Atmosphere matters. There is an atmosphere that can help us thrive and flourish as followers of Christ. But there is also an environment that can weaken and eventually quench our passion, our faith, and even our relationship with the Lord. The richness of what’s in the air is the thing I hear about most following ARC national gatherings. For instance, after our gatherings last year in San Diego and Minneapolis people told me things like, “The atmosphere in the room was so sweet.” “There air was rich with a tangible sense of God’s presence.” There just always seems to be something special in the air when we make time to gather together in the same place, at the same time, with each other and the Holy Spirit. Atmosphere matters.

You can help prepare the atmosphere for this year’s ARC Midwest Gathering. You can help by praying that the Lord prepare the hearts of each person who will be attending to hear and receive whatever it is God has in store for them. Praying for each keynote speaker, worship leader, workshop presenter, and leaders of our experiential learning opportunities will also be key for what God has in store for us this year.

Another way you can help prepare the atmosphere for the gathering this year is by adding fasting to your prayers. There is something about fasting that has an impact in us and in the lives of others. Ask the Lord if He would have you fast along with praying, and if you hear Him telling you to do so, ask Him how that fast would look for you. What should you fast, how long should you fast? Should you fast for a morning, an afternoon, an entire day? Just ask the Lord. He’ll tell you.

Another very helpful thing you can do to prepare the atmosphere is by registering early. Register now for the gathering, and encourage others to do so also. It really helps those of us in charge of the many details that go into planning this event, and as we get word out that registrations are coming in it can help fill the air with a sense of expectancy. There is something exciting about knowing you are going to be part of a larger group.

How else could you help us prepare the atmosphere for this year’s Midwest Gathering? As ideas come to mind that you think would be good to pass on to others, email them to me at: safeplacemb@gmail.com. Thanks for helping us get ready for this year’s gathering. We know that when we make the commitment to gather together in the same room, at the same time, with each other and the Holy Spirit good things happen; God-things happen. Atmosphere matters.

We are excited to announce our first-ever Youth Track for the 2015 ARC Midwest Gathering. Corey Paxton and a group of ARC youth pastors are planning and leading this event. Corey is a member of the ARC national leadership team and serves as Associate Pastor for Youth and Family ministries at First Lutheran Church in White Bear Lake, MN. Corey writes the following:

“We are excited to invite teens to be a part of this year's ARC Midwest gathering. Over the past year, a network of youth pastors have been meeting to dream of helping teens experience a bigger Kingdom community through the ARC. We are excited to invite senior high students into the beginning of this network this August as we are making plans to continue to connect throughout the year.

Teens are invited to come join with the adults for all of the evening sessions as well as connecting with other teens Friday and Saturday morning and afternoon through breakout sessions, mission projects, and fellowship times around meals to help them grow in Christ and build community together. On Saturday afternoon, we will spend some time hanging out at a lake and cooking out before coming back for the evening session.”

If you are a youth pastor or volunteer youth leader interested in bringing teens, please contact Corey Paxton at: coreypaxton@gmail.com.

As Midwest Representative for the Alliance of Renewal Churches, it was my honor and privilege to represent the ARC at the Ordination and Installation of Terri Anderson, longtime member of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Fridley, Minnesota, and graduate of The Master's Institute Seminary (MI).

I knew Terry as a student at MI. She is serving as Community Life Pastor now at Redeemer. For her ordination, I was joined as a guest by Rev. Kendra Diehl, Director of Spiritual and Character Formation at The Master's Institute. Led by Senior Pastor Dr. David Glesne, and along with the other pastoral staff at Redeemer; John Niewald, Jason DeShaw, Harley Schmidt, and Dave Heinrich, the congregation had plenty of pastors in vestments to celebrate the occasion. What a sweet time! Congratulations Pastor Anderson! We are so glad to have you as part of our band of brothers and sisters in the ARC!

