ….well amplified. Thank you all so much for your prayers, we sense them like never before. Everyday God seems to just pour Himself out in my time spent with Him. For that I’m so thankful. He is faithful and has great plans ahead for us. We are growing with every trial we face. Whatever happens here in Saukville, Wisconsin I’m convinced that God is going to be at work in some real and powerful ways. We sure love you guys. Thanks for your friendship, prayers, and continual encouragement. Our Arkansas friends, new Wisconsin friends, and those of you scattered all over the globe mean so much to us. God bless.

I will never forget my first trip deer hunting. I was invited to hunt on a friend’s cousin’s family land. It was very early morning, we were all walking quietly through the woods to our stands and suddenly this flash of brown and white bounded into the trail several of us were walking. This deer immediately turned running down the trail away from us. Before I could, think, look, or even aim, I hurled my shot gun into the air and fired. Of course I missed and thankfully so. The deer was a doe, it wasn’t doe season, the hunter’s morning was pretty much ruined, and I’m sure I was voted most popular by this deer hunting family that hardly knew me.

This morning I was reading in Psalm 11 about how God loves “righteous” deeds and how the “upright” will behold God’s face. What an awesome invitation from God. Basically if we are righteous we will experience God, face to face, up close and personal. I’m coming to believe that righteousness is more about aim than it is about adherence to a code. Sort of like deer hunting.

I don’t know about you but the word righteous has always evoked one of two emotions in me. One, I picture Wayne and Garth from Wayne’s world saying things like “Righteous guitar solo duuuude!” The other I picture Pharisaical types looking down their nose at the rest of us saying you should be “righteous” like me…and God. So if you have to be righteous to see God, that has never sounded very appealing to me.

So today I thought I’d do some research on the word righteous. I had the time since my current occupation is church planter (ie unemployed). For the Jews being righteous is much more than living by a code or set of rules and regulations. The words righteous and upright were used by the Jews to mean pretty much the same thing. To live “strait.” They saw righteousness as something God has and allows to flow into our lives. God even said Job was “perfect” in righteousness. That doesn’t mean he was sinless it just means he let God flow into every arena of his existence. All parts of Job’s life were open to God.

Being righteous happens when people let God flow though their lives at every level. It is living “Strait”; pointed toward a purpose. It means aiming God at every corner of your life and pulling the trigger. Righteous living is getting up every day and having a target. It is not wildly shooting at life from the hip. It is not vainly attempting to shoot down every thing that pops up in our path through the day. It is getting up and knowing God is our target and letting him permeate everything we do through the day.

I once saw a bumper sticker that said “I missed my ex-wife…but my aim is getting better.” I sure hope my aim is getting better as I get up and try to target God each new day. Here’s to daily target practice, lots of misses, a few bulls eyes, but ever increasing accuracy in our walk.

We are Cheese Heads!

We are officially residents of Saukville, Wisconsin. I spent this morning hanging out in Carol’s Coffee shop, what is sure to be my new haunt, talking with some new friends. We are settling in to our new neighborhood.

We had a rough couple of days transitioning to life in Wisconsin. In fact the night we arrived we couldn’t find our street. The reality hit us that we were about to be living on a street we had never been to in a house we had never seen. We were all a little overwhelmed the first night and into the second day. In fact we discussed just not unloading the Uhaul and turning around and going back to Arkansas. Thank God we didn’t.

Our friends Bill & Cathy, Dave & Sue, and Tim & Lisa came on Sunday and moved us in. They hoisted all our heavy junk, including a piano, up and down two stories and a basement. They even brought us homemade food and gave us a love gift from New Life Community Church. God has so blessed us by having friends like those at New Life.

After the first couple of days here Bailey and Maizey have already made several friends. The kids on our block all come out and play after school everyday. We live at the top of the tallest hill in our neighborhood. Needless to say that attracts all kinds of kids on bikes and skateboards.

The neighbors have been great. Coming over and welcoming us to the community, bringing us bread and treats for Tallulah. There is a real community feel in this area. I’ve already met some great people and think I will meet many more.

I start sometime in the next couple of weeks with UPS working as a Driver Helper over the holidays. Hopefully that may turn into something full time. Thanks for all your prayers family and friends. We are reaping the results of them like never before in our lives. And, I say that from the bottom of my heart. We love you and will keep you posted. By the way, it has been in the 70s but we are due to get some snow on Friday…Here we go with our 1st Wisconsin Winter.

Here we are in front of our Townhouse. We have great Landlords. John and Sue. Say a prayer for them this week. John is battling Leukemia and Sue is having surgery tomorrow. I think we have landed exactly where God wanted us to be. God bless.

I like to Move it Move it!!!

Hey family and friends. We are finishing packing the last of our boxes today. Tomorrow, Thursday the 30th we load the U-Haul and early Saturday morning we are hitting the road. We will be off line a couple of weeks while we make the move to Wisconsin but will update you with pictures and progress once we arrive. It will be strange to wake up this Sunday morning as residents of Saukville, Wisconsin. We believe God has good things ahead of us. Please pray for us as we will for you. God bless, we will talk again soon.

