UNIGHT recap video

Here's a quick video recap of how we spent the first 8 Saturdays of the summer. God used UNIGHT to unite us as a group and reach people in need. We passed out hundreds of burgers and hot dogs, over a thousand drinks, plenty of Bibles, and even saw a few people accept Christ! God is good!

It's not the end. It's just the beginning...

Tonight was our last UNIGHT of the summer. 8 down, 0 to go. Tonight ranked in the top 3 of all 8 parks - we cleared 109 burgers, 78 hot dogs and close to 300 drinks! From 5:30-8:00 it was almost non-stop lines of people waiting for food and loving the fellowship. It was great to see people there that had found our website, seen the signs, or read a flier. Some just happened to be at the park when we showed up and were glad we came with free food.

I got to talk to some great people tonight, many who are just so thirsty for solid, Biblical teaching. That's what we're here to do. I love explaining expositional teaching to people who have never heard about it before and seeing their faces light up as I talk about teaching straight through a book of the Bible.

It seems Satan tried again to prevent this event from happening. From relationship issues within the church to Jenn sick last night and me at Urgent Care today, Satan tried to discourage, distract, and ruin. Again, he failed. Not surprising. He's a pro at failing.

It seems crazy to think that UNIGHT is over for the summer. Looking back, we realize how great it's been:
-grocery store runs because we ran short on burgers
-door slams when we said we're from a church
-skaters grabbing cold drinks by the 12-pack
-tons of new faces and excited, hungry people (physically and spiritually)
-2 people accepting Christ and hundreds of planted seeds

It's sad to say goodbye to an event that has been so good to us, but the end of UNIGHT marks the beginning of something new: Awaken Church is about ready to officially begin! This time 3 weeks from tonight, we'll be done with our first church service and thinking about our first Wednesday night service.

It's not the end. It's just the beginning...


Go HERE to browse all of our UNIGHT pics.
Go HERE to browse through pics from UNIGHT #8.

UNIGHT #7 was a success - only 1 more to go!

I can't believe it's almost over. We've been planning these UNIGHT events for a long time now - at least 6 months. Now, they're about to come to an end. That's bittersweet. Bitter, because they've been great and we've seen God do some great things. Sweet, because with UNIGHT being over, that means services are about to begin! In fact, this time 4 weeks from now, we'll already be done with Awaken's first ever church service! I can't believe it.

Tonight was awesome - Valleybrook was an excellent park to set up at. The weather teased us a little bit, but God held back the rain as He tends to always do. Satan tried to ruin this outreach by blowing our fridge and spoiling all our burgers, hot dogs, and cheese. It's all good though. He's going to have to try MUCH harder than that! When I was in Albuquerque, a random guy that I met after teaching on Wednesday handed me $100 for our park outreaches. God provided for our need before we ever even knew we had it!

We also found an incredible place for service in the park. It's a big grassy hill with a natural stadium-type slope. We may wait till we add a Sunday service, then do Saturday night at the church and Sunday morning in the park with a church picnic after that! If only the creek that runs through the park were deeper, we could baptize then too!

Thanks to everyone who came out to the park this week - it was great to meet a bunch of new people as well as see some familiar faces. We look forward to possibly our biggest one yet next week at McGregor Park Riverwalk. We dropped by today and just happened to grab the last two parking spaces - I don't think we'll have any problem getting people to come. Plus, since it's right next to a Wendy's, Jeremy recommended making a sign that says "Why Wendy's when Awaken has them for free?!" We may not go that far.

Make sure to check out the pictures from tonight's event on our website!

UNIGHT #5 recap

What a night tonight! We hit up Lettie-Kendall Park tonight for our 5th of 8 UNIGHT Summer Evenings in the Park. It's hard to believe that we only have 3 left now! Tonight was the best night of ministry we've seen thus far and the best response we've had as well. People came from all over for Jeremy's famous burgers. He definitely is the grill master. We've never gone through more than 60 burgers in all 4 previous outreaches, so when we packed up tonight we figured that 70 burgers and 60 hot dogs was more than enough. We were wrong. After only an hour in, we hade gone through almost all of them and had to run to the grocery store to get more! That's a great problem! We ended up cooking over 100 burgers and 85 hot dogs tonight - the people just kept on coming! So cool.

