I miss you.

There are many things in life that I would enjoy missing:
- wisdom teeth extraction
- school (when I was younger)
- falling on my tailbone while snowboarding (happened yesterday)
- breaking my collar bone while playing football
- ____________________ (you can probably fill in your own blank)

One thing, however, that I'm not enjoying missing is church at Awaken. Tonight will be the second service that I'll miss.

The good news is: church goes on without me! That's a good reminder for everyone at church as well as for me.
Here's some more good news: you're in for a treat while I'm gone.

Last Saturday, if you were there, you got to hear from Pastor Chris Edmondson of One Church. He's a great guy with a big heart for the Lord, the city, and Awaken Church! It's very refreshing to meet a guy like Chris who is ready to help any time something is needed. If you didn't hear his message from last Saturday about "influence," make sure to get it from the podcast or the teaching archive on the Awaken website! Joining him, leading worship, was Jamie Worley, another great guy from Clarksville with a similar love for the Lord and heart for the city. He leads worship at Hilldale Family Life Center each week and plays around the city in different venues.

This Wednesday (TONIGHT), you'll get to hear from one of my best friends, Nate Witiuk, who most of you know from church. I was excited to give him a chance to teach and he's really looking forward to sharing some things that the Lord is teaching him. As you know, he and his wife, Jenn, moved out to Clarksville with us to start Awaken and they have been indispensable to the church! I'm really looking forward to hearing from him and you should be too. In addition to Nate teaching, Kevin Riner, another local worship leader and good friend, from Xtreme Church, will be there to lead worship. He's a great guy that has also been a helping hand to the church and has led worship for us once before.

Long story short, DON'T MISS TONIGHT'S SERVICE! It will be a special communion service as we look ahead to the new year and look back to Jesus' sacrifice on the cross for us!

Although I don't like missing services, I'm thankful that things continue just as well (maybe better?) without me. I'm praying for Awaken and thankful for all those who are lending a hand to help things run smoothly. I look forward to being back with you and back in Philippians this upcoming Saturday! See you soon!

How We Do Things (Part 2): GIVING

Here's Part 2 of this little mini-blog series on how we do things at Awaken. If you missed Part 1 on Bible teaching, check it here.
Here's today's - a touchy topic for many, but not for God!


Giving.

Did you know that the church of Satan uses tithing in the Christian church to draw people to Satanism? Yeah. Sounds crazy right? Well, to get involved as a member of the church of Satan (not that any of you are considering this...hopefully), there's a $200 membership fee. Sound steep? They'll tell you it's cheap compared to Christianity, which requires 10% of each paycheck! The problem is, they have it all backward. To them, it's money that's due - it's an obligation. For Christians, giving to the work of the ministry is an opportunity, a joyful form of worship. At least, it should be.

If you attend a service at Awaken, one thing you'll notice is that we won't pass an offering plate. In fact, we don't own offering plates. The only plates we own are paper ones that we use for putting a burger on at a BBQ! Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with an offering plate...or bag...or bucket, I just don't prefer it. I grew up in churches that passed the offering plate and took up a formal offering each service. My dad was often an usher - one of the dudes that got up during worship and passed the plates around. It's a very valid way of collecting the cash, we just don't do it.

Instead, we provide 2 ways to give at Awaken:
1) in the wonderful brown wooden boxes (thanks, Hobby Lobby) located in the church building for people to drop cash, checks, money orders, coins, $1000 bills...or whatever you choose to give, and
2) online giving (available for one-time or recurring gifts). It's really simple.

You see, giving financially to the ministry was never designed to be a burden, like the church of Satan makes it out to be. In fact, God’s Word gives the opposite idea in 2 Corinthians 9:7. It says

So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.

In other words, God loves when we love to give! In fact, it’s an extension of worship. Worship through song, worship through studying the Bible, and worship with your wallet!

