Category Archives: Uncategorized

When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul (Psalm 94.19).

Is your heart stressed or stable? Is your countenance chaotic or cheerful? Is your outlook for today pessimistic or hopeful?

I read this amazing promise this morning and found myself living on both sides of it.

When the cares of my heart are many…

• I’m waiting for a new baby any day.
• I’m adjusting to life in a new, unfamiliar city.
• I’m raising money for a church that doesn’t exist yet.
• I’m building a team filled with people who have their own cares and dreams.
• I’m carrying a deep burden for the people of Philadelphia.

Your consolations cheer my soul!

• I anticipate an amazing birth and a smooth transition into a new season of life!
• I embrace the adventure of living in a new neighborhood!
• I thank God for the people He’s speaking to even today to support CityLife Church!
• I speak life over the dreams of each person on our launch team!
• I press on with CityLife Church so that THE ONE far from God will be filled with life in Christ!

Following Jesus is an adventure, filled with uncertainty and opportunity. We have the opportunity every day to experience an amazing trade in God’s Presence.

From stress to stability. From chaos to joy. From pessimism to hope.

Philadelphia is a great place to visit for a short term mission’s trip! If you are a youth pastor or other leader looking to lead a team to a major U.S. city to experience life-changing, hand’s on ministry, I’d love to talk with you about partnering with us at CityLife Church.

We currently have plans to host four teams in 2011 and would love to add more. So here are a few reasons why a mission’s trip to Philly is a great idea.

• Experience the density of a city: South Philly is about 165,000 people in just 6 square miles.
• Experience the diversity of a city: South Philly is home to just about every culture you can imagine. It’s like a foreign mission’s trip without leaving the country!
• Cheesesteaks!
• Your group will be close to American history. They’ll get to see the liberty bell, independence hall, and other great sites.
• Streets crowded with people who need a life-changing encounter with Christ!
• The opportunity to serve alongside a young, committed church planting team.
• The opportunity to help CityLife Church launch with strength and velocity!

If this sounds interesting to you, leave me a comment and let’s talk!

Gabby is entering an interesting stage. I’m not sure how to describe it other than to simply ask you to pray for me

I don’t remember teaching her to say no, but she’s becoming very good at it. And I don’t remember teaching her to kick, but she’s becoming very good at it. So at least accompanying her small mild of independence we’re witnessing true creativity.

For awhile our television and DVD player became a bit of a battle ground. When Gabs wanted attention she’d reach out to touch it. And that’s what she did recently.

Leah was quick to correct her and remind her that she’s not allowed to touch the DVD player. So of course, Gabs walked across the room to get Pooh, and proceeded to walk back to the DVD player so that Pooh could reach out and play with it.

And that’s the story of how Pooh came to be banned from touching our DVD player.

I wonder if God ever has trouble keeping a straight face when He disciplines us?

This past weekend we had an in-city retreat for our launch team. Jane Abbate, a professional coach who specializes in developing teams, volunteered her time to travel to Philadelphia and work with us. It was an awesome weekend–one that I know we’ll look back on throughout the future of CityLife Church.

The highlight for me was Saturday morning. Jane led us through an activity where we actually recreated the timeline of all the major milestones and experiences that have brought us to this point. She put several pieces of blank paper on the wall with a line drawn through the middle, and had each person fill it in with stars representing when they came into the story. Everyone shared their personal stories for how they came to be involved in our launch team. We also stuck red sticky notes on the timeline to represent major milestones that have occurred so far.

Two things stood out to me.

First, I was amazed to see all that God was doing in the fall of 2009. That is when God spoke to Leah and I about leaving Michigan to start another church in one of the major cities of the country. I had no idea that God was simultaneously speaking to people all over the country and preparing our lives to intersect in South Philly.

