Divine Times

Someday we will look back on the next two years at North Creek and be able to grasp what happened. I have a feeling that it will be important in our history. More than important…divine. God is beginning to stir in my heart and my husband’s heart for the next season of our church. I wrote on a scratch sheet of paper “Sept. 24, 2009 – 300.” It was a thought that I had in the midst of listening to a session at conference, so I jotted it down. Three hundred people by our 3 year anniversary. Poetic, isn’t it? But later that night a missionary friend came up to me and said, “I want you to know that I’ve been praying for your church lately. I’ve been believing that God would grow you to 500 people by the end of the year.”

That hit me like a ton of bricks. First of all, I’ve never had anybody tell me that they have been praying for our church with such a goal oriented request in mind. People should really tell you before they start to pray these things. Prayer works, you know. You’ve got to be careful throwing around words to our really powerful God…

So, five hundred. That’s not just a number. Those are people. Faces. Hurts, hopes, fears, problems, solutions, gifts, dreams, work…each lovingly entrusted into the care of North Creek by the very hand of God. I don’t take that lightly. I celebrate the numbers that we have, but I never forget that each number represents responsibility. It is our responsibility to love, pray for, reach out to, disciple, and plug in each person. And by “our responsibility”, I don’t mean Mark and me. I mean the church as a whole.

And what is that going to take? What do we have to do to take care of 500? We need to give more of ourselves. We need to grow ourselves. We need to dream bigger. We need to pray…we need to believe. We need to love people like God loves us…we need to walk in obedience. We need to shed off sin and stupidity. We need to look outward a lot more than we look inward. And what scares me more than absolutely anything is this…

The people of North Creek will do it.

Mark Batterson

Last night a fellow church planter, Mark Batterson from Washington, D.C., spoke. First of all, it was nice to hear a church planter start with 25 people and grow to thousands upon thousands…

Secondly, his spirit is one of boldness, adventure, and yet a deep and profound love for tradition and values. He spoke on the mission of God and really changing the WORLD. We are so good at focusing on our daily to-do list and often times forget that there is a greater purpose for our lives. That clearly sums up how I have felt being lead pastors with Mark at a church plant. It has forced us to dream…constantly. There is never a break and that discipline to keep reaching, keep pushing, keep stepping out in faith is one that I will cherish for the rest of my life.

Faith is something that I think people think they have, but they don’t know because they never do anything outside of their own ability to succeed. For instance, try giving God a faith promise to give more money than you could ever possibly give to His body…and then start writing the check every month. In your spirit, you say, “I can’t do that, I don’t have the money!” But that’s not FAITH. Faith is doing something that you can’t SEE and believing that God will meet you where you fall short. Scary, huh? And so exciting! Every time that North Creek steps out in faith, I think for a moment, “Boy, if this doesn’t work, Mark and I are sure gonna look like idiots!” And what happens? God blesses us so abundantly that we are immediately forced to begin thinking about the next idiotic idea. What a life we get to live! It is so fun and so rewarding. And so worth the cost!

Pastor’s Conference

Mark and I are at our Network conference this week in Pasco, Washington. It’s nice to get away and allow ourselves to refocus and dream for our lives and ministry. I continue to be excited and proud of our church! Our leadership, volunteers, and congregation are truly amazing. We find ourselves bragging on North Creek to the point of ridiculousness! We are just blessed pastors and are so thankful for the people that call the Coffee Church their home. We are also enjoying a great season of growth in right now that has been a lot of fun!

Last Sunday we had our third Sunday with two services and it went VERY smoothly. We had our highest attendance (again) and the services were evenly divided which gave a great feel in both environments. As God begins to stir our hearts for the next few months of ministry, I sense that we will see God pour out His blessings in both numbers, growth in individual lives, and an abundance of finances to accomplish all that God is beginning to tell Mark and I in our hearts. North Creek is full of generous people!

Let’s go change the world!

