Community, Discipleship and Courage

Jeff and I are called to do two things. We are called to start small communities that meet in homes, and we are called to do discipleship. We believe that both are vital to living in God’s kingdom here and now.

These communities consist of 20-50 people. The people within these communities eat together, pray together, love each other,  and commit to one another. These communities are small enough so that all the people in the community are able to bring their gifts to the table and use them for the Body’s benefit and for God’s glory.

This is not a spectator sport, where we cheer others on to do the work. We all do the work together. No one gets lost or ignored because these communities are small enough that each person is equally important. These communities meet in people’s homes, where life takes place. Simply put, a Community Group is an extended family following Jesus together by doing life with missionary purpose.

We have an active community that we are already involved in. We share a meal together weekly, help each other, and support each other by being an active part of each other’s lives. The relationships within our community are covenant relationships that require time, energy and commitment.

Our community started as the Holy Spirit called on us to do the small acts of obedience in opening our homes and lives to each other, and this community has become our extended family where each week it feels like a family reunion in the very best sense of the word. I long to be with these people, and I miss them when I’m not able to.

We are looking to start other communities similar to this one as God brings together people who are desperate for Him and who desire to share their lives in community. These groups will be similar but also very different in that they will be led by people who have different missional outreaches. We are ministering in such a way that these communities can be started all over Nashville and led by the people God raises up. Once a few community groups have started up, we will have celebration gatherings where this network of communities, who want to serve Jesus and the people around them, will come together for praise and worship and times of teaching. These groups will be the basis for New Life Church Network.

Jeff and I are partners in this work God has called us to. Really, our whole family is doing this work together. We are seeing our children embrace the people in our community. And they are active participants in loving and serving those around them.

The second part of what Jeff and I are doing is discipleship. The way of growth in the New Testament was discipleship. Jesus chose His disciples, and He spent three years discipling them as they walked with Him. At the end of Matthew, Jesus said to His disciples that He had been given all authority and then commanded His disciples to go make disciples. We believe that we are following Him in obedience by doing discipleship with people, Jeff with men, me with women.

Discipleship is NOT a Bible study.  Discipleship is meeting on a weekly basis with 1 to 2 other people who are reading the same Bible passage, NOT to study the passage but rather to go to the Word to see what God is calling them to do in repentance and obedience. It goes back to John the Baptist’s and Jesus’ message:  “Repent and believe. The Kingdom of God is here.”

Discipleship is simple in that anyone can do it. We are discipling and training our children, because we believe it is essential to growing and maturing in Christ. We have already seen lives changed because of what Jesus and His Word can do with people who are willing to submit themselves to Him in obedience and humility. When Jesus came and took  on our flesh, He emptied Himself, took on the form of a slave and became obedient to the point of death.  He calls us to do the same…to come and die.

Simply put, discipleship is listening to what God is telling us to do in the context of community. It is following Jesus. And it really comes down to two basic questions. What in my life do I need to repent of? And what is God, not man, telling me to do about it? Neil Cole calls this process exhaling and inhaling: exhaling our sin in repentance and then inhaling the Word of God and seeking Him in obedience. We have to expel the junk and sin of our lives before we can breathe in the Gospel.

Eugene Peterson talks about this in his book Eat This Book. He says, “Obedience is the thing, living in active response to the living God.  The most important question we ask of this text (the Bible) is not, ‘What does this mean?’ but ‘What can I obey?’ A simple act of obedience will open up our lives to this text  far more quickly than any number of Bible studies and dictionaries and concordances.” (71)

Community and discipleship work together. It’s meeting people where they are and growing up and maturing in Christ together. We’re walking side by side with people in their journey to Him. I have this sense of urgency and mission within me to do discipleship with others, because I now see hope where there was none. It’s hope in a God who changes people, not fixes them or makes their lives better, but actually transforms them into a new creation.

We can spend years trying to figure out who we are with numerous self-help books, but change can only happen when we’re ready to come to Him in repentance and belief. The same message that John the Baptist and Jesus preached still applies now.  Six or seven months ago I said to Jeff, “I’m not doing that discipleship thing.”  I know He can change lives; He is changing mine.

Please pray that we would be courageous and obedient and let God do His work in us and through us. We also need God’s people to come along side us and support us in this thing God has called us to. We are all called to serve and make sacrifices in the kingdom of God. And we are excited that others are joining us  in their prayers and with their money. We are, in fact, spurring each other on to love and good works. And that’s what kingdom living is all about. So, thank you, for acting courageously and sacrificially on our behalf and on behalf of the kingdom.

