November 2013

Hello! Thanks for taking the time to read. I am so excited to FINALLY share an update with you all. God has been doing so much in our city.

Baptisms
A few weeks ago, Trevor had the opportunity to baptize a couple that has been a part of our Bible study. He met the couple while working at Peets and built a relationship with them. The couple attends a church in Lake Oswego and the church was having a baptism. The couple really wanted to be baptized at their church but wanted Trevor to baptize them. Coincidentally (or not), Trevor had already met the pastor of their church and shared what we are doing in NE Portland. The pastor invited Trevor to baptize the couple at our church and wanted to pray over us and our ministry in front of the congregation. What a blessing! It is so refreshing and exciting to see churches come together and unite for the Gospel. Trevor was able to baptize the couple and the pastor prayed for what we are doing in NE and that God would bless our ministry. 

Thanksgiving

As the holidays approach, we knew we wanted to do something to bless people in our community and reach out to them. We decided to host a Thanksgiving dinner at our home for both of our Bible studies. The encouragement to our friends was to bring someone outside of our Bible study groups. Our apartment is VERY small (as you will see in the pictures below). We had NO clue how we would fit everyone or provide enough food and we had no clue if our friends would even bring anyone! Well, God definitely did a work that night. We fit 26 adults and 5 kids in our living room! Several people brought friends and new relationships were built. We somehow had enough food and even though it was a bit crammed, there's something so good about being cozy and close to people. One of the gals who came with a friend shared that she had never felt so much love and felt so comfortable among people she didn't even know. She said she didn't know what we "had" but she wanted it. 

Please pray for the relationships built that night and that God would continue to work in the lives of the people who came. 

It was also a blessing because there were people from our "east" side Bible study (in NE Portland) who had never met people from our "west" side Bible study (in Lake Oswego). It was a great opportunity for everyone to meet and come together as one church.

Sunday Church

We are excited to begin Sunday services January 12th! We will have Sunday services once per month with a meal beforehand. We are still deciding on a location. Please pray for provision and clarity for where this service should be held. 

Community Groups

As I mentioned above, we have titled the Bible studies our east and west side studies. Trevor is currently teaching both of those. A new group just started in November which is a Bible study for atheists. A young man in our group had the idea from Isaiah 1:18 "Come now, let us reason together." He invited 5 atheist friends over and they discuss the Bible. We are so excited to see what God does in their lives.

Prayer Requests

-A location to meet on Sundays

-Relationships being built

-That God would continue to work and use us in NE Portland and Lake Oswego

-Praise for the unity of the Church and for all He is doing!

Thanks for reading, love to all!

Julianne 

The next few months

Hello! Thanks for taking the time to read our blog. We are so excited about what God is doing here.

Prayer Update
A few months ago (2 to be exact) we shared that we were praying about the location of our Bible studies. We have one study at our home in Northeast Portland and one study in Lake Oswego - about 15-20 minutes from us and from downtown Portland. We asked that you would pray and ask God to reveal what area we should be in. We weren't sure if Lake Oswego was where we should be and if we should move to that area or if we should stay in NE Portland where we originally felt called to and truly have a heart for.

Since beginning to pray, we have seen our Tuesday night study grow. Through prayer and discussion with our leaders and Bible study groups, we feel NE Portland is where we should be. We came to that decision and realization almost exactly 2 months from the date we originally asked for prayer which is the timeline we were hoping to have a decision by. God is so good!

The Game Plan
Our plan is to continue building the Bible studies we have currently - at our house and in Lake O - and from those studies, start 2-3 new studies by January. We also plan to begin meeting once per month in January as a whole group - everyone from each Bible study together- and possibly do a meal together. With this in mind, we have a lot to do in the next few months! Please pray God would continue to develop leaders within our group and open up doors that we could never open on our own. We will need a location to meet for our Sunday meetings and leaders and locations for new studies.
Feel free to take a look at our full vision which is the post prior to this one.

What's Happening Now
Currently, we meet with our Tuesday night group and have dinner with them before Bible study. We also have Sunday dinners at one of the family's homes in our Bible study. Meals definitely bring us all together and it has been such a blessing to begin to build relationships with the people in our studies. We have great friends up here and are so thankful for the community and fellowship with them.

Prayer Requests
Please continue to pray for God to work and provide a place for us to meet and for leaders to be raised up and developed. Pray God would open us more doors for us to meet people and that we would love the people in our neighborhood. We love Portland so much and are excited for what God is doing.

