A Big Change on the Horizon for the Nielsens

Most of you know that I live in Albuquerque, NM. I love the ABQ. Great people, great weather (understatement), great school for our kids, and I work for a great church.

I love the Church. I believe in the Church. I long to see God’s people mobilized to pursue the call to love and serve for the glory of God and the joy of all peoples. In March, we were approached by some dear friends, Scott and Carrie Sterner, about potentially starting a new gospel community in Madison, WI. By faith, we believe that this is what God has for us.

So...

At the end of May, 2010, (11 months from now) my family and I will be moving to Madison, WI to plant a church with the Sterners. We are very excited for this new phase in our life. From what we have learned, spiritually speaking, Madison is a challenging city, but we know that God desires for his gospel to go to those places that are most dark. We go with a sober confidence in Him going before us.

It’s ironic that I have found myself saying the following quite a bit in the past: “I’ll never be a church planter, seems like the hardest job in the world.” But then again, when I was first approached about moving to New Mexico to take the job I currently have, I said, “It would take God parting the Red Sea of our lives to get us to move to New Mexico.” Well, he did just that and it looks like He is doing it again. In the last few months, I have had numerous confirming experiences that seem to point to the fact that we are called to this, so we move forward by faith.

We have much planning and praying ahead of us in the next year and beyond.

How can you help?

• Know anyone who loves Jesus in Madison, WI? We would love to connect with them.
• Pray for us. For... the glory of God to spread in Madison, the right leaders, the maintenance of relationships, the money we need, the endurance we need, the stability of our families.
• Have church planting experience? I would love to hear from you. Advice, what not to do, what to do, what you have learned along the way, etc. (zachnielsen7ATgmailDOTcom)
• Keep buying all your Amazon.com products through my blog. All you have to do is go to this site and then click on any of the 125x125 banner ads in the top right and then just search for whatever you want. That’s it. You can buy almost anything now on Amazon. Would you be willing to check their price first by clicking through my site? It would be a huge help to support our church planting effort. Up until now we have been using these proceeds to support our adoption and the adoption fund at our church. This will change soon since our adoption has been paid for and our adoption fund at DSC is well off the ground now. We are already beginning to brainstorm creative ways to generate income and the Amazon Associate program is one of those ways.
• If you feel called to write a phat check that would be cool too. We have a total of nine kids between the two families, so we are trusting God for his provision through his people. Right now we are planning to be bi-vocational for a season, but we will need additional support as well.

I’m sure there will be many more posts in the future discussing what is going through my head as it pertains to church planting so this will probably just be the first in a long line of reflections upon this topic. Thanks to all of you who keep takin’ your Vitamin Z!