Learning to See: Evidences of Grace

As part of our Learning to See series (see the rest here), I thought I'd take a minute to point out a few of the ways I've been able to see God's hand in what we've been doing to get Redemption Church going since January: 

• Todd and Amanda joining. My wife Kim and I had batted the idea of starting a church around for a few years (mostly because we had been in several churches that valued starting new churches as the best way to reach people far from existing churches), but we had always said we'd only do it if we were in a situation to have helpful teammates. We have those teammates in several important lay families who are joining Redemption Church, but it was a huge indication that we might be doing the right thing by starting a church when I was able to talk Todd into joining us. I think the world of him, so he was one of the first people I thought of as I asked myself the question, "Who would be the best, most helpful people we know to partner with in starting a church?" Thankfully they agreed to join us and moved into our apartment complex about ten days ago. God has blessed us greatly by giving us these partners.
• Support from Crossbridge Church and our pastor Chuck Land. Another of the ways God has taken great care of us is through Chuck and our church of the past few years. There's no way we would have started down this path without Chuck's blessing and encouragement from the get-go, and since our initial conversations he has been very helpful through continuing coaching and encouragement.
• Hearts that love Houston. Kim and I moved to Houston after four years of marriage, and it was the third major city we had lived in as a couple (we moved to Austin when we got married and Dallas two years later). This created some scar tissue from having to repeatedly start over, particularly with respect to friends, church families, and jobs. It took us much longer to adjust to Houston, but after a few years of despair and wanting to be anywhere but where we were, God changed both of our minds to begin being able to see ourselves here in Houston in the long-term. We fell in love with the part of the city we live in, particularly with all the people we had gotten to know, from extremely close friends to great working relationships to our fantastic, dog-loving neighbors. As much as the ends of the earth need to hear about Jesus Christ, there were so many people already in our lives that needed Him that we couldn't imagine ourselves being anywhere else. Now we count ourselves as highly blessed to be able to stay here.
• Meeting space. Our closest friends that we've known since we lived in Dallas together moved out of our apartment complex and into a rental house one week before we began having Sunday DNA meetings, and that rental house has a huge living room and den area that will quite comfortably house us throughout the next seven months or so. These meetings aren't huge in size, but they'd be very difficult to have in the living room of our one bedroom apartment. The meeting space issue was one that we never worried about for a second, and things just fell into place--God seems to have taken care of it all for us for now. (Please keep praying that we find a suitable public meeting location for the launch of our regular Sunday services in January of 2014.)
• Non-reproducible church vision. When Kim and I decided to take the plunge and pursue starting Redemption Church, I began feverishly thinking about, praying about, and writing the materials that eventually became our "About Us" on the website. Most importantly, this includes the pages about our mission, our core values, and why we're starting a new church here and now. This was incredibly easy, and at the time I didn't think much of it. But now that we're a few months removed from it, I find myself wondering how I worked so fast in such a way that I don't yet have any regrets. Every time Todd and I are talking, dreaming, or praying about what we hope Redemption Church will look like, I find myself thinking that the mission and core values we've expressed fit us just about perfectly. The crazy thing is that I find myself wondering how all of this came together so nicely. I'm convinced that if everything about the church were wiped from the internet, my computer, and my brain, there's absolutely zero chance that I'd be able to recreate this vision in a way that I would be as remotely happy with. To be clear, this is not a boast about my own abilities but a humble acknowledgment that I really think God is up to something here. Even in that dreaming phase I look back and see His handiwork throughout.
• Challenges that haven't stopped us. There have been many things to rejoice about, but there have also been plenty of challenges these first few months. On the intangible side, there's a bit of fear, worry, and melancholy that we've dealt with intermittently. And on the tangible side there are all the things that have popped up as obstacles the first time we've done anything. For our first info session, the restaurant changed rooms on us last minute so that instead of having a semi-private and (most importantly) quiet venue, we were stuck next to a very noisy bar where people could barely hear Todd or me speak (the restaurant was responding to the demands of another customer--they gave us great service and great food, and I'd happily return there for all sorts of events, even if not for another info session). On top of that, there was an unexpected torrential downpour that, quite literally, dampened our turnout. For our first DNA meeting, Todd and his wife had moved the day before (very good news!) but had both gotten sick. Also, as Kim and I were about to walk out the door of our apartment, we noticed that our hot water heater had decided to leak a quarter inch of water all over the floor of our storage closet. Needless to say, we weren't quite on time to the meeting. This all may sound like bad news, and to some extent it is--but I believe God has been at work in all of this because despite all of these hiccups that keep happening to us, our work has continued. We held our first info session, we held our first DNA meeting, and we're still here. There will doubtless be many obstacles in our future, but we should count ourselves as extremely blessed if God continues to help us overcome them like He has these so far.

Praise God for His goodness. Please continue to pray for us. We desperately need His help.