This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. John 3.16-17 The Message

This coming Sunday we are celebrating a day that has great implications in our lives, Easter. Easter is the day when the famous verse in John 3.16 became fully reality, God gave His Son for us that we can have eternal life. That reality can change your life forever. When you keep reading  on in the text you notice that God gave us a choice.

Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him. John 3.18 The Message

We can choose to accept that offer or we can refuse it. A good father wants his children to make the right choice, but he also lets them choose. True love can only be expressed by being able to choose. So God showed true love for each one of us, but now it’s on us to choose Him and by doing that falling more and more in love with Him. Even the guys that hang at the cross with Jesus had a choice. What is your choice?

Happy Easter friend

We hope you had a great week of reflecting on Easter and what it means for you personally. Jen and I both love how God is showering us with His love every day. It doesn’t matter if we have a good or a bad day.  We can see daily as an example how it affects how we do ministry and how we love people. If we feel loved by Him it is so much easier to let His love overflow through us into others even if we don’t feel like it. During the last week we had a much needed vacation. God really refreshed both of us in this time. It was wonderful.

Thank you for all your prayers and financial support. You are a huge blessing to us!

Have a blessed Easter time.

Markus and Jen

Over the last 3 weeks we talked about different things that make a good friendship: Being committed and consistent, to have a depth and trust and also to have fun. Today we want to close with a topic that lays the main foundation for any friendship and relationship: Friendship is not a business!

What do we mean with that? Let me explain it with the example of a business: The idea of a business is to see what we can get out of it. If you start a business and you hand out gifts to customers, you are doing that with an afterthought. You hopefully get more out of that customer then what you invested in him. You are not just investing in them without a reason.

A true friendship and relationship on the other side should never be based on what we can get out of it, but instead we should always ask ourselves, what can we invest into it to help the friend. When both sides do that it creates something deeper. The Easter week is a great example of that: God didn’t put conditions on us when He sent his son. No he actually send Him while we were still sinners.

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5.8 NIV”

That is truth for friendships and relationships too. When we invest in a friendship it always needs to come out of a heart of wanting the best for the other person. When both sides do that, the friendship can go on a deeper and better level. We want to challenge you to think about your friendships and how you can become a better friend. Start it by by not thinking about to get anything in return. Also in this coming Easter week remember how God showed His great love for you!!

Hey our friend

We hope you had a super fantastic week. If we would have to give our week a title it would be community. We had so many events this week to connect with community. It started with a board meeting of a neighborhood association, went to coffee shop meetings, to a game night, a German night, an encouragement group, a YWAM community night and a play. To be involved in your community and the lives of the people, you need to connect with them, and all those events are great ways to do that. We want to encourage you to get involved into your neighborhood community and bring the love of the Father.

Thank you for all your prayers and support. You are truly a blessing to us!

May God shower your with His unconditional love this week

Your friends

Markus and Jen

Thanks for joining us for Part 3 in our friendship series. Over the last 2 weeks we talked about the importance of consistency and commitment, and also depth and trust and how they lead to a true friendship. Our question and challenge last week was to share one thing that you would normally not share with a good friend. How did that go? What did it do to your friendship?

This week we want to talk about fun. To have a solid friendship you need to have fun with each other. I remember when my friend Ben used to live in San Francisco we sometimes went out and tried different foods. We both love food and it brought joy to both of us.

Having times of just fun together will create a well-rounded friendship. If you are always just serious you are actually missing out on a side of friendship. When you do things together that you love, it will bring relaxation and refreshment for both of you. Having fun together creates memories and inside jokes that you will laugh about for the rest of your life. Fun times also help you through hard times. When you go through a rough patch in your friendship, looking back at fun times you had together makes you appreciate the other person more and also help you to forgive easier. Think about Jesus and his ministry. He went to many fun things: wedding, dinners etc. He knew that sometimes the way to get to people was to have fun with them. We were also created for rest and refreshment. So let’s have fun in our friendships.

So how can you apply that? Do one fun activity with your friend this week that you both love, and from now on start doing that every week. Also do the same with neighbors (future friends) you share the good news with. You will see how your friendship will change.

Hey our friend

We hope you had a great week. Our week had many fun moments. We were invited to a fundraiser for the work of the boys and girls club. This is the place we invest in a lot with our students. We also went to a concert of a friend Jen made through a book club meeting. It was a wonderful week. When you go to events in your community it connects you more with your community and people can see more the love of Jesus in you.

Please keep us in your prayers in this more busy season. Thank you for being part of our life, it means a lot to us.

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen

Thanks for joining us for Part 2 in our friendship series. Last week we talked about the importance of consistency and commitment in a true friendship. Did you have a chance to think about the questions from last week and did you start investing into a friendship? Do it and it will totally pay off for you!

This week we want to talk about depth and trust. To establish depth and trust in a friendship you need a few things. First of all it has to start with what we shared about last week, commitment and consistency. But that is just the beginning. To create depth and trust in a friendship we have to be real and open about our own lives. Of course that doesn’t mean that you should share your deepest secrets right after you started the friendship, but over time you start going there. Why, because over time both sides share deeper things and you start building deeper trust.

Example: When you start sharing about a struggle in your life, you show the other person that it is ok to share about those things. You also show them that it is ok to have struggles and that they can see that they are not alone in it. So the other person feels more free to share about their struggle as well. As soon as you do that you take away power from the enemy, because he can’t lie to you anymore that you are a terrible person and that if someone would know your struggles they would not want to be your friends anymore. But in reality the opposite is true. Your friendship actually goes deeper because the other person sees they can trust you.

You see sharing truth about your life brings depth and trust. We want to encourage you to go deeper in your friendship by being more open and real. Share with your friend what is really going on. Start this week by sharing one thing with your close friend that you would normally have a hard time sharing. When you start in your friendships it will flow over into your ministry time as well.

Being real with people will show them more that being a Christian doesn’t mean that we are perfect, but that we have a perfect father who walks with us!

Hey our friend

We hope you had a great week. Ours was packed with many events in the neighborhood. We had some wonderful dinners with different people and also our wonderful neighbor brunch. It is always a blast coming together and share life. We want to encourage you to start your own neighbor brunch. We also had the game night at our house which was a lot of fun!

From left von links:
Lexi, Rachel, Rachel, Susanna, Andrew, Hester.

Also we want to ask you to pray for our Fall school students. We wrote last week that they graduated and the hardest part after graduation is always stepping into what God has for each one of them next. We shared with them a few ways on how they can get involved in their own community and make an impact there. I want to ask you to adopt one of them and pray for them for the next 6 month that God will guide them, on how that can look like and also on how to keep growing in their faith. Here are their names: Hester, Rachel, Rachel, Andrew, Susanna and Lexi. Thank you for praying!

Our Fall 2014 DTS