First Day of School....

   ...has actually come and gone. And it was awesome! We began the day with prayer and coffee at the house, my roommates Michael Baker and David Wright. David just got here yesterday from Newcastle, England, and we've been having a great time getting to know one another. Our last roommate Phil, is coming from Germany and will be here in a couple weeks. He's still working out his visa, so please be praying that God's will be done and he makes it here soon. Michael got up with us to pray with us before school. And then tonight when we got home we all had dinner together and shared our testimonies with each other for about 3 hours. Ryan (Wagenhauser) was over too, so we got to hear his story as well. It was awesome to hear about how Jesus has worked in each of their lives, and it is amazing to see how He sovereignly hand-picked each one of us for this house this year. This year will definitely be like no other and I think that we are all going to grow so much in the grace and knowledge and humility of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and again I pray that He breaks each one of us down and conforms us to His image day by day to equip us to Go and make disciples and make a huge impact in this world for Jesus Christ. Amen?

   So after getting to Mars Hill Ballard and getting some coffee, we found out what cohort groups we're in. I'm in the "Church Planter" group and my cohort group leader is Noel Heikkinen from RiverView Church in Lansing, Michigan. He's an "Acts 29" Church planter, and the church he pastors is fairly large and is doing an awesome work building the Kingdom. I hope to learn a lot from him. My goal at this point is to either become a Mars Hill Campus Pastor, or an Acts 29 Church Pastor/Planter. Here's Noel's church website: http://rivchurch.com/

    The day was packed and busy from 9am to 5pm when we finished. Our group all went to lunch together and shared stories, but the highlight of the day for me was meeting Mark Driscoll and hearing his vision for us over the next year. No church is perfect, but I believe that Mars Hill really has a biblical model for doing church and community and building God's kingdom by making disciples and planting churches and really  making an impact for Jesus Christ in this fallen world. I am so blessed to be here. We finished the day with an awesome time of prayer and worship for 45 minutes, and then left and came home and tried to unpack the day in our minds. Tomorrow we're going to have class at the Downtown Seattle campus for half of the day. Here's some pics...

...one of the Mars Hill Church buses; they have three that I saw...

...part of the sanctuary at Ballard. This room holds about 1,800 people...

...my roommate from England David Wright, outside the Ballard Campus...

...my group at lunch...

...the stage at Ballard...

...and driving by the Space Needle on our way back to West Seattle...more tomorrow!!
I MISS YOU ALL!