Our New Girl!
Lastly, we welcomed our dear baby girl, Ali Michelle, into the world on October 15. She is so perfect and we couldn't be more excited to be parents. The support we have received from our friends up here has been a huge blessing.

Thanks for taking the time to read! Below is our vision for Nexus Portland. For more information about how to support the ministry here, please contact Trevor at trevor@nexusportland.org. 

Nexus Portland

Glorifying Jesus, Loving People, Making Disciples

We are living in a remarkable time in history. Our nation and specifically Portland is in need of the gospel in an incredibly deep way. We all have yet to fully see our deep need for Jesus and His gospel and we are passionate about seeing Jesus’ Kingdom come in Portland. We believe the biblical way for this to happen is through Jesus’ church. Church is not a building- it’s the people of God. The Church is a people whose identity is found in Jesus and are sent out to glorify Him by loving people and making disciples. Jesus is alive! He has invited us to be a part of the greatest redemption story of all time!

Our vision for Portland is to keep planting a church that lives to see lives changed by preaching through the scriptures, authentic gospel-centered community, serving our city well, and having a balanced view of the Holy Spirit/gifts. For this to happen we believe that God is calling us over the next year to take exhilaratingly fearful leaps of faith to see the vision become a reality. It is an incredible time to be a Christian! The need is vast, but our God is greater.

I. What is the vision?

1. Launch a one time per month Sunday night gathering by January 2014 with 20-35 people: We believe that beginning to gather collectively on weekends will help establish our identity as a church, create more opportunities to reach people, and gain momentum.

2. Multiply community groups: We want our neighborhoods throughout Portland being saturated with gospel witnesses: Christians living on mission and intentionally serving people with the prayer that Jesus would save more. Our desire is to see an additional 2-3 community groups [CG’s] started by January.

3. Expand to gathering two times per month by June 2014: By God’s grace as we continue to grow in our influence, the next step is gathering more frequently with the hope of solidifying ourselves as a people and a church for our city.

4. Officially launch Nexus Portland by September of 2014: Jesus is moving, the need and opportunities are great and God has called us to be a church deeply imbedded into our community. Our desire is to be a fully sustainable church by a people committed to God’s mission.

5. Plant another church out of Nexus Portland by 2016:  We’re passionate about seeing the gospel multiplied in our city; therefore, we’re committed to training, sending, and supporting new churches all throughout Portland.

II. What we are asking God for:

1. Raise up and develop disciple-leaders: For the church to thrive, we will invest in developing disciple-leaders to take responsibility of the church and ministry.

2. Raise up 2 community group leaders and host homes by January 2014

3. Provide a meeting space for our Sunday night gatherings

4. Expand our influence within the community by “seeing the need and being the remedy”: We are passionate about reaching: single moms, sex trafficking victims, and orphans.

5. Establish ministries and leaders within the church to help love and serve the body by March 2014: We believe in order to care for more people effectively we need leaders and ministries such as women’s, men’s, children’s, counseling, worship, administration, and community outreach.

Our BBQ and God's subtle reminders

Hello hello-

Every time I update this blog, I feel like time flies by! I can't believe it's already been two weeks since I last updated it. Just a good reminder of how thankful we are to be in Portland- we truly love it here.

Last week, we had a BBQ in Lake Oswego with our Bible study group. We challenged everyone to bring someone. Lake Oswego is a beautiful Lake- we got access to a private park right on the water. It was stunning. Some people who came to our BBQ said even though they live in Lake O, they aren't allowed in that park because you have to live in a certain area. Lake O is a different world! Which is why we are truly praying if that is the area we are supposed to be in.

Besides some trouble with figuring out how to use charcoal for the first time and burning our food, it was a great turn out. A new couple came as well as a man Trevor had met at a coffee shop the week before. We had a lot of fun hanging out and building relationships. We are thankful for the small community in Lake O who meets with us regularly. It has been a blessing to grow with them. After the BBQ, we all went to get ice cream at Salt and Straw- a famous place in Portland with very different flavors (Oprah's favorite from here is Olive Oil Ice cream!). We have been blessed with friends and it's exciting to build relationships with people and meet people who are just as starving for community and relationships as we are. There is something special that happens when believers come together- it's an unseen bond.

