To our friends and family.

Thank you so much for all of your support, your prayers, and your encouragement. Many of you recently received letters in the mail explaining the direction of Red Door and how you can partner with us as we move into the future. Your involvement will be a huge part of the success of Red Door as we make our way through these early days. I wanted to drop this note in here to welcome some of you to the 610 site for the very first time. This is the place where we will be posting news and updates about the church plant as we progress and the best way for you to get informed and get involved. Below are a few key notes explaining some of the stuff you will find here on the site…

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Beauty from Ashes

Have you ever let the words of Isaiah 61 fall over you, rushing in to the point of realizing the “me” is “you”? We carry a message - the good news - that God is taking these ashes we sit in so often and turning it into beauty.

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes…

So the real question for us is…
What can we make beautiful today?

Our Location

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After a lot of praying, talking, and debating we have settled in on an area of Cincinnati we believe God is pulling us towards. We will be located in the Sycamore School District in the northeast side of Cincinnati. This location will give us access to i275, i71, i75, 42, and 22-3 putting us at a crossroads of several major roadways in the area. Which means a 20-minute drive can carry our influence great distances.

Please pray for us and our role within the Kingdom in this area of Cincinnati. Pray for our relationship with the school district and the community as we begin to make connections. Pray for the people we will meet and for their families to begin to know the beautiful love of Jesus Christ.

A New Friend… An Old Friend.

The new friend is Brooke Carter. I met Brooke while in Mexico this past week for the first time. She is serving as a missionary with MITC sharing the love of Jesus however she can. The old friend is Kelsey Skaggs. Kelsey led worship for our team in Mexico. I have to admit I didn’t truly understood “God of this City” until I heard Kelsey sing it in Spanish this week. Wow. You’ll have to try it sometime to understand. Anyways, Brooke posted a blog about how God just collided with her while Kelsey was leading worship in Vega Del Sol. Definitely worth a read.
And Kelsey Sang… [via Brooke Carter]

Why Go?

Spending a week in Mexico at the MITC was a great time to step back from all of the planning and thinking of Red Door. I was reminded of how simple ministry can be as I watched so much done with so little. But mostly my thoughts drifted towards why we go overseas for mission work at all…We are no less “on mission” when we are at work, at school, or at our kid’s soccer game than if we go to Mexico. In fact, we would probably all agree our primary mission field is our work or our school which only begs the question… why go?

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Mexico

I am leaving for Mexico in just a few hours. There is so much that has happened over the last few weeks it is amazing. And now I am leaving the country for a week of mission in Cordoba, Mexico. I am going with a team from my home church (Springboro Baptist Church) to the Mexican Indian Training Center. The MITC is a seminary for Mexican Indian students to spend four years learning and growing in Christ, and then leave to plant churches across Mexico as well as a few in the United States. Check it out for more info. I will be posting a few tweets when I am down there and get some good wifi - to expensive to post over the cell networks. Stay tuned for some updates when I get back about the trip to MITC and some updates on Red Door.

I got a job!

I got a job! God has provided in such an amazing way with a job here in Cincinnati - well, Blue Ash to be exact. So here’s the story…

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