preaching

Until ikon medina is up and running regularly, I don’t have a whole lot of opportunities to preach (which I love to do).  Since a few of you have mentioned your interest in my preaching, here’s one place you can download or listen to a recent sermon:  http://www.trinitysermons.com/sermons/.  This sermon, while not particularly about church planting, gives some of the foundational thinking that is forming our approach to starting this new church in Medina.

EFCA District Conference

In starting ikon medina, we’ve partnered with the Evangelical Free Church of America.  This weekend is the Allegheny District conference, held at Cornerstone Community Church in Mayfield Hts. (my old stomping grounds from a few years ago).  Heading to the conference reminds me of how God used my time at the district conference last year as a confirmation of the direction he was sending us in.  I left the conference and called Janeen to say, “I’m convinced we’re doing the right thing at the right time with the right people.”  I continue to be convinced of that.

One of the huge partners we have had in this venture is Trinity Evangelical Free Church in Amherst, OH.  Trinity has brought me on staff 2 days each week, while supporting financially our church planting efforts in Medina (40 mi. away).  They’ve been extremely generous and flexible, allowing us to do what’s necessary to work on the church plant.  I’m very grateful for the way God has used them in the beginning stages of ikon medina.

The Moving Report

Saturday was the big move.  With the help of many friends in Columbus, as well as relatives from the Medina area, we were able to move fairly quickly, and in just one trip.  To all who were involved:  “THANK YOU!”

To wax philosophical for a moment, I don’t feel that I’m all that attached to my stuff (with the definite exception of my books), but there sure is a lot of it.  You can’t help but wonder about how deeply immersed you are in a consumer culture when you can actually pack a trailer and a 26-ft. U-Haul full with all your junk.

We’re excited to get settled into Medina, and to dig into our community.  It was exciting to find that our neighbors 2 doors down have a couple of boys near our boys’ ages.  They’ve been out playing together almost every day so far. 

A few more boxes to unpack, and a few sets of shelves for my books, and we’ll be good to go…