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.