Believe

This morning I was sitting out in the cool morning air writing in a journal a friend gave me for logging our church planting journey in. I decided to start with the complete story of how God got us to where we are today.

As we draw near our actually moving day, Oct. 30th, we are beginning to face some of the strongest emotions we have ever had. Quite honestly I have had feelings lately of just calling this whole thing off. When I look at the ‘factors’ the future seems bleak. Factors like cost of living, no job yet, living in a town house next door to your landlords with two loud kids, 1 piano, 2 guitars, one set of drums, and a 120 lb. dog. We have grown accustomed to living in our own place by our own rules. Pile on top of that the prospects of starting a church comprised of people I’ve never met before and it all gets a little overwhelming.

I’d pull the covers of my heart back and let you see more but honestly I’m tired of crying and you would probably get tired of reading. So this morning as I reflected back on where this all started eight years ago, God really reminded me of some things. About five years ago God placed in Danell and I the desire to start a new church. A church that would be for people who don’t go to church or may never even think about church. We tried lots of avenues for getting started in doing that but none of those roads seem to lead anywhere, until…. One afternoon we sat in the kitchen of our church parsonage and listened to a tape by Rick Warren about how God called him to strike out to a place he’d never been before and start a church unlike any before it. As we sat crying in our kitchen. We knew what God was saying it was time to do. Shortly after that we left our church, our home, our income and set out to start a new church in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Those who know our story know that God had a plan slightly different from ours. We ended up starting X perience, a Saturday night service for spiritually confused searchers.

What God really hit me with this morning as I wrote in my journal was profound for me. The first time I set out to do this I didn’t really have any more blanks filled in than I do now. The only difference was the last time we rolled the dice we landed on home. This time we’ve landed on the other side of the playing board. Over the last four years, after striking out into the unknown, we have bought our first home, renovated it into just what we dreamed it could one day be. We have built deeper friendships than we have ever had anywhere before. We’ve seen God change peoples lives completely around. We have friends who will spend eternity with us that would not have four years ago. I’ve made better money than I’ve ever made in my life. And I’ve learned more in the last four years than in the 34 that preceded them combined.

God hit me this morning with the reality that He is always there. What overwhelms me now will one day be stones stacked along side the road or in the river bed that will serve as reminders of all God did along the way. I pray you and I will trust Him for every step of the journey in front of us. He is always faithful. God, help me never forget that when the clouds of life block my view of You. We love you guys. By the way, we sense your prayers like never before. Please keep them coming. Thank you so much for your faithfulness, friends and family.

We are go for launch

Astronauts train for years to hear those five words. It is the dream of many pilots to leave the pull of earth’s atmosphere and rocket into the vast vacuum of space. I wonder what it must feel like to strap on 165,000 lbs. of Space Shuttle and wait for several hours to be shot into space at 17,500 mph.? I think it is probably terrifying, exciting, nerve twisting, and exhilarating all at the same time. You’ve trained for years for this moment. But, as you feel the rocket thrusters begin to kick in and that voice in your ears count off the final ten seconds of what has taken 15 years to happen, you must have a flood of emotion. I wonder if you think of Challenger and how it exploded before it escaped Earth’s atmosphere? Or if Columbia’s disaster over the skies of Texas flashes through your brain?

This weekend we seem to have gotten the word that we are go for launch on our church planting journey. I’m hesitant to say “We sold our house.” We’ve learned over the last month these things have a way of getting Scrubbed on the launching pad. But, it seems like this time we really are about to launch into a whole new world for our family. We have been in training for this moment for around eight years now. That’s when we first began to feel God was leading us toward church planting. With all the excitement of preparing to live out your dream sometimes you don’t stop to think of what it will be like when the thrusters kick in and God begins to propel you at a high rate of speed into the very thing for which you’ve been preparing for years. Thoughts of fear, failure, DISASTER flash before your eyes. You begin to wonder what if this thing all blows up around me? And when you look around the cockpit and see your wife and two little girls you realize how high the steaks really are.

But, with all the pre-launch jitters we feel like God has called us to this adventure, we are strapped in, and all signs are the final count down has begun. If all goes according to plan we will be making the move to Wisconsin sometime around the end of October. Thank you for your prayers family and friends. Please keep them up. This time it truly seems that we are go for launch. I’ll update you late with details. Houston, unless we have a problem, my next post may be from the great state of Wisconsin…GO PACK GO!

Impossible?

Most likely you have never heard the name Clarence Brazier. Clarence is not a celebrity, a politician, a war hero, or an internationally known figure. Clarence is an ordinary man who accomplished an extraordinary thing. Clarence grew up and lived his life in Canada. Because of his background and upbringing Clarence never learned to read. He struggled through life job after job finding work that didn’t require him to read. His wife of over fifty years, Angela, read him every single piece of mail, tax forms, magazines and all other print materials that came to their home. Sadly, Angela passed away leaving a now 93 year old Clarence alone. That is when Clarence decided to do the impossible. At age 93, with the help of his daughter, a school teacher, Clarence set out to learn to read. By age 95 Clarence was reading. By age 100 Clarence received an award from the Canada Post for his unbelievable accomplishment.

