Denver, Baby

This week I finally made my final decision. I am going to Denver for two years! Six months ago I decided to move here to North Carolina, live with my brother, Andy, and learn more about the church plant he is helping to lead in Denver. Soma Church(which means body, as in the body of Christ)is going to be in Denver metro, and the vision of the church is to love God, love each other, and love the community. Doesn't that sound great? Well, the tricky thing is this... all kinds of churches have vision statements just like that. The way I have learned what Soma is really all about has been by living here with the team, praying with them, confessing sin with them, studying the Bible together, hanging out, and "doing life" together. They are all sinners! They know that and are quick and open to tell you that. However, they are genuine people whom I now trust, and I am happy, excited, and, let's be honest, a bit nervous to be heading out there with them in about a month.

Doing life together has been great, but it has not been roses and peaches the whole time.


(Picture from carolchambers.biz)

I have been learning about my idols, learning how to take responsibility for myself in a lot of new ways, learning to embrace confrontations, and learning how to cut grass! Yes, I have had the privilege of being on a landscaping crew with a few really cool guys who have patiently trained me in the art of lawn care. While it is a fun and rewarding job, I hope to be able to use my civil engineering degree eventually, and I have been putting out applications like crazy in Denver. Here is a small example of a confrontation I've faced: at one point, about three months ago, I literally said out-lout to God, "I don't want to go to Denver with Andy, I don't even like him!" We had just had an argument about me "stealing" his peanut butter, and I was pretty mad at the way he treated me. (Isn't that ridiculous?) However, and this is what I want to mark everything in my life, we applied the gospel, the good news of Jesus. God covers up all my offenses, yes, all of them, and he gives me the perfect record of Jesus the Messiah, instead. How in the world should I not forgive my brother? We admitted our selfishness, we followed Jesus in forgiving each other, and we agreed on a good peanut butter system to avoid confusion in the cupboard. That is a dumb story, I know. However, I pray that God will teach us, Soma Church, to apply the gospel to everything we do in Denver Colorado, specifically, in loving God, loving each other, and loving the city. Actually that is the vision statement of the church sending us, The Summit. Our vision is the same but we say Gospel, Community, Mission. (I guess we love the idea but want to appear original.) I want to see a gospel movement, because Jesus is worthy!