Biblically, we are told to give cheerfully (2 Corinthians 9:7), generously (Romans 12:8), and in proportion to what we have been given (Mark 12:41-44). After all, when you think about the fact that all that you have has been given to you by the Lord, giving a portion of it back just makes sense - it’s not yours in the first place!

Many people get caught up with how much you should give and point to the Old Testament principle of tithing, which means 10%. That is a great place to start and a good guideline to go by, but don’t let it hold you down. Remember that God loves when we give cheerfully and is honored when you give back what He has given to you. Ministry is not free - it must be funded somehow. The church relies on God’s provision and sovereignty to take care of its needs and one way that God chooses to provide is through the generous giving of those who are blessed by the church’s ministry.

So, next time you're at Awaken (or whatever church you end up at next), whether there's an offering plate going around or not, remember that God loves when you love to give. Have a good time doing it and support the work of God in the local church.

While we're on the topic, if you feel like showing Awaken some financial love, go here.

A Sermon for the Senses

Last night, I got to teach on one of my favorite topics to teach on: the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ. Super cool. The fact that He took the death that I deserved really rocked me this week. I hope that it never becomes commonplace.

Last night was a first for me: preaching on Halloween. While everyone else was out trick-or-treating, we worshiped - it was great. People all over the US put on masks and costumes, turning them into things that they really were not. My daughter was Little Red Riding Hood, another little girl in the church was a Bumble Bee. We normally don't allow bees in the church, but we made an exception for Bella because she was such a cute stinger-less bee. Jesus' death had a similar effect on us compared to the costumes people wore: By dying for us, Jesus put on our sin and became something He was not so that we could put on His righteousness and become something we could never be. That truth is straight out of Scripture:

2 Corinthians 5:21 - For ​He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become ​​the righteousness of God in Him.

Jesus knew that we were born separated from Him and the last thing He wanted was for us to die the same way, so, He gave everything up to fix that problem. Unfortunately, we get caught up in a bunch of other unimportant stuff and forget how incredible that sacrifice is. Jesus knew that, which is why He gave the church a simple, hands-on way to remember His sacrifice - communion. You see it, hear about it, touch it, taste it, and smell it - it's a sermon for the senses. I didn't have to do a lot of talking last night because I let the bread and the juice do the talking.

Is Jesus' sacrifice something you think about daily or do you easily forget about it? He got punished like He was the one sinned so that we could be rewarded as if we had never sinned! Wow! What a deal! Jesus certainly got the short end of the stick on that one huh? He's not whining about it though, He's sitting at the right hand of the Father (Hebrews 1:3) patiently awaiting our arrival when He raptures us. Because He died for us, the party can begin soon!

You can download the message HERE or subscribe to our podcast in iTunes HERE. Enjoy.

The hard work paid off

Just as work had begun on Awaken's first building, we found out we weren't allowed to hold church there due to zoning laws. Hindsight is always 20/20, and of course, in looking back, we see God's hand at work saving us from meeting in a building that wouldn't have worked from our very first night. We had already put in a lot of work at that building, but nothing compared to the labor that would go into our next one. With 11 days until our first service, we began working on renovating the building that we'd soon be meeting in. After spending 11 straight nights at the church (many until 1 or 2 in the morning), the details finally fell into place and the work (at least the majority of it) was completed. Nate threw together some video clips from the past month or so from work we did at both buildings. Hope you enjoy...

Along For the Ride - Luke 5:1-11

I got to teach at Renovate for one of the last times last Thursday. It was fun as always. I shared what God has been speaking to me about stepping out in faith. It's a lesson that I'm currently learning and certainly NOT one that I've already learned. If you'd like the hear the message from Renovate, head to the messages page at renovateabq.org. I love that God has chosen us to begin this new work inn Clarksville. I can't wait to see what happens!

140 days till Awaken's first church service! Go to awakenchurch.org to follow the countdown. Get the word out about the church by putting an Awaken banner on your blog, profile, or website by going to the banners page at awakenchurch.org. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook and Twitter.

