This 4th of July was our first in Portland. We have been here now a little over four months! At times it feels as though we’ve been here for years; other times we feel like it has only been days. The transition from life in Camarillo to life in a young, urban city has been filled with challenges, fears, doubts, excitement and almost every other emotion that you could think of. For almost a decade now, I have felt the call of God on my life to plant a church. Through the years of praying, learning, and growing I have had a variety of different thoughts and dreams about how our church plant would go. To be honest, the way things have played out these past four months have been far different than the way I really thought they would. In that, God has shown me and reminded that the church belongs to Him. He is going to expand His Kingdom in the way that will bring most glory to Himself. The experience thus far has been challenging, yet I don’t think anyone of us would change it!
In light of being here for four months, I wanted to take this blog to share evidences of God’s grace in what He has done, is doing, and Lord willing will continue to do in the future. My reasoning behind this, is, in large part to say THANK YOU to all those who are praying for us, and have supported the work here. The team and I have been overwhelmed with the amount of love and support from our church home in Camarillo. The stories that I share are all fruit to your account! Thank you for being a part of the mission of God in restoring all things for His glory!
The first story that comes to mind is about my friend Max. When we moved up here, I transferred from Peets Coffee in Thousand Oaks to a Peets Coffee in Oregon. The only open store for me was about 20 minutes outside of where we live in a suburb of Portland called Lake Oswego. I met and connected with one of my coworkers immediately - a guy named Max. Max is twenty nine years old and has his masters degree in philosophy. He is a brilliant, brilliant guy. One of my favorite qualities of Max is his provocatively deep questions that he asks. When we first met he wasn’t a christian. He is by all accounts a good person. He does good, and always wants to do good for people. During my time at Peets, Max and I would spend most shifts going back and forth re the the bible, God’s love, God’s justice, eternity, and the exclusivity of Jesus among the other major religions. Like I previously said, Max is one of the best question askers I have ever met. More often then not he would ask me a question re the whys of christianity and Jesus that would stop me in my tracks and make me think for a second or two. However, the one thing I vowed to do was let the scriptures speak and let them bear weight on his soul. For me, Max has been one of the greatest gifts from the Lord to help grow and shape me as a better pastor and more effective Christian. To be honest, I never thought that a “non christian” could have such a profound affect on my life toward godliness. Over the months, Max and I have grown to what I would consider to be good friends. Our conversation started to go from authorial theological questions to more personal, “how does this effect my life questions.” During this time, the team and I would constantly pray for Max- believing that God wanted and would save him.
A few weeks ago, while we were talking, I could see a different spark in Max’s eye. I thought at first, it could be the amount of coffee he had that day, but felt the Spirit prompting in a different way. I boldly asked him if He became a christian. Despite his hostility towards the idea, by all accounts Max admitted that God had gotten a hold of his heart and was doing a saving work. Salvation is a one time decision, but sanctification is a life long process. Even before Max affirmed some type of faith in Jesus, he had and does attend our community bible study each Tuesday. It has been such a joy and has stretched me in so many ways having him in the room with us! I’m so thankful to Jesus for what He has and is doing in His life and can’t wait to see what will happen! Through my friendship with Max, God has reminded me that it isn’t merely telling someone about Jesus and expecting to get a response right away. Rather, our jobs as christians is to love and invest in relationships with people. To sacrifice for them, and do our best to represent Jesus well to them, living lives that demand a gospel explanation.
Secondly, it is hard to put into words at time how discouraging it can be to live in a city that is so spiritually dark. I was reading in Relevant Magazine that Portland came in last on the chart of “most christian” cities in America. At times we feel very alone in this city. Thus far we’ve had the opportunity to meet some incredible people to begin building relationships with them. After about four weeks, we started a community gathering. Meeting every Tuesday to work through the book of Titus. That time has been such a joy for us. It has been an opportunity for the team and I to come together and call out to Jesus and pray and beg Him to do in this city what we can’t do. Along the way we have been praying for God to continue to give us more chances to minister in and around the city. Just two weeks ago we started our second bible study. Now we meet every Tuesday and Thursday. Friends of ours who moved up here from Calvary in Camarillo asked us what we thought about starting a bible study out in Lake Oswego with them. It is a beautiful and quaint suburb. To be honest, it wasn’t anywhere on my radar to strategically think about trying to start something in Lake O. Yet, it seems like God has something different in store than what I expected. One of the church planting books that I read not to long ago said something very simple and profound that has stuck with me. The author simply encouraged planters to “go where God is already moving.” In other words, look and see what and where God already seems to doing something, and go there! In essence, that is what we’ve done and are trying to do. I believe that Jesus will continue to use us in Lake O. Our hope and prayer is just to be faithful servants of wherever He calls us. Since starting two weeks ago we have have seen about 10-12 new people show up. We know and believe that it isn’t about number per say, but we are thankful that Jesus is advancing His kingdom in Portland and giving us the opportunity to play a part in it.
Third, if I had to ball park a number of people we have talked to and shared the gospel with I would suspect it would be very close to if not more than 75 people thus far. It is humbling and exciting to see the situations that God has placed us in to be used. For me, I have been privileged talk with atheists, agnostics, buddhists, spiritualists, a few people who have literally never heard the gospel before, those that claimed to be christians at one point, and because of bad experiences they’ve had with pastors or church have walked away from the Lord, I’ve shared conversation with practicing homosexuals who offer a great insight re their view of how christians have been handling the issue of late, and list goes on.
As hard as people are to the gospel here, one fact remains true. People are people. By and large, if you treat someone with genuine respect, love and desire to actually listen and learn from people, I have found that more often then not they are going to be willing to listen to you. For us, we have taken seriously the approach of doing everything we can to love and serve the people of our city. Paul in 1 Corinthians 3 says there are three types of processes. Planters, waterers, and those that reap the harvest. In all of that, God is the one who blesses each part. However, when I take a look around at the spiritual climate of Portland, I now believe more than ever that the ground here needs to be lovingly tilled and cultivated. More often than not as christians we are looking to see quick and obvious “fruit” that comes from our endeavors. I’m guilty of this too. I’ve been wrestling with a question for the last couple weeks now that has been challenging to work through. The question being, “what if God called us to spend our whole lives lovingly tilling the ground so that the next group of pastors can come in and reap a harvest? Would I be okay with that?” In the recent weeks and months though God has been showing me specifically the need to be an enduring farmer. In 2 Timothy 2, Paul encourages Timothy to pastor and lead in this way. Our prayer is that God would give us at least 40 years in Portland to faithfully advance the gospel here. Which means we want to invest every part of our lives in this city to impact as many people we can for Jesus.
There is so much more that I could share! Jesus continues to blow each of us away by what He is doing in this city through our movement and the other churches around us! We have a ton of hope that as dark as the city is, the gospel is far more powerful! Thank you to everyone is who has and is praying for us. We appreciate your support and continue to ask for you to pray for the work that God is doing here!
-Trevor
