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. ...

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...

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...

So here we are.  14 months into this journey with Jesus in Eugene Oregon and we are looking at a church plant (of sorts) starting up.  (So I know your asking "Why the of sorts?")  Because we are going to be more a missional outpost than church in the beginning.  We believe that if we can go in to the most unreached area of Eugene and show Jesus's love radically and relentlessly then he will be glorified.  Through that then a church just might be birthed.  If so we will continue to love, teach, serve, and worship with the people journeying with Jesus. The rundown is as follows.  We are meeting on Sunday evenings from 5 to 7 for the next few months with just the ministry team that is committing to The Beautiful Mess.  We will pray and begin to dream together about how we can be on mission this summer in and around the Whitaker Neighborhood and west downtown.  We will also take care of logistic needs, such as website, artwork for fliers, a...

So here we are.  A little over a year into the journey here in Eugene and it feels like we are on the cusp of something awesome.  Tonight I am meeting with a group of trustees from a church that may let us use their building on Sunday nights to begin the church plant called The Beautiful Mess.  Our team here on the ground is looking to partner with a couple of amazing men who have been doing ministry in this area for quite some time.  The partnership would look like a group of people setting up a mission outpost in the middle of the most unbelieving are of Eugene, The Whittaker District.  The guys are Ethan Hollub and you can check out stuff he is doing here .  He has been an associate pastor and missionary in several countries.  More than anything he has a heart to see the Gospel change Eugene.  The other guy is Ken Harvey.  Ken is currently the director of Hosea Youth Services which works with homeless youth.  He was also a youth mini...

So this is going to be a bit informational.  The last half of 2011 we started working with a church called The Shift in Albany, OR.  This is the church that Neal McKinney, one of the founding pastors from Lifepoint, moved to plant a church with Brad Duncan.  These names may not mean a whole lot to you, but I'm getting to the point. We began talking about Neal moving down to Eugene and pastoring the plant that the Crash would be partnering with here in Eugene.  As some of you know, Neal's youngest son Knox has major heart issues and at this point is having to look at the possibility of a heart transplant.  Needless to say, Eugene is not part of the equation and rightfully so.  The McKinney's are now fighting for their son and doing all they can to be good parents and protectors of their kids.  I'm so proud of how they have handled all this. Where does that leave the Crash.  To be honest, I'm not sure.  We are all still minstering here in E...