Grace and Law

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.

Six Amazing Years

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.

You are all Awesome!!

I promise my blog isn’t turning into a shameless fund-raising portal.  But, I did want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH for all of your generous faith and prayers.  Here’s where we are with A WEEK LEFT TO GO…

I’ll say it like Paul did, I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now… You are helping us to plant a GREAT NEW CHURCH IN BOSTON.

We still have A WEEK LEFT AND 44% TO GO, so If you haven’t had a chance to give yet and you’d like to, you can do that HERE.

Progress Report…

Thanks so much for your support.  CAN YOU HELP US GET HALFWAY BY SUNDAY?

$8000 in 14 Days! Can YOU help?

We have a need.

As you may know, Hope and I are being forced to leave the UK early. The great thing about that is that we’re being moved on to plant Aletheia Church Boston sooner than we thought.  The tough part is that we didn’t have nearly enough time needed to save the $20k it costs to move a family of five from one continent to another.

Here’s the GOOD NEWS: we’ve already raised over half of that amount!  The BAD NEWS is WE STILL NEED $8,000 to pay for our moving expenses.  We need this in the NEXT 14 DAYS so that we can pay our moving company. That’s where you come in…

For Aletheia Church Boston to start, the simple fact is we have to be there.  Would you consider giving whatever you can to HELP US MOVE BACK TO THE USA SO THAT A GREAT CHURCH CAN BE PLANTED IN BOSTON?

So, THAT’S $8,000 IN 14 DAYS.  God is big, and I know that He can do it!

Thanks for your help and support!

(Note: You can give via electronic check or credit card. Please feel free to email me with questions.)

Cole’s First Movie!

The Birth of our Son from Adam Mabry on Vimeo.

Kicked out of the UK

So, yeah…

OUR VISAS HAVE BEEN DENIED. After a rather long and drawn out exercise with the UK Border Agency, we have found out that we will not be able to remain in the UK after November of this year. As you may recall, in the process of applying for new visas, the UK government changed their rules for us missionaries to remain in the country, and WE WILL HAVE TO LEAVE THE UK IN NOVEMBER.

As you can imagine, we are both shocked and surprised, as we were quite hopeful that we would be able to remain here until we were ready to move to Boston next year. We trust that God is sovereign and good in all this, and we know that He is in control of our lives and that he loves us.

To prepare for our coming transition we’re going to have to believe God for a lot of provision. WOULD YOU PRAY INTO THESE AREAS WITH US?

• $13,000 – for our moving costs and plane tickets from the UK to the USA
• GRACE – we will be moving with a newborn (our new son will only be 6-8 weeks old)
• CAR – for our family in the USA
• RENTERS – as our house is unlikely to sell in such a short time.

After Scotland, we will be taking some time out to prepare to plant a great church in Boston, but for now, we’re hoping to MAKE THE MOST OF OUR REMAINING TIME HERE, and to work hard to bear as much fruit as possible.

We know that God causes all things to work together for our good (Romans 8:28), and that God is well able to meet all our needs according to his glorious riches in Christ (Phil 4:19). While we are a bit dazed and confused, we are most certainly not without hope. For those of you who are our partners, THANK YOU SO MUCH for continuing to stand with us and support this ministry.  You know who you are, and you rock.

As we walk through transition from one mission field into another one, we can’t tell you how excited we are. Even though we can’t see the whole future, we are trusting in God and look forward to what he will do.

I’d love to hear any questions you might have.  But, that’s where we are.

More Visa Drama

As you may know, we’ve been going through some visa drama for the last few months.

At this moment, my family needs your prayers.

A while back, I was informed that the British government changed the rules which allow us ministers to stay in the UK. At that time, I asked you to pray that our church would gain “sponsor status” which would allow us to officially invite missionaries like me to be in the UK. Thanks for praying, It worked! We got approved and now we can be officially invited.

But then a new problem popped up.

In the time it took for our church to obtain this status, our visas expired. Now, in order to get another visa, we can’t simply re-apply for the one we had because ours expired while we were waiting on CentrePoint Church to become sponsors. Now we have to apply for new visas. For us to do this, we would have to fly all our family members home (including our son who’s not been born yet), stay there for 6 weeks, apply for new British visas, pay fees, pay to stay in the USA, pay for flights, and for new biometric information to be taken for the visas. No problem, right? Wrong. For us to do this it would cost something on the order of $10,000, or just under. This would allow us to stay for an additional 6 months past our current tourist visas that we’re on. Just to be clear, that’s 6 months for $10k. Not something we’re prepared or able to do.

In about a week, I’m meeting with a visa attorney to discuss our options. These are the possible outcomes that I can think of:

1. Good – We file some kind of an extension to our tourist visas, and extend our legal stay into the new year sometime without the craziness of flying us all home and paying $10k.
2. Bad – Get a negative outcome, and be forced to move home at the end of November, when our current legal time limit here is up.

We need you to pray. We’re really not sure which way this is going to go. At this point, we are placing our fate firmly in the hands of our Jesus who loves us and knows what is best. Please pray for his will to be done. We really don’t want to move home in November, but we’re simply not prepared to pay that kind of money and time for only six more months.

Please pray.

BIG NEWS FOR THE MABRYS!

We have some BIG NEWS to share with all you "interwebs" out there!

As you may or may not know, Hope and I have felt called by God for a long time to plant a church. Hope and I were recently assessed and trained to plant churches. For almost a year now, we’ve been dealing with a call from God to plant a new church. Planting new churches is what we’ve done here in Edinburgh, and now he’s calling us to STEP OUT IN FAITH and follow his call to another place to plant another church. As we’ve prayed, we very distinctly heard GOD CALLING US TO PLANT A NEW CHURCH IN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS!

I know what you’re thinking. “Why Boston? What about Scotland?” Well, we always assumed we’d plant in Europe because WE ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT SEEING unCHRISTIAN, ATHEISTIC/AGNOSTIC PEOPLE MEET JESUS. These people abound in Europe (which is part of the reason we like it here As we prayed, we realized that those people don’t just live in Europe, but in certain parts of the USA. Over time, God began to BURN IN OUR HEARTS a desire to reach the people of New England.

What is striking is how similar Boston and Edinburgh actually are. Both cities have amazing spiritual heritages, both cities boast great universities, and both cities are full of people who don’t know Jesus and DESPERATELY NEED A TRANSFORMATIONAL ENCOUNTER WITH HIS GOSPEL.

Of course, WE’RE NOT DONE IN EDINBURGH JUST YET! We’re committed to being here as long as we can to see these churches succeed. This is, of course, being made difficult by our current visa situation. At this point, Hope and I are unsure of how long the UK government will allow us to remain here. The good news is, however, that these churches are doing well and are healthy. IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN OUR GOAL TO DO SUCH A GOOD JOB REACHING LOCALS THAT WE WORKED OURSELVES OUT OF A JOB. Now, that is happening.

Obviously, we’re excited that God is pleased to use us in this way to advance His Kingdom. You are welcome to CHECK OUT OUR CHURCH PLANT by visiting the website I built for it. We’re very early days yet, but we’d appreciate your prayers for us and our future. This will be the biggest faith step we’ve ever taken, and we’re going to need a lot of prayer.

I Haven't Blogged Lately…

I haven’t blogged lately, because I’ve been in the throws of a very busy trip back to the USA, with spotty internet access.

So…

Here’s a cute picture of my kids for you to enjoy.