Germany Missionary Update

Greetings!
 
We have several new readers joining us from the Chicago area, welcome! We recently zoomed into their Sunday school class to share 4 Ways to Engage the City Around Us. If you would like us to come to your small group, message us!

This is a monthly, story-telling newsletter that usually has several sections on various topics.

Here's today's rundown:
God-Given Clarity
The Rest of the Story
Answer to Where is Will going to College?
Podcast Distraction
WJH Duck

God-Given Clarity
The physical world around us reflected the transition happening in our souls during our time of Renew. We watched birds glide on the wind provided by the heavens and clouds disperse to display God’s glory. Just like you, Nate and I are a needful, wayward, messy, fallen, and wandering people. Thankfully, we don’t need to unburden or collect ourselves before we come to Jesus. Our very burden qualifies us to come. During our time of Renew His gentleness made Him accessible, and His rest was a gift not a transaction.
 
Since 2021, we have been praying for God to speak about our next step in ministry and for Him to feel near. Mercifully, He did both. When God feels distant, I often pray, “God draw near to me,” and I envision Him coming from across a distance to me. However, the Bible and Christian theology, all the way back to David, declare that God is already here – now. God is omnipresent. Our brains know that nearness to God is not a geographical or an astronomical thing, but due to dissimilarities or un-likeness in our nature to God’s, we often feel separated or a silence.
 
So, when I pray, “God draw near to me,” I am really praying for a manifestation of the presence of God. The difference between God’s omnipresence and His manifest presence is when you sense and recognize God is near and you are confronted with an aspect of His character. Over these past weeks, we have felt the Triune’s power, holiness, compassion, tenderness, and mercy. He called us to lament and to rejoice. He called us continually to be in union with the Spirit and then He affirmed our Calling.

Theme: Be In Union with Me
 
Nate cried when he finished John Eldredge’s book, Get Your Life Back. The book simulated an experience of sitting with a mentor for weeks inviting him to take deep breaths with Jesus and pause in His presence.  Every morning of Renew Nate woke up, put in his noise cancelling headphones, took deep breaths to enter into a meditative state of prayer and asked, “Lord, what do you want me to know today?” And each day God faithfully met Nate in those moments of prayer, journaling, and writing music.
 
During this time a supernatural covering of physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional unity was placed over Nate and me. We lack the words to effectively describe this union between us and the Father. In an attempt, Beth Moore writes in her new memoir about her own encounter with God, “If I had to come up with a term for something I sensed in my spirit instead of actually hearing or seeing, I’d say it was ownership. Like God conveying in this weird sort of way, You’re mine.”

Theme: He affirmed our Calling
 
In the Bible, the concept of Calling goes deeper than any one aspect of life, i.e. asking the question, “What is my profession?” Calling encompasses ALL of a person’s BEING and DOING! God’s calling comes from Him asking people to first be united with Himself, allowing Him to be the Lord over every aspect of life, and then Him asking us to participate in His redemption work. His work of redemption can occur in every workplace through justice, healing, reconciliation, compassion, kindness, humility, and patience (Colossians 3:12). It is not limited to the vocation of evangelism.
 
Our Calling is to engage in relationships “in the city” and “in the church.” We invest and live amidst not-yet-believers, giving priority to these relationships while living out the convictions of our heart and loving them where they are for the sake of the gospel. In addition, we seek to strategically bringing people from the local church into this space with us, helping equip them to do the same.
 
The more we sat in union with the Father, He defined our “Doing.” For 6 years the outpouring of that Calling was lived out through discipleship with those in the city, encouraging others through the giftings of the Holy Spirit, and mentoring those inside the church. Our lives and, therefore, ministry revolved around those “in the city” and those “in the church.”
 
He showed us how we naturally gravitated towards living in relationship with people where there is a void of the knowledge of God, misperceptions of Christians, or mistrust of organized religion. In partnership with Him we affectionately tended the soil of their soul to repair and/or grow trust between them and their Creator (1 Corinthians 3:6). In addition, we partnered with the church to equip those in the church, through knowledge and opportunity, to live among and in relationship with those in the city.
 
After a TobyMac concert downtown, I drove Sadie through our old Green Hills neighborhood in Nashville. Our car crawled down the street as I showed her our first home, telling her about each neighbor in each house. Those friends characterized city dwellers. A unique cluster of a Vanderbilt Hospital doctor with five kids, two Vanderbilt professors with two kids, a single female, and a gay couple all of them not-yet-believers. I recounted the trip down memory lane to Nate, and we realized that from the beginning of our marriage, we have worked to bridge the gap of misperceptions and mistrust. Our Calling is not just an ideal or perspective shift for us, it is our lifestyle.

The Rest of the Story
On Tuesday, April 11th from 7:00pm – 8:30pm CST join us on Zoom. There is so much more to God’s story to share and we want to have a time of Q&A.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2892289795?pwd=bEVKSGtkcWxRdFFJTnlkczVGSm9jdz09

Meeting ID: 289 228 9795
Passcode: 970115

Will's Going to Samford!
Cue the tears. In August, Will is headed to college in Birmingham, AL to attend Samford University. It is an amazing school with an amazing student and faculty community. We are so sad excited!

Podcast Distraction
Firmly and lovingly my mentor said, "Brittany, during this time of Renew I do not want you to listen to any Christian or counseling podcast."  Willie Nelson was not going to be enough to carry us down the miles of road ahead, so I begged my friends for recommendations.

Y'all, if you listen to podcasts or you want to jump into the revolution, these are where to start. SO, so, so good!

Message me if you want to discuss their juicy content over coffee!


WJH Duck (What Just Happened!)
You all know we have a fondness for our Yay Duck and Yuck Duck, because life is a paradox or “pair of ducks.”
 
Yesterday, as Nate and I left the neighborhood, I noticed a yellow ducky in a busy intersection. Nate said, “That’s WJH Duck!”
 
Isn’t that true of life. You are traveling in a car, on a road to a predetermined destination, and then before you know it, you’re thrown out of the car, laying on the ground, stranded in an intersection of what feels like life and death.

I couldn’t stop thinking about that duck. So, I rescued him this morning, just like Jesus rescues me from my own WJH situations. Jesus gets me out of the intersection, not because He has too, but because he is compassionate and full of mercy.
 
Love y’all. Praying for each of your WJH Ducks today. PS Yay and Yuck adopted him 5020202020Recent