This morning I was reading in Ezra. Ezra is a book in the Bible all about God’s people Israel returning from being exiled for years in a foreign country. The book tells the story of how when they returned home God led them to rebuild their most sacred place of worship, God’s temple. The weird thing is who kicked this whole project off. It wasn’t Moses, Joshua, David, or one of the Old Testament all stars we’ve heard about. It was a guy named Cyrus. Cyrus was as Persian King. Did you get that? He was not even a Jew. But in the first chapter of Ezra God says this about Cyrus. “that the word of the Lord…might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus King of Persia.” God took this man who would be the last person on the planet to build a temple for the God of the Jews and “stirred up” his spirit to do as Jerry Reed says “what they say can’t be done.”

Sometimes planting a church in a “foreign land” (a place where we know hardly anyone) seems impossible to us. But, “With God, all things are possible.” If you are staring down the barrel of an impossible situation in your life right now there is something you and I would do well to remember. When God has something he wants done he can make the impossible happen to get it done. He can stir hearts that you and I would never think could be stirred. If you feel like the road in front of you is impossible then pick up your foot and take that first step of faith. Soon you will be walking that road and realize that nothing is impossible. If you don’t believe me, just ask Clarence Braizer.

Holding Pattern

Don't you love when you're on one of those flights where the pilot comes over the intercom and says something like "I'm sorry for the delay folks but we are in a holding pattern over the city. We are going to be a little late in reaching our final destination." You get that sinking feeling that you are stuck, flying in circles for who knows how long. We are currently in one of life's holding patterns. Thank God we finished the work on our house, have it listed in the paper and have the signs up in the yard and in our neighborhood. We even put out flyer's in an info. tube complete with pictures and a web site to visit, www.2408home.blogspot.com, for any of you who know someone who's in the market for a home.

But now we have come to the waiting; the holding pattern. We have had several walk throughs and one legitimate offer that ended up not working out. We are waiting. I hate typing those three words. Waiting is hard, it's annoying, uncomfortable, emotionally draining. But, waiting is where God does some of His best work on us. While we are waiting, He is working. Sometimes I need to be reminded of that. Please pray for us while we wait. And if you are waiting let us know so we can pray for you. If you are currently stuck in a holding pattern try and remember that while you are waiting He is working.

Church Planting News

I just have to say a huge thank you to all of our church planting partners. God is using your prayers and will soon be using your financial support to do great things in planting churches in Wisconsin. I wanted to give you all a quick update on what has been going on with our move to Port Washington, Wisconsin to plant a church.

As of this week our house is officially on the market and up for sale. That in itself is huge load off of our shoulders. We now are waiting for it to sale. So all your prayers for God's timing on that are greatly appreciated.

Our original goal was to move to Port sometime in August or September. Things have gone a little slower than we hoped but God works on His schedule not ours. Our re-adjusted target date is now hopefully to be moved no later than the end of October.

For those of you who are partnering with us financially in this church plant I can't thank you enough for your already generous and faithful giving. The money you have invested is accumulating in an account and will be put to great use in the 1st year of our church getting off the ground. There will be lots of initial expenses that a new church like this one will incur. We will have to purchase things like sound equipment, a trailer to transport the sound equipment, building rental, and advertising, all in our first year as a new church. Therefore, if you began your giving commitment period in August or before we are so thankful and your gifts will soon be having kingdom impact.

We will send out another newsletter with some specific prayer concerns soon. We love you all and thank you for your investment in our lives and others spiritual future.

You're My Best Friend

It’s been a while since my last post, sorry. We have been busy getting our house ready to sell. Last night I had a sobering thought come to my mind. We did a huge youth event at our church. Many of our friends were involved in either the planning or the worship band that played. As I prayed with the band before we got underway the reality that this would be some of my last days with these guys began to set in. These guys have become like a band of brothers to me. The two Justins, Jon and Melissa, Will, and others will no longer be people I see week to week.

We are so pumped about starting this new church in Wisconsin and all that God has in store for us. But starting in the next couple of months my longstanding support network of passionate Christ followers is going to go from a mass of guys we have gotten close to over the years to a handful of guys I’m just now getting to know. And the cool new friends we’ve made already in Wisconsin all live in other cities. Our first year could be tough on our encouragement level. I don’t usually ask you guys to do STUFF for me but this is some STUFF I really, really need from you.

What I really need you guys to do for us is shoot me emails or call me up. When God says something to you about us in prayer or a scripture comes to mind, PLEASE send it along to us. We will need the encouragement, I’m sure. I’m really going to miss all of our friends here. But God has great things in store. For those of you who don’t have it our email address that will remain the same is danellandjim@yahoo.com. My cell is (870) 718-5314. Text me, Call me, or email me a word from God any time you feel He is leading you to do so. I’m sure we will need it just when you send it. Thanks for such great friendships guys. We really love you all.