Fueling Prayer

There's something about gathering with God's people to pray that really excites me - I think it's a combination of knowing that God is really listening (Luke 1:13) and really appreciating the camaraderie of gathering with others who believe that too.  Last night was the first of five nights for several churches in the Spokane area to gather together to pray for each other and for our city, and I found myself praying with two college students from Whitworth University, a 40-something working guy, and a woman retired from her career but serving Jesus as she travels.  Together, we represented three of the multiple churches gathered.  I had never met any of these people before, and yet we were able to come to Jesus together in prayer and worship, coming to the same Savior, the same Good Shepherd.  We prayed, as we will all week, for a fresh reality of knowing Jesus as the shepherd of Psalm 23.  There was heart-felt repentance, there was thanksgiving, and there was simple worship; and it was really good.

It's a powerful thing, a rewarding thing, to set aside a few days for prayer and fasting, but I was really stirred this past week by the story of a woman whose life demonstrated a decades-long pattern of consistent prayer and fasting:  she has gone on to heaven now, but her name was Anna.

Anna was an old woman at the time of this story - at least 84 years, maybe even older - and she routinely filled her life with prayer.  When her husband died, rather than getting stuck in the pain she found fresh life as she invested countless hours into prayer.  This worship-filled prayer erupted quite naturally one day into a very public, God-centered overflow from her thankful heart.  It was the day an infant named Jesus came to the temple where she prayed, carried by his mother and step-father when he was just eight days old.

Anna had consistently led her life along a course of fasting and prayer, and the Bible says it was an expression of her worship, night and day.  Because she knew the blessing of finding her deepest desire in God Himself, it's no wonder that God enabled her to recognize Jesus as the fulfillment of that desire, the one who would bring redemption to His people.  God's revelation to her poured out that day in a thankful declaration to everyone around her that this little baby would be the long-awaited redeemer, the Messiah.  (Read this story for yourself in Luke Chapter 2.)

3 Lessons from Anna's Life:

1. Those who spend time in prayer that is full of worship and thanksgiving can expect to enjoy actual fellowship with God too, not just have a one-way monologue.  This adds a whole new dimension and anticipation to prayer!
2. An ongoing pattern of prayer is more likely to be sustained when it's full of worship, rather than consisting only of presenting our petitions and problems.
3. Those who come hungry for God can expect to be filled and "fed" in their times of prayer.  Anna had 84 years of proof that this is true, and Jesus would affirm it about thirty years later:  "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." - Matthew 5:6

As Grace Church Spokane joins with other life-giving churches this month to discover the richness of Jesus as our Shepherd, I'm looking forward to filling this time with worship, thanksgiving for the amazing grace of God, and rediscovering just how true it is that Jesus is enough for me personally and for us together as the Church.  Like Anna, I pray we find that the overflow of time spent with God will be a blessing to those around us.

God's Heart For Your Heart

Franklin Park, slightly earlier in the season than my run!

So there I was, jogging through Franklin Park last week, just north of my home in Spokane, the chill in the brisk morning air kept at bay through my accelerated heart rate, when it hit me.  This is what I began praying for over ten years ago; this is one of the desires of my heart.  I thought to myself, "Here I am, planting a church in Spokane, Washington, my kids have each found a niche in their schools and with great friends, my wife is putting her university teaching degree to good use and loving her job, and I'm running through a neighborhood - MY neighborhood - in the city God has called us to love and to serve.  Thank You, Jesus."  My run was easy that day as my mind was filled with gratefulness to the God who fills our hearts with passion and then fulfills the very desire which He inspired in the first place.

Today, which was supposedly the end of the world (come on guys, seriously...?) I'm pondering just how amazing God's call is for each of us.  He puts a longing for "something more" in the hearts of every man and woman on the planet, then He points us to the fulfillment of that longing:  Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the World, Lover of Cities, Souls and Nations.  Despite the distractions of the Holiday Season, in the midst of the tragedies that accompany life in a fallen world, God is continually and persistently at work in the hearts of young and old alike, drawing our hearts toward His own and transforming our hearts and lives into His own likeness.

God cares about the very things we care about!  Our Heavenly Father loves to see our hearts fulfilled, both in the little things and in the grand purposes of His ever-advancing kingdom.  He absolutely loves to bless His people with good gifts, daring dreams, and unquenchable hope in the middle of the hustle and bustle of a world in desperate need of everything He has to offer.  Here's a little reminder to all of us that God is for us, not against us, His heart beats with a passionate fervor for His chosen people, and He is still in the business of restoring, encouraging, and satisfying hearts.  He's doing it here in Spokane and He's doing it all over the world.

