I sent this out in our weekly email last week. After musing through it again, I wanted to post it here for longevity.

05.28.2003 UPdate

thequest family,

Last night, I had the opportunity to visit a gathering of Christian Students at OSU from the School of Music. It is a group called FISH, and our good friend Christina Lyons has been a part of it, and is stepping into leadership for next year.

It was kinda cool because as they were sharing, I realized that this was a “house church” (whether or not they understand that I don’t know). Somewhere through the discussion, they were sharing about the huge job of reaching the 500 students in the school of music.

The bells went off in my head. This was a beautiful thing. A picture I had dreamed of. I was able to be an observer of our vision. The vision to see a local expression of the church for every 500 people in urban Columbus. I was overcome with amazement at what God is doing! Jesus is building His Church! It was happening. There was an expression of the church for this batch of 500 people!

This is just one pocket of the hundreds of pockets people in urban Columbus. But God has sown the seed of a local expression of the church into the fray of the school of music at OSU.

Now had this humble cast of a dozen-ish folks done all the disciplemaking that needs done in their pocket of 500 people? Not yet, but they are piecing together a strategy to do it. I believe that they will follow Jesus in what He wants them to do…and that our Christina will help lead them that way.

Another thing that has been rolling around in my brain for a couple of months got some clarity. I have thought about our logo. You know the ever-present orange and blue paper chain links [see the top of this email ;-)]. The logo has been prophetic is some senses for me. I guess it has drawn out 3 things for me—

1) it really speaks to the simplicity of who we are and what we do

2) it shows the relational connection stuff that we are all about

3) AND it shows the fragile nature of our community.


Number 3 jumped out at me last night as we were reading 1 Cor. 12 and a couple of verses really hooked me.

…in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. . .

…those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,. . .



The unbelievably deep truth of those lines smacked me. God has arranged each person in thequest family—JUST AS HE WANTS THEM TO BE. We all are very important to the whole. God stuck us where we are! We didn’t just happen upon this, or have good luck, or anything else. God has put us together.

Some of us feel really fragile. We wonder if God listens to us, or even cares. We feel really weak in the battles we are called to fight, as individuals and as a community. We puzzle and stew over what God is doing and how to figure it out. We feel like if a good strong breeze came in it would blow us out to sea.

To those of us who feel like that…God says…”we are indispensable.” We as parts of the body seem to be so weak. We don’t know which end is up sometimes, but God sees us as INDISPENSABLE to the work He is doing.

What a treat to serve a God that leans on us—a weak, humble, fragile, bunch of construction paper links—to do His work. I hope this encourages your soul like it did mine. And let’s press on!