The park was great, especially for the kids (and the older "kids" that had kids of their own) - it had a sweet water fountain area that people come from all over for. As people showed up, we greeted them with a free meal and Bible - they loved it. People saw our signs and fliers all over and some even stopped in the street to ask what we were doing. When they figured out that it was free, they were all over it! For most of the night, the entire parking lot was full and people were having to park on the street (another great problem)!

The best part was the ministry that occured tonight. One guy sought me out and told me before he left, he wanted me to pray for him. I told him I'd love to, so after he ate, I found him and went to talk. I ended up sitting down at a picnic table with him and 4 other people where I was able to lay out the simplicity of the Gospel to them. A couple of them had the typical answers when I asked where they would be spending eternity. They hoped they'd go to heaven. When I asked them how they thought they would make it, it was the other typical answer: they're pretty good people. I'm a straight-shooter and I told them that the Bible disagreed with them on that. I opened up the Bible I had given to them and went through Romans 3:23 (all have sinned), Romans 6:23 (the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life), and Romans 5:8 (God demonstrated His love by dying for us while we're still sinners). Tina, the lady sitting across from me, really caught it. I told her we could pray right there to commit her life to Jesus and she could know where she'll spend eternity. She loved that idea, so right there at a picnic bench in 90% humidity, I prayed the sinner's prayer with Tina! Awesome! After she left, I scooted down and talked with Ray, who, after talking for a while, realized he couldn't put Christ off any longer and decided tonight was the night! He too committed his life to Christ right there at the picnic table!

It was an incredible night of seeing God move in hearts and being reminded of what a privilege it is to reach out to hurting people. May God continue to use us in a powerful way as we do our best to reach this community!

Click HERE to check out the pictures of UNIGHT #5 and make sure to swing by awakenchurch.org for more info on where we'll be next week!

UNIGHT #4 down, 4 more to go!

We hosted another awesome night of UNIGHT at Bel Aire Park. A bunch of people showed up - some saw our ad on craigslist, some saw fliers we had posted around the neighborhood last week or the signs on our truck windshields parked at the entrance, others we invited by going door to door. However they heard about the event, they came, and we loved having them! We got to play basketball with a guy named AJ from down the street. He was good. I am out of shape. We were also joined by "The Mistress of Hip Hop" as she calls herself. She said she loved what we were doing and wanted to put a PSA out on her radio show for us. Sweet. Any way to get the word out, right?! Our group is building in size - in addition to the 5 of us, we had 6 others show up to help set up and stayed the whole time. It's cool to see God slowly adding to our numbers!
Tonight was the half-way point for UNIGHT - 4 down, 4 to go. It's crazy to think we're half-way done with these outreaches. We've had a few requests to keep doing them - people seem to be really enjoying them. One thing we've heard over and over again is that people really love that we're getting out into the community. I was encouraged this week while listening to a Calvary Church Planting podcast. One thing he said was that too many people think if you just show up to a town and start teaching the Bible, people will come. Not the case. You have to treat it like missions work and go out to the people - meet them where they are. I feel like we've done a pretty good job of that so far. It was cool tonight to go door-to-door and invite people out for free dinner. They're always skeptical when they see me at the door, but normally they're really nice when they find out what we're doing.
Thanks to those of you who were praying for this event. We were afraid we might get rained out, but the weather held back and we had a great time.
Make sure to check out the pics on our website and also grab a map to the park we'll be at next weekend - Lettie-Kendall Park. Hope to see you there!

P.S. Don't forget that this Wednesday, we continue our study through Romans 12. We meet at Jeremy & Julie Edler's house from 6-8pm for food and Bible study. Make sure to come and bring a friend, and don't miss the podcast where you can stay up with all the teachings!

3 down, 5 to go

BEST. ONE. YET. I could just stop with that, but I think that would leave you wondering why it was so great, so here's a summary...