Going Public

Pastor Skip interviewed me for a few minutes on Wednesday at Calvary, informing the church body that I'd be leaving to plant Awaken Church. It was fun and of course he had to add a slideshow with random pictures and the old Monkees song, Last Train to Clarksville. Here's the video of the announcement...

Awaken Church announcement at Calvary Albuquerque from Awaken Church on Vimeo.

Why Clarksville?

That's the question I've been getting a lot this week. It's a good one. Most people in New Mexico only know Clarksville from the old Monkees song, Last Train to Clarksville, just like most people in Clarksville only know Albuquerque from where Bugs Bunny took a wrong turn. In fact, out here in the 505, most cities with "-ville" on the end of it don't sound that appealing. So, I'll try to keep this short. Here are a few reasons we're going to Clarksville...

1) NEED
There are 15 Calvarys in the whole state of Tennessee and verse-by-verse expository preaching is very hard to come by.

The statistic that floats around about Montgomery County is that 80% of the population is unchurched. I've never seen that stat online or on paper, but I could easily see it being true. Let's take a much more conservative percentage and say that 50% of Montgomery County is unchurched. That leaves over 67,000 people who are not currently attending church! Yikes. And that's only 50%.

2) DIRECTION
2 1/2 years ago, we knew where Tennessee was on the map, but that was about it. We had never been there until I flew out to Nashville to speak at a winter retreat in February of 2007. We stayed with Jenn's family in Paris, TN, and we began to see the need for a good Bible-teaching church. I also realized the limited resources that many churches out there had. I was so encouraged to see churches from 5 states assembling for a huge youth retreat! It was awesome. This is when God began directing us to TN.

Over the next 2 years, I would have many more interactions with Tennessee. We even flew out there for Christmas of 2007 and someone told us she had had a dream that we were starting a church there. We had planned on just vacationing, but that opened our eyes to other possibilities.

We recognized the need like never before that Christmas and ended up flying back in February of 2008 to scout out 2 potential towns - Jackson and Clarksville. We had heard of Clarksville, but never been there. We thought for sure Jackson was the place, but figured we'd swing by Clarksville while we were out there. We drove into Jackson and knew from the moment we go there that that was not the place for us. So we changed plans and headed into Clarksville for the night. We loved it. We knew we were on the right path.

3) CONFIRMATION
We prayed A LOT about this. A LOT. I don't know how planting a church can be done from selfish motives, but I imagine that it can be done. I wanted to constantly be searching my motives to know if this was just my next "big idea" of if God was behind it. He was. There's no way I could list the many ways God confirmed to us that we were in the right spot, but here are a few...

- meeting our realtor, Verlon, while wandering through the only mall in Clarksville (he just so happened to be a retired Baptist preacher who enjoys finding houses and building for new "preachers" that want to start a church!)

- getting a job interview with Frank, a local business owner, for a graphic design job. The job ended up not working out, but God used the interview to remind me that we were headed in the right direction

- we attended church at a little Calvary in Dickson while we were out there in Feb 2008, and the pastor was so excited to hear about our potential plans that he called us up right as he started the Bible study to pray for us and announce to the congregation that we were moving to Clarksville to start a church! I wasn't even fully convinced that we were doing that at that time!

- by the time we got home, we knew where we were supposed to go, the only question left was when

- we prayed a lot about it and on Sat, Oct 16, we finally decided that we had to just go - there would always be an excuse to stay - the next day, I happened to see the pastor of Calvary Nashville in our sanctuary at Calvary! WHAT!? He said his wife had gotten sick and they had to close down the church - one less Calvary in TN

- we booked flights and flew back to TN in February of '09 (just 2 months ago) which was another trip filled with confirmation (including one Calvary pastor telling us that at a Men's Rally they had back on October 16-17, they had been praying for someone to start a church in Clarksville!)
Little did they know that God answered their prayers immediately 1200 miles away in New Mexico.
Little did we know that our decision to go to TN was actually God answering prayers from 1200 miles away!