Soli Deo Gloria…to God alone be the glory…

Jeff and Kim Darnell, 1045 Fontaine Drive, Goodlettsville, TN 37072

lovegracepeace@gmail.com

Hands Wide Open

I’ve been gone. Away. Not Here. Please Do Not Disturb.

I had lapses of faith this winter. I had questions of “Why are we in this situation?” and “Where is God in all of this?”.  Questions that I know other people contemplate but maybe don’t admit to others. Perhaps not even to themselves. I tried desperately to get over it, to mask my restlessness by reading one more book, watching one more movie, walking one more mile. It didn’t work.

In this process of my restless questioning, I hit the pause button on faith, hope, and love. I became kind of a hermit, did not want to see all that many people, realized that I didn’t really have all that much to offer anyone (not that anyone was expecting anything out of me).  But who wants to be around someone whose cup is empty most of the time? And all I had was resentment and bitterness. About a lot of things.

My downward spiral began when I started focusing on things that were beyond my control. But the lie was that I could control them. The enemy is sneaky in that way. I believed that I could make my own way and do my own thing and be okay, be better actually.  I soon lost hope and began to despair. Faith and love quickly fled out the back door as well. And some might question if they were really true in the first place if they can leave so easily. Maybe. Maybe not. I just know I was dry and brittle inside. And when I wasn’t angry, I was numb.

I don’t know what triggered release from all of that. If there is one moment or many moments of realization that draw a person back to God, to reality.  Or if my fingers had to be pried open from the idea of control I had grasped onto. I just know a few things happened to me lately that made me gaze up instead of in.

I recently saw an old friend. And she looked so beautiful…and I realized I wanted what she had. I could see it in her eyes. I could hear it in her story. And it’s what I’d been missing but had so desperately needed. And it’s something no medication of any kind will ever bring. Peace…The kind that goes beyond human comprehension…The kind that when the situation looks its darkest, there is still that. And, I realize  it’s not something I can strive for or buy or grasp at. It’s something I receive when everything else falls away. When hands are held up, not in despair, but in gratitude and release.

A while back, Jeff couldn’t sleep one night, and he felt like the Holy Spirit was giving him a word for me and for each of our children…the things that we needed. And the word for me was, “IT will be there.” At the time, I assumed that the IT was money, because that always seemed to be the most pressing need, the thing that I worried about the most, and for some reason, I always seemed to think that money would solve the problem and be the answer, even though I never would say that out loud. Convinced that money was the IT that the Holy Spirit was talking about, I was confused and resentful when the money wasn’t always there when we needed it.

But money wasn’t the IT at all. I didn’t realize that until a good deal later that the IT was peace. “Peace will be there.” And that no matter what happened to me or my family or my friends or my belongings, now or in the future, peace can always be there.

For me, peace is like letting go and twirling in a field on a sunny day with wildflowers all about, face looking up to a cloudless sky with hands and arms that are held out that go higher and higher and become lighter and lighter until I feel like I could touch the face of Abba. And laughter, of course…wild, silly, hopeful laughter.

Manna in the Wilderness

In my post “Something to Talk About, ” I told the story about the crazy way in which Jeff lost his temporary job and how he didn’t get paid for the last two weeks he worked. Many people would be in a really tough spot if they didn’t get their last paycheck, and we weren’t any different. 

But I found that Abba really got my attention through Jeff losing his job, because I thought I had everything mapped out. I had really wanted for Jeff to get on full-time, so that we would have a little security. I should really know better by now.

But I began to trust, because, really, what other options do I have? I know Abba’s going to take care of us. He’s always done so before. It may not be in the way that I think that it will be, or maybe not even in the way I would like for it to be, but He knows the way that’s best for me.  Always.

So, I have thrown up my hands and am like, “Ok, Abba, this is you; it’s all you! ‘Cause I got nothing.”

I’m just wondering how long He’s been waiting to hear those words come out of my mouth.

Before word had even gotten around that Jeff had lost his job, a friend of mine messaged me on facebook about wanting to bring us some food. Other friends and family gave us a few hundred dollars. And I knew He was providing.  But, in the back of my mind, I knew His provision, so far, wasn’t going to be enough to cover future bills, like the mortgage. But He said to not worry about tomorrow.

