…CHRISTMAS, FRIENDS!!! It’s been a big year: “Worship in the Park” each week for the homeless community // multi-church worship gatherings // reconciliation + church unity // tour dates across the state // encouraging emails: “You probably don’t remember me at all but You had a huge affect on my spiritual life. You were the worship band at Sugarpine Christian Camp when I was in High school and then again when I was a counselor at a youth camp. You were always such a great influence on the campers.” “I just wanted to let you know the first time I heard your song I CRIED LIKE A BIG FAT BABY. WE LOVE YOU BROTHER!” At-Risk Teen mentoring at two public schools + curriculum rewrite + 50 mentors trained + over 100 students impacted // 1,000 backpacks of food donated for county’s homeless students // more emails: “My experience yesterday was one of the most spirit-filled occurrences I’ve ever had besides my mission trip to Africa.” “I feel so special that I was chosen to be in this group!” MIKA’s Youth Action Team cordinator (leadership development) // OCforOC (One Church for Our City) Lead Team // Talbot Seminary scholarship recipient: Spiritual Formation // still more emails: “We did not have anyone to help us. …All that has happened on Baker St. has given me new life. I feel good and important being a leader. I feel proud of my community.” We are truly grateful beyond words for your friendship and support. As you can see, we’ve stepped even deeper into a missionary journey of faith, risk, and dependence this year, and we are excited for what God has in store next. We treasure your partnership! Thanks again and HAPPY NEW...
read moreA few friends and I are hosting a 1-day spiritual retreat in Orange this Saturday! I’ve been inspired by my grad studies in Spiritual Formation at Talbot, and I can’t wait to share a piece of this reflective journey with you. It promises to be a unique, refreshing, and renewing experience. I’d be so honored if you’d consider being a part! Here’s the info: Saturday October 29, 2011 | One-Day Spiritual Retreat | HOMECOMING three interactive sessions featuring the art of Rembrandt and the words and reflections of Henri Nouwen Old Towne Chapel 537 East Palm Ave. Orange, CA 92866 (near the Orange Circle) 9:30 a.m to 3:30 p.m. cost: $35 -snacks will be provided- info: 949-294-7039 |...
read moreIt’s time to say THANK YOU!!! Thank you for your prayers, advice, and donations. After several weeks of waiting on God’s direction, we felt led toward a mini-van for our family, and all of your generous contributions enabled us to buy this beautiful 2003 Honda Odyssey with cash, free and clear! We are blown away at God’s extravagant blessings in our lives – the kids are especially captured by the DVD system 😉 We’re praying for many more miles of ministry and family togetherness in our new van. I had to look outside in the driveway again this morning, just to make sure it’s real. We are humbled and grateful that you’d consider our ministry worth investing in. We are so excited for the fall and all that it holds for us; teen mentoring at three public schools, after-school programs and prayer gatherings around three elementary schools, our homeless community outreach, the youth leadership team, our church unity initiatives, and all the music ministry dates in between! God is using you to TRANSFORM A CITY! Thanks again for playing a...
read moreIt seems fitting that this post would follow one I just wrote about God’s provision and walking by faith. Ah, God’s timing! We are getting to live it out now, so here’s the scoop… It’s time to say goodbye- to our beloved touring van. 200,000 miles of love, music, laughter, and ministry. She will be greatly missed!! This 15-passenger Ford Clubwagon has also doubled as our second family car, so we’re in quite a pinch. We’d love your prayers as we seek God these next few weeks for His direction. I’m touring less with the band these days, so we mainly need an around-town family car that gets ok gas mileage. Should we use our small, emergency savings to buy an older 7-seater for around $3,000 – Or, do we wait to see if God will provide somehow in another way? We’re going to take a few weeks, juggling one car and praying for what God has next… Will you pray along with us? If you know of any cars that could fit our family of six, we’d love to hear about them. Also, if you know someone that fixes and replaces engines, who’d be interested in buying our van, please let us know! Our non-profit ministry can receive tax-deductible contributions, and we’d be hugely blessed with however God directs you. Have you been fortunate enough to experience a road trip in our well worn van?? Or, do you have a favorite memory? Send us a comment here or on Facebook, and we’ll send her off in grand...
read moreGod provides. It’s His nature, it’s what He does. God and His loving action are inseparable. Dogs bark and wag their tails – God rescues and saves – it’s who He is. One incredible thing about God’s provision is that it is coupled with His wisdom, which is higher than ours, and we’re sometimes left in mystery as to the why and when of His care. For those of us who’ve walked a while in God’s ways, though, we’ve seen over and over that He’s always right. His love for us is perfect, flawless. He’s like a master chess player, making each move with every other move before and ahead in mind. He knows. He knows everything. It’s interesting to read the stories of God’s provision throughout the Bible. Most often, His action occurs just in the nick of time. He seems to be partial to the cliffhanger rescue. In fact, when He rained down bread from the sky for His people wandering in the desert, He didn’t even allow them to collect and store it. He made it good for one day only, leaving them to rely on Him every morning just to eat. Jesus taught us to pray; “give us this day our daily bread”. He knows this sense of dependence is the best thing for us and our relationship with Him, and He plays the theme like a catchy, pop chorus – repeating again and again and surprising us every time. The Red Sea, water from a rock, a ram in a thicket, a baby in a manger – God’s specialty is the dramatic, last-minute save. No wonder we experience His provision in our lives this same way. For us, as a missionary family in Southern California, we often find ourselves praying for God’s provision in the quite literal sense; finances. It seems even with all our budgeting and planning, we still meet many months with not enough money for the bills, and we’ve learned to trust in the unpredictable, recuing love of God. A couple weeks ago, my wife and I were going over the finances on a Sunday afternoon. Our accounts were slim, and we decided by faith to cut our grocery budget in half for the week. We’ll see what happens, we said, maybe we can make it and God will help us… Not more than fifteen minutes later, my wife got a text from a friend who owns a catering business. She had just cooked for a massive wedding, there were tons of leftovers, and did we want any? That food fed our family of six for half the week! A few years ago, our house payment was in danger of not getting paid. Our mortgage was due the next day, and we were a couple thousand dollars short. We needed a miracle. We prayed and put our cares into God’s hands. We surrendered it all, and I slept like a rock that night. In the morning, I waved to our kids from the porch as they walked the couple blocks to school. Lingering on the step, I was at peace even though I wasn’t sure of God’s plan. I drank in the warm, sunny morning and noticed something in the bushes near my feet – a dirty, frayed, grass stained piece...