Youth Group Update

You are probably waiting with great impatience to know how the youth ministry launch went last night…

IT WAS INCREDIBLE!!! They ended up with 58 people (teens and leaders) as well as another 15 in the babysitting room. There were teens crawling all over the place…and I didn’t know MOST of them! It was truly a surreal experience to watch everyone hanging out, hearing a message, and worshipping. Mark talked to one young man who had never been in a church before. I am quite positive that his first experience with Jesus was a great one. I think he felt welcome, excited, and comfortable. That’s a great start to what could be a long and profound relationship with Jesus. Either way, those youth kids made our God look really good last night!

We have an amazing team at North Creek. From the littlest kids to our teens to our main services, we have truly exceptional leaders. I am really excited to watch God use each one of them in surprising ways!

Congrats to Kris, Jeff and Angela who got to experience something that has been being molded for 2 1/2 years! You have all had a hand in God’s awesome work and we are proud of you!

MULTIPLE SERVICES, OH MY!

This journey is definitely one of watching God bless our steps of faith. I continue to be amazed that everytime we decide to do something outrageous, God seems to bless it. We stepped out in faith on Sunday and did 2 services – 9:00 am and 10:30 am. And surprise, surprise…we had 25 more people on Sunday morning than normal. Why? I have no idea.

Our first service was not very full, but the irony is that if you had taken the people from the first service and dropped them into the second, we wouldn’t fit. And we had several of our regular families out of town that morning. We are busting at the seams overall.

My husband sent an email to our church this morning. Here’s a copy:

North Creek -

Our first try at mulitple services proved successful in the fact that we had our highest attendance ever on a normal Sunday morning! At 143, without double counting those who attended both services, we were very pleased with our overall picture this weekend. It seems as though that every time we step out in faith, God pours out His blessing with more people!

For those of you who attended the 9:00 am service – thank you! We quite literally could not have fit you in the second service. That being said, I am asking for 30 more people to switch from the 10:30 am service to the 9:00 am service. We want both of our services balanced and for the 10:30 am service to have room for new guests who come in.

It may be a sacrifice for your family, but it will allow for us to grow and change more lives in our community! Please let me know if you are willing to move to the earlier service for the next season of ministry at North Creek at mark@coffeechurch.com.

Thank you for going on this incredible journey with us!

Pastor Mark

So, jump into our 9:00 am service. The coffee is fresher and then you can go out with your family for a nice big brunch! Looking forward to seeing you there!

Ushering In a New Era

Last night I went to the youth group’s trial run before their actual launch next week. What a moment for me! After over a decade of working youth pastoring teenagers, the last several years were very different without a formal youth group environment. As the music slammed in the background and teens hovered over foosball and air hockey tables, I thought to myself, “I think I’ve been here before.” And although I will never play the same role in their lives again, I am sure glad to see our church fill up with that particular group. I miss their strange querks and their intensity. I love the combination of being really laid back and in a complete panic all at the same time. They are a people group that is very unique and definitely adds an element that I personally enjoy to church. They worship with abandon, ask honest questions, and are in the middle of defining a relationship with God that is more personal than whatever has been passed down from their parents.

Kris, our youth pastor, and her team will begin to mold and shape their lives on a whole new level. They will share moments at camps and in small groups that I will never know about, but it will be those times that the teens will look back on and say it was then that they made a decision to live differently. And in the irony of life, someday, not far away, we’ll staff our church with the very teenagers who started their own youth ministry in April 2009.

Church – brace yourselves. The fleet of teenagers coming our way will change us…for the better. They will seem like an untouchable force that is a church within a church, but don’t fall for the facade. They want you to meet them, talk to them, invest in them. They don’t want their own church, they want to be a part of ours. And I welcome them with open arms!

From Pastor Mark

It is with great excitement that we have decided to change to a 9:00 am and 10:30 am service format! After a successful Easter service and the fact that our 10:30 am service is overfull on a regular basis, we are permanently shifting to two services beginning immediately.

We would like for you to consider shifting from our 10:30 am service to 9:00 am on a regular basis if that works best for your family. As we determine who is moving to the 9:00 am service, we will begin to establish new leadership/volunteer teams for that service. We are not expecting you to serve in the opposite service that you regularily attend (with the exception of our worship team).

