Spring Time and New Growth

Its been too long since I last wrote and much has happened to encourage us that we are on the right track. We are especially excited about how the Lord has been growing our home church. We now have people from the US, England, Taiwan, Japan, Uganda and California! We continue to learn about one another through telling our stories - what a blessing! It has been humbling to hear people share their highs and lows, but we are increasingly coming to the realization that you cannot truly love and care for people unless you know their pain. This is why true intimacy is important and ultimately leads to our fulfillment and healing.

Recently, one of our younger members (Jessica), said she thought it would be good to have a tea party, so some of the girls got together one afternoon for tea ... how english!

I think some people clearly long for an excuse to get dressed up, and didn't they look beautiful! I am sure that there may well be a repeat of this in the future!


Carol and I find ourselves being spoken to again and again by God through the new growth that is coming through in our back garden. We love this time of year, the climate is beautiful - warm but not too muggy yet. To see life coming forth is very exciting. I have included an early picture of our garden, but in another month it will look very different. Already we have been splitting out some plants that have grown quickly and spreading them around the garden to parts that are more bare - what a great picture of how the kingdom of heaven is meant to infiltrate and affect the world. It can seem costly and risky to be split off from those we have grown up with and 'planted out' on our own to reproduce, yet surely this is the most natural thing, a God-given calling.

We also decided one day (somewhat randomly) to dig up part of the dog run which is a little out of sight anyway, and plant some things we could actually eat. Wesley the dog is getting a little too old to do much running around anyway and is certainly a house dog! So, we have taken another risk and planted tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, onions, more tomatoes, basil, english peas, cucumber, zucchini, yellow and acorn squash and cilantro. Mike even put together a home-made growth-box from instructions he found on the internet. This was how we started but decided to branch out.

This week is Rez Week on the campus of the University of Texas - an early celebration of Easter. Neil Cole is one of the keynote speakers and a few of us from BridgePoint will be spending time with him tonight. Neil's message has been quite instrumental in what we are doing here at BridgePoint - the importance of multiplication of the life of Christ in us through relational/community discipleship. Our desire is to take the model given my Jesus in Luke 10/Matthew 10 and see the kingdom extended through planting simple, easily-reproducible faith communities (aka 'church') in the homes of seekers/new believers. The exciting thing is that everyone can play a part, and needs to. One thing Neil often says is that we have raised the bar so high in terms of how we do church to make it so complex and professional that only a few are able to pull it off. At the same time we have lowered to bar of discipleship to make it popular and to draw a crowd. These two need to be reversed.

Last Sunday at our monthly network worship gathering, we chose to do Good Friday early and focus upon the cross. Instead of a block of worship and my preaching, we took a risk and asked everyone to join one of six groups, which they felt was closest to their passion/gifting. These were drama, song/psalmody, prayer/prophecy, painting/drawing, teaching and story-telling. Each group was given a facet of the cross to explore together and then to present to the rest of us using their gifting. It was thrilling to see people engaged, praying together, sharing and ultimately presenting to the rest of us. We saw tremendous creativity and experienced beautiful anointing. Many who would rarely speak in this context got a chance to extend themselves and to share.

I continue to look for ways to support the family financially. Recently we invited over for dinner a couple we had met through the ministry of Intimate Life. During the evening the guy was talking about the work being done by the Center for Relational Leadership within ILM. They work with one large company and a few smaller ones seeking to coach their management and supervisory staff in relational principles for the workplace - what you might call 'loving your neighbor as yourself'! Early this morning I went up to the retreat center just to sit in on a talk by their CEO and was amazed to hear him talking about learning to care for and love one another ... not to a church group but to managerial teams from different States here in the US. It was a most unusual (i.e. new for me) but exciting experience. There is a possibility that I may be able to help in some coaching work - but there is some extended training I would have to do beforehand (unpaid) and I need to see how I can find the time to do this, particularly in light of my other part-time job. Please pray for me in this. If I have to do 'tent-making' work, I would much rather be doing something like this than processing purchase orders on a computer screen.

Please pray for us also as we seek to follow the Lord's leading to equip and release the saints to do the work of ministry and see the gospel spread by multiplying this life in us through relational discipleship. There are many challenges without and within, but by the grace of God ....

