This map startled me…
See all the dots in the TOP RIGHT CORNER? Those are Top-100 colleges and universities, and we’re barely on 10% of them.
New England is so strategic, and we’re missing the opportunity.
The good news is that we won’t be for long. Who’s in? Who wants to help plant some gospel-centered, Christ-exalting churches on or near these influential campuses?
I know I’m in.
There is a lot I don’t see right now…
…I don’t see the money I need to plant Aletheia Church Boston
…I don’t see a full team of people and staff
…I don’t yet see hundreds coming to Christ
…I don’t see the sound system, meeting space, small groups, or welcome signs
But…
I do see God. I see His promises, His character, and His love for Boston, which is greater than mine or anyone else. I see God, even though I don’t see anything else. I don’t see what I think I need. But I do see Him who gives to all beyond what we can ask or think. Do you see him?
See God, not your issues. In the absence of immediate provision, see him who will meet your needs and give him honor for future grace.
I LOVE THE GOSPEL, and yet I’m amazed at the areas of my life that it has yet to truly touch.
For instance… parenting.
Hope and I try to teach our children to obey THE VERY FIRST TIME. We feel that, from Scripture, it is important that we teach them to obey us, as their parents because in it there is blessing, and we want them to develop a spirit of trust in their parents, that it might spill over to their walk with God. However, being smaller versions of us full-sized sinners, they don’t obey all the time.
So what do we do?
For the longest time, we have used the law of “obey your parents” to show them their sin, that they might repent and do better next time. Nothing wrong with that, except that we stopped there. I stopped there. I was, for the longest time, teaching them to obey, and when they didn’t they would receive correction. But God in his mercy reminded me that THE LAW WAS GIVEN THAT GRACE MIGHT INCREASE. I missed the opportunity to show them that Christ was given BECAUSE they can’t obey all the time. Let me illustrate what I mean…
Me: Nora, why did I discipline you?
Nora: Because I disobeyed (in a cute, Nora voice)
Me: Yes, you did. What does the Bible say?
Nora: Childwen, obey you-uh parwents.
Me: That’s right, please obey next time.
Did you catch it. It was okay, but missed a great gospel opportunity. Let’s try again…
Me: Nora, why did I discipline you?
Nora: Because I disobeyed (in a cute, Nora voice)
Me: Yes, you did. What does the Bible say?
Nora: Childwen, obey you-uh parwents.
Me: Right. You know, sometimes I disobey too, but you know what?
Nora: What?
Me: Jesus obeyed for me, even when I don’t. He obeyed for you too, even when you don’t. Isn’t Jesus great?
Nora: Yeah.
Me: Yeah, he is. Now, please obey Mommy and Daddy.
IN MY PARENTING AND IN MY LIFE, I WANT THEM TO KNOW GRACE WHEN THEY BREAK THE LAW, because they simply will, and so will I, and so will you. That’s why we need Jesus.
Today Hope and I celebrate 6 years of marriage!
I am so thankful to God for my wife, and to celebrate the 6 years of God’s goodness to me in and through my wife, I’ve written a poem of sixes… six words, six lines, six paragraphs…
To you my wife I write
My heart, my flesh, my light
Of six years since the night
That my eyes drank in sight
Of you, veiled preciously in white
The one who’d become my wife.
Now six years it has been
Since love’s covenant would forever mend
Our two hearts and lives in
Unity which only Divinity could bend
Two lives together, not women, men
But as husband and his wife.
That One who bound us brought
Us from our home and taught
Us patience as we have fought
Ourselves, cultures, enemies, sin, and sought
To refine us as gold, not
Harm this husband and his wife.
His grace has giv’n us three
Most beautiful children, ones that we
Don’t deserve, but my, to see
You be their mother, and me
So humbled to think this free
Gift is mine, my amazing wife.
And looking forward I see still
Christ’s grace of more years filled
Up with love and life until
All life’s work is then fulfilled
And my love for you still
Burning bright, my worship-inspiring wife.
I can scarcely believe that now
Six years have passed, and how
Much has happened, Christ’s grace allows
all this!? That I should somehow
Have you, Hope, always and now
My beautiful, Godly, humble, incomparable wife.
Recently, Tim Keller (Redeemer Presbyterian Church of NYC) did an interview/panel discussion on his most recent book. If you’d like to give it a listen, you can find it here.
<GASP>
Okay, we have moved back to the USA in preparation for our new mission assignment, and normal life patterns are emerging. It has been a crazy, harrowing, happy, sad, up, and down 3 weeks, so let me be brief but to the point.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND SUPPORT THROUGH THIS TRANSITION. Hope and I have been blown away at the kindness of God extended to us through his people, our friends, our partners, and even strangers as we prepare to plant a new church in Boston.
Secondly, PRAY FOR GOD TO MOVE IN BOSTON. Already we are feeling the wind at our backs as we walk into our next mission assignment. Please pray for God to do something amazing in Boston.
Werre back. Praise God. Now its time to get to work…
Almost 6 years ago, God spoke to Hope and I and told us to stop what we were doing, and to move to Scotland to help plant a church. So, we did. I cannot believe that the time has come for us to leave this place. But again, God has told us to go, and we are.
I thank God for this place, and our time here. I thank God for the pain. I thank God for the joy. I thank God for the costly nature of it. I thank God for the way it has changed me. I thank God for the people. I thank God for, well, all of it.
I know that we have obeyed him. We have borne fruit. We have won lost souls to Jesus. We have been faithful, and I know that Scotland is better because of the people we’re leaving behind. I know, too, that I’m better because of Scotland, and her people.
Now, six years on, we are saying goodbye to the place that we once only dreamed of. We’re looking back on memories that we once only imagined we’d have. We thankful for experiences that we never thought we’d get. We stand at the end of this moment, and, turning back to gaze upon it one final time, we smile.
One of my favorite Lewis quotes, brought to mind from re-reading Desiring God…
If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
(C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory)
I’m about to leave Scotland.
I am filled with excitement, fear, faith, sadness, happiness, and host of other emotions. ONE THING I AM NOT, HOWEVER, IS CONCERNED. I do not lie awake at night wondering, “will they do okay without me?” Certainly not. In fact, I’m convinced that if I were, I would be both an IDOLATER and a BAD LEADER.
I would be an idolater because I would be implying that this church were somehow built by me. Rubbish. This church, and every other church, is built by Jesus Christ who said I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not overcome it. I am not Jesus. I don’t build churches. To believe that I do would make me an idolater and a fool.
I would be a bad leader because I would have illustrated exactly what I didn’t do: make disciples. I’m going to steal a riff from Steve Murrell here, WE MAKE DISCIPLES, JESUS BUILDS THE CHURCH. If I were concerned about this church, I’d simply be showing off how for 5 years I didn’t make a good disciple.
But… by God’s grace, I have made a few disciples, and Jesus continues to be the builder of his church. I’ve preached the gospel, and I’ve done my best to lay foundations in people. So, this is my assurance; I HAVE BEEN FAITHFUL to try and make disciples, and I BELIEVE JESUS WILL BE FAITHFUL TO BUILD HIS CHURCH in Edinburgh, in Boston, and all over the world.
This is a short video of some baptisms that we recently did. Great to celebrate the reason we came here: to reach people who don’t know Jesus.
Fall 09 Baptisms from Adam Mabry on Vimeo.