Baptism, Prayer, and Prophetic Update

It's November and it's snowing here:  heavy wet snow that the girls are enjoying, and Gabe is shoveling!  This weather reminds me of my childhood in Missouri, so I'm feeling a bit nostalgic today.  That being said, I'm also full of faith for the future and for what God has in store for the church in Spokane.  Since it's Veteran's Day and the whole family has the day off from school I have a chance to update everyone.

Prayer just before baptizing Michelle...

...Just baptized!

If you've been following my blog (www.jonnydavids.blogspot.com), you'll know that we were preparing for our first baptism in October.  Well, we've now had two baptisms!  Two young ladies, Erika and Michelle, were baptized this past month.  The day Michelle was baptized, we had 30 people there for the celebration - lots of family, friends, and even a French professor from Whitworth University (she teaches French - I have no idea if she has any French heritage)!  Since our own home did not come equipped with a "baptismal" (of course), we were able to use another home up on Five Mile Prairie in Northwest Spokane.  This home has a great baptismal tank in the form of a hot tub.  After we all prayed for Michelle we went outside to the hot tub, where I prayed for her one more time and then her sister baptized her.  Very fun!  Hot tub baptisms, anyone?  I know you are jealous. 

   

Following the baptisms we enjoyed a great meal at another home on Five Mile Prairie, where we discussed the finer points of running, soccer, and other sports with two of Gabe's cross-country coaches.  One of his coaches, Tracy Walters, used to be a USA Olympic track and field coach so he's full of amazing stories!  I don't think Gabe really realizes yet just how privileged he is to have such high-caliber coaches training him.  These guys love Jesus and are also really good at what they do!

We are just finishing up taking our launch team through Terry Virgo's book, "Start," a book designed for new believers and an excellent first-step discipleship training tool.  We've been using the book as a way to cover some of the core values of who we are as a Newfrontiers church, while also equipping each member of our team to take others through the book.  As we wrap this up, the challenge is for each team member to personally take someone else through the book now!  This Friday night, we'll be sharing our own testimonies of how Jesus has changed our lives.  We'll also go through the basics of sharing the gospel with our friends, family, and co-workers.  Please pray for effective gospel communication within our relational networks here in Spokane!

Friday night prayer in our living room

Two Fridays ago, our team spent most of the evening just praying for each other, prophesying into each other's lives, and praising Jesus together.  It was a really great night of prayer.  We know that as we develop a culture of prayer and worship that our roots will go deep while our effectiveness multiplies.  We have much work to do here in Spokane, and we look forward to continued partnership with all of you who are mutually invested with us through prayer, encouragement, and even finances.  Thank you!

  

As I bring this update to a close, I thought I'd share some prophetic encouragement:  On the morning of October 16, I felt God gave me a mental image of a rock dropping into a pond.  I was feeling a bit like I'd been dropped into Spokane kind of like that rock - under the surface - but knowing that the ripple effect was real and would be effective.  Then I saw myself re-emerging from the water, like I was extremely buoyant.  It was a forceful, fast explosion up and out from the water.  It's a good encouragement that our small beginnings are not insignificant and that the Grace Church Spokane team will have a strong launch from the "waters" of Spokane!  I hope you remember that too; no matter where you are, God is the one who makes you strong, makes you effective, and enables you to rise up!  As Paul reminds us in Colossians 3:1-4, we are both hidden in Christ and raised with Him!  Let's fix our eyes on Jesus.

For The Kingdom,

Jon

FYI - Giving is now possible directly to Grace Church Spokane, PO Box 10312, Spokane, WA 99209.  Thanks for all your support!

There's No Place Like Home!

This past week saw a great trip to Equipped For Mission in St Louis, Missouri, where Newfrontiers leaders from around the USA, Mexico, and the UK gathered for powerful times of worship, prophetic direction, and refocusing together on our apostolic mission to impact cities and nations with the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Donald Easterbrooks made the trip with me to St Louis for the conference this year.  Donald and his wife, Jen, are helping us plant Grace Church Spokane along with their three kids.  It was great to be able to already be traveling with team members from the church plant.

Here's a brief summary from EFM:  It was so good to be reminded by John Lanferman that "Everything I really need I already possess and his name is Jesus!"  Terry Virgo reminded us of the importance of  building together shaped by the truth of Scripture and enjoying the benefits of life in Christ with the Holy Spirit!  He also reminded us that "Working and waiting belong together, keeping us from the presumption that we can do everything, and from the pessimism that we can do nothing."  David Devenish challenged us toward the grand vision of making mature disciples in every people group around the world, and to embrace the teaching, suffering, and hard work that mission will inevitably require.  Bryan Mowrey addressed the importance of hearing from God in the initial stages of ministry so that we can stand firm through the high points of life and ministry (where we can confuse success with God's will) and the low points (where we can confuse hardship with missing God's will).

