We’re In

Charles Kiser —  January 21, 2008 — 7 Comments

The move-in is complete. We worked for about six and a half hours on Saturday and got it all done. Let’s just say that moving to the city is much more complicated than moving to the suburbs, with freight elevators, parking garages and long hallways. But it’s done.

We had two great crews at both places. A couple of people, a brother and a South Mac shepherd, even joined us at both places.

My stomach jumps as I think about six years worth of dreaming, planning and praying finally coming to fruition.

Wow. We’re here. And the place is perfect, by the way. I’ll post pics when the unpacking is done.

Please, God, be as faithful to us in the next few years as you have in the last few.

In Family
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Go Time

Charles Kiser —  January 19, 2008 — Leave a comment

We give thanks to God for all of you who prayed for us in our decision about the housing options. We decided this morning not to wait on Apartment Life to hear back about which community it was. There were too many variables and uncertainties to keep us waiting, especially when we’ve found a place we really love and all the doors seem to be opening for us to move there.

So we’re moving.

My dad and I got the keys at lunch time and painted until dinner time. We’re getting a truck in the morning and we’ll have crews to help us load/unload at both places.

Needless to say, we’re stoked and feel a lot of peace about the decision. We can’t wait to get settled and post some pics of the new pad.

Until then, we’ll be up to our eyeballs in brown cardboard boxes.

In Family, Prayer
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Curve Balls

Charles Kiser —  January 17, 2008 — 2 Comments

Two things have consumed our time in the last couple weeks: 1) relationship building at South Mac Church; and 2) the logistics of moving to Uptown Dallas.

On the first front, we’ve enjoyed being back around the staff, elders and members of the South MacArthur Church of Christ, our primary partnering church. Grady King, the preaching minister, and I are in the midst of tag-team preaching in a series on prayer last weekend and this weekend. It’s been a blast doing sermon prep and preaching with Grady. I’m also working through a story-oriented evangelistic curriculum, which I helped to create, with a class of people on Wednesday nights. We’re also developing a support team of South Mac members who will pray for us, visit us occasionally, and serve as our relational liaisons to South Mac.

Our last day at South Mac is January 27. Ryan Porche will lead worship and I’ll preach—on discernment in prayer, of all topics! It’ll be a great foretaste of the ways Ryan and I will get to work together in the future. We’ll have a special time of sending and blessing from the elders and staff as well. Beginning Feb. 1, we’ll be on the job in Dallas.

Speaking of Dallas, we’ve had no small number of curve balls concerning our housing situation. As I’ve mentioned in previous emails, we were pursuing a free housing option with Apartment Life. We heard the first week of January that there would be no openings for 4-6 months. So, after much prayer and fasting, we decided that if nothing miraculous happened with Apartment Life in the week that followed, we would move on to other options.

Almost immediately, we found a place we loved right in Uptown. We put in an application, were approved and decided to move this weekend. We’re ecstatic…except. Except is such a significant little word. Except…we got a call yesterday from Apartment Life saying they have a lead on a property in Uptown/Downtown that needs a CARES Team. It would require us to sign a 3-month lease at the prospective property in hopes of becoming a CARES Team there later.

The only catch is that we don’t know exactly what property it is. It could be studios or lofts, for all we know (not quite conducive for a family of three).

We hope to know the name of the property today or tomorrow, but who knows. What should we do? We’re asking God to make it clear.

Please pray with us that God will give us wisdom, discernment and a clear sense of leading from him.

In Family, Prayer, South Mac
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Kiser Christmas 2007

Charles Kiser —  December 31, 2007 — 5 Comments

We celebrated Christmas together this year for the first time as a little family. We stayed home on Christmas morning, opened presents and had a Christmas breakfast together (biscuits and gravy, no less).

This new tradition is quite a change from driving 500 miles and sleeping at the parents’ houses, as we’d done since we were first married. We did, however, make the 30-mile trek at lunch time to celebrate Christmas with Julie’s parents and extended family, and then had dinner with my family. It ended up being quite a (long) day. Any day with family is a good one. Good memories. Hope all of you were able to enjoy the holidays with friends and family, too.

Here are a couple pictures from the holiday exploits. You can see I work very hard to keep my hair in style.

ryan-and-dad-2.jpg

Ryan’s favorite gift: the train table. He can play with it for hours. A parent’s dream.

ryan-train.jpg

In Family
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National Community Church

Charles Kiser —  December 31, 2007 — Leave a comment

I wandered across the website of National Community Church through a friend’s blog. It caught my attention for several reasons: 1) over 70% of its participants are single 20-somethings; 2) nearly 70% of NCC people were previously unchurched or dechurched (i.e., grew up with religion but left it behind); 3) they meet in movie theaters all over the Washington DC area; 4) they own the largest coffee shop on Capitol Hill, Ebenezer’s.

I’m always excited to see churches that are reaching out to the young adult segment of the population, given we’re going to land right in the middle of the same segment. Check out the website and get a glimpse of how God is connecting with the next generation through NCC.

http://theaterchurch.com

In Church Planting, Models, Next Generation
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