05.31.06 thequest UPdate

thequest family,

Again in this week's UPdate, I have asked one of our most faithful leaders to write a thought or two to put in this spot. I hope you enjoy their perspectives and are challenged all the more that it is all about Jesus. Sylvia, one of the house church leaders from our 3rd Ave House Church is sharing her thoughts with everyone. Enjoy. --Mike


On Monday, March 13, 2006 at 10:15am my life changed forever. That was the moment I went into my mother?s bedroom to wake her up and discovered that she had passed away. Her fight against cancer was now ended. For over six months I knew that this moment would come, but I still wasn?t prepared for the finality of death. There were still things I wanted to talk to her about. I wanted to say a proper goodbye to the woman who had brought me into the world. I wanted our eyes to meet one more time, to share one more hug, to say one more ?I love you? before she was whisked away to be with Jesus. Instead, my memories of a typical Sunday together will be the farewell I will remember ? church, lunch, playing cards, watching baseball and basketball. (My mother often said that without ESPN and FOX Sports, there was nothing to watch on television.)

On that day, the grief journey began for my sister Lin and I. But we weren?t alone. Our spiritual families were right there supporting us with prayer, messages of condolence, and just letting us talk about our loss. Mike Jentes and Andy Belohlavek made the four-hour drive to be with us at the funeral service. They rejoiced with us when the pastor told us of her profession of faith the previous Tuesday. Many people had been praying for her salvation and we are eternally grateful that our prayer was answered!

You let us cry, laugh, and tell our Mom stories. You didn?t push us to ?get over our grief and get on with life.? You have been like Job?s friends when they first came to him to console him over the tragic loss of his children. They just spent time with him and showed him how much they loved him.

Your love for us was the best gift you could have given us. Since Mom?s death you have continued to nurture us physically, emotionally, but most of all spiritually. For that we will be eternally grateful. Jesus said that His disciples should love one another so that the world would know that they belonged to Him. Through your love for us, you have given the world a great deal of evidence that you are Christ?s disciples.
--Sylvia (with Lin May 31, 06)


the rest of thequest UPdate HERE

05.24.06 thequest UPdate

thequest family,

The next couple of weeks I have asked some of our most faithful leaders to write a thought or two to put in this spot. I hope you enjoy their perspectives and are challenged all the more that it is all about Jesus.

This week, Christina--one of the house church leaders from our 17th Ave. House Church is spilling her thoughts. Enjoy. --Mike



"I do not say profound things often. God did not bless me with eloquent speech or the ability to always say ?just the right thing?, but God did give me the ability to read, which I do quite often. It is by reading other peoples words that I am able to find the right words to express what God is teaching me.

I have always been fascinated by the Jewish roots of our Christian faith. It seems obvious that in order to truly understand who Christ was, what he did, and why it was necessary we must understand his religious roots. ?Girl Meets God? is a book written by a woman who converted to Christianity out of Orthodox Judaism. In a chapter entitled ?Ascension Day?, the author, Lauren Winner, describes a striking similarity between Christianity and Judaism.

People think Judaism and Christianity are radically different from one another, and that the difference is straight forward-one religion has a messiah who has come and the other religion doesn't. But on Ascension Day, I am struck by the deep similarity that lies just underneath that difference. Both Jews and Christians live in a world that is not yet redeemed, and both of us await ultimate redemption. Some of us wait for a messiah to come once and forever; others of us wait for Him to come back. But we are both stuck living in a world where redemption is not complete, where we have redemptive work to do, where we cannot always see God as clearly as we would like, because He is up in Heaven. We are both waiting.? (p. 204-205)

I think that this striking similarity is exactly what Peter talks about in his book to the scattered followers of Christ. He says ?But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. 1 Peter 3:15

Peter could no longer see God as clearly as he had once. Living on earth with Jesus, Peter had his physical presence to assure him of his hope for eternity, but in Christ?s physical absence, we find it difficult to experience Him in a way that convinces us of eternity. We rest on His promise to return, and our experience of His Holy Spirit is what gives us reason for our hope. It is this hope that sets us apart as Christians.

If we had any clue what eternity would truly be like, we would never waste a moment here on earth. I pray that our hope for an eternity that we cannot even begin to imagine, would be great enough to set us apart from the despair and hopelessness of the many who do not know Jesus. "


- Christina (May 24, 06)


the rest of thequest email UPdate HERE

thequest serves at Dinner Theater--Return to Oz at 2nd Avenue Elem. School

The peoples in the land of OZ-- The Musical done by 2nd Avenue Elementary School

Maya in the center dancing

Zach off to serve

Jen, Haydi & Tony ready to serve

05.17.06 thequest email UPdate

thequest family,

Last week, I shared here a little bit about the revisions to our mission statement (which you can see posted in the top left box). This week I thought I'd share a bit about the vision.


Our main picture is that of Strawberry plants reproducing into a Strawberry Patch. Many of you have heard me share about that. If you haven't you can click the link below to check out more:

Strawberry Patch Vision

To the left you can see a picture of a mature Strawberry Patch. You can see some more pics on our blog below...


We envision thequest being a network of house churches spreading throughout urban & metro Columbus and beyond.

Another picture from nature also speaks to the vision we have. Looking outside my house for the last couple of weeks, there are all kinds of these little maple seeds covering our front yard/garden. Hundreds and hundreds of these little seeds have descended upon us.


Unfortunately for my neighbors, the way God designed these little seeds is that as they fall from the tree, they take flight. They twist like a helicopter blade and the wind can carry them far from the tree.