This week, Trevor got a call from a couple who somehow got our information and wanted to come to the Bible study on Tuesday at our house in NE. We have no idea how they got our info but said they were going to come. Another man who had not yet come to our study was planning to come too. We were very excited for new people! We invited a couple friends over for dinner before the study too. Last minute, Trevor got a call from all 3 people saying they weren't going to be able to make it. We were a little disappointed. But we knew God was still working and even though it was a bummer. That night, while we were eating dinner with our friends, someone knocked on our door. Everyone just looked up and stared with inquisitive looks. We live in an apartment complex- you need a key to get in and in the 6 months we have been here, no one has ever knocked on our door. Plus, we didn't know of anyone else who was supposed to be coming that night. We opened the door to find a young man who goes to college in Portland. Art (an original member of our core team when we moved up here) had invited him. Long story short- he is from Camarillo and I went to high school with him! Small small world! It was just another reminder of how God is working.

It reminds me of the Christians who were praying for Peter to be set free from prison. They were all in one house praying for Peter's freedom. There's a knock on the door and it's Peter. But the people are too busy praying to go let him in. Here they are praying for something and when it actually happens, they don't even realize it or believe it could happen. It's a good reminder to have an expectation of God answering our prayers. 

When things don't pan out the way we we expect, it can be easy to get discouraged or ask God why our efforts seem to be failing. We can blame ourselves or God for a lack of fruit or disappointment. Instead, I believe God us teaching us to trust Him with our actions. To trust that we don't know what the outcome will be even though we think we do. We think if we do A, B and C, then D, E and F will happen. That isn't always the case. Sometimes we don't see the fruit of what God is calling us to do and sometimes we harvest the fruit from someone else's sowing. We simply need to be obedient to what He calls us to do and trust He will do the rest. While we should pray with an expectation of Him working, we have to trust that He ultimately knows what is best. 

Please continue to pray for clarity as to what area we are to be in. 

Pray for our baby as she is coming in 6 weeks! We are so excited.

Please pray God opens doors for us to meet people here and share the love of Christ with them.

Thank you!

Julie

What's Happenin' in Portland and Lake O

Hello all!

Thanks for taking the time to read our blog. We truly appreciate it and are very excited to share what God is doing in our city.

August is the 6th full month we have been in Portland- time has sure flown by! Our lease is up in September and we are planning to renew for another year. Baby is coming soon - only 8 more weeks! We are so excited to meet our baby girl, Ali Michelle.

We began in Portland with Bible study on Tuesday nights at our home. We live in Northeast Portland - about 5 minutes east of down town. We love our area and have felt a heart for the people here. We have just begun to understand our area and are trying to reach our apartment complex and the people around us.

When we first moved here, Trevor worked at Peet's coffee in Lake Oswego. Lake O is about 15-20 minutes from our house and about 15 minutes south of down town Portland. He began to share Jesus with his co workers and began building relationships with regular customers. We also know a couple who lives in Lake O who used to go to Calvary Nexus in Camarillo. They opened their home up for Bible study on Thursday nights since a lot of the people Trevor was reaching out to and sharing with were from there anyways. In addition to Tuesdays at our house, we now meet at their house on Thursdays and have 10-15 people there each week.

We need your prayers for the next 2 months. We want to commit to one area instead of spreading ourselves over two. We are praying God would reveal to us if we should commit to Lake O and pursue that area as our main focus. This would mean moving out there and building relationships with the people there instead of just commuting out there once a week. The other option is staying where we are in Northeast Portland. We know there is a need here and it is an evident one. It is a difficult place to reach. We don't want to jump the gun, so to speak, and just move to Lake O because something is happening there already. We want to be patient and trust God to guide us. Please pray it would be clear in the next two months which area God would have us minister in.

God is already doing SO much here. It is amazing to be a part of the work He is doing. Next week we are having a BBQ in the park and asked everyone in our Bible study to invite someone. We are praying for a great turn out and more relationships to be built. Another family from Camarillo also moved up here in the last month- we are so blessed to have friends here. They have also opened their home for Sunday night BBQs for anyone who wants to come.

God is so good. People in Portland need Jesus. Please pray they are reached.

One last story. Since we arrived in Portland, the support we have received from surrounding churches has been amazing. No one is concerned with us "stealing" people from their church or planting our flag next door to them. They all want to see more people reached for Jesus. When we first moved here, Trevor met with a guy from the suburbs who had helped plant 5 churches in Portland. He was in touch which a church outside of the city but who owned a church building about 5 minutes from us. The church has been empty for many years and they have been looking for a church to make use of the building-preferably a church planter. We are in the early stages and definitely wouldn't be able to make use of it for some time. Their goal was just to get someone in the building so more people are reached for Jesus. A couple weeks ago, we visited a church called Door of Hope in SE Portland. While we were there, the pastor shared a prayer request- that their lease was up soon in their current building and they were out growing it. They were looking for a new building soon or some new door to open for them to meet somewhere else. After the service, Trevor went up to the pastor and passed on the information regarding the vacant church building. A week later, we found out that Door of Hope will be using the empty church come September!!! How awesome is our God?

