Birthing A Vision

It seems that are Friday night dinners are getting better ever week.  This week had a lot of diversity added to the group with our new friends Sunny and Crispin.  Sunny lives in the neighborhood and is originally from Nigeria.  Crispin is from Haiti and is an engineering student at UK.  God is adding an international flavor without us planning for it.  I also have been working with a few of the refugees who like close to me on Richmond RD at the Heritage apartments.  They have trouble coming to church on Sunday mornings and to dinner on Friday nights so I have been trying to be intentional in meeting with them.  Next Friday night I have invited a few of the young Hispanic men from our church that I have built relationships with.  Anyway our time Friday night went well.  At the close of the evening Ryan (Versailles) and Dillard joined Ryan Ellis and me for our Psalm/Prayer time.  We were overwhelmed by the presence of the Holy Spirit as we were reading scripture and praying together.  Tears pretty much swelled up in all four of us.  I can't explain what God is doing in our midst.

It was during this prayer time that I felt the Lord was giving me clarity of what the new church is going to look like.  It is a place for hurting people who need to feel accepted.  I wasn't surprised when he put that on my heart because that's who I am.  I had lived my life in denial for many years because all I wanted to do was to feel loved and accepted for whom God made me. It wasn't until recently where I absolutely sensed how much God loved me as he said that I am his beloved Son in whom He is well pleased.  It didn't matter if this new church failed because the work that God is doing in me is not failing.

Also, about 7 months ago I felt the Lord was telling me to pray to be freed up from the school debt that I accumulated at seminary.  I feel as if God is going to take me around the world to serve Him.  Because I am noticing this international flare of what God is doing I know not to limit my church planting efforts in KY or the U.S. alone but maybe around the world.  I know that God wants to use my ethnicity for his glory.  I speak Italian/Sicilian for a reason.  I have a heart for immigrants because the fact my family immigrated to this country.  Aaron and I were talking about how we received a prophecy that 2008 is the year where big things are going to happen.  We are not stopping at just planting one church but we are already thinking ahead to plant a church out of our church plant in three years and more plants from The Rock.  We want to build into our existing church and new church that we are a congregation that will reproduce other congregations.  Praise God for what He is doing!