4) TIMING
I've always prayed that when it was it was my time to go, I'd have a Joshua-type figure that would take my spot. I thought I might have that guy, but within a day of us being back from our trip in Feb of 2008, that guy told me he was quitting working with me to work elsewhere. Plans ended up falling through and he ended up coming on full time with me, but it answered our prayers - we knew where, but now was not the time. So, we made plans. I mapped out how I'd teach through Revelation August 2008-May 2009 and Jenn committed to 2 semesters of women's ministry. We knew that we'd be in Albuquerque till at least the end of May, when our commitments were up. As I said, on October 16, we decided that there would always be reasons to stay - we just needed to go. The time had come.


It's been years in planning, and the time is finally here. 70 more days from today is the day we pull out - exactly 10 weeks. 5 months from Sunday is the date of our first official church service - Sat, Sept 12. It's very surreal and super exciting. Can't wait to see what the next few years holds.

So I didn't do a good job at keeping it short, but hopefully this helps to answer some wondering minds.

When Nathanael first heard about Phillip leaving everything behind to follow this Jesus of Nazareth character, his question was, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" It was obscure and out of the way, kind of like Clarksville used to seem to us. A similar question has come to my mind before - "Can anything good come from Clarksville." I believe so. If God is behind it, success is guaranteed!

Not responsible

I heard some quotes the other day that I thought were great as we prepare to head out on this new adventure.

"When a man is his own ruler, he has all the responsibility of what he does -- but when he implicitly obeys Christ's command, he is not responsible for the result of his actions -- that rests with Him who gave the command."
~ Charles Spurgeon

Dr. Charles Stanley, while being interviewed recently about his wisdom from over 40 years of ministry on how to lay a godly foundation for a fledgling ministry, said, "Seek the Lord in prayer for guidance and direction. Don't force anything. Allow God to open and shut the doors of opportunity. Your part is simply to obey. If He has planted this idea in your heart and is behind what you're doing, He is obligated by his own character to see it through. Remember this: God is responsible for all the consequences of your obedience. You are responsible for all the consequences of your disobedience."

So true. I love the boldness and the peace that comes with stepping out in faith knowing that this is GOD'S idea, not mine. If it were my idea, who knows what would happen! Since it's His idea, success is guaranteed!

Moving to TN

Here's the video of the closing of Revelation 19 last Saturday and how I led into the news of our departure. Enjoy.


Moving to Tennessee from Awaken Church on Vimeo.

The announcement has been made!

It's officially out in the open. Finally. The Miller family is moving to Clarksville, TN to start a church! We announced it to the Velocity leaders on Friday, to all 3 services today, and Skip will be interviewing me in front of the church on Wednesday night!

It's been 5 great years of ministry at Calvary and God has done some incredible things. And now, at a time where the economy is the worst it's been in my 25 years and ministry is the best it's been, God has led us to pack up our stuff and step out in faith. We'll be moving 1200 miles away to start a Calvary from scratch. It's a bit intimidating considering that I've never done this, and I'll actually have to find a real adult job that won't pay me to go to summer camp anymore. However, there's so much peace in knowing that this is God's idea, not ours!

The name, Awaken Church, captures our vision of Awakening people to the relevance of God's Word and equipping them for His service. It's an exciting endeavor that leaves a lot of questions in the air, but we know God will do above all that we ask and think!

We have 7 more weeks with Velocity as we finish out Revelation. Our last weekend will be Saturday and Sunday, May 23-24. We'll still be around for 3 more weeks, though, and I'll do AJ (the guy who will take my spot as Youth Pastor) and his fiancee Lisa's wedding on June 14. On Wednesday, June 17, the adventure officially begins! Nate and Jenn Witiuk and Denver Miller will also be joining us in the beginning of July.

If you're interested in keeping in touch, you can check the new church website (still under construction and expansion) at awakenchurch.org. We'd love your prayers!