Since we moved here, we have been networking with the pastors who are already in the area to see where the needs are. There is great unity here among churches and pastors and we are excited to learn from them and be a part of what is happening. While it may sound like another church getting a building isn't necessarily exciting for us, we can see God's fingerprints all over this city. The connection between the church and the new building was made because of the relationships Trevor has been pursuing with pastors. We have learned to focus more on the gospel and helping people meet Jesus than just our "church."

Please continue to pray for the things mentioned above- we appreciate it and love you all!.


Julie Gavin

What Has God Been Up To??

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

Ministry in Portland and Missing Home

Hello!

Thank you for taking the time to read our blog. It has been a busy last few months. As of this weekend, we will have been in Portland for 3 months. It does not seem like we have been here that long but at the same time it already feels like home. We started our Bible study in our home several weeks ago and are continuing through the book of Titus. We started with our core team and have had a few visitors over the past few weeks. Trevor has been sharing the gospel with several of his co-workers at Peet's and some of them have visited our study. It has been amazing to see the fruit of his labor and see God work here in Portland.
Before we moved to Portland, we knew church and ministry as a whole would be very different. We didn't know how different or what it would entail. We just knew that it would be different than Camarillo. We love our home church, Calvary Nexus. It has been our home for so long and the people there are like family. We are so grateful for all the love and support we have received from them. In Camarillo, we were used to events such as Church at the Park and outreach concerts in the Energy Lounge. Calvary puts on amazing events that reach out to the community. People would come and enjoy and get saved. In Portland, it is very different. The majority of people here don't go to church and have no desire to be a part of if. Many have a negative view of the church especially because Portland has one of the highest gay and lesbian populations. We have learned that reaching these people here will be far different than we thought. We can't just throw an event in a park and expect people to come. Nothing is wrong with that in Camarillo- it works! People come! But here in Portland, we have realized our ministry will be more focused on building relationships with people we see everyday and engaging in deep conversations to get to the root of people's Vendetta's against the church. Everyone here has a cause. Last week there was a HUGE protest in a park across from our house protesting GMO and promoting peace. People all fight for something here in Portland. It will take time to engage them and serve them and love them just to warm them up to the idea of Jesus. The good thing about Portland is that people need Jesus. There is an evident spiritual darkness and heaviness here that we haven't experience before. We are excited and are also bracing ourselves to really dive in headfirst and love people and learn how to serve them.
Last month we had the opportunity to visit home for a few days. Our dear friends just had a baby and we wanted to do a quick visit. It was refreshing to be met by so many loving people at church- I wish we had had more time to visit and see everyone! But we were so overwhelmed with blessing by everyone we talked to. We are so thankful for your support and love and encouragement and even interest in what God is doing here in Portland. It refreshed us.
While I was home, after seeing some friends and family, I began just considering why we left. It was so good to be home. It felt like nothing had changed in some ways. While I was sitting alone in my car, I began to cry. Why did we have to leave? We love our family and friends so much. It would have been easier to just stay in Camarillo for the rest of our lives. Why did other people get to stay? Why did our best friends get to raise their kids with one another and we had to leave and go somewhere where we don't know anyone and try to build a community? It just didn't seem fair. As I prayed, I asked God all of these questions. I simply heard him ask me, "Is the Gospel worth it?" I began to consider Jesus and what He has done for us. I considered all the lost people in Portland and what our lives are really about. Are our lives about comfort and being around those we love? Is that really what our lives should be focused on? I realized that the importance of the Gospel and helping reach the lost far surpasses any comfort or pleasure we can have in this world. While comfort and family and being around loved ones are all good things, they fall in comparison to the importance of people receiving salvation. That is really why we are here: to share God's love with others and further the kingdom of God. So while I was upset and missed family and longed to be home again, I knew that we were doing what we were supposed to do. We were in God's will which is always the best place to be. I knew it was better to be in God's will than to be in a comfortable spot with loved ones but out of God's will. I knew that true peace and ultimate fulfillment would come from obeying and following God's call on our lives. So as we made the journey back to Portland, while I was sad and upset, I knew we were going to where we needed to be. And that gave me peace.