We drove by earlier today and got a little freaked out. The park that we went to, Heritage Park, is also a huge Sports Complex, and the main place for soccer games. There had to have been 1,500 people in the park! No joke. We looked at our 100 burgers and started to get a little scared. We prayed that God would multiply the food if need be. Thankfully, be the time we got there, the soccer games had cleared out, but the skate park hadn't! That's what we were hoping for. Word spread real fast that free food and drinks had arrived, so the skaters loved that we were there and began cleaning us out of drinks real quick. Nate had to run back home to grab more drinks and it's a good thing we did - we probably went through 300 drinks!

We got to hang out with skaters all evening. We watched them skate, threw the football around, talked church, and just hung out. They loved our music, and were amazed that I am the pastor. They've never seen a pastor dress/look like me. We also met about 12 people who just showed up. One couple heard about us from a family member in Albuquerque that had passed our info onto them, and most of the rest saw our ads on craigslist and campbellyardsales.com (a local craigslist-type site), and decided to come see what it was all about. Most of them didn't want food, they just wanted to meet us and hang out, so that's what we did. We told them all about our Wednesday night Bible study that's starting up this week and it sounds like almost all of them will be there! I thought I would teach the first few Bible studies to just 2 or 3 people, but it's looking like we may start around 15! WOW!

The skater crowd seems to be very overlooked out here, but with our experience with skate parks, we hope to put an end to that. They lit up when we talked about hosting a skate competition at their park! They were all for it and want to help any way they can. We hope to host a competition some time in the next few months, then maybe next summer, if a mission trip team comes out here, we'll do something huge with a big band, maybe some pro skaters, etc. More on that later (when it's a bit more realistic).

All in all, it was the best one yet. Great response. Lots of excitement. About 60 burgers and 50 hot dogs! We'll definitely be back to Heritage Park. We made some good friends.

Head to our UNIGHT pictures page to check out pics from tonight's event and please keep the next 5 in your prayers! You can specifically pray that God will provide financially for the outreaches. This one really cleaned us out and we'll need to almost completely restock for next week. That's a good problem though.

2 down, 6 to go...

UNIGHT #2 was a hit! We rocked Sherwood Forest Park this week - it was awesome! There were more kids than there were adults - and they were really stoked for all the free caffeine and business cards. One kid had to have downed 8 cokes by himself! I'm sure his parents loved that.

This park was a far better location - we were surrounded by houses on every side. A few people were really resistant to us being there - there were a few slammed doors when we said we were from a church. It's all good. The bad was balanced out by the good though. People were really interested and excited to hear about a new church. A couple people were really shocked that I am the pastor. "YOU are the pastor?! Wow!" they'd say. I love those reactions. It just reinforces 1 Timothy 4:12 - let no one despise your youth.

We had a great time this week. Thank you for all the prayers. Keep praying that God would do great things as we reach out to the community of Clarksville.

Click HERE to see pics of the event.

Building (in more ways than one)

When it comes to Awaken Church and the ministry out here in Clarksville, Tennessee, things are building. Let me share the 3 types of "building" that I'm talking about...

The congregation is building...
We're so glad to have finally met some friends out here in Clarksville! As awesome as it is having Nate, Jenn, and Denver here with us, having some new faces around has been very refreshing too! We've met 2 couples so far that are excited about being a part of Awaken and are helping us get the word out about our outreaches and the church.

A physical building...
Tomorrow, Jenn and I will meet a guy at a building that's for lease in a great part of town. It's a 1500 sq ft building that he said he'd be willing to work on a price with us on. He sounds pretty desperate to get someone in there since it's been just sitting there for a couple months since the last tenant moved out. We're hoping to get a screamin' deal on the place. Pray that that meeting goes well and if this is the building that Awaken Church will begin in, the doors will swing wide open.

Excitement is building...
Saturday marks 9 weeks till our first church service on Saturday, September 19, and Sunday is the 2-month mark. We're loving the UNIGHT outreaches (we've only done 1 so far), but we can't wait to be in a place and be holding church services weekly! The excitement and anticipation builds daily as we anticipate beginning the reason that we came out here. As I heard from the Pastor of Calvary Brentwood, "Enjoy each and every step along the way" of a church plant. Very true.