Second, it was interesting to see the gaps between milestones. The red sticky notes seemed to be grouped together, while there were several gaps of 3-4 months where nothing outstanding was happening. These were seasons of extreme uncertainty and patient waiting. These were months where we were trying to figure out which city God was calling us to, what we were going to do with our house, which neighborhood in Philly we would move into, and so on. At the time, they were confusing and challenging seasons. But now they’re just gaps on a timeline.

It could be that you’re in a gap right now. Maybe it feels like your dream has stalled. Or maybe you’re in the beginning stages of a dream and have yet to discover all that God is doing behind the scenes to someday bring it to pass.

Be encouraged.

God knows how to write an amazing backstory.

CityLife is a name that captures our mission: so that THE ONE far from God will be filled with LIFE in Christ.

In short, our goal is not simply to plant a church. We want to start a very specific kind of church–a LIFE-GIVING church!

In many ways Philadelphia is already full of life. People are loyal to their teams, passionate for their music, and crazy about their favorite foods. For these reasons and many others, we love this city!

But we also believe there’s more. Our dream is to infuse Philly with what Jesus called abundant life. We’re starting this church with people in mind who are breathing, but not really living. And now, as you pray over our dream, you can pray for us by name!

Let’s plant life!

I’ve been in naming mode lately, as I recently wrote about here. Leah and I have been working on naming our second child, and our church planting team has been working on naming our new church. And I’m happy to finally announce that the process is complete!

Since Leah and I don’t know if we’re having a boy or a girl, we’ve got names for both.

• Caleb if we have a boy: We love the name! And Caleb is one of my favorite Bible heroes. He had a different spirit, full of faith. Let’s go take that mountain!
• Claire if we have a girl: We love the name and it’s meaning–Shining Light!

I can’t really refer to the baby by either name until the baby’s gender is revealed, so for now I call the baby “Little C.”

And as random coincidence would have it, the name for our new church also starts with the letter “C.” Unfortunately, I can’t unveil the name yet, since that will happen in our monthly Philly 411 newsletter later this week. So if you haven’t subscribed for the newsletter, do that now!

In the meantime, feel free to guess. And if you’re the first person to get it right, I’ll send you a brand new copy of the book Sun Stand Still by Steven Furtick.

Bonus Tip::It’s not Combat Church (even though the domain name is available):

Six months ago Leah and I moved with our one year old daughter from suburban Detroit into the heart of Philadelphia. To some people our move seemed unique. But the reality is that what we did is what most people around the world are doing.

Trendwatching.com is an independent organization that focuses on communicating the world’s leading consumer trends. They post fascinating information that’s generated from a global network of spotters, and deliver it to 160,000 business professionals in more than 180 countries. I’d encourage you to subscribe to their newsletter.

They focused their February newsletter on a specific group of consumers they call “citysumers.” Here’s their definition.

The hundreds of millions (and growing!) of experienced and sophisticated urbanites, from San Francisco to Shanghai to São Paulo, who are ever more demanding and more open-minded, but also more proud, more connected, more spontaneous and more try-out-prone, eagerly snapping up a whole host of new urban goods, services, experiences, campaigns and conversations.

Here are some stats from the newsletter that were eye-popping for me.

• If it wasn’t for China (43%), Africa (33%) and India (29%), the world would already be significantly more urbanized than the 50.5% it is today. (Source: CIA The World Factbook, 2010.) And China, Africa and India are all set for immense urbanization in the next few decades to come.
• Close to 180,000 people move into cities daily, adding roughly 60 million new urban dwellers each year. (Source: Intuit, October 2010.)
• By 2050, the global urban population is expected to be 6.3 billion, or 70% of the population at that time. (Source: UN, 2009.)
• By 2030, China will have an urban population of 1 billion, and India 590 million. Currently, Europe’s urban population is 533 million. (Source: McKinsey forecast & UN data, 2009-10.)
• By 2030, China will have 221 cities with more than 1 million people, and India will have 68. In 2010, Europe has 35. During this period, 400 million Chinese and 215 million Indian will move to urban areas, more than the population of the US and Brazil combined. (Source: Foreign Policy, August 2010.)
• One more nugget: In January 2011, Chinese city planners proposed merging the nine cities around the Pearl River Delta into a single metropolitan area, containing some 42 million people: more than Argentina, and covering an area 26 times bigger than Greater London. (Source: Reuters, January 2011.)

