I will never forget meeting Hunter and Ranaye 5 years ago. Ranaye was my co-worker at Caribou Coffee and Hunter was her boyfriend. They gave their heart to Jesus and began to pursue him with so much passion. It inspired me. Four months later, Hunter was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease (cancer). After eight months of chemotherapy, Hunter and Ranaye got married and found themselves walking through this season together. Their faith became stronger and their response was simple: we have to do something to share the message of Jesus with those who have not heard. 

They are now preparing to move to Japan. Their goal is to share this same message of freedom, healing and salvation that they have experienced with so many in Japan. 

We have an incredible opportunity as a church family to get behind them both in prayer and with financial support. They have already raised 70% of their financial goal and we can help them cross the finish line. They are only $500 per month away from being sent to Japan. I believe we can do this out of our church family. 

For more information on supporting Hunter and Ranye,  email Hunter. 

We just took the biggest financial faith step of our lives this past week. We agreed to terms on a property that will bring Ebenezers Coffeehouse to Uptown Charlotte. The total cost of this project will be around $2,500,000. It’s absolutely amazing and I can’t wait to show everyone the architectural plans that are bringing this vision to life right in front of our eyes. The potential is off the charts. 

I got an email yesterday from our friend and partner in this vision, Mark Batterson. We have crafted an affiliation agrement that will be a model for others around the country to be able to reproduce Ebenezers in cities across the world. Check this out…

Needless to say, I freaked out (freaking out includes yelling at the top of my lungs in my office and doing some sort of very awkward happy dance). Talk about generosity and being of one heart and vision for the Kingdom of God.

Thanks to Mark and all of his team at NCC. Through the faithful generosity of people we may never meet in Washington, DC, we were able to be the beneficiaries of an incredible gift that we now get to steward in Charlotte, NC.

We are all in this together. Now let’s all scream and do an awkward dance together. Ebenezers is coming to Uptown Charlotte! 

God placed a dream in my heart six years ago. Instead of building a church building that takes revenue, what if we created a multiple use venue that was for the community and generated revenue? The idea continued to form in my heart as I discussed this with my wife, Dara. We could then turn all the profit back into the community and into overseas missions. We I started to dream. It was around that time that we met Mark Batterson, a pastor in Washington DC. We started to dream together about the possibility of taking an idea that he started in DC, Ebenezers Coffeehouse, and creating an affiliation model where we could do the same thing in Charlotte. 

Fast forward six years. After an incredibly joyful and frustrating journey, near misses on buildings and God-given miracles, we have just put a contract on a building in the heart of Uptown Charlotte. It’s a two story building that we are planning to put a 2,000+ square foot coffeehouse on the street level and a 250+ seat venue on the second level. All profit from this building will go into missions projects at home and across the world.

The journey has been formative in so many ways. Learning how to navigate God given vision, exciting developments, painful disappointments, discouraging moments and incredible generosity from many has shown us that God will take as long as he chooses to make sure that he gets all the credit in the end. 

I don’t know what the days ahead include, but I have seen God’s power in the midst of all the ups and downs. We are resolved to stay on the ride, no matter what comes around the next corner.

The journey of seeing a vision come to life is never about a property or the dream itself. It’s about the glory that will be given to God when He brings it to pass and the influence that it will bring to shine the light of Christ to all that become a part of the story. 

Leviticus. Numbers. Exodus. All a bunch of books that most of us just don’t quite understand. Lots of rituals and requirements that we don’t get in our culture. But it was incredibly important to the people of Israel. As God demanded obedience, he required them to do things very specifically. His way and no other way. And because of this obedience, Moses was able to hear God’s voice. Watch this…

The Lord spoke to him from there. The place that he built. The place that Bezalel (his construction foreman) built. The place that required exact measurements. Exact offerings. Exact precision. From all of this obedience, this was Moses’ reward. This makes for boring reading for many of us that are detached from this culture and this reality. But this obedience led to seven words that I long for desperately: the Lord spoke to him from there. 

My prayer tonight is that my obedience (and yours) would lead to our ability to hear from the maker of heaven and earth. Our God. Lord, speak to us.

Sounds like a job for my good friend John Gum (he likes hunting). For me, however, not so much (I don’t like hunting). But something really stuck out to me today. It was the care that was found by the priests in just doing what God told them to do. Does this make any sense when I read this? Not really. Why these rules and rituals? Because God said so. And that was enough for them. 

I am struck by the amount of obedience this took. The amount of time. Hours upon hours. All so that this could be “a special gift, a pleasing aroma to the Lord.” That phrase is used over and over again through these first three chapters (I’m reading the New Living Translation). That’s so beautiful. I find myself asking today, “what’s my special gift to you, Lord?” And I honestly can’t answer that yet as I reflect on this today. 

God…help this to resonate with me today. What is my special gift that I intentionally prepare for you today?