One of my main reasons for starting this blog is to remind myself of God’s faithfulness through this stage of my life and beyond. Since I just started, I need to bulk mail a few of the ways that God has done His thing so far. Pardon the unusually long post while I brag on God a little and record some things:

• He used uncomfortable circumstances and closed doors to motivate us to move on from our last church to answer the call to plant a church. This was huge because of our attachment there. This was the church that:
  • excited my amazing wife to move to Georgia from North Dakota (long before she was my wife)
  • moved me beyond half-hearted marginal Christianity and gave me a passion for church planting (11 years ago — long before I ever dreamed I’d get to do this)
  • married us
  • gave me a youth pastor job, ordained me, and suffered through letting me learn to preach (with my highly spiritual business admin/computer science degree and zero pastoral experience)
  • saw our first child born
  • experienced some awesome things happening in the youth group I got to lead
  • where some of our dearest friends still remain
• We moved to Pittsburgh on December 1, where my parents live (a safe place to get away and pray about where to go plant a church). We had 7 cities mapped out across the US — Pittsburgh was not one of them — but once we got here He just absolutely broke our heart for the city and made it clear that this was where we were supposed to be
• Part of the plan for moving here was for me to get a real job. My first month in the ‘Burgh was spent sending out resumes, interviewing, and trying not to notice God’s prompting to stick around and plant this church.
• On January 3, 2007, after a month of odd encounters and incidents pointing to the need for a new church in our area, we admitted that God was up to something and committed to do this thing
• I get to work with my wife, my mom, and my dad — he’s my first staff member.
• Get this one — I have not received a paycheck since December. And we haven’t wanted for anything. A couple of freelance design jobs and a whole lot of a loving, faithful God.
• We’ve got sweet sounding God-inspired vision, mission and values statements, but its way more than we need to try to communicate. 3 weeks ago God broke it down for me with Matthew 9:35. Jesus is doing three things here: preaching the good news of the Kingdom, teaching in the synagogue, and healing people. This is the core of what we are about at ICC in these terms:
  • Charged (powerful Sunday services, electric atmosphere)
  • Challenging (applicational preaching, small groups)
  • Life-Changing (community ministry, missions and church planting)
• After scouring the area for meeting locations and being blown out of the water at some of the rental rates, we were able to hook up with the North Allegheny Intermediate High School — I couldn’t have designed a building better suited to what we need right now.
• I prayed and debated God for a 2 months, then I was finally obedient and put the ask on the guy I thought might be our first worship leader. Just two weeks ago he called me and agreed to come up for the summer to help us get this thing off the ground. God’s still working out the details, but I’m stoked to work with my bro Cory.
• Even today, 4 more folks agreed to come help out with children’s ministry for our monthly services and it looks like another guy is going to come be a part of launching Iron City Church
• I’ve asked 5 other folks to consider coming to help us out (some from PA, others from Georgia). The best part about this is that I pray and wrestle about who to ask and once I ask them to come its between them and God. There’s so much freedom in trusting God to do His thing.
• and the list goes on…