As Erwin Mcmanus has said, the church will either respond with “urbanitis” or “urban eyes.” These trends are not outside of God’s sovereign control. Talk about an opportunity!

Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds (John 12.24).

Every beginning begins with an ending.

For example, getting married means the end of being single. Starting a new job means the end of working at the old one. And as I’ve learned personally, becoming a parent means the end of sleeping through the night!

This necessary relationship between beginnings and endings got me thinking about the fine line that exists between life and death. Like a fish swims upstream to give birth at the expense of its own life, nothing is truly born without something else dying.

It could be that you are experiencing the end of an era. Leaving a house that contained years of memories. Closing a ministry program that touched people’s lives. Grieving the loss of a meaningful relationship. While these endings are sad, perhaps you can find purpose in answering this hopeful question.

What new thing can be born now that this former thing has died?

As Christians, Jesus challenged us to understand the discipleship journey in these terms. We pick up our cross and die to ourselves to follow him. Why? Because resurrection requires crucifixion.

The end is the beginning.

Starting a new church is a journey of “firsts,” and so far since we’ve moved to South Philly we’ve had several of them. But you know you’re really starting to make progress when you finally have a “last!”

In October we started gathering as a launch team on Monday nights. We rotate between our houses where we eat, pray, dream, laugh, learn and plan. During this time our team has grown in strength and number.

This week we celebrated our last Monday night meeting. It was our first time to do something for the last time. And that’s an exciting milestone because it means we’re making progress toward our goal of publicly launching this church later this year.

Starting this weekend we’ll begin meeting as a launch team on Sundays. For those of you who are curious, here’s what our monthly schedule will look like.

• 1st and 3rd Sundays: House church meetings and then lunch
• 2nd Sundays: Recon (we’ll visit an area church together and then debrief over lunch)
• 4th Sundays: Service Project (we’ll do something practical together to serve our neighborhood)

The change in meeting time will also make it easier for new friends to join our team. If you’re in the Philadelphia area and interested in connecting to a fun, friendly, dedicated group of people with a shared dream to launch a life-giving church in Philly, let me know!

The following is an excerpt from our first edition of the Philly 411, a monthly email with updates about our church planting journey in Philadelphia. Click here to subscribe.

For those of you who have never visited, here’s a description of our neighborhood, South Philly, in a few words:

• Dense: South Philly has almost 165,000 people in about six square miles.  This makes parking a new adventure and has resulted in some creative solutions by residents such as double parallel parking and parking in turning lanes.
• Diverse: A demographic breakdown reveals that 41% of the residents are Caucasian, almost 40% are African American, almost 8% are Hispanic, and the remainder is a mix of numerous other ethnicities.  This makes South Philly one of the most diverse locations in the city.
• Delicious: South Philly has some of the best dining in the city. Besides cheesesteaks at the infamous Pat’s or Geno’s, there’s Nick’s Roast Beef, Bomb Bomb’s barbecue ribs, and even a Mexican/Japanese/Coffee shop!
• Dynamic: God has been working in South Philly through great churches and ministries that have been established long before we came.  We’re excited to join the team because the fields in South Philly are ripe for harvest.
• Dark Horse: Some of the greatest “underdog” movies were set in South Philly: Rockyand Invincible.  As church planters, I can identify.  Starting off, there’s no money, no buildings, no people, a suspicious city, and 100 reasons why failure could happen.  Jumping into it requires the underdog spirit: resilient, courageous, undersized, but full of fight!

Sounds great, doesn’t it!? You should come visit!