Jonah is going to rock your world, so get ready! We will be in the first few verses of Jonah for the next couple of weeks. Jonah is a short read. I encourage you to take some time to read the entire book. Here are a few other passages to check out as well:

1. 2 Kings 14:23-29….Jonah is a prophet and is made mention here as a herald of good news.

2. Nahum 3:1-3…. These verses describe Nineveh, which is the city God called Jonah to. It’s no Disneyland!

3. Psalm 139:7-12…Take time to reflect on God’s presence in your life. Where can you go to flee from his presence?

I love you. I am praying for you. I look forward to our time together Sunday. Come tired. Come empty. Come ready for God to speak, to work, to transform!

When you think about the Exodus of  the Israelites and their wilderness experience, getting the people out of Egypt was a lot easier than it was getting Egypt out of the people. While in Egypt the entire rhythm of their lives was out of step with the God of all creation.  They were slaves and they were surrounded by idols and foreign gods. At the core of everyday life was an oppressive system, WORK OR DIE! There was no rest. They they were constantly tempted to worship empty, non-existing gods. This life offered very little at all but they grabbed a hold of whatever they could.

When Moses leads them out of Egypt and then God leads them into the wilderness the irony of it all is they don’t really know what to do with their new freedom. The rhythm of their lives in slavery had penetrated their hearts so deeply they didn’t know what to do with themselves or with God. They often desired to return to Egypt.

And so God leads them. He provides for them. He disciplines them. He gives them boundaries that both set their gaze on Him and unleash them to truly love others. And in doing this he was creating a rhythm that both penetrated their hearts and challenged their culture and daily living. And if he had not led them, you can only imagine how difficult, if not impossible it would be to eradicate their godliness rhythm of life and move into a deep, rest-filled, intimate, transforming relationship with God. In regards to a Sabbath rhythm in our lives Eugene Peterson said, Nothing less than a command has the power to intervene in the vicious, accelerating, self-perpetuating cycle of faithless and graceless busy-ness.”

It would be like this oil spill in the Gulf being left to it’s own. What would happen if urgent and drastic measures were not taken to shut down this oil. Stop the leak, control the spread and clean up the mess. Nobody is sitting around saying let’s just see what happens. A friend and I were talking earlier this week about the spill and he said, “you know the problem with this whole situation, what makes it so difficult to fix, is that it is a mile beneath the surface of the ocean”. And you know, isn’t that where the Israelites were and isn’t that our story. Life doesn’t really seem to change much when lived at the surface all the time. When you think about those transforming moments in your life whether painful or full of joy, they are always deeply penetrating. They are not quick fixes. They are not easy relationships. They aren’t a result of sitting on the couch watching TV or texting your bff. They bring pause to our lives. They shift our thinking. They are the late night discussions, the heart to heart talks, the quiet walk, the middle of the night prayer. They move past the surface and wrap around the roots of our lives and begin to graft in and overwhelm us and change the rhythm of our lives. And this is one aspect of Sabbath rest. It is a time for us to stop working and reflect on and celebrate the work of God and with faith and joy, anticipate the work he will continue to do.

Martin Luther said, “The spiritual rest which God especially intends in this commandment is that we not only cease from our labor and trade but much more that we let God alone work in us and that in all our powers we do nothing on our own.” ]]> http://fellowshipasheville.com/what-we-think/blog/471/feed/ 0 http://fellowshipasheville.com/what-we-think/blog/serve-asheville-at-the-ymca-beaver-dam/ http://fellowshipasheville.com/what-we-think/blog/serve-asheville-at-the-ymca-beaver-dam/#comments Sun, 06 Jun 2010 21:18:13 +0000 Fred http://fellowshipasheville.com/?p=464 Click on the Podcast link to see the video from our Serve Asheville Day at the YMCA Beaver Dam facility.

Laura, Jon, & Jonathan

My wife, Laura, and I came to Fellowship after spending many years in ministry.  We came hurt, we came tired, and we came in need of friends.

Our time here in North Carolina actually started at another church.  We got involved waist deep. We were on the set-up team and break-down team that kept us at church every Sunday from 6:30 am to 1:00 pm. I took on a position as the volunteer youth director and my wife became the director of children’s ministries. During this time, we had our first child and continued to serve in more and more capacities all the while dying spiritually and burning out physically. After much deliberation, we decided to leave that church. We were simply tired and burned out.

