The Tree Trunk

Our focus for discipleship this year is the Tree of Life!

We spent the Fall examining the inner soil of our lives where our life with God takes place. Right now our focus is on the tree trunk: that solid protection that comes with life in community. In the Spring, we will be interacting with the leaves and the branches: our life of kingdom serving the world.

Last week in huddle, one of the women broke down crying in discouragement. Her husband is looking for a job and was hitting lots of obstacles in the process. Promised phone calls weren't being returned, interviews were being cancelled, etc.

So, we began to enter into kingly intercession, where we wait and listen for what the Lord's heart, will and direction is for us to pray, and then we speak it out. We take seriously 2 Cor 1:20 which states, "No matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in Christ. That is why we say, 'amen' when we give glory to God through Christ."

We are given the privilege to say Amen: so be it for what God wants to do. It's the kingdom partnership that we have been invited into....

We prayed during huddle, and our friend's spirits lifted. Here is an email she wrote for the rest of the story:

"Hi Ladies, God is so good. I have to set the scene for you when I arrived home. My husband is standing in the doorway, hands on his hips, and he asks, "Have you been praying or something?" I just shake my head....wow! One of his contracts will be finalized today, and he got a call from a head hunter about another job. Hmmmm. I shared about some of our prayer time, and he is in a good place, and has felt the shift. Yeah, Holy Spirit at work.

I want to thankyou for all the sweet birthday wishes, cards, cupcakes and ballooons. But, most of all, I want to thank you for standing in faith and prayer with me and my family. How amazing you all are! Thank you to our fearless leader for guiding us on this journey. It's been a wild ride for sure. The trunk is working!"

The Trunk is working. I love this. When we are able to be vulnerable and share what's happening in our life, go to the Lord in prayer and give one another support, this is the family that Jesus calls us into as his family.

I also have to mention that this family lives less than 5 minutes from where we met for huddle. God took the fast track to answer our prayers.

Where are you in your life in the trunk of community?

Experiences at the Learning Community with 3dm

The hour? 5:30 a.m. Here is our team of 5 ready to board a flight to South Carolina to spend several days with some of our favorite friends: 3dm!

The Learning Community has been an invaluable help to Missio Lux as we develop a structure of discipleship that fits with our mission, vision and values.

The theme for our fourth Learning Community was "Developing Missional Sites." The idea behind this is to have Red Hot Centers where the fire of God is alive and burning! This comes from the 3 p's: Passionate Praise, Prayer and Prophecy: hearing God's communication in our lives and sharing it with others.

The Red Hot Centers can then develop into posts of mission through missional community, while the center structure supports the administrative needs: finances, communication, training and development, governance. This frees the missional posts to be fully focused on living their vision and impacting the world with Jesus' love.

My favorite moment of all 4 Learning Communities was when the whole team of 5 of us came to the same conclusion at once. We were in an envisioning stage when we realized that we already have Red Hot Centers happening in 5 different places: South Korea, Kenya/Sudan, Holland, Colorado and Seattle. We also have all the mechanisms to develop regional missional sites through 3dm: huddle, coaching, missional community and missional outposts!

We determined to start five regional missional outposts in the next 5 years. It was a holy moment as we realized that God has been strategically leading us even when we didn't see the whole picture.

Please pray for us as we seek to develop the solid core infastructure in Seattle as well as expanding our Red Hot Centers here so the flames can move out to start fires of God in many other places around the world.