read moreAs a pastor in our city of Costa Mesa, I’m always looking for needs that can be met and people we can help. My wife and I have been making friends with our Hispanic neighbors on Baker St. for several years and our appreciation for their rich culture continues to grow. We’re amazed at their warm family bonds, their passionate work ethic, their exuberant generosity, and of course, the incredible food! Some of our neighbors live with economic hardship, and yet their simple joy and giving hearts inspire us. We have seen that many of the moms in these homes speak very little English. They’d love to communicate better with their children’s teachers, understand the computer more fully, and have a more confident grasp of the language, but there are obstacles; inconsistent ESL classes, limited childcare, lack of transportation, and intimidating environments. This scenario sets up an incredible need and a powerful way to be a blessing. We have a profound opportunity to share ourselves in the simplest way possible; sharing our English! It’s really that easy. Do you speak English? You can join in! Along with our community partners, we’ve developed a weekly curriculum that any English speaker can use to facilitate a fun, casual, English class which builds relationships, embodies God’s call to care for others, and impacts the life of a parent, potentially shaping the course of their family for generations to come. On one of our first “Share Your English” nights, we had almost 10 adults (and a battalion of kids) come over to the house. We set up different seating areas, told them to imagine themselves in a restaurant, and had them sit at each table depending on English proficiency. We then went around the tables as “waiters”, taking their “orders” and guiding them through conversational English according to their skill levels. It was a blast! All the while, the children were finding places to run and play in the background. Another time, we had a couple older Hispanic moms practicing English by telling my friend and I (two six foot-plus white guys) how to clean a kitchen. They bossed us around with glee and lots of laughter…and they gained some valuable life skills, too! Our Spanish speaking friends have been blessed and cared for by this effort in profound ways, and so have we. It’s been such a hit for all of us. A request has been made for a class each week, but our small leadership team can only host one night a month. In order to pull off a weekly gathering, we’d need three more teams to come forward and help in the effort. Would you and a few of your friends be willing to give one night a month toward this Kingdom cause? You don’t need to speak Spanish, and you don’t need to be a trained ESL teacher to jump in. We’ll equip you, walk you through the curriculum, set up the venue, time, and location, and in no time you’ll be experiencing the joy of generosity, making new friends, and joining a brand new dance that you’ve already known the steps to all along; sharing your English! To help out, contact Heidi or myself… Justin Fox / jfox@rockharbor.org /...
read moreThanks to my friends across the pond for this kind review. I knew my UK connections would pay off at some point… ...
read moreAs my family and I dove into the ROCKHARBOR community five years ago, we were struck by a risky dependence on God. It was electrifying to rally around “giving ourselves away” and the wave of missional service as thousands stepped into the first “Go” campaign. The weekend we cancelled services for Serve Day was a time I’ll never forget; my kids actually washed windows in a trailer park! Although our outreach efforts of late have not been quite as high-profile as things like The GO Campaign, our posture as a church has not changed. We are still a faith community marked by gutsy dependence, risky generosity, and radical service. One of the ways our church has continued to press into this posture is by creating the new volunteer position of “City Pastor”. What is a City Pastor, you ask? It’s a journey in process, but the main idea behind it is to seek out, create, and participate in mission endeavors within the city, and to invite our church community into the action. The big question City Pastors are asking is; if ROCKHARBOR were to end today – if we were to close our doors and shut down, would the cities of Costa Mesa, Laguna Hills, Fullerton, or Huntington Beach miss us? Sure, a couple thousand church goers might be disappointed, but would the city miss us? Would the public schools miss us? Would our civic leaders, immigrant families, homeless population, at-risk teens, or neighborhood children really miss us? This is a haunting question, and one we continue to wrestle with… There are a few other local churches that have aslo felt a similar call. And we began talks about what it would look like to be involved more in our cities. Two weeks after I officially started as Costa Mesa City Pastor we were called into action. As many of you know, a Costa Mesa city worker committed suicide after learning he was going to be one of hundreds to be laid off. We responded with a network of churches for crisis care, a city-wide prayer gathering encircling City Hall, and a memorial service followed by a hospitality area for prayer, refreshments, and a listening ear…all on city grounds. Something started that day, and the ripples of it are still being felt at the civic level in many ways as the relationships built continue to grow. A month later, another tragedy struck; a student at Costa Mesa High took his own life. He was a well-liked sophomore on the volleyball team. As the school community reeled in shock, we had another invitation to respond with many pastors on site for prayer and counseling, and I was able to sit down for an hour with his team as a mentor, chaplain, and friend – quite a change from when, just a few weeks ago, I was told no pastors would ever be allowed on campus. In the midst of pain and brokenness, God is moving in this city. As a church, we now have invitations from this school and several others, the city council, and MIKA Community Development to invest in relationships like never before. Beyond a summer service project or a single mission trip, this is our chance to begin making a sustainable, deep, long-term impact in Costa Mesa. There is a dynamic balance in giving...
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