Zach & Shellie Maddox

The Way of Jesus

We’re Moving

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But we’re not going far…

On Sunday, April 10th, Shellie and I shared a message on what Jesus expects of His followers as a part of our series through the New Testament book of “Luke: Jesus in Action.” In that message, we shared, that we would be selling the large, foreclosed home we had just bought the year before.

If interested, you can watch the message here or locate it on iTunes on our Connection Point Church podcast.

In talking with one of our church members a few weeks after sharing that message, he referred to it as my “scary message:” the message where he thought we were resigning as lead pastors to return to the mission field.

I laughed, shared with him, as I had our whole congregation, that the rumors were true. Our family would be returning to the mission field. We would be selling our home to live more missionally in the greater Lafayette area. We would be moving, but we weren’t going far.

You see, Shellie and I love Jesus, love the local church and the lost. We love the community in which we live.

And our heart is deeply concerned that we, as the American church, have missed the mark for years in making disciples of all nations.

We’ve missed the mark in loving each other and our neighbors as Jesus loves us (John 13:34). We’ve missed the mark as church leaders to equip every believer to be a disciple maker (Ephesians 4:11-12). And so, knowing our family lives in the spotlight as lead pastors of a healthy and growing church, we have decided to sell our home and many of our possessions in order to live more simply. We are doing this because the Holy Spirit put it in Shellie’s and my hearts to do so as a way to model that extraordinary living is not tied to the home you live in, the neighbors you have, the car you drive, the retirement account you’ve acquired, the job you work or anything else this world can provide. As branches of the vine (last week’s article), Jesus wanted to lift us up and wash us off in this way.

Is there anything wrong with owning a nice home? Not necessarily. I appreciate where Paul shares, “I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little.”¹ Our family is happy to live however God sees fit.

And the Holy Spirit simply impressed upon us a desire to show how extraordinary living is directly linked to our ability to serve as everyday disciple makers of King Jesus and nothing else.

Extraordinary living is the life that Jesus promised (John 10:10), as we love God and others (Mark 12:30-31) by fulfilling the Great Commandment (Matthew 28:18-20); making disciples of all nations, teaching them to love King Jesus by obeying Him so they too can live extraordinary lives as everyday disciple makers.

While overseas, Shellie and I had opportunity to be a part of one of the largest church planting movements taking place in the Middle East. And we see how Jesus has been leading us back to the principles we saw in place when the Holy Spirit moved and took what was a dozen believers, causing them to become hundreds and then thousands of believers in the course of a year’s time. This movement has now become thousands of churches across several countries and we believe God wants to do the same across North America in the coming years.

In February 2020, we will be sharing a message series on “A Great Awakening” to share more fully what we see God doing in churches around the world and what we understand He desires to do in churches across North America. To prepare everyone for the content we will share in that series, we invite you to join us on the journey we have been on the past several decades to arrive at this point of convergence, for our family and the American church.

We will be writing weekly articles related to extraordinary living and how we all have been invited to participate in the work Jesus is doing in our world today.

As C.S. Lewis writes, “Aslan is on the move – perhaps has already landed.”²

Jesus is on the move in North America. I believe He has already landed and the question is, will we go with Jesus and be part of what He is doing or continue to pray and ask Him to only bless what we’d prefer to do?

I say, let’s go with Jesus.

We’d Love to hear from you!

In what ways have you found or not found following Jesus to be extraordinary? Share your comments below.

1 Philippians 4:11-13. New Living Translation.

2 Lewis, C.S. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Harper Collins e-books. pg. 71

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Comments

  1. I have been waiting for this for several decades. In the 1980s it was clear that we would reach a point where nothing men (both in government and in the church) could do would fix our culture. At that point G-D would move. There would be something that we have no seen in 2000 years. A spiritual revolution. That has come about NOW!

    It will have a spiritual Renaissance within the body of believers but to the greater community it will be a spiritual revolution. We will see the 1st century alive in the 21st.

    in 1906 everyone was saying that Christianity was finished. Then an old black man, blind in one eye, rented a former stables in California. That became the Azusa Street revival that birthed the Assemblies of God.

    We can see this happen here. It will not be our doing but G-D through us.

    • Thanks for your comment Greg. As I’ve been talking with others in our community, it seems many have been praying for decades for a move of God. And I believe that as we consecrate ourselves to Him (Joshua 3:5), God will do amazing things among us!