It's been great and we can't wait to see what's just around the corner. Stay tuned to awakenchurch.org for building updates, UNIGHT pictures, and much more!

1 down, 7 to go!

Our first UNIGHT Summer Evening in the Park was tonight! It was great to finally get this party started - it's literally been years in the making! Once we pulled up to Airport Park, we realized we hadn't chosen the best park for the event - it wasn't surrounded by many houses - you had to drive to get there. Maybe we got too caught up in the nice basketball and volleyball courts. I don't know. The rest of our locations should be much better though - very residential.

Regardless of the fact that we didn't choose the best of locations, it was a success. About 4 or 5 families came by and we met some great people that were so excited to be a part of this new adventure. 2 families have been a part of Calvary Chapels for quite a while, so they were happy to hear that a new one was coming to town!

We were a bit worried about the weather throughout the day - it rained all day till about 3:30. We kept praying and eventually things cleared up. The humidity was ridiculous - nothing we're used to. It felt like we were walking through clouds (actually, I think we were). It was great though. In fact, one of the families that came, Jeremy and Julie, were only able to come because the rain had canceled another event that they were going to be attending. The weather actually worked out in our favor, surprisingly!

Thanks for the prayers throughout the day and please keep them up! We have 7 more parks to hit and thousand of people who need Jesus!

Check out pics from the event here and go to the UNIGHT page to get the schedule so you don't miss the next ones!

The party is about to start

Awaken Church has been in my prayers for years. For so long, we didn't know where we'd go to plant a church, when we'd go, or even what we'd call it or how we'd do it, but we knew we'd go. Back in February of this year, we flew out here for our final scouting trip to Clarksville. That was when God gave me the vision for the church and the name "Awaken". We began to think and plan how we'd accomplish this huge task in front of us, and we eventually came up with Unight: Summer Evenings in the Park. Our prayer is to build the church as we start from the ground up, but our ultimate and most important prayer is that whether or not people get involved with Awaken, we pray that they get involved with Jesus. We want to build HIS church.

That's what the next 8 weeks of the summer are all about. As we unite at night in the parks, we pray that many will come out - saved and unsaved - and experience the genuine love of Jesus Christ. Each week, toward the end of the event, I'll share for a couple minutes about the vision of the church and how people can get involved. However, most importantly, I'll share about a different person from Scripture who was awakened to the relevance of God's Word and His saving grace (Paul, the Ethiopian in Acts 8, James and John, etc.). Each week, people will be given a chance to accept Christ right there in the park. Please pray that many would come to know Him!

We've planned for months and years, and it's finally here. Pictures will be posted after the event. Stay tuned to the pictures page and our blog to see how it went.

Head HERE to get an Awaken banner for your website or blog and get the Word out!

UNIGHT locations finalized!

We finally were able to map out all 8 parks that we'll be heading to over the next 8 weeks for out UNIGHT outreaches! If you're in the area, you won't want to miss these!

Here are 5 ways you can be involved:

1. Go here to see all 8 locations, get maps, and plan on being there!

2. Click here to download UNIGHT flyers to pass out to your friends and family.

3. Copy the code at the bottom of this page into your blog or website to advertise for UNIGHT with a sweet UNIGHT banner!

4. Keep up with Awaken Church on Facebook and Twitter.

5. PRAY! Probably the most important way you can be involved! Pray for God's provision for the events, and most importantly, pray that many people would come to know Jesus and get involved with the church!

UNIGHT is coming!

We finally have our first location for our UNIGHT Summer Evenings in the Park!

It will be held Saturday, July 11 from 6:00-8:00pm at Airport Park. ALL AGES are welcome! There will be free burgers, hot dogs, and drinks, as well as some games and great fellowship! Hope to see you there if you're in the area.

Airport Park is located on Outlaw Field Rd just south of Tiny Town Rd. See the map below for directions. As always, check our website for all the info!