In fact, that's what I remember calling them as a kid--"helicopters." Our whole street is littered with these seeds. Neighbors several doors down have these little guys in their yards as well.

When you get a large mature tree, these seeds can go a long way. As you can see from the picture, our tree is huge, so it's easy to see how these helicopters can get carried far away from the tree.



What a great illustration of the spreading of the church.

As the tree grows it produces the maple seeds. Actually scientists call those the "fruit" of a maple tree. The fruit of the tree is the seed of a whole new tree.

You are smart enough to get it....certainly God has given us a mission for our neighborhoods and urban Columbus. At the same time, we understand that God moves people (See Acts 17:26-27). Just like those helicopter seeds are carried by the wind, we know that people are carried to new places by the Spirit.

We want to see "maple trees" spring up wherever people go. We are centered in urban Columbus, yet we have seen people connect with us who are now all over the place. We pray that disciples will be made by these and that local expressions of the church will grow up in those new places.

God's creation grows and reproduces...so should His Church. We rejoice in the opportunity to serve the King and see His Kingdom grow in His ways.

Press On,

Mike


the rest of the 05.17.06 thequest email UPdate

Strawberry Patch Pictures

The following pictures were taken in the Fall of 2005 during a field trip that I took with my son Kevin to a farm in central Ohio.

It was great to get some visuals of what a strawberry patch which was mature and productive looked like. Enjoy...

  

big picture of a strawberry patch

up close
  

  

05.10.06 thequest email UPdate

Back in February and March our leaders gathered together for a revisit of our core vision, mission and values. We wanted to stop and have a checkpoint: a time to look back and see what has been accomplished, a time to look at what God is putting into place in the present and a look toward the future.

It was a great opportunity to interact with everyone and to have the Spirit lead us as a group. Our new mission statement became crystal clear in the dialogs that we had. Our original mission statement was a great place to start, but there were some edits that we wanted to make. Some aspects we really wanted to hang onto. Let me share with you the revision:

thequest seeks to connect men, women and children
to authentic and loving relationships
with people and Jesus
through embracing communities


Here are a few rambling thoughts about the revision:

The big theme of "connecting" was something that everyone really was passionate about. Our logo, the paperchain links, really communicates that connecting idea too.

The "men, women & children" is a change from urban folk. God has added children to our community and we really feel like God is calling us to connect with them. This is certainly not to the exclusion of adults. We really broadened our mission...to all people! At the same time, don't think that we are leaving urban Columbus. We just recognize that some of our folks and house churches are in the greater metro area. We actually envision being a network of house churches spreading throughout urban & metro Columbus and beyond. The city is at the heart of our mission.

Authentic relationships have been a hallmark of our network, but we added loving to our statement. We have noticed that sometimes people can be authentic...but not very loving. Jesus said we would be marked by our love...so we want to mark ourselves that way.

The connection we are seeking to make is with people and Jesus. We took a step to be even more bold than the prior statement...which had God, rather than Jesus. We felt like it was time to be very strong about Jesus--it's all about HIM!

We changed the last phrase to "embracing communities, " rather than one community. The network isn't huge, but it is broad--and it continues to grow and broaden. We do want to connect with everyone in the network, but the main call of our network is to have "embracing communities." We felt like our mission needed to be carried out in every house church and community that we endeavored upon. If we do that in all of our churches and groups, then the whole network will be an embracing community. The primary emphasis is on the house churches rather than the drawing of all of them together.

So our mission...
connecting men, women and children to authentic and loving relationships with people and Jesus through embracing communities.

Let's live it out! It's all about Jesus.

Press on,

Mike

05.10.06 thequest email UPdate

05.03.06 thequest email UPdate

thequest family,

I wanted to let you hear from the heart of Larry this week. He's leading our INSTITUTE study on Experiencing God and doing a great job. Here is part of his story...


Probably the most frequent issue that followers of Jesus have is how to know God’s will in certain situations or as we face difficult decisions. Once we make that all important choice to follow Him, we want to know that we are doing His will.

The main reason that I retired as early as I could from my career with the Department of Defense was so that I could devote more time to serving God. I figured that shortly after I retired I would line up some part time consulting work for income and have some specific “assignments from God” that were in accordance with His will. That worked out early on as I did the consulting “gig” and Sylvia and I got to spend about nine weeks in Prague working with some GBIM missionaries. But neither the consulting nor the “big ticket” God assignments continued (and Kingdom Painting didn’t fare too well either), and I began to seriously question, “What does God have in store for me?”

Then when Sylvia suggested that we complete the Experiencing God study together I began to learn what it really means to know what God’s will for me is. It required a dramatic change in my thinking! I was expecting that God would provide a major way in which I could serve, like frequent short-term missions assignments or a full time job in a church in some capacity that really used my spiritual gifts. But that’s not what happened, nor is it really how God works.

Instead, I learned that God is always at work around me and as I pursue an authentic relationship with Him, He invites me to become involved with Him in His work. And His assignments are very often the “Here’s what I have for you today” kind, not the BIG long-term ones I was looking for. I also learned that my goal should be to know and do His will one day at a time. If I do that, then I’m automatically going to be where He wants me to be and doing what he wants me to do all of the time. And if He wants to give me a long-term assignment, then I’ll be prepared.

WOW! That was revolutionary, and it has really taken the pressure off. It’s also helping me to Experience God in ways that I haven’t before.

We have two more weeks in our three-week Overview of Experiencing God series in thequest Institute at 10:30 on Sunday mornings. Please join us if you would like to learn more about how to know and do God’s will and experience Him in a great personal relationship.

In pursuit of Godliness,

Larry T.


05.03.06 thequest weekly email UPdate