We tried out different churches that were established in the area and couldn’t find anywhere that felt like home. It was then that I contacted the local Young Life Area Director to see where the people in the ministry that we both loved and believed in went to church. They told us about a church plant called Fellowship Asheville.

ANYTHING BUT ANOTHER CHURCH PLANT!!!

After being torn up, burned out and dried up spiritually, we desired nothing less than to be part of another church plant, but we tried it out nonetheless. Not only were we greeted with faces of people that we instantly related to, but my wife even knew some of the members from her time on staff with Young Life! So, as is our inclination, we got involved immediately, but this time our service was appreciated, our spirits were lifted and our hearts and minds were challenged by the teaching.

The most impressive thing however, was the fellowship and real-ness of the people that would become our friends. In fact, in over five years of church ministry (as staff) and over eleven years of volunteer church ministry, I had never experienced the Acts 2:42 church like we are experiencing at Fellowship. The people actually care about each other, serve each other, hang out with each other and do outreach as a family. I have seen my family’s needs met through community in a way I have never seen it before.

Now, after almost a year of serving with Fellowship Asheville, I am more excited, more energized and have closer friends than I have had in any church. We are excited more and more as we watch God move in our personal lives and in our community that we have found at church. God is using this small, honest team of willing believers to bless and serve each other and the city of Asheville. Laura and I have found our home at Fellowship.

To wholly follow the Lord is not a testimony to Caleb’s character as much as it is of God’s character. To wholly follow the Lord is a declaration of humble confidence. It is a product of the wilderness, not the Promise Land. Caleb had seen God prove himself. He had seen God lead his people. He had seen God provide for his people. As rough as the wilderness had been, it was absolutely the best place for his heart to grow to a place where he was willing to wholly follow the Lord.

I want to take a moment just to review the last twelve months. I am going to keep it short and sweet but I want you to see how God has led, provided for, and encouraged Fellowship Asheville.

Worship:

• January 4th we had our first worship service at the Renaissance Hotel. We were supposed to be down in the basement, based on our budget, and that first Sunday they moved us to the top floor with a view of the mountains and the whole city. We never went down to the basement!

• An incredible worship leader, Bryan Henderson, came on board in early spring.

• We went from one service a month through the summer to two worship gatherings a month in the Fall and we anticipate that we will move to every week by Easter 2010.

• We just moved to a new downtown location for our gatherings and it is the most incredibly accommodating facility for the stage we are in.

• We have doubled, almost tripled, in attendance since May and we continue to have new folks joins us each week.

Growth:

• We have experienced significant growth in every area of our ministry.

• We have two men’s bible studies going and one women’s study.

• We have grown from one Growth Group to three since May.

• Everyone on board is financially committed to giving.

• We are growing in our understanding of how a Gospel community should function.

• Our people are caring for one another and growing in their love for Asheville.

Service:

• Each Growth Group is involved in serving the city on a monthly basis.

• We are still involved with the garden at the Pisgah View Government Housing.

• We started a new initiative at a charter school this Fall. Their key values are social justice and community.

• We are also partnering with a local children’s home to help provide their children the best Christmas possible.

Budget

We have cut our budget tremendously in order to stay on track this year. God has provided what we need when we needed it. We just ran the numbers for the year. We came in $3 short for the year. We can live with that!  Thank you for your generosity and your investment in Fellowship Asheville. We are still a long way from being financially independent but we are gaining ground monthly. We were able to raise $45,000 internally this year and we hope to double that in 2010. We hope and trust you will continue to partner with us as we grow and the Gospel infects the beautiful city of Asheville!

When I wake up each morning my deepest desire and brief prayer is, “Lord help me to wholly follow you”.   It is a testimony of God’s work in my heart, in this church plant and through our community of supporters who have prayed and given so generously. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all you are doing! God has used you to bless our church and this city.

