Five years ago today we exchanged the title of Youth Pastors for Lead Pastors. We said goodbye to over a decade of working with teenagers to dive into the unknown world of leading not just a church, but a church that didn’t even exist. We had a two year old girl and a two week old baby to contend with and we weren’t even sure we would have a paycheck in July. We had just moved a month earlier to Salmon Creek and I’m pretty sure that the word “CRAZY” was stamped across our foreheads. We were neck deep in risk.

Fast forward to tonight. Precisely five years later, we attended the youth worship night that is completely planned and executed by teenagers. Talk about an amazing reality check. I watched as dozens of teenagers worshipped, sang songs that they wrote, lead communion, shared testimonies, preached, and did a skit for their peers. I didn’t know more than a couple of them five years ago. Now, I’ve watched as God has molded, shaped, and changed their lives and their families in truly miraculous ways. I’ve watched God heal them, help their parent’s marriages, and call them to ministry. I’ve watched as they succeeded, failed, and unceasingly got back up to see what would happen next. I have laughed with many of them, cried with many of them, and been frustrated beyond imagination when they made bad choices.

Someone asked me tonight if I missed youth ministry. Oh, no. No, I don’t miss it at all. Why would I? We’ve brought it with us into every facet of North Creek. We’ve created what I’ve always wanted…teenagers are just a part of our church in serving, in giving, in conversation, and in my life. We don’t pat them on the back for being great teenagers. We pat them on the back for being great people. Called by God, gifted in ministry, and ready to impact their community right now. They are a part of my life at nearly every intersection.

They kept singing tonight when I stopped and watched them. I thought to myself that they have no idea how big this task seemed to us five years ago. They have no idea how many sacrifices were made for them to have this worship night. They have no idea about the amount of sweat, work, and pain that went into this. And they have no idea that my greatest fear was leaving the teenagers I loved to dive into the unknown. They have no idea that their very presence in our church simply makes it all worth it.

It was Grad Sunday, where we take a moment to honor our graduates! What a talented bunch! It was a privilege to take a moment and reflect on their lives with us. We have walked, as a church, with them through some pretty big stuff and I am proud of the men and women they are becoming.

We had a guest with us yesterday who is a ministry major in a Christian college. She’s here for the summer and she needs stuff to do…You came to the right place!!! We are more than happy to put people to work in ministry!

It was one of the most difficult weeks imaginable for our leadership team. Kim’s husband, who battles with MS, had his hardest week ever in the ICU, John and Amy lost a friend in an accident earlier in the week and his wife is pregnant, and Vanessa’s boss was tragically killed on Saturday leaving behind several teenagers and newborn twins. Her boss’ son is also a friend of one of our staff kids as well. One thing I know for sure: our team is being asked to go through grief with people and there is no better people to have alongside your struggles. Please surround our team with prayer for wisdom and strength.

Matt’s pretty amazing at leading us in worship, don’t ya think?!?!

Vanessa covered Kim’s class for her this weekend and she did a fabulous job!

We’ve been praying for a lady in our church who had a pretty brutal cancer diagnosis. Today she emailed to say that they were able to get all of the cancer surgically and she is HEALTHY! We’ll take that!

My girls had their birthday party this weekend. They felt special and loved, so that’s the most important thing! My mom came from Montana to visit as well.

I am honored to do what we do. Sometimes it seems that being in the most difficult parts of people’s lives would be awful, but it is an honor to serve people you love when they need you the most. Don’t run from tragedy, run into it. God is in those moments in more real ways than you can ever imagine.

Next week is Father’s Day! It’s going to be a great time of honoring the men in our lives, so invite a man!

Make God first in your life this week. And please set aside some of your prayer time for our team and the circumstances they are battling right now. They will each come out victorious, but it is in the middle of the struggle that prayers keep them strong.

Loved this article by Judah Smith! Hope you like it, too!

Grace Grows the Church
By Judah Smith

It was the morning of October 27, 2007 and my prayer time had degenerated into a venting session. I was the youth pastor at The City Church in Seattle at the time, and in my opinion the youth ministry wasn’t growing big enough or fast enough. My team and I were all trying our hardest, but we had hit a plateau and couldn’t seem to break through.

The book of Acts with its supernatural stories and explosive church growth wasn’t blessing me so much as it was frustrating me. “Why, God? Why don’t we see these things here in Seattle? How can we make our youth group and church grow?”

My prayer time ended and I got in the shower, still frustrated, still complaining to God. He’s used to that, I’m sure. David was a great complainer. The entire book of Psalms can pretty much be summed up by: “God, why do the wicked have all the gold, glory, and girls, and here I am running for my life and you don’t even care; please, please, PLEASE help me . . . actually, come to think of it, you are God and you are good, and I trust you and sooner or later things will work out for your glory and my salvation, and I guess I’ve got a great life after all and I love you. Selah.”

When I stepped out of the shower, God spoke to me. Not audibly—if He ever does that I’ll probably hide under the kitchen table—but a phrase branded itself on my brain: Grace grows the church. Immediately I remembered Acts 4:33: “And great grace was upon them all.”

