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[AWAKENING CHURCH UPDATE] Focused On The One

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When we moved here almost a year ago. We understood that our first year was the foundation for us to get to know our community and build relationships. In doing so, we began go focus on our vision of planting a church in Bellevue. But over time, our vision has expanded to focus on a much broader area.

There will always be a temptation to focus solely on building and developing our own church vision, instead of also helping build other church’s visions. God reminds me often that this is His church, His people, and He will move and use them however He sees fit. He’s got the whole thing rigged, and I don’t want to get in the way of what He is going to do.

Several months ago, I tip-toed through an open door as the interim pastor of The Landing Church in Kenmore, WA. By the grace of God, In the coming days, we will be relaunching The Landing Church as the core of Awakening Church. 

With missions as our mission we are committed to being intentional about staying focused on the “1.” In Luke 15, Jesus told three different stories to make one clear point. The heart of Jesus was to leave the 99 and go after the 1. I truly believe that the more we focus our churches on relationships… going after the 1, the more our churches will get behind the vision of being a multiplying church. And that’s our desire.

As we develop a praying culture…we are praying Psalm 127:1: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who labor, labor in vain.”

Effective prayer begins when we perceive the gap between where a situation is and where God wants it to be.

Jesus taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come; your will be done earth as it is in heaven.” I perceive a gap between where our church is and what God wants the gospel situation in Seattle to be. I believe he wants the gospel to be famous here. I believe he wants there to be a profound spirit of gospel unity between churches here and together we see a massive awakening in our area. I believe he wants the gospel to be made accessible to every people group that we find in our area, and that he wants his people to saturate every broken and hurting part of our city. And I believe he wants us to plant 5 churches and bless 5 cities in places where the church is not strong. I believe all this because God’s word tells us he wants it.

Thank you for partnering with us and going on this journey with us. May God receive all the glory.

Moving to Seattle!

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As God led us back to America [from China] four years ago, we knew that He was in control and we continued seeking His direction for our future.  We were unsure of why He was bringing us back at the time, but but since then we have gained greater clarity to His purposes. Our experience in China changed much about who we are, how we see the world, and oftentimes the way we minister to others.  Trying to “pick-up where I left off” when returning to America was a very challenging experience.  Over the past four years, God has allowed me to gain much experience serving in different executive pastor roles. During that time, I felt that those roles were preparing me for something much different than what I was doing, but continued to serve faithfully.  Through our network of friends, supporters, and much prayer, God opened our eyes to the multitudes of Chinese people living in the Seattle area.  This initially peaked our interest as did the city itself.

We have been attracted to the city since we first visited 9 years ago, but mostly for our own desires and purposes. But the more we prayed and spent time in the city, the more we felt a great love for the people and a sense that God was leading us there.  He gave us a vision to see a gospel-centered, disciple-making community that loves and serves Seattle in God’s power, for God’s glory.

Over time, we have increasingly come under the conviction that what the city of Seattle needs is more gospel-centered churches planted in it’s midst. I felt the Lord leading our family to declare the gospel and make disciples in Seattle, but I knew that we needed help.

We left our church in San Antonio and began meeting with church planters and other experienced individuals that could help better equip us for what God was calling us to do.  Since we will be new to the Seattle area, we feel led to parter with other local church planters for the first 6-12 months to better position us to launch successfully with a solid Core Team and a better understanding of the culture. In addition, the North American Mission Board will help to provide us with one of the most extensive support systems anywhere, including prayer support, assessment, training, focus community exegesis, partnership development, coaching, advocates, planter networks, spouse networks, family gatherings, online giving, an administrative hub, block party trailers, portable baptistries, and more.

We believe God is moving in the city of Seattle and stirring his people for a movement of making and growing disciples by God’s grace, for God’s glory.  We feel compelled to join him in what he’s doing.

To read more about our vision, ministry plan, and needs, please download our prospectus.

For more information how you can get involved, please complete this form.