But, practically speaking, I was beginning to think about what items we could sell in our house that would bring in some cash flow. Jeff and I came to the conclusion that most of our stuff isn’t worth much (we bought most of our stuff pretty cheap, and we’ve been given a lot of hand-me-downs, so it wasn’t “nice” to start with), and after having 5 kids bouncing around on furniture and spilling stuff all over the place, well, we don’t have anything that would bring in more than $50, and I might be delusional in even thinking that.

But I began cleaning out closets because I’m going to have a yard sale.  I didn’t make a whole lot from my last yard sale…maybe enough to pay our phone bill, but it was something.   But amazingly, I really wasn’t worried about it. There comes a point when you have to laugh (guffaw and snort a little, actually) because the situation seems so desperate.

In the meantime, we’ve realized that He is opening the door for Jeff to start his own business where he wants to go in and help non-profits, which we would never have been open to him doing if he had been given a full-time job with the company he was working for.  But starting a business takes some time to start bringing in income.

I kept thinking that if Abba wanted us to pursue this business, then He was going to have to make it happen. He was going to have to provide enough money for us to be able to live.

I prayed for a very specific amount of money ($2,000), thinking that for me to ask for so much was absurd, and that maybe,if He answered my prayer, that it would come in a little bit at a time.  A few days later, we got a check for $2,000 from family members. This family member said, “You know, we always talk about how God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and we just wanted you to have at least one cow!”

This has now happened twice. The exact amount I was praying for coming in within a few days. But it has nothing to do with me…it’s all Him, and I’m just so grateful that it doesn’t depend on me.  Just like He provided manna for the children of Israel in the wilderness, He’s doing the same for us and throwing in a few quail every now and then.

I’ll hear Jeremiah, who is almost 6, walk around singing or whistling this song that one of Jeff’s aunts have all the kids sing at family reunions right before we eat. “Here we stand like birds in the wilderness waiting to be fed.” That’s what I feel like…like I’m standing there like a baby bird with my mouth wide open waiting for Abba to fill it. And what a great place to be!

I heard yesterday that one of Jeff’s cousins got a job after being out of work for a few months, and they were down to the wire as well. I’m praying specifically for others who don’t have jobs and are almost beside themselves not knowing what they are going to do. I pray that Abba will make it very clear and will bring provision but most importantly that they know who who holds their hand in the middle of their path.

I don’t know about tomorrow,
It may bring me poverty;
But the One Who feeds the sparrow,
Is the One Who stands by me.
And the path that be my portion,
May be through the flame or flood,
But His presence goes before me,
And I’m covered with His blood.
Many things about tomorrow,
I don’t seem to understand;
But I know Who holds tomorrow,
And I know Who holds my hand.

I’m very grateful for the gifts that He gives, but I don’t want to become so enamored with the gifts and the blessings that I lose sight of the Giver of those gifts. Jesus says in John 6 that He is the Bread of Life. Not only does He provide our daily bread, but He is our Bread…He Himself is the One who sustains us by His own life. 

I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.  Psalm 81:10

Does Jesus Care About A School?

When we moved from Alabama to Nashville last year, Jeff came to be the principal of Pioneer Christian Academy, the school he graduated from 20 years ago. Jeff never imagined being a principal of a school, and I certainly never imagined being married to a principal. But we knew that this is where Abba was sending us, and we saw Him part the Red Sea to get us here.

Pioneer is a school that has been around for 40 years on the Northside of Nashville near Goodlettsville, but not many in the community seem to know about it, and it’s a miracle if you can even find it. If you happen to stumble across it, it is one of those weird God-things, and funny thing is, there have been quite a few of those in the last year…I see Abba’s hand all over this place.

Pioneer’s legacy has been one of legalism all wrapped up in fear, from the sign in the principal’s office that said, “Be sure your sin will find you out,” to the faculty and students walking around on eggshells, fearful that they were going to cross over some very real imaginary line. The fear and condemnation have been thick, so much so that some alumni and former students refuse to even step foot on campus because they cannot stand what the school used to represent for them.

The school has really struggled and has been more or less coasting for the last 10 years. It’s hard to run a school in neutral. So Pioneer needed a jump start, and Jeff was coming to literally shift it out of neutral and turn it in another direction.

Unfortunately, a lot of people have a hard time dealing with change, and some people seem to like neutral. Some would rather have something stay unhealthy than to be a part of growth and change…change is very uncomfortable for me as well, but I’m learning it is a necessary part of being alive…otherwise life is lived in an unhealthy coma-like state.