I didn’t think too much about it at the time, but looking back, that was a defining moment in my life and ministry. I began to see grace everywhere I looked: in the Bible, in my church, in God’s dealings with me.

I didn’t know that a year later I would become the preaching pastor of our church, or that two years later I would take over from my dad as lead pastor. Leading a church with a weekly attendance of over six thousand, a staff of over a hundred, and a multimillion-dollar budget is more than intimidating, and without that revelation of grace, I wouldn’t have survived.

While the transition has not always been easy—change never is—God’s grace has been more than enough. Our attendance is up, dozens are getting saved each week, giving has increased even in the midst of recession, and lives are being changed.

Grace is the central theme of the Bible. Taking grace out of the Bible would be like taking speed away from a running back: you wouldn’t have much left. Fourteen New Testament books begin with a reference to grace and fifteen end with one. The message is clear: start with grace and end with grace, and you’ll get the job done.

Think back to the origins of the church in Acts 2. A group of uneducated and fear-struck nobodies were filled with the power of the Spirit, and in one afternoon three thousand people were saved. Soon the number grew to five, ten, twenty, one hundred thousand. In the words of their enemies, they turned the world upside down. Two thousand years later, two billion people are called Christians.

Was that the ingenuity of a man? Were the disciples holed up in the upper room, plotting how to create a worldwide phenomenon that would span two millennia? Did they just get lucky? Or was great grace upon them all?

Forget the spreadsheet, calculator, and pencil—you won’t figure out how the Early Church grew with logic alone. It’s no coincidence that the first time we see church growth mentioned, we hear that “The Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47).

Please don’t misunderstand me: I’m not dismissing the importance of strategy or hard work. But they must begin and end with grace or they won’t last. If I have to be smart enough and tough enough to do this all on my own for the next thirty years, please, just shoot me now! As I’ve told my church more than once, if you were thirty years old and had six thousand people showing up every week expecting to hear something new, profound, and biblical, you’d be preaching grace too!

Our greatest efforts and best-laid plans won’t accomplish in a lifetime what God’s grace will do in a moment. His grace is the reason we are serving Him in the first place. It’s why we care about the lost and why we minister to people—even the mean ones. It’s grace that draws in hurting people who need to belong before they can believe or behave.

It’s grace that grows the church.

Perhaps the coolest part of raising $2.5 million dollars for our new building is the number of people under the age of 20 that are sacrificially giving in ways that make my heart warm. We received a letter from a former student today with a check inside for hundreds of dollars. Here’s what the letter said:

Dear Mark & Stacy, Joe & Kris, Nick & Rachael (and all the other North Creek Staff),

Thank you! That’s not enough, but I hope you understand my thank you. As a young student you simply believed in me, and that has meant more to my life than anything (other than Jesus, of course!). I pray that money will no longer be an issue of North Creek reaching it’s dream, and sharing the same hope of Christ you shared with me.

I wish I could just write you a check for $1 million, but I know God will provide for you! Thank you!

-Courtney

What a precious blessing from one of our incredible teenagers! She was so easy to believe in, but nonetheless, it still meant a lot to her. It’s another reminder to give what you have…sometimes that’s hundreds of dollars and sometimes it’s believing in someone.

I look forward to the moment when I write her a letter back and tell her that we received $2 million dollars and her prayers were answered. I pray that day comes soon!

Finally some great weekend weather! It was definitely a breath of fresh air after so many months of soggy rain. I just sat outside and soaked up some Vitamin D!!!

Church was fun! We had to turn on the air conditioning, which was something new and exciting for us!

LOTS of new faces again. I was standing outside at one point and there was a flood of people coming up the walkway. I didn’t know anybody. We’re working on names and are looking forward to getting more people plugged in to volunteering and small groups. Here we grow!

We went to another dinner made by some of our North Creek people on Saturday. GOURMET food! It was fun to get to know them better and enjoy a beautiful meal. I have thoroughly enjoyed this month of meals as people helped us make it through one month of giving up our salary. What an unexpected benefit!

Our big baptism day is coming up on July 3. If you have a relationship with Jesus and haven’t been water baptized, it’s your turn! It’s not about being perfect and having it all together. It’s about publicly saying that you love Jesus. If you are waiting until you’re a “good enough” Christian…you are missing the point of baptism! It’s not to celebrate you, but to honor Christ. Get registered online at www.coffeechurch.com.

We are still plowing ahead with our building plan! Let’s do this! If your family hasn’t decided what to give yet, it’s time to ask God and then do it. Maybe it’s not one big amount, but something every month. Whatever it is, jump on this bandwagon of faith with us.

Our team is REMARKABLE. So humble, so strong. There is no greater joy than working alongside our staff!

Next Sunday we will be honoring our graduates. What an exciting time of their lives! We have a great college-aged small group lead by exceptional people, so jump right in!!!

Serving Jesus is the best adventure. He is so worthy of our praise!