First Axis Baptism Celebration

Here is the video link on you tube to our first baptism celebration.  Awesome!!

Baptism in a livestock tank

We have our first baptism service coming up.  ”How to dunk people in a day care facility?”  It can be a challenge.  We had lots of ideas given to us.  We finally bought an 8 foot oblong water trough for horses.  We will heat it with horse bucket heaters and pump the water out with a submersible water pump.  Total cost:  $350, not bad when you are talking about salvation!

Axis Church is Born

On October 25, 2009, a new church was born.  On the first day, 220 people came from all over the area to learn that church is not about attending, it is about belonging.

It was an amazing day of worship and the atmosphere in the church was electric.  Since everyone is new, every person seemed to go out of their way to meet others and begin the process of building relationships.  We truly desire that this be a church that does was Jesus modeled.  Jesus loved people, he had compassion on them, he spoke the truth, he developed deep relationships with his disciples, he always focused on his mission of bringing the world to himself.

So it begins…and it continues…

Launch Day

The big launch day is less that two days away.  It is hard to believe.  It seems like it has gotten here so fast.  It’s amazing to do all of the preparation work and then wait; wait to see what God is going to do, wait to see who is going to come, wait….

Not knowing what to expect or how things will turn out is both a scary and a thrilling thing at the same time.  Yet, as I talk to our team, everyone I run into seems calm and excited.  We can only do our part.  God does the rest.

I will update the blog after the launch day.  In the meantime, pray.  Pray that God would do something amazing with Axis Church.

what if starbucks marketed like church

Unbelievable…but not that far off.  What happened to relevance?  what if starbucks marketed like a church?

God sized visions

Most of us live our lives by more or less going through the motions.  At least that’s how I feel sometimes.  Get up, go to work, get home, run kids, eat supper, do homework, put kids to bed, spend a few minutes catching your spouse up on the day, go to bed.

I have always been one who deep down longs for something more.  I long for God to show up in this generation in a way that clearly draws people to Himself.  I long to be a blessing to other people.  I long to see people and families and communities changed to become true difference makers.  I long to see the downward moral and spiritual trend begin to turn up again.

Occasionally, I come across someone who has broken through the mundane with a God-sized vision and it so inspires me.  I’m inspired by people like Bob Pierce who decided that world hunger was a epidemic problem that required a God-sized solution.  So he started world vision.  I’m inspired by Franklin Graham who decided that children around the world needed to have a Merry Christmas so he started Operation Christmas Child.

Pray with me that we would be open to God sized visions in our own lives.  We were not made for a mundane life.  We were made to experience an abundant life.

God Things Part 4

Every office needs furniture.  People have asked, “what do you need?”  I always chuckle a little at that question.  ”We need EVERYTHING.”  It’s amazing when you don’t have anything how God provides.

That goodness for Craigslist.  I was on looking for furniture for the office.  Our budget is so tight.  And one of the challenges of a new church is that there is such a great need for finances right at the beginning.  Because so much has to be purchased just to get started.  I found furniture online and the add said “office furniture cheap.”  Well, the price sounded right so I emailed.  Tom emailed me back.  He said, “Steve, this is Tom from High Five I know your dad and your brothers.”  Wow.  I told him that I couldn’t come to see the furniture because I was out of town but I would send my associate John.  John met him and looked at the furniture.  It was several office cubicle spaces; the ones with the desks attached to the cubicles.  There were four in all plus an additional workstation and several file cabinets.  John asked Tom, “what do you want for all of this?”  Tom said, “well, for you guys and what you are doing, you can just have it.”  Free!  It’s one of the best words in the english language.  Thank you to High Five.  God thing.

God Things Part 3

Finding an office has been a challenge.  We wanted to be close to where we were going to worship.  But there were not many choices.  The “ideal” office complex was right on the corner of Cox Smith Road, literally a “stones throw” away from the endeavor learning center.  But, they only had two offices for lease.  One was not finished and not an option.  The second was too large at over 5,000 square feet and therefore too expensive.  I decided to call anyway.

Here was my pitch.  ”I know that you are asking much more than our budget but this space has been vacant for a year.  Let us lease it for month to month at our budget amount and whenever you find another tenant you can tell us to leave.  It’s a win-win.”  Well, the realtor didn’t go for it.  So we looked for other options and waited.

Then, I got a phone call.  It was the realtor.  He said, “hey, I have another guy who was in before you who wants to lease the space.  But, it’s a little more than he needs.  I think I can get you two together and you could lease from him.”  We met.  We discussed.  I told him we needed the three offices at the back side of the office suite and the connecting waiting and reception area.  And, guess what, he accepted.  It’s at our budget level and will facilitate our staff well.   We have shared entrance, shared kitchen and reception area.  And as our each staff looks out their office windows they will be able to look across the fountain and a field to see the endeavor learning center.  God thing.

God Things Part 2

As many of you know, our house has been on the market for months.  We have had 65 showings.  Can you believe that??  I have cleaned more in the past 6 months than I have in the past 6 years.  Two weeks ago on a Sunday, Lisa and I were talking about the house and our kid’s school and what we would do.  We made two key decisions that night.  1) we would send our kids to Lebanon Christian Schools.  We had toured the school a few days earlier.  Although it is a stretch for the family budget, we decided that they needed to get settled and we could live anywhere and they could still be set in at least one area of their lives.  2) we made the decision to give our house one more week to sell.  The constant showing of our house, keeping things in order (although Lisa keeps a clean house anyway), and shuffling the kids off was getting tiring.

You know where this is going…on Thursday we got an offer on our house.  And, it was a full price offer.  Now, that was after we had dropped the price over time by $37K but still.  So we are moving.  God wasn’t in a hurry but he answered just when we needed Him to.  God thing.

God Things

One of the things that is most exciting about taking steps of faith is that you get to experience God in new and real ways.  At just the right moment, when you need it most, God shows up and answers a prayer or provides a solution you hadn’t thought of or gives something that you need.  We’ve seen that with Axis and in our lives in just the past few days.

We have been praying about someone to come on staff in the area of student and children.  I knew a guy who’s parents go to center pointe church.  Lisa and I just helped with his wedding recently.  He and I talked a few months ago about church.  We were getting to know each other but also learning about our vision and fit.  Then 3 weeks ago, we met at Starbucks.  As I shared the vision for Axis I could sense his excitement.  We left knowing it was right.  He wanted prayers for his new wife who just settled in their new apartment.  This move means leaving family, job and home.  Within days I got the response back, “we are so excited and we are coming to help plant Axis Church.”  He starts September 1.  God thing.