And Pioneer is no exception. It has to grow and change, and Jeff sees a vision for it to be other than it is. So, Jeff talked about his vision for the school, but, instead of the school growing, it actually decreased in attendance. But the ones who left, teachers and students alike needed to go…no hard feelings or anything…just going a different direction.

Pioneer is a school that’s quickly growing a heart, among other things and only those who can see past surface things, like old carpet and Pepto-Bismol pink walls, will truly get it. But for those that do, it’s like an unexpected gift…it’s actually becoming a place where the students want to be, and that in itself says a whole lot.

This year, there are teachers teaching at the school because Abba brought them…that’s all there is to it. I look around and think, why in the world are these amazing people here? But maybe this thing is bigger than a school…maybe it’s about seeing Christ in each other, about embracing our diversity, and loving each other in the process.

But right now at Pioneer, finances are a serious issue, due to the lack of students. My faith is big in some areas, but finances have always thrown me for a loop. I have fear and doubt all mixed in with questioning whether Abba can really provide for a school or even if He wants to. So I’ve been asking the question does Jesus care about a small school on the Northside of Nashville?

I was at a Moms in Touch group the other morning where we pray for our school, the faculty, and our kids. And one of the other moms really believes that Abba is going to provide for the needs of the school. I told her that I had my doubts, and I asked her if she thought her faith was big enough for the both of us. She told me it takes the faith of a mustard seed, and I think that’s about all I’ve got right now…

I know it’s often thought tacky to talk about money…maybe it is…maybe it isn’t. But I don’t think Jesus thought it was, because He says, “Ask and it will be given to you.” And I tend to think this phrase also includes money or students or whatever the need is…I have a hard time asking for things…I hate it, really…I grew up thinking that asking for stuff was presumptuous, but clearly, that is my own issue… 

So, Jesus, I’m asking. I’m asking that a school that cannot get enough of You these days is able to remain open. I’m asking that You provide the money or the students or both so that these adults and little ones alike can see You, can experience Your power, can feel Your presence move and are mindful that You are the One doing it. Provide the daily bread or part the Jordan River…we’re like the Israelites standing on the shore in the middle of flooding season and see no way to cross on our own. Our strategizing and our planning are all in vain if You’re not in it. But I see You, and I know that You can provide what is necessary if this is Your will. I am already grateful for what You have done in us and through us and in our midst. Help us see You and experience You in a way that a school never has before. Help us be a light in our community that points people to You, Abba, because knowing You and experiencing You are what it’s all about, and the school is just a small part of it. But I’m here, and I’m asking because we need You more than anything…

I got one of those e-mail cards for my birthday, and at the end of the card, Eph 3:20 came across the screen…”God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine.” So, right now, in the middle of all my fear and all my doubt, I’m praying and hoping that Abba will provide the miracle that will keep the school’s doors open, that He will do the “far more than we can imagine.”

And, yes, I still have my doubts because humanly speaking it looks bad. But I know this for sure that Abba is bigger than my fear, bigger than my doubts, and really it’s not about me anyway…my faith or lack of faith. But I have a feeling that whatever happens, it’s going to be one of those things that when I finally see what’s really going on, I’m either going to be falling on my face in gratitude or dancing till my head pops off…

“Word of God speak,
Would you pour down like rain
Washing my eyes to see
Your majesty.
To be still and know
That you’re in this place…
Word of God speak.”

www.pioneerchristianacademy.org

Owning My Broken Road

 

A little over a year ago, we moved from Tuscaloosa to Nashville for Jeff to become Headmaster at his alma mater Pioneer Christian Academy. What an absolute whirlwind (some might say nightmare) our lives were last year this time. Right up until the middle of July we thought we were going to be in Tuscaloosa doing church work. Then, we got the call that brought us to Nashville.

 

We sold our house two weeks later on July 31 and moved to Nashville August 2, only to put most of our stuff into storage. The school had already started their teacher in-service which technically Jeff was supposed to be in charge of since he was now the principal, but Jeff and I were busy dashing around town trying to find a house to live in, since all seven of us were living with Jeff’s parents in a 1 almost 2 bedroom house.