-Johnathan North

Worship at The Venue

A lunch together after the service

The Mulch & Haul Crew at Francine Delany School

Teaching the kids at The Peace Garden

At first, Fellowship Asheville seemed doomed to the same fate.  “We’ve found this great church that is starting up in Asheville”, our friends Eddie & Eva Evans said last summer.  “Ugh – a church plant. We don’t have time to be part of a church plant!”, we thought to ourselves.  So we delayed…we ignored…we declined until one day in January, Eva texted me and said, “We’re having services on Sunday mornings at the Renaissance. Come join us.” Now there was something we could sink our teeth into – church in a hotel!  Ok, I know that sounds weird but some of the best worship Pete & I have ever experienced has happened at Young Life all-staff conferences coincidently held – in hotels!

So off we trotted with our two children, now teens, to church-in-a-hotel the next Sunday morning.  We were greeted joyously, we heard a fantastic message, we sang songs and all the Alexanders looked at each other and said “this could be IT”.  We delved a little deeper, visited with Johnathan & Fred, read the website, served at the Peace Garden, kept coming back and each time we’d look at each other and say “I like it!” How did we know?  It was real. It was authentic in a way that no other church had been.  Fellowship Asheville wants to engage the people and the culture of Asheville.  That’s what our family had been doing for years – and we’d not fit in as the typical “Christian family” because of it.

Now that we’re plugged in we no longer fear being part of the dreaded “church plant”.  God has us where He wants us and that makes nothing seem too daunting.  Hotel worship got us in the door but the people and the passion of Fellowship Asheville have us here to stay.

We felt truly loved and cared for by the people of Fellowship.  When our son Noah arrived October 15, this was shown even more.  Ali had gotten a ton of people to bring us meals during the first two months of being new parents.  What a blessing!

November 16, 2008 was our first time we attended an “official” Fellowship worship service.  It was Noah’s first time to go to church, it was Fellowship’s first service with a band, and it was our first communion since Noah had been born.  We will always remember that night.

Each service we went to was a refreshing reminder to us of the life of God’s word.  We learned things we had never learned before, we saw Scripture in ways we had never seen before, we were challenged and stretched, and for the first time in years, we were excited to go to church.  Sundays were our new favorite day of the week.

Fellowship had given us so much, and we knew it was our time to give back.  We were presented with information on leadership in the church and membership at Fred’s home one evening.  After that, I (Amy) started volunteering with Fellowship Kids and Brian helped out with set up for the services.  And now, we organize meals for other families having babies.  Fellowship is a great place to use the gifts and talents God has given us.  Membership was a decision we didn’t take lightly.  Joining Fellowship Asheville could have meant losing my job at the church where I am employed.  After much prayer, I sat down with the pastor of where I work and told him that I would be leaving the church.  Long story short, the talk went great and God is forever faithful.  The church where I work supports our family’s decision to go to church at Fellowship Asheville and my job was not affected.  So, on February 15, 2009, we became members of Fellowship Asheville.

It has been a great journey of growth, challenges, joy, authentic community, service, and love.  The gospel is becoming real again to our everyday lives.  We are beginning to reach our neighbors and community.  It’s a slow process, but one we are very excited about.  We are talking about Jesus more than we ever have.  We can’t wait to see what God has in store for us as a family and for the body of Fellowship Asheville!

As we build our foundation for a gospel centered church in Asheville we are constantly evaluating how we can best lead and serve the people of our church and the people of this city.

Who we are and what we are about is very simple: worship, growth, and service. But how these values are articulated, expressed and developed within our people can be challenging. I believe that creating a rhythm in the heart of our people to lead and live out these values will be the foundation of a church that will influence this city.

So, for the past three months we have been focusing our energy on developing strong growth groups that understand who we are as a church.  We have been leading each growth group in a service project every month.  Each of these projects have been ongoing through the summer, giving us the opportunity to build a relationship with the organizations that we are working with.  Also, we have gathered for worship once a month.  These worship services have been great celebrations of what God is doing in our lives and exciting reminders of what God is calling this church to be.  As a result, our people are growing.  Leaders are rising up.  They are beginning to understand the mission we have been called to and they are reaching out to their neighbors, friends, and co-workers.  Ironically, we have grown more over the summer, gathering together once a month, than our first seven months of weekly meetings.

We will keep the same format for the fall with the exception of going to two services a month. As we grow we will begin to incorporate a weekly rhythm of worship. However, we have learned a valuable lesson that I believe will be with us for the long haul. We are going to build up leaders and our leaders will build the church. The rhythm of our hearts is more important than the rhythm of our calendars.

Thank you so much for your ongoing support!