Hello from the Monochurch Team.
Jesus gave us our mission statement in Matthew 28:19 in The Great Commission. He says “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” That’s the whole job. The upside of that commission is that it’s very effective. Billions of people have experienced life change through it. The downside is that it’s pretty hard to do. It’s a massive task. This video is about how we are trying to put all of our energy and resources at Monochurch directly into accomplishing the Great Commission.
If you’ve been on our prayer team or our email list for a while, you know I usually start with what I’ve been thinking about. Those topics have become blogs. If you are new, you can read the previous letters (which are now blogs) here.
- We are praying for the ground to shake
- My first time experiencing desperate prayer
- This feels like following a pillar of fire through the desert
- The Great Commission is like a sandwich
So, read the blogs above if you want to know what I’ve been thinking. And now I’ll jump straight to updates and prayer requests.
UPDATES
Here’s the headline for September: 5 baptisms and 5 cities! We did not expect this but the church is launching this month with 7 House Churches in 5 cities. If you want to see the locations, check out our new website here: mono.church
The first thing we ever did as a church at Monochurch is pray through Luke 10. We have spent the past nine months learning how to plant house churches from our ministry partners in India (their ministry is called Ignite). During one of the training sessions, they told us that the first thing they do when they go into a new city is pray through Luke 10. I was very familiar with that idea because when I worked at Cross & Crown Church in Seattle, we all had a daily alarm set for 10:02am which would remind us to pray Luke 10:2. We’d take a moment and pray for “more laborers for the harvest.” But the way Josh Howard at Ignite explained it was a little different. He said, we go into a city, and we pray for a person of peace to cross our path. If we reach that person, that person will reach the city.
Take a moment and read Luke 10:1-12. Here is part of it. Verses 5-6
“Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’ And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him…”
In Luke 10, Jesus tells us how that could work and it’s much like what our brothers and sisters in India have experienced. So we took Josh’s advice and Jesus’ advice and started praying for people of peace in the cities where our House Churches were currently located. At the time that was Seattle, Dallas, Nashville, and Phoenix. Then interesting people started to cross our paths. Since then we’ve met TV stars and film directors and…the guy who runs Coachella?!, and other people who I thought could be “people of peace.” It seemed like God was answering our prayers.
But here’s what I didn’t realize until last week. Last week, I was in Seattle officiating a wedding and I got a call from Chae Choi who is leading a House Church in Phoenix. He was calling to tell me that another family was going to help with the church there. Then it hit me. I flipped to Luke 10 in the bible I had just used at the wedding. Luke 10 is also the story where Jesus is sending the disciples out in PAIRs! “Two by two!”
What God had done was plant pairs of families in each of the cities. First in Nashville, then in Seattle, then Dallas, then finally in Phoenix. My mind was blown that we had been praying for one part of the Luke 10 story to happen, but God had answered the prayer by saying, you guys are missing the part about being sent out in pairs, but I’m going to go ahead and make that happen too. Wow.
PRAYER REQUESTS
1 – For a second leader in Savannah GA (a pair)
You might be saying, Cam can’t do math. Or maybe he’s on this whole “new math” thing since his kids are in elementary school. Monochurch is launching in five cities. Not four. Since that story above, a family in Savannah, GA has decided to start a House Church. They don’t have a Luke 10 style pair yet. So let’s pray for that together. God has answered that prayer four times so far. I’m excited to see how he answers it a fifth time. I’m gonna send out another email as soon as that happens. Even if it’s tomorrow!
2 – For our House Church Leaders
Pray for our House Church Leaders. They have done a lot of training and a lot of praying. And now they are opening their doors. I’m gonna take this chance to share with you the vision statement at Monochurch. If you’ve read this far, thank you. This is our big dream:
To create an open door into Jesus’ church for every non-Christian in America.
That is what we’re trying to accomplish by planting these House Churches. Pray that we get to see it. I think God is doing something huge in our country. Think about how cool this opportunity is: The front door of the church could be the front door of your house.
3 – For God’s Financial Provision
Since things are moving faster than we expected, we are about to embark on a giving campaign where we try to raise all of the funds for the first 3 years at Monochurch. We are already a third of the way towards that goal!! More on that soon. Our plan is to be self-sustaining by October 1, 2023. Pray that God would continue to provide in miraculous ways as he has already done many times.
Come on the Monochurch journey.
Since I just shared our vision statement, why not end with our mission statement. Our mission at Monochurch is to “Go Together.” Those 2 words are simply our paraphrase of Matt 28:19 where Jesus says, “Go and make disciples.” We are putting all of our energy and resources toward answering that call.
There are 4 ways that you can go with us:
There are 4 ways that you can go with us:
- Visit our church
- Start a house-church in your city
- Pray
- Give
If you’d like to do any of those, contact us here.
Love,
Cam