Exile29 - seek the welfare of our city

i remember the "fear" of the world....

how it will allure you... change you completely and destroy you when you are least expecting it....

nonsense.

But i believed it. tragic.

And consequently.... the pendulum swooooshes far to the right...

and everything you own, live, breath.. has the title "christian" before it.

From music, to shirts to even.... food?

ha!

Well.. in response, because we hated everything we lived for a good while, the pendulum

flies to the left... swooooosh!!! and liberalism is sacred. We will defend and fight for our

"rights" and "freedoms", not regarding anyone else. Selfish and so far from Christ.

So where do we fall.

i have been recently encouraged by Jeremiah 29.

The call and mandate to be exiles to our city... to live outside of a "christian" bubble, and invest in our city. To go and build houses and live in them, to plant gardens and eat its fruit, to build and raise families and seek the welfare of the city. Because it will be our welfare. Keeping in mind that the city God is talking about is babylon.... encourages me :)

So thats where we land.

We are a chosen people, selected and equipped for a purpose. Not to keep to ourselves, but to go out into this world, engage its culture and represent Jesus and preach the Gospel.

(I really don't see Jesus wearing a WWID band, on TBN or even encouraging people to have their best life now at that.)

I like where Jeremiah 29 falls, i like that the pendulum seems to be resting in a sane middle, that although we are not to love (give ourselves) the world, we are not to be taken out. But called to like as exiles with the promise of the Kingdom at its fullest. And its at hand.

Its here, yet not here.

awesome. and beautiful.

So, as exiles, and as we are to invest in the city...

I invite you to come out this Saturday at 5pm to our service.

We will be inviting all the homeless people that regularly get fed at the Good Neighbor Settlement House during the week (they are not open in the weekends), to join us this saturday night as share out potluck dinner with them.

It will be a great picture of the Kingdom to come.

Please come, bring food, love and hope. All are needed, and will be greatly rewarded.

love you all

if you have any questions about the event this saturday,

text me @ 371-7535

love you all.

Also, this week I will be starting a bible study at UTB at the Cueta Building.

1301 E. madison. There will be food.

if interested please text me, and i will text you back the details!!

again...

love you all

hope, utb and coffee

Good Morning everybody... assuming you are reading this in the morning...

Well its morning now, sooo. Buenos Dias.

The only way to start this is this... God is Good.

While that is the traditional / religious way to start a note of this sort...

it does not Deny its truth.

and the truth is... that I have known that He is good for a while, even before I REALLY knew, by first hand experiences. Yet the more I know HIM.... the more I realize....

That God is not good... just like God is not love....

but rather...

Good..and Love are God.

That Good and LOVE get their characteristics from God.

So in a sense.. good and LOVE do not describe Jesus. But in turn,

Jesus is the description of good and LOVE>

anyway... im just in love. sorry.

Good is God.

there, thats better.

Sooooo....

Our prayer meetings for our saturday night service (on Teusday AM) have been great.

We had been praying for God to do something, and not just in the service, but something with us. If you have been reading this shamefully infrequent blog of mine for while, you would notice that my heart for this service was to "reconceive chruch as a community, rather than an event".

and really, with Jesus, it is turning into that.

I have been blessed by people who are running with me to see Jesus. Friendships are being made and bonds tightened.

I was blown away by the participation of the church as we had out first meal together, and whomever brought those meatballs and pork sandwhiches... whoa... there is a special crown you get in heaven for food like that.

So we have been praying, and serving Jesus for his will to be done at this service.

If you want more info about our service or just want to be kept in the loop about the shananigans we are doing please feel free to join our google group: SNS SATURDAY NIGHT

But what I really want to talk to you ,and really ask you is for prayer.

While praying on the how to serve the community and be as Tan calls it "servant evangelists", God showed a way.

Well it went down like this...

Maurilio and I were at Starbux... probably on our 5th trip that day...

talking about phillipians or Ephesians..... well i dont remember but we were talking about something that ended in "ians". (was it magicians.... naaaaaa)

it was phillipians.

so anyway, this lady, whom overheard us, gave the that look.... like "whaaaaaaaaa"??

and then told us she was pretty impressed with Men talking about God, yara yara yara... and later gave us her card.

turns out she works at UTB (which is amazing, cause we had been praying on how to go preach the gospel there) aaaand, she works for the center of Civic engagement! which is the department to go and do all types of community service all over the city.

such as feeding the poor (which is going on this week)

and painting houses.. and all sorts of services that DO NOT BELONG TO GOVERNMENT BUT TO THE CHURCH.. whoa sorry... felt a rant comming on.... but dont worry.... its supressed.

So anyway, that was huge!!!!

My prayer request from anybody interested.. is for favor and wisdom as I go to UTB and start a bible study there along with this office. That the gospel would be proclaimed, and repentance would come, and a body of regenerated believers would rise at the college.

I remember about 7 years ago, for a season, with a good bud of mine, walking around UTB, praying in the theater, random offices, and even getting kicked out of the library (we werent students.. ha!) asking Jesus to do something.

It seems Jesus heard us, took us seriously, and the opportunity is now.

Please pray. i could be overly zealous... and i dont want to get anybody fired. so please pray... that the Gospel does what the Gospel does.

Changes everything.

love you all,

I am reminded that today is St. particks day...

also, in jeremiah 29, we are called to go and invest and serve and love our city.

this is our story.