I thought I would throw on the blog an archive of all our e-newsletters.  They have been a little more detailed than the blog has in the last 6 months, so for those of you who would enjoy a retrospective of the last year of our journey in 10 instalments, read on!

We just sent out our most recent e-newsletter, and I had a reply back from a very old friend who also serves the Lord in Alberta.  He is on a worship team in Lethbridge, and similar to us, he has a houseful of children as well!  He asked me what was new – I had to assume that he meant beyond what we wrote in the e-newsletter.  My answer may have been for a completely different question, but I think it spoke in a real way where my heart is at today.

And as for us?  Beyond what’s in the newsletter?  Heh.  It’s going to be a very busy fall, winter, spring, summer, … I was just mowing the front lawn and thinking to myself, “What an awesome privelege to be risking my entire family for God!”  It is sickening, yet thrilling trusting him with my livelihood, my family, and moving away from all of the familiar, to bring him Glory and build a new church.  One second I can’t believe what I have purposed to do, it is beyond insane, but it occurred to me that will be my testimony to my workmates, who I have prayed for … for years now.  I will be able to say to a couple of good friends who are atheists, “Would you risk your entire family, your money, your home, your family for your belief that God isn’t real? Because I am staking everything on my faith that he is, and that he loves me and will keep us all in his hand.  If you wouldn’t risk, you might want to consider Christ, seriously.”

It would be nice to just do my job, come home, coach my kids’ soccer team, play a game on my computer, and love my wife.  It would be peaceful, and restful and safe.  It would be a good life.  But what is this short life here on earth anyway?  A few moments in eternity?  I’ll rest when I am with him in heaven.

Don’t ask me where that came from.  Maybe it’s simply my rationale for putting way too much on my plate and then trying to cram it all in at once.

Or maybe God’s going to help me finish it off.

Just to let you all know, if you’ve tried signing up for our email newsletter (see the sidebar) and you couldn’t because it would flip you over to my Twitter, I have fixed that.  You can now sign up for the e-newsletter.  Next update will be in a few days!

Yesterday we sent out our first prayer network newsletter.  A very exciting moment for us.  I wanted to make sure we got it out the door to give our team a chance to get to know a little more about our vision for the future and begin to enlist their prayers before our scouting trip in March.  We will get a chance to write one more newsletter in early March, and talk a little more about plans before we go.

Prayer support is critical to any church planting enterprise.  We are very serious about having as large a group of Christians asking God on our behalf for his work to be done through us.  We will be needing all kinds of help, but if prayer warriors are behind us, we can be sure that God will provide the rest.  It is emboldening when you know that a legion of saints is behind you.

If you wish to join our prayer network, please fill out your email address in the little jobby on the right.  We also have a more interactive prayer tracker in Kindle – check out the little link on the right that says “Prayer 2.0″.

It’s getting to that time, where we need to start thinking about accumulating supporters.

So if you read this blog, you may well be one of them.

Heh.  Don’t worry.  We aren’t asking for money (yet!)  At this stage, we would like to build a base of prayer support.  If there is one thing to be learned from Philip and Beth’s experience with Community of Hope, it is that prayer support is one of your most important weapons.

Given the next big thing on our agenda will be a scouting trip to Alberta in March, now would be a great time to get prayer warriors interceding for us.  We will have a very significant decision to make in looking at a target community, culture, and people.  We will need wisdom and discernment, and we will also be begging God to make our sight clear and unclouded by our own selfish preferences.   We will also need prayer to direct us to those who we need to talk to locally, or even those who God wants to talk to us.  There are so many things that could come out of this trip, but we desire God’s handiwork to be all over it, and that takes prayer.

To that end, we are now compiling a list of people who would like to receive an emailed monthly newsletter updating them on our journey, and outlining our current prayer needs.  I have a number of people on a list now, but I haven’t actually asked them if they’d like to receive this prayer newsletter.  So, to that end, I want to ask all of our readers here if they would like to sign up to receive it.  If you come here and read this blog, then you already have some interest in our endeavours.  All we are asking for is that you consider committing to praying for us – daily, weekly, as often as you can, with a focus on our current needs.  If you would like to receive this newsletter, please sign up by dropping your email in this handy-dandy newsletter signup below.  Note, this is different from the email sign up on the right.  That one is to have the blog posts emailed to you instead of having to surf here on the internet.

Sign up for our Email Newsletter

Issue 1 will be emailed in early February, and every month after that.  Thanks again, and God bless you for your interest!