We appreciate your support, your partnership and your prayers.

Much love,
Mike.

A New Year begins

Its hard to believe that we are almost at the end of January already. Certainly the New Year seems to have started at a fast pace. This month Carol and I managed to drive through the oncoming ice storm before it managed to shut down the city, and make our way to Jacksonville, Florida for the annual Winter Conference for the newly named, Anglican Mission in the Americas. This name change recognizes the growing influence and size of the mission in terms of new churches and new Anglican networks. The conference was a good time of celebration but also challenge to press on into the next stage of what the Lord has in store. The theme was taken from the text of Isaiah 54:

"Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left;"Isaiah 54:2-3a

We then went on to spend a couple of nights together in San Antonio to celebrate Carol's birthday and our 28^th wedding anniversary before returning to Austin. Each way we also managed to stop off in Houston and see our grand-daughter Kate who is now crawling around and even standing up against things. All in all, we managed to cover a little over 2300 miles in 8 days!

We feel that we have entered 2007 with an increased sense of anticipation for what the Lord is going to to. It was good to have a Saturday morning of prayer with leaders earlier in the month and for them to spend an extended time in praying for and affirming Carol and me in our ministry. This was a wonderfully encouraging time for us and it was also good to be joined by Matt Kessler from the other AMiA church here in Austin. This past weekend at our corporate gathering, we prayed for and laid hands on a new group of young people, just setting out to start a new Home Church. Please pray for them and their leader Steven.

This Easter, Neil Cole (author of Organic Church) is the main speaker at Rez Week on the campus of the University of Texas. It looks like we are going to have Neil come and meet with us as a network which should be an encouraging time. It also gives us a chance to connect with other simple church networks here in the Central Texas area, including a network of Authentic Faith Communities on the UT campus. Please pray for new partnerships that this could bring into being.

Our own home church has grown to 14 people and now we are just getting to know one another as we grow and develop together. It is an exciting time and it is encouraging to see the people that the Lord is bringing into our fellowship.

Major prayer points:

1. Development of relationships in our growing home church

2. More of the Lord's favor and anointing upon our network and the churches within it.

3. Favor with other network leaders as we seek to work together and establish new relationships for God's greater good.

4. Openings and opportunities to share the gospel with those with whom we continue to build relationships outside the church.

5. Ongoing financial provision for the work.

Christmas is coming

So, Christmas is getting close, so lets find time to be with those we love, time to step off the treadmill, time to simply be together and stop to "smell the roses of life", a time to en-JOY the good things that God gives to us. May we all have time to stop and wonder (here is where children help us so much), to wonder at God's extravagant love and wonder at the mystery once hidden but now revealed ... Christ in us, the hope of glory.

Here's a photo of our growing home church as we took time to eat and have fun together. You can see that we take the 'head coverings' teaching really seriously! This month Connard, Sheridan and Carly came to join us for the first time - we are also adding two other young couples this month, one of whom is from Japan, here to study for his doctorate at UT. We praise God for new growth and new relationships.

As we look towards 2007, here are some of our hopes and dreams for which we ask your prayers;

(i) God's visitation and anointing upon all that we do - we are sensing a renewed call to prayer for without Him we can do nothing

(ii) Workers for the harvest - there are increasing opportunities being presented, we feel the need to focus upon developing leadership, spiritual mothers and fathers who will nurture new believers

(iii) Networking in Central Texas - Carol and I have been building relationships with other network leaders in Central Texas through a small group we attend every other week. We hope to see how the Lord would lead us to work and celebrate together to facilitate more house churches being started

(iv) Networking in our neighborhood - we feel a growing call to somehow see the believers mobilized in Great Hills (the name of our neighborhood - what a great name!) We long to see denominational walls come down as we fellowship, pray and worship together so that we could serve our neighbors

(v) Becoming a people who love God and love one another - we want to be marked by sacrificial , practical love. We need to learn how to open our hearts and lives to one another and to the Lord. Our hope is to partner with Intimate Life Ministries here in Austin, to that end

We look forward with eager anticipation to what the Lord might do among us (and you) in 2007. We so appreciate those who partner with us - locally, nationally and internationally. We value your interest, your support and your prayers. We pray for God's grace and peace to fill your lives.

Mike & Carol
Dec 19th, 2006