We are excited to announce that Pastor Chris Dahl has joined the ARC. We asked Chris to share with us a little bit about himself and his family for this edition of the ARC E-Newsletter. Chris writes:

“I'm a husband to my wonderful wife, Kelly; father to Joshua (3) and Isaac (16 months); and Discipleship Pastor at Lutheran Church of the Cross in Altoona since March of 2013. Being in youth ministry and camping ministry for many years leading up to this call, it's been so evident that God continues to shape and mold me into a leader that comes alongside people in their everyday lives to see themselves as everyday followers and missionaries for the Gospel. I work with our children, youth, and care ministry teams to live out being a Jesus centered community that is on mission daily. I truly believe that God calls wonderfully ordinary people to do extraordinary things for the Kingdom of God through the empowering of His Holy Spirit. Through being a student at The Master's Institute over the past several years, I've come to know the ARC through the incredible people who are part of it. I feel incredibly blessed to be in a network of believers that is led by the Spirit, focused on prayer, fixed on Jesus, has great leadership, and desires for people to know and experience the incredible love of Christ. I'm excited to follow Jesus together with others in the ARC!”

Welcome aboard the ARC, Chris!

“Don’t take the ARC for granted. I would love to have this kind of atmosphere and these kinds of relationships in the group I’m a part of.” 

So said one leader who attended the 2014 Midwest ARC Gathering in early November. Leaders and members of ARC and LCMC churches made up one of the best-attended Midwest gatherings in years. They came from across the United States, from Canada, and as far away as Bolivia.

Sweet, peaceful, gentle yet powerful—these were oft-repeated adjectives used to describe what people experienced in the atmosphere at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Fridley, MN. The air was filled with the sweet, peaceful, gentle, yet powerful presence of God as the Lord soaked us with his love and power. His presence was tangible as we worshipped and prayed together, as our speakers and workshop presenters instructed and exhorted us, and as we sat with one another nurturing existing relationships and building new ones.

Keynote speakers Greg Boyd, Grace Johnson, and Danny Mullins were off the charts good. Worship leaders Chris Barrett and Joel Bidderman didn’t just lead us in worship, they and their teams did worship and invited us to join in. And our workshop presents helped practically equip us in ways that we could go home and practically impact people with God’s scandalous love. Some words of testimony sent to me after the Gathering included the following:


Pastor Cory Illingworth of Celebration Lutheran Church in Regina, Saskatchewan sent me a note following the gathering and in it he wrote: “The theme for the Midwest Gathering was Scandalous Love. I knew what the theme was about. What I did not expect to experience at the Gathering was the love I would feel from the people of the ARC. I have attended countless retreats, gatherings, conferences and seminars for those who are in ministry. I have never attended a gathering where I saw so much love for ‘one another’.”

Steve Perkins, pastor of Northgate Church in Ramsey, MN wrote: "The Midwest Gathering was a Spirit-filled fusion of word and worship. I left encouraged and ready to take on the world!" Pastor Grace Johnson from Hope Church in Glendale, AZ said: “The ARC gathering is a place where normal people with normal issues gather. There are no ‘pastors,’ ‘international speakers,’ and ‘church-goers.’ There are just human beings who want to encounter more of Jesus.” Omar Herrea who came all the way from Santa Cruz, Bolivia echoed Grace’s sentiments when he told us that one thing he liked about our network is that there “are no heroes, just ordinary people.”

It was particularly interesting to receive Omar’s testimony as we had already been prayerfully considering hosting two gatherings again next summer, one in the Southwest and one in the Midwest on the theme Ordinary People, Extraordinary God. The Southwest Gathering is scheduled for July 16-18 in Huntington Beach, CA and the Midwest Gathering will be held on August 13-15 in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. A teen track will be included for both of these events.

 I would encourage every ARC leader to put these events on your own personal calendar, and begin making plans now to bring leaders from your congregation and congregational members. If you do, you will probably be taking home a different group of people. They’ll have the same names, but they won’t be the same. They’ll go home with a healthy disrespect for the impossible because they’ll know more clearly than ever that though we are but an ordinary people, we love and serve and extraordinary God.

