Chapel Hill Team

Felicia and I spent the weekend in Manhattan, KS, at the Cats for Christ (Kansas State University) reunion. We had a great weekend, and it was a great blessing for us. We had the chance to visit, worship, and pray with dear friends from Cats for Christ and the Manhattan Church of Christ, where we spent nine years working in campus ministry.

I could not be prouder of seeing how much our students have grown spiritually and to hear about how God is working in their lives. It was awesome to get to hold the babies and play with the children (of course!), and we thank God for the opportunity we had to share deeply in each others’ lives.

I also praise God for the blessings of the Manhattan church. It’s hard to describe the blessings of being a part of such a church for nine years – as we look back, we think of weddings, births, and funerals; vacation Bible schools, those who taught our kids in Bible class, baptisms, many potluck meals and small group Bible studies, road trips, softball games, the list could go on forever. It was so good to be back together – there just wasn’t enough time and there weren’t enough hugs!

As we live through the challenges of helping birth a church from scratch, the whole weekend felt very affirming. It reminded me how much bigger this is than I am – that there are people praying for us all the time, people who love us and believe in God at work through us.

It also reminded me that, decades ago, some faithful Christians laid a foundation in Manhattan that I was blessed to build on – and I pray that years from now, a young campus minister will wonder who laid the foundation years ago that he is building on in Chapel Hill.

I love you deeply, my dear friends in and from Kansas! You’ve helped make me the person I am today, and your ministries continues here in North Carolina.

Peace,
Matt

Hi, Friends,

It’s been a crazy month as summer has ended and the fall has begun. Our Alpha Course is up and running. We haven’t gotten the participation we were hoping and praying for, and we’re still working to bring in guests, so please keep the Alpha Course in your prayers.

This has been a very difficult year for fund-raising. We’re so grateful to all of you who have been so generous. We’ve had a significant shortfall for the year, and I’ve been working outside the church to make ends meet.

As of the beginning of September, I’m working at the Caribou Coffee near my house. It’s been a good experience so far – I’m enjoying my co-workers and I’ve learned a ton about coffee. I’m also having the opportunity to meet a lot of folks who are regulars. Caribou is a neat company. They are trying to build community in the coffee shop and our store is working to set a standard for green Caribou’s, so we get to experiment with being more eco-friendly.

I’m also working on a few web sites. Here is a site that we launched last week: Ohoopee River Plantation

. Web design pays better than coffee shops! If you know of other web sites in need of design/management, let me know.

I have published a book, Is Jesus Green?, now available for purchase through Create Space. Click to check it out on their site. We’ll be up on Amazon.com soon. This book is suitable for small group studies or personal study about the topic of Christianity and environmentalism.

Obviously, these outside efforts take away from my time allotment for the church, so it’s not ideal, but we came here willing to do whatever it takes to plant a church here, and that’s what we’ll do!

Thanks for your on-going prayer. May God bless you as well.

Peace,
Matt

The last couple of days, Chapel Hill has been coming back to life. Lots of freshmen arriving with their families. Lots of upperclassman returning. The streets are filling back up, the busses are back to full schedule. It’s time for school to start back at UNC! I love living and ministering in a college town!

I love the rhythm of life here. I love the eagerness to embrace life. I love the academic setting, being surrounded by intelligent, questioning people along with the resources to seek answers to those questions. I love college athletics. I love the “aha!” moments when I see young people begin to make decisions based on faith matters that are coming clear in their minds for the first time.

Please pray for us at The Well and Carolina for Christ campus ministry as we work to share our faith on our campus. Pray that we would meet new Christian students who want to get on board and serve with us. Pray that we would meet students who aren’t yet Christians, but will be Christians in the next few weeks and months. Pray that this semester will be life changing for our campus ministry, our campus, our church, and our city.

It seems like just the start of another academic year. Pray that it won’t be.

Peace,
Matt

Since we’ve been looking at the Alpha Course, we’ve become more convinced that it can be a helpful tool for us to reach our community. I’ve talked with several churches, both established and new church plants, about their use of Alpha. I attended a “Taste of Alpha” event in Apex (near Raleigh), where I met the Regional Director for the Southeastern US and some folks who do Alpha in a big way in Apex. These folks have bent over backward to help us think through our decision and to provide all the support we can ask for. We’re really impressed with their support – in fact, the regional director, Jenny Noyes, actually came to The Well on Sunday to talk with our congregation about Alpha.

Felicia and I are planning to attend a training workshop near the end of the month, and some of our other folks are hoping to attend another session at the first of the month.

Alpha isn’t a magic bullet that will automatically bring people in, but it’s a good tool that we can use to help our members share their faith with the people in their lives. We’ll let you know how it goes!

Peace,
Matt

It’s been a sad week at The Well as we prepare to send off Cam and Liz Spencer. Sunday was their last Sunday at The Well, and we packed the truck today (Friday) and they hit the road, moving back to the Oklahoma City area. As they prepare for the birth of their child, they are taking our love and prayers with them. They have had a great influence on us as a church, and have helped shaped us as a community. Liz has been instrumental in beginning and leading our children’s ministry, and Cam has worked hard in campus ministry and in worship ministry. We love you and we’ll miss you, Cam and Liz.

Here’s one last photo of some of the helpers from loading the truck.

No one can take Cam or Liz’s place. Please pray for us that God will send folks to us who can help fill some of their roles and help us grow as a community.

Peace,

Matt

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At the Pepperdine University Bible Lectures, I went to a class by Fred Gray, “Bus Ride to Justice”.  Fred Gray was the lawyer for Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., and one of the architects of the Civil Rights Movement. I knew this, but what I didn’t know was that he began as a preacher in the church of Christ.  While on a campaign, he became distressed at how African-Americans were being treated on public transportation, and decided to become a lawyer and put an end to segregation – and that’s what he did.  It was an honor to sit in his class and shake his hand.

(photo taken with my phone, sorry for the poor quality)

One thing that he said that has been haunting me since was that he “used the system to change the system”.  In other words, he became a lawyer and used the law to change the law.  He forced the law to live up to what it claimed from the beginning “equal access to the law for everyone”.  This has made me ponder the idea of using the Bible to help change the church; to help the church live up to what we say we are anyway – God’s kingdom on earth.

What does that look like?  I don’t know.  What do you think?

Anyhow, they didn’t bring enough copies of the book to Pepperdine, so I’m waiting to get my copy.  I’ll let you know more when I read it.

Peace,

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