St Louis Rams Vs Arizona Cardinals Pregame

Of course, the time in St Louis involved a lot of great conversation and fun with friends from around the world.  Dinner with Lee Yarbrough from Guadalajara, Mexico, beers with guys from around the Northwest, an impromptu evening BBQ with my aunts, uncles, and cousins, and lots of way-too-short conversations!  I went to my first ever NFL football game, and saw the St Louis Rams beat the Arizona Cardinals - I think they had to beat the refs too 'cause that was some pretty rough game calling!  We boo-ed, we cheered, we became Rams fans for the evening.

On my flight home, I had a 3-hour conversation with a woman who described herself as ascribing to a combination of Taoism (also called Daoism) and Eastern mysticism.  She asked all kinds of great questions about Jesus and I was happy to share the gospel with her!  She remained skeptical, but I know some great seeds were planted.  "One plants, another waters, but God brings the increase!"

I have to be completely honest:  I loved the trip, but I also missed being able to meet with our Grace Church Spokane team while we were gone!  It's a great sign that God is joining our hearts together for His purpose when missing a Friday training meeting with these great guys and gals to attend a fantastic conference has me torn!

I arrived home Saturday evening and prepared to continue our Gospel of Grace series on Sunday morning.  (I'm teaching through Galatians and discussing core values along the way!)  After the meeting Sunday, three of the young ladies in the church were going through Terry Virgo's book "Start" together and discussing water baptism.  One of them has just recently received Christ and is now being challenged toward baptism, so it looks like it's time to schedule a party!  It's good to be home and seeing God moving in the lives of young people through our GCS team.  In the words of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, "There's no place like home!"

Full Steam Ahead

School has started, work has begun, connections are being made, and relationships strengthening.  All in all, we're happy and busy.  After just over two months on the ground in Spokane, the progress is encouraging even though it's really just the beginning stage of a marathon.  We are balancing church life with family life and work life so here's an update on all fronts.  For us, it's all integrated!

Gabe, our oldest, is running cross country for what turns out to be one of the top running schools in the USA!  Who knew?!  We had been planning to enroll him in another high school in town but found out we were just a few blocks outside of the district's boundary line.  When we went to petition to register him in the school anyway, we found out that this unexpected new school has an absolutely excellent academic program as well as a top-ranked cross country program.  We quickly decided to cancel our petition plans and Gabe is now a proud member of the North Central Cross Country team.

Bethany, our middle schooler, is also trying out cross country for the first time and making great friends along the way.  While she has sometimes struggled academically, she is doing very well this fall and seems to have started off her schooling in Spokane on the right foot!

Michaela, our youngest, has joined the An Daire Irish Dance school, and is continuing with her step-dancing (think Riverdance).  She is also making friends at school and is proud to already have the nick-name "Montana."  (She actually went to school today wearing cowboy boots and a western-style dress!  I had to laugh, because she never did that when we actually lived in Montana!)

Becca landed an elementary music teaching job at a Title 1 school in a pretty tough neighborhood.  Students who come from families ravaged through drug use, others whose only meals are those provided at school, and others dealing with various challenges arising from broken homes and frequent moves are served by a great teaching staff and administration committed to providing a quality education. We've been praying for connections into a school like this and God seems to have held the door wide open for us!  I've already been asked by the principal if we can offer after-school guitar instruction for students if he can get it sponsored by local businesses - which he thinks he can do quite easily!  We are also hoping to sponsor a holiday program at the school through Grace Church Spokane.  We found out that they don't do Christmas programs because the parents don't turn out for events like this unless a meal is provided.  Well, we're hoping to provide the food so it can happen in the future!  We've heard from the Newfrontiers church in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho that they would like to partner with us in this endeavor as well so we'll see what develops!

The after-school guitar club I'm doing is actually an extension of a program developed by Jonathan Eftychiou in Atlanta, Georgia.  He's a fellow Newfrontiers guy, and has graciously helped me to get this up and running in Spokane.  This program is helping me meet school administrators, teachers, students, and parents, while also giving me an outlet into the community using Rock & Roll and guitar - right up my alley!  We are currently running Guitar Club through Rock On Music in three different schools in Spokane and I'm hoping to expand that to five schools soon.  The doors are open, but it's proved quite costly to walk through those doors!  We know that God will provide financially to help us serve the schools in this way, but please pray for great wisdom on the business end of this community opportunity.

