Q Crashing

So I'm super excited.  I love when God sends people here to Eugene to join us on our journey.  Sometimes it's for a week and sometimes a year and sometimes longer.  Hence the Emanuels.  Me and Erik began talking years ago about being involved in church planting together and now it's happening.  So here is the back story. Erick was on staff at Lifepoint, a church I was one of the plant pastors at.  We dreamed about church plants (especially in Ireland) for months.  I came out to Eugene to start planning and implementing The Crash idea.  He saved up money, found a job, and came out a year later. Nutshell. With what has been going on with The Crash and the planting of The Beautiful Mess this has been such a blessing.  This is the first family other than us who have made the jump into The Crash.  They bring so much gifting and passion to the table.  I can't wait to see how God is going to use them here in Eugene.  Just this m...

So I should start by saying how much I've missed my family this last two weeks.  I cannot wait to see them tomorrow.  Can't wait to hold my wife and girls and laugh together.  It's been tough without them, but I pray that the memories my kids make with family in Alabama will be the stuff of legends and that one day their stories will be laced with the summer experiences. In the mean time I've really tried to seek God out on what is happening and how and when and where and all that good stuff.  I really just wanted to ask God to make things clear to me.  He used some amazing people during my time alone to do that.  Erik Emmanuel came to visit and just talking through all the thoughts in my head and remembering the desire to really step out on a limb for God was so refreshing.  It made me realize the necessity of faith in all of this.  It helped me understand that it's not about the product, but the process.  The watching God do it all. ...

This last Sunday, The Beautiful Mess gave out free movie tickets for it's service project.  We wanted to offer a way for families to enjoy some time together and hang out.  So we rented out the theater showing the Lorax at the Gateway Mall.  It was a packed crowd and awesome time as we got to love on people who we had sometimes never met. Here is a couple of cool stories. 1.  I got a call the next day from a lady who is living with her kids and boyfriend by the river here in our city of Eugene.  She wanted to know what else we were doing and where we were doing it at.  The conversation ended with her planning on coming and hanging out with us this next Sunday.  Praise God.  I can't wait to get to know her. 2.  A guy who had been staying at the mission was given the opportunity to invite his family to come to the movie with him.  Even though he has no where for his kids to stay with him, his ex and kids and aunt came and watc...

Things have been going great with The Beautiful Mess.  God is putting something together that we could only have dreamed of.  It is amazing to watch people from all walks of life coming together and serving and sharing the gospel.  So here is the summer schedule.  June 10: 5pm Gathering 7pm Basketball tournament June 17: 5pm Gathering 7pm Free movie tickets at the Gateway Mall June 24: 5pm Gathering 6pm Potluck Dinner in the basement July 1: 5pm Gathering 7pm Open Mic Night July 8: 5pm Gathering 7pm Basketball tournament July15: 5pm Gathering 7pm Bike Rally.  Give away 100 kid's bikes. July 22: 5pm Gathering 7pm Potluck Dinner in the basement. July 29: 5pm Gathering August 5: 5pm Gathering 7pm Open Mic Night August 12: 5pm Gathering 7pm Basketball tournament August 19: 5pm Gathering 7pm Worlds Largest Water balloon fight August 26: 5pm Gathering 7pm Potluck Dinner in the basement Wow. Full summer and it's going to be so much fun watching God do w...

Wow this was so much fun.  Let me explain.  This last Sunday night the Beautiful Mess decided that our church gathering should look like a basketball tournament for the night.  In my Easter post I talked about spending some time with guys down under the bridge playing basketball.  Since that time I have been wanting to serve those guys and build some relationship.  So we met them where they are at.  We went to the bridge and put on a basketball tournament. The totals for the night were staggering.  We gave out over 300 hotdogs, 6 cases of water, a bunch of cupcakes, and one ziplock bag of dog food.  There was over 200 people who came and watched, participated, served, or ate.  The tournament went off without a hitch and no fights broke out. These are the totals, but not the wins.  The win is that we connected with these folks.  We were giving each other high fives.  We were telling jokes to each other.  Guys were ge...

Something I've said for most my life is that God has an amazing sense of humor.  There have been these crazy incidents in life that make me think, "God, you were watching that weren't you.  And I be you were laughing your butt off."  For instance, once time I had a paycheck fly out the window and so I turned around and walked to where I thought it might be.  I spent the next 2 hours walking long stretches of highway in hopes of finding the check.  After my happy hunting I returned to my car to find the check lying right by my front tire.  "You got me good there God." Now I know God didn't really tune into the Quinton comedy hour, but it felt like it.  Here is the latest episode in my life.  Yep.  We got a new baby on the way.  So here is the humor.  Not planned.  It took us a year to get pregnant with December and we were trying every pregnancy trick in the book.  And now, unexpectedly God throws us the big curve bal...

So I was sitting around with the leaders of the Beautiful Mess two weeks ago and we were praying and dreaming about what we could do to really reach out to our community and at the same time enrich community among the people attending.  The Big Dreamer (Ethan) said what about an open mic night.  I thought sure, why not.  But in my head I didn't really see this working. Boy was I wrong.  People shared poetry, life stories, and songs.  They opened themselves up and were transparent about life and art and God.  This last week was our rough run through and it was so amazingly beautiful.  We are going to begin doing this the first Sunday of every month.  We go live in June.  So whatever ever talent you have to share please come.  We got free coffee, free dessert, free mic, and we will show love.  Jesus love will pour through our relationships and we will tell of His Gospel.  I'm excited. Contributors and leaders at the ...

This weekend The Beautiful Mess is got together to clean up the homes, streets, and businesses around our area.  We just want to love on people in Christ name.  One way to do that is help them get rid of all the junk from the winter that falls out of trees and gets broken around the home.  We had around 50 people show up to just love our neighbors.  We did everything from cutting trees, hauling brush, mowing yards, loading up old beds, and cleaning up behind businesses.  We then invited people back to have dinner with us.  It was great.  Around twenty people from local homes and off the street came and ate with the 50 from the Beautiful Mess.  It was the church at it's best.  Loving and serving and talking about Jesus.  We had a blast.  Glory to God. Luis cleaning up for a business owner whose father just recently died. Relaxing after all the work was done. Ethan, well, being Ethan.  Love this guy.

So I think this Easter was the most unique and amazing Easter experience I have been a part of.  Let me preface by saying this is not an attack on the conventional methods of Easter outreach, in fact I think they are very effective as evident by the 1,000's of people who came to know Christ throughout this country during Easter gatherings.  I just experienced a paradigm shift that had a massive effect on me.  So here is how my Easter played out. The family woke up and our youngest daughter was super snotty.  The green snot.  The kind that you don't take into to confined spaces with other kids because it spreads like wildfire.  So Audge took December to church at UFC and I stayed home with Journey.  It felt odd to be staying home.  I think it was the first Sunday morning in my life that I didn't attend church.  So what me and Journey did was crank up some worship music and we danced.  I think it may have been the most appropriate...