Almost over....

The year of 2006 is nearly complete, soon to be a faded memory in the chapbook of our minds as we awaken to the first wee hours of 2007.

What did you accomplish? What did God teach you? What is it you still hope to discover about Him in the year ahead?

For us, we learned that God really was calling us to leave the traditional church to start a house church. He has blessed our "Mission" gatherings each Thursday to overflowing. Soon we'll have to consider splitting off into a second group, possibly one in Long Beach as several from that city make the trek each week to gather with us.

Our addition of a Sunday morning Mission House Church meeting was a welcome blessing. I always intended for us to meet on a Sunday morning, but honestly wasn't prepared for it coming so quickly.

Now we have two groups meeting each week in our home, with some overlap, but two distinct groups none-the-less. It is still the best thing I have ever done with the word "Church" on it!

The year of 2006 also saw my exit from Soul Survivor Ministries and into the world of temporary contract employee job seeker. Since the end of June I've been working various temporary assignments and searching for a full-time position.

As hard as it's been, I know God has been so gracious to us. In fact, the crazy thing is, we have more peace and financial security now than we did the first half of this year when we had a full-time job! God is that good!

I've had several good job ops which didn't develop the way I had hoped, but I still know that God has something for us, in His time. We have heard Him clearly say "Wait" and not much else. So, as He continues to bless us and provide, we will keep seeking His face, putting out resumes and praying for a new job...soon!

I have personally learned a lot about pastoring through our close community at The Mission. Very intense but also very rewarding experiences. I wish I could more fully explain all that God has taught me about myself, about ministry, about His Church through our Mission House Church experience. Maybe I'll write a book?

Speaking of which, I started out this year with the goal of finishing the text for one complete book project. As of today I have two book projects, one of which is about 98% complete ("The Gospel: For Here Or To Go?") and one which is about 85% complete ("The Power Of Weakness"). My goal for 2007 is to publish at least one of them into an honest-to-goodness paperback book!

One of my proudest accomplishments this year has been the [SUBVERSIVE UNDERGROUND] newsletter which started almost exactly one year ago at about 30 people and is now just about 100 subscribers! I'm very proud of the weekly articles that have come out of this experiment and I know that without this weekly e-newsletter responsibility I would not have written most of those (which was why I started the thing in the first place...to force me to write something substantial each and every week of this year).

The new year is wide open to me. I have no sense of what it might hold. Wendy and I are praying that 2007 will be more about stability and gainful full-time employment. We'd love to have things like medical insurance, a savings account, maybe a car that was built in the last ten years...you know, frivolous stuff.

But, whatever 2007 brings, we know that God is good and we place all our hope in Him alone.

Peas,
Keith