It's the school we meet at giving us an award for being the outstanding community partner for their family of schools and having deans of other schools in that tribe asking if we could get churches like ours to meet in their spaces as well because they have been so encouraged by the partnership.
It's that school partnering with us to provide 4 beds/bedding sets for a family whose kids were sleeping on the floor.
It's packing and sending tens of thousands of meals to those in need in Columbus, Central Ohio and the ends of the earth.
It's the 50 people who have been baptized. And the number of people who have been baptized at C3 then investing in others and baptizing them at C3.
It's the dozens of people who have been huddled and the number of huddles being started.
It's a group serving home cooked meals to women coming out of the sex industry and hearing one of the women exclaim that her view of men was changing because of the guys who were showing up to serve them food.
It's 5 families broadening their understanding of family to go after foster/adoption.
It's a missional community partnering with a foster/adoption agency to provide care and support for foster parents so that they stay in the fight.
It's a missional community building relational capital with an organization to the point that they are ready to trust that MC to pioneer a crucial missing component of the organization to care for and support families with terminal or chronically ill children.
It's a missional community forming a partnership to help single mothers go from surviving to thriving.
It's a missional community serving and praying with our city's poor and in need and being present to help a free store meet the needs of the most vulnerable in the city.
It's also the miracle of a little girl who is supposed to be dead but a heart of stone became a heart of flesh.
This is church. It is a grind. It is slow-going. It is helping the disenfranchised and jaded find a place in the story God is telling.
But it is only the first part of the vision.
The dream has always been Columbus AND the ten largest university contexts in the country. It has always been to get the DNA right in the 614 AND take it to other areas of the country to replicate it and reach a generation that is widely reported as leaving the church and the faith in droves.
Enter these guys.
In two weeks, we commission the two guys who have been shoulder to shoulder with me in helping build C3 to go with their families and team from Columbus to plant Ampersand Church, with a desire to Love God & Love their neighbors in Austin, Texas. Austin is the fasting growing metropolitan area in the country and the city can't plant churches fast enough to keep up with the considerable growth. It's a fascinating intersection of innovation, technology, art and music and is self-proclaimed as WEIRD.
And what has been started in Columbus, will continue in Austin.
The guts it takes to go across the country, away from family and support systems to chase after what God is calling them to do is awesome.
The miracles along the way have been tangible. The provision remarkable. The obstacles noticeable. The calling undeniable.
And on June 4, Dennis, Trish, Lianna, Braylen, Mia and Ian Burky will be sent out with Noel and Sophia Arroyo and be joined by key C3 people, Dillon Limbaugh and Christy Andrews to give it a go. We would love for you to join us in sending them off. We will have a commissioning service that day at 11 a.m. and then we will have a picnic celebration together, with a variety of smoked meats and non-meat options, a potluck of sides and desserts, inflatables and fun to send these guys off well.
God's grace has been all over the story of City Campus Church and I'm asking you to join me in praying for His continued grace to be poured out for this team of heroes.
The Burky Family is trying to raise funds to pay for the move. Apparently, moving a family of 6 across the country isn't free. They are selling miles to get from Columbus to Austin. So far they have made it past Little Rock, Arkansas, so they are on the home stretch. Would you help them get there?
Go here and buy a mile. They cost $5 each. Buy 20, or 50 or 100 miles and get them closer and closer to their new home.
The best part is that as God begins to grow the church from the ground up in Austin and while C3 begins the reload process in Columbus, we are already both looking toward the next steps in this story, as we will both begin investing financially and looking for the next church planting residents who will be raised up and sent out to plant the third and fourth churches in this story. Whether its at Arizona State or Michigan or in the Boston metro or somewhere else, the story will continue to unfold.
It will be Columbus & Austin & so much more!
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