We are still planning on having great children’s programs at both services. Starting Point will still be meeting during our 9:00 am service.

Many of you knew this shift was inevitable, but if you have any questions, please feel free to email me at mark@coffeechurch.com.

As we pray and seek God’s direction, I sense a new season of growth for our church. Once again we are taking a step of faith and anticipating that God will fill our church with new lives! We look forward to the future!

Pastor Mark

Easter!

Easter is my favorite day of the year! We had a great time at church today with 176 people (with no double counting!) at our first time having two services. We have an amazing team of volunteers and it went so smoothly, it was almost too uneventful! With two services, we anticipated parking issues and seating issues, but thankfully the two services were divided well and everyone got in and out perfectly…thank you to our parking team for being so well prepared!

When you begin a church there are so many “firsts” that it is difficult to deal with the emotions of it all. For the last two years we have seen growth, watched lives changes, moved into a new building, and been a part of dozens of miracles. Today’s first day of multiple services and our highest attendance ever was another part of the roller coaster of church planting.

Serving Christ is a journey that is just a lot of fun rolled up in a lot of faith. If you will really let God direct, mold, and shape you, He will create a world around you that is full of the unexpected and the awesome. I would never have asked to plant a church and yet, because God seems to know me better than I know myself, here I am wondering how I could ever have lived without this experience. Every second of work, heartache, and risk has been worth it. I love this journey…and even as I type those words, I hear the voice of God behind me saying, “And it’s only just begun…” Good.

The Bag Lady

My youngest daughter, Kennedy, is in an interesting phase. She finds treasures all over the house, carries them to a Disney tea cart, loads them up and then steers the cart around the house. She’s a picture of a bag lady with a pink and purple cart!

It’s very interesting to watch this progression. She painstakingly carries load after load to the cart, arms loaded to the maximum, barely able to hold the weight of it all. Then she stacks it as high as possible, some falling off and needing to be reheaped on top of the cart over and over again. She spends so much time investing into this process and it is often overwhelming for her. When she has lost her patience with the goal, she will cry out to her dad to carry the whole cart for her. She can’t bare it any longer, so she thinks that if her dad can come to her rescue that she will be able to take it again when it reaches the next destination.

I think to myself, “This is ridiculous. She doesn’t have to be doing this. Nobody is asking her to load up a bunch of useless toys, transport them from one end of the house to the next, and protect them with everything that is in her little body. It’s a waste of time.” And yet, she continues to load up her “important” stuff and suffer for this irrelevant cause.

I wonder if God looks at our “burdens” the same way. Did he ask us to carry a weight that is beyond us? Is our image of “important” things really just a pile of useless toys? Do we ignore God when he wants to give us freedom, but we just can’t see beyond our tea cart full of junk?

I look at my cute little blonde girl with the eyes of God. Her footings in this world show me so clearly my own faults. I don’t want to exert a bunch of energy into things that have no eternal benefit. And the things in my life that are important…well, “Daddy” is always strong enough to carry the tea cart for me. If I am under the weight of a heavy burden, it’s probably because I haven’t remembered to ask for His help!

Easter!

I am very much looking forward to Easter this year! It’s a monumental day for North Creek as it will be the first time that we are offering two services. Our regular service is quite full and our foyer overflows on Sunday mornings, so for Easter we’ll open up another option for people to attend.

With a 9:00 and 10:30 am service, it gives us a look into our upcoming future. I can’t wait! I love the growth and the new faces that are becoming a part of our lives.

Easter is one of my favorite days of the year! We celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, which sets our belief system apart from others…our Savior is alive! What an awesome event that we get to proclaim next Sunday! Invite a friend, neighbor, coworker, etc. to experience this special day with your family.

It’s also a marker for spring – the plants start peeking out of the dirt, the fruit trees bloom in all of their brillance, and my quest for two cute little easter dresses gets underway. It’s symbolic to me that winter always ends. The cold, desolate seasons of our lives always make way for new life. It’s all about Hope! I look forward to seeing you on Sunday!