Where Will the Lord Lead?
Jeff Smalley is into "advancing His kingdom" in Buffalo, NY.
Our weekend in Buffalo is gonna be a blast! What is the Lord up to? Whatever it is, it has something to do with advancing His kingdom into the pagan world, and I’m all for that!
I think our upcoming visit to Buffalo is gonna be a vision of what lies ahead. We’re having a retreat at the University of Buffalo covering “The Beatitudes”, which describes what real “happiness” is all about, which is badly-needed at secular universities. (Nobody can teach about happiness like Jesus can!)
For a while now the Lord has been revealing some open doors for a possible church plant at the University of Buffalo through the Swearingens. They are powerful allies of Xenos and old friends of the McCallums, and they came to Buffalo, NY to help inner-city kids. They immediately started a Bible study of folks their age, and they want to see more planted.
Pagan Christians can howl like the best-of-pagans on NY Eve, but without the hangover.
On New Years we visited the Swearingens at Buffalo, and it was a blast! We did take a few hits in our wallets with vandalized cars and stolen merchandise, but did that dampen these driven college students? HELL NO! After patching our shattered car windows in the pouring rain, we enjoyed great fellowship with the Swearingens as they fed us a hearty, New Year’s Day meal.
Some Buffalo Background
After Buffalo we regrouped at our Winter retreat and gained a powerful vision of how the Lord is working in our ministry by reaching pagans! The church was not designed to form “Holy Huddles” and large institutions. Rather, Jesus said it’s like tiny mustard seeds spreading everywhere, with thousands of small plants! It grows so much different than the Kosmos, which builds powerful institutions that easily replace God’s leadership. Anyway, the winter retreat was a powerful insight of God’s plan for our ministry, and we left pumped and ready to plant new churches in the near future!
We started Spring semester pumped and strengthened, and oh boy, what a powerful and victorious semester it was! We grew to a good 40-50 “Pagan Christians” and split into two home churches, then grew to almost 60 “Pagan Christians”!! We saw so many exciting salvations this semester alone! The Identity Project is enjoying serious victory bringing life to the dead by the Holy Spirit! What a privilege it is to experience such serious joy!
'Pagan Christians' gather at the original Buffalo Wings restaurant. "These peeps are serious about their love for Christ!"
Of course, it hasn’t always been an easy ride dealing with lives emerging from the fallenness and evil that reigns in this world system. Dealing with pagans ain’t easy, but man they are so much more energizing and fun than fundies like myself!!! At the end of the semester, some of our new-found brothers and sisters in Christ went home for the summer in tears! How sweet and joyous it is to see dirty and broken pagans get transformed into open and loving Pagan Christians through our common relationship with Jesus Christ. These peeps are serious about their love for Christ and their love for each other.
I’m so grateful that Lord even put me here! It’s by his grace alone, because no selfish guy like myself could have ever deserved a more loving Body of Christ.
So now we come to Buffalo again on a summer retreat, and see what the Lord has in store for our ministry. What does the Lord have up His sleeve? Check back next week for a blog about what the Lord has revealed!! (Oh, and bring a beer too, because I’ll be 21!!!)
Sourced from: Smalley’s Blog