The ARC Life Together Days this past Fall were all filled with unhurried times of worship, powerful prayer and prophetic ministry, and life-giving rather than life-draining relationships. Thanks to Mary Ann Herzan, Paul Sorensen, and Joe Johnson—spiritual father and mothers of our faith family who shared with us and ministered to us.

Our plan is to host three Winter Life Together Days for ARC leaders. The Arizona Life Together Day will be on Thursday, January 15th at Wonderful Mercy Church in Gilbert, AZ. Pastor Tom Brashears will be with us to share on the topic, “Having the Difficult Conversation.” This is something we all run into and Tom’s sharing will help equip us to be more effective in those conversations.

The SoCal Life Together Day is tentatively scheduled for February 24th and will be held at Penasquitos Lutheran Church in San Diego, CA. We hope to have Pastor John Niewald with us from Redeemer Lutheran in Fridley, MN. John has a powerful testimony and teaching to share regarding connecting others with God’s love in times of loss. Again, this a very relevant, practical, and powerful teaching that can help equip us all to be more effective in those relationships and ministry situations that involve loss.

The Minnesota Life Together Day is scheduled for Thursday, February 5th. We have yet to confirm the location or who may be speaking at this event, but rest assured the worship, and prayer and prophetic ministry will be off the charts. It certainly was at our Fall Minnesota Life Together Day.

Put these dates on your calendars now and plan on joining us for the Winter ARC Life Together Days.

Wonderful Mercy is an ARC church in Gilbert, AZ (the Phoenix area) led by Pastor Graeme Sellers, and for the sake of full disclosure Debi’s and my home congregation. We love being part of a church that seeks to embody the mission and core values of the ARC. The atmosphere Wonderful Mercy seeks to create and sustain certainly is a safe place for the dangerous kind.

The mission God has given us here is to “Raise up ordinary people to be extraordinary followers of Jesus by loving them, training them in the Word of God, and equipping them to do the ministry of Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit.” In order to carry out this mission we have identified a set of core values that guide and influence all that we do. One of our core values is being a House of Prayer. Our core value statement puts it this way: “We are committed to prayer saturating every part of the individual and corporate life in our church, consumed with passion for intimacy with Christ and a habitation for His glory.”

This core value has taken on physical form in the building of a prayer garden at Wonderful Mercy that is open to the public. The project was envisioned years ago, was bathed in prayer, withstood numerous obstacles, and now, has become a reality. Wonderful Mercy members, leaders from other churches, and civic and state leaders gathered for the dedication in October. I asked Graeme Sellers to share with us about the prayer garden and the dedication. He writes:

“We at Wonderful Mercy Church are rejoicing! After years of faithful, sacrificial giving by members of our faith community, we have completed construction of our Prayer Garden. This project includes the Prayer Garden itself, landscaping the remainder of our property, additional parking on the west wide, and creating a new west side entrance to our building.

Some may ask, ‘Why a Prayer Garden?’ In Isaiah, when God announces the new thing He is doing, He describes it this way: ‘I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.’ The Lord’s declaration is unmistakable: I’m taking what’s barren and making it fruitful. I’m bringing rivers of My life to dry, dusty places.

We believe the Prayer Garden aligns precisely with this expression of God’s heart. Specifically, we believe that what is at stake is the spiritual irrigation of Gilbert, and beyond. Through the prayer and worship that rises up like a fragrant offering from the Prayer Garden, God will release rivers of His life—into our community and into the world. Moreover, the Prayer Garden goes to the heart of our identity as a church. We know God has called us to be a house of prayer, a people who are experiencing God deeply and personally as we seek His heart, cry out to Him, and see transformation as we unite in fervent intercession. Once we know our identity we must walk in it; the Prayer Garden is one way that we will consistently and faithfully walk in the identity God has given us.”

You can catch a glimpse of the Prayer Garden in the accompanying photos. Pictured in one of the photos is Arizona Congressman Matt Salmon from the U.S. House of Representatives, District 5 who was one of the speakers for the Prayer Garden dedication, along with the mayor of Gilbert, and Cheryl and Hal Sacks, directors for Bridge Builders International.