View Larger Map

Little reminders

God is so good at giving us little reminders along the way that we're headed in the right direction. It's always tempting to wonder if we're doing the right thing - leaving everything we know behind to start a church in the Bible Belt. Just when we need a little reassurance, God is always faithful to give us little reminders that He has everything worked out. I became friends with a guy on Facebook last week that attends Calvary Albuquerque, and I asked him if I could share some of what he had to say:

We spent a couple of weeks last month in Clarksville (acutally Oak Grove, KY) during the time the church prayed for your church planting. So we were unaware of your move there.

My daughter Ashley and her husband Aaron and grandaughter Genevieve live there as he is stationed at Ft. Campbell. They are VERY excited upon hearng of your coming, they have been searching churches in the area and just haven't found one they feel is a fit. So this is an answer to our prayers for them. Our Lord is awesome!

I'll give you a little background, our daughter Ashley has been a believer for many years, however her husband Aaron is a young believer. He gave his life to Christ in bootcamp, which is pretty cool. They were baptized together by Skip, and Skip dedicated Genevieve last August while Aaron was in town on leave.

Shortly after bootcamp Aaron was deployed to Afghanistan for a year, he returned in January of this year. So he has not really had the discipleship that he needs. We are working on helping to build a foundation in Gods Word, but it seems we can only do so much.

...We have been praying for them to find a church where they would be comfortable.

We located the Calvary affiliated churches in Tennessee but they are really to far away from them. a part of our prayer was for someone to plant a Calvary church in that area, little did we know that someone from our fellowship was in the process of doing just that.

So yes we have been praying for your church while unaware of it!

How cool! I love stories like these about how God is answering prayer immediately without people even being aware of it!

Speaking of prayer, we'd love for you to join our UNIGHT prayer team that we're putting together for this summer's outreach. We've already had a few people say they'll be praying, but we'd love to have more. If you're interested, let us know! Read more about it HERE. This is a great way to see God move as you spend some time with Him!

We need YOU to pray for us!

I love that the Creator of the universe listens to us pray! In fact, Hebrews 4 even says that we can approach Him with confidence! We don't have to worry about being struck by lightning or having gone through the proper rituals anymore. He takes us just as we are and cleans us up!

Here's the deal, Awaken Church needs A LOT of prayer! We'd love to have you join our prayer team as we commit the summer of 2009 to the Lord. We know that this is His work, not ours, so we need to be praying that He'd provide financially, physically, and most importantly, spiritually for the church.

For 8 straight Saturdays, July 11-August 29, we will be heading into parks across Clarksville to reach out to the community. We're calling the event "UNIGHT" and you can learn more about it on our website on the UNIGHT page. Here's where you're involved: we'd love to have a team of people praying for each event. You can commit to pray for 1, a few, or all 8 events. Of course we'd love to have prayer leading up to the events, but we're specifically asking for people to pray during each event.

The dates are below. In a few weeks we'll have locations as well. Grab your calendars, and pick a date or a few to pray for. Let us know you'll be praying by leaving a comment on this blog with your name and the date you'll be praying or by emailing us at prayer@awakenchurch.org with the same info. We'll be putting a list together of who will be praying when and we'd love to have you join us in the ministry through prayer!

The dates of UNIGHT are:
Sat, July 11
Sat, July 18
Sat, July 25
Sat, Aug 1
Sat, Aug 8
Sat, Aug 15
Sat, Aug 22
Sat, Aug 29

(and one additional one: Sat, September 19 - the date of our first church service!)

Stay tuned here for specific ways you can be praying as well as updates after each outreach.

Coming this summer...

UNIGHT: Summer Evenings in the Park will be hitting Clarksville parks this summer every Saturday evening from 6-8pm beginning July 11 and ending August 29. We'll have free burgers and hot dogs, activities for the kiddos, fellowship, and just a good old time. We'll wrap up each evening with a short devotion from the Bible. We'll be sharing the Gospel with those who come and inviting people to join us as we begin Awaken Church.

One of our first things when we get to Clarksville July 1 will be to nail down locations for UNIGHT (in addition to looking for a place to rent for our first church service in September). If any of you Clarksvillans have any suggestions, let me know! Stay tuned here and to our Facebook page for more info coming soon!