 

In two weeks, we not only found a house, but the seller immediately accepted our low-ball offer, and we were able to move into our house two weeks later. I knew in the middle of all the craziness that Abba was guiding us through it all…and I could feel His presence. I don’t always see Him working as clearly as I did last summer, but everything was so insane that I knew it had to be from Him, because who else would come up with a plan like that? But I can honestly say that in the middle of all the chaos I was at rest.  One writer says that her two favorite prayers are “Help me, help me, help me” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Those prayers sum it up for me as well.

 

Even though our move was a miracle, and I took it for what it was at the time, I still refused to embrace last school year. I grew up as the principal’s daughter…I didn’t ever think I would be a principal’s wife. I was willing to move to Nashville because it’s where we were supposed to be, and I knew it, but I struggled and I wrestled and I failed to “own” the people and the place.  

 

Sometimes when I see Abba move me to a new situation or a new place, I often have this faulty thinking that the new situation will be better than the one I left, and if it’s not better, I convince myself that I somehow missed the right road, and then berate myself accordingly, because Abba certainly wouldn’t move me to a more difficult place, especially if I’m listening and doing what He tells me to do.

 

But it was a more difficult place in a lot of ways, and it was a hard year for many different reasons, and even though I learned a lot, I was already dreading what this school year might look like. But I was recently talking to a friend on the phone, and I was starting to whine about my situation and I was talking about how I couldn’t go through another year like last year, “Because last year…” This friend cut me off and said, “This isn’t last year.” Right then, the verse that came to mind was Phil. 3:14 which says, …forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead. This was Abba speaking directly to me, saying, “Kim, you’ve got to let this stuff go and own the road you’re on.”  

 

I recently found a quote that I’ve been chewing on for a couple of weeks now, and it says, “God’s will is 98 percent about who you are…not where you are or whom you are with.” If I allow this thought to sink in and take root in my heart, then I won’t be so easily convinced by the enemy’s voice that I’m in the wrong place or with the wrong people…so as broken as my road is, I’m convinced more than ever that I’m on the right one…“Every long lost dream led me to where You are.”

 

That I may know Him…and isn’t that really the whole point?

 

A Glimpse Into A Marriage

Yesterday, Jeff and I celebrated our 16th anniversary. Sixteen years…5 kids later…it seems a little surreal. Sixteen years ago, we honeymooned at Hilton Head for a week, and then we worked at a camp as Staff Directors for the summer, where we slept on a mattress on the floor in an old kitchen and had to use the bathhouse along with everyone else. I believe when we agreed to take on this adventure, I was thinking it was going to be like some kind of an extended honeymoon, which it was not. I wouldn’t recommend newly married couples working at camp, but as I review back over our journey it was where we needed to be…where we were supposed to be…I can spend endless hours reviewing all the things I wished I had done or should have done or could have done, but it’s really all very pointless, and dwelling on that stuff just doesn’t help me live in the here and now. Real life is happening all around me, and I miss it if I’m stuck in the past or consumed by the future.

Jeff and I had an argument the day before our anniversary…well, it wasn’t actually an argument…it was more like I got mad and just didn’t talk to him, and when I finally did talk, after slamming things around in my kitchen for a while, I was just mean. What I said to him that he couldn’t refute was my use of the word typical. I don’t think I’ve ever used that word in an argument before. But once I threw out that particular word, he knew he couldn’t argue about the 16 years of his “typical” behavior. When I assigned the word typical to him, I was dredging up everything wrong that he had ever done in the past, and the poor boy didn’t have a chance, and he knew it. He said to me later that I don’t forgive easily, and he’s right. I never really let things go…it might seem like I forgive at the time, but it just means I’ve filed it away for later use.

We’ve had 16 years together…that’s a long time to grow and to learn about another person. Some years have gone relatively smoothly, and some years we’ve struggled and limped along…that’s just the way it is. In the book Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity, Winner says this about married life, “We will argue, and feel broken, and wonder why we ever married in the first place-and it is God who will sustain us in those spells.” I think I personally signed on for the fairy tale marriage which I found out rather quickly doesn’t exist.

But this is the man…this is my man, and I’m learning how to love him little by little…and once again, I’m also learning that it’s really not about my feelings or my perceptions at the time…they’re not trustworthy, and they change. There have been times when I’ve thought Abba must have made a mistake when he gave me this man. But I’ve come to the conclusion that Abba always knows what He’s doing, and it’s always good, whether or not I choose to see it that way at the time. And my heart is filled with graditude for an Abba Father who sustains me at all times…and who has gifted me with Jeff for this lifetime.