Finally, we are meeting on Friday nights for leadership development with our launch team, and then meeting on Sunday mornings to worship together.  Last Sunday our family was back in Missoula, where I spoke at Clark Fork City Church, so the team here in Spokane fanned out to other churches in the city to see how they "do church."  We'll meet up on Friday night for dinner, where we'll also discuss the various aspects of welcoming guests and friends  into our life together:  how guests are made to feel welcome, how worship, teaching, announcements, giving, etc. are approached.

Thanks for praying for us on all the various fronts of establishing a fresh, life-giving church into Spokane, Washington!  I'm praying we set a great example to others who desire to step out in faith to follow God into "Glocal" (global and local) mission with their families, businesses, etc.

Spokane At Last!

It's been almost two weeks now since we made the big move and we are absolutely loving Spokane!  There are adjustments for sure, like the sirens in the middle of the night and the fact that we no longer have countless family members in the immediate area, but on the whole we are feeling right at home here in the city.  Practical things like watering the lawn, going grocery shopping, and running in the neighborhood are making this feel more and more like home.

In the book of Deuteronomy we hear the words, "Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse..."  Well, that's a great summary of where we live!  We love the neighborhood and are getting to know a few people, plus we live just three blocks from the Northtown Mall.  The girls practically screamed out loud in excitement when they realized how close we are to "civilization."  And that would be the curse part of this blessing!  We are three blocks from my greatest weakness:  Starbucks coffee.  We are four blocks from one of my favorite steak restaurants:  Outback Steakhouse.  We are about six blocks from Guitar Center, where I just bought a new acoustic guitar amp last Friday.  We are close to EVERYTHING and I'm not sure my wallet can take it!  Ha!

On the music end of things, the two CDs we were working so hard to get done are finished and are both available on iTunes.  We'll get the links and guitar charts up ASAP on this blog so the resources are easily available and useable.  If anyone is at all interested in purchasing the CDs, we actually get the best return from the ones purchased on CD Baby - about 10 cents more per song comes directly to us when they are purchased that way - but we're happy however the songs get used!

Last but not least, since we haven't started regular meetings yet for our Grace Church Spokane team, I was free to speak at Prairie Avenue Christian Center in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho on Sunday.  PACC is a fellow bunch of our Newfrontiers family so it was great to be with them!  I spoke on what has been the key verse for us as we've been preparing to launch Grace Church Spokane:  1 Samuel 22:2.  Here we find David on the run from Saul, living in a cave, and becoming captain over the distressed, the indebted, and the discontent.  400 men gather to him in this place of his own struggle!  It's amazing what God can do and does do in the oddest of situations.  When our focus is Him, He has a way of bringing great joy and fulfillment even in the midst of difficult times.  We know that God has called us to be a gathering place where those in difficult times can find life, hope, and grace that changes them from those "on the run" to those who change nations!  We fully expect and anticipate being a church that takes strong root in Spokane and also sends out many men and women to serve in other cities and nations around the world!

For The Kingdom,
Jon

Two Weeks And Counting...

Well, it's less than two weeks before the big move to Spokane to pioneer Grace Church Spokane!  This has been a long time coming (10 years since Becca and I first started talking and praying about this move - wow).  Our home in Missoula sold for a great price and we just found a home to rent in Spokane this past Monday, so I guess this is really happening!

Cover of "Kingdom of God" studio album

It's been awhile since my last blog update and I've been busy working on the recording projects mentioned in my last one.  The great news is that they are finally done!  The Kingdom of God EP (which ended up as a 4-song disc) is here and came out really well.  These studio versions of some of our most-used songs will be an excellent tool for Grace Church Spokane and they're only $5 to purchase too.  We'll get those songs uploaded to the blog page ASAP so you can take a listen for free!

Cover of "Send Us" live album

The live worship recording is completed and being printed and packaged in Dallas, Texas this week.  "Send Us" should be in hand and online by Friday, July 20.  I couldn't be much more happy with how it turned out!  My good friend Rob Parr engineered the whole project and produced it with me.  His "sweet recording skills" made every song sizzle.  Heather Thomas, the new worship director at Clark Fork City Church, co-led the night of worship, so her voice brings a great Montana flavor to the music!  We are doing our best to have it up and ready to download from iTunes, Amazon.com and most other major web sources by July 20 as well.  We'll get charts up on the blog too, which will be free to download.

These two recordings were done both to make the music of CFCC more readily available and to raise funds for Grace Church Spokane, so know that every song you download or CD you purchase is helping to advance the gospel in the Northwest USA!  Thanks!!