This is what our weekly Friday AM Discussions will look like for the foreseeable future. Upside, we are seeing new attendees, both local and from farther afield!

This newsletter was looking very different a few weeks ago, and then the threat of a pandemic arrived. One of our Cru international leaders recently recounted a quote from the boxer Mike Tyson, “Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face.” We all had plans. “Normal” and “routine” reigned in our lives. Then the new Coronavirus punched us all in the face.

If you are like us, the “novelty” of the situation is quickly wearing thin as “social distancing” becomes the new normal. We still have our worries, we still have our responsibilities, and now we are facing a very real and mortal threat to ourselves and those we care about.

We are praying for you, and for those in our community. God’s authority still exists. His Kingdom is still advancing, though in a very different way than we had imagined. For us, this means that we are hosting many ZOOM events—including our weekly staff meeting and AM Discussion Group meeting, drawing nites and BYOP (Bring your own project), even a movie night for college students—all online.

My mind turns to some of my favorite—though difficult—chapters in the Bible, the last chapters of Job. I find solace in Job‘s experience for two reasons. One, God allowed him to lament, and cry out. We should not be silent about how we are doing, especially when talking to God. “Lament,” as NT Wright wrote recently in a Time Magazine article, “is what happens when people ask, ‘Why?’ and don’t get an answer.”

Which leads to my second reason. I find solace in Job because it makes me have to live with God being God. Job cried out to God, and God replied ‘I am God’ and that is why Job went through what he did. Wouldn’t you much rather go through something like this knowing God is our God, our Father, the provider of the Savior of the world rather than floating in a chaos of unmoored purpose?

We have started making Kirk‘s lectures and sermons available in a podcast entitled “Bird and Key“. A few Sundays ago, Kirk delivered a message about God‘s sovereignty when facing difficulty. The main text for this particular message is from Joshua 7–8:1-29 and it‘s part of a series at our church called “Be Strong and Courageous”. We welcome you to check that out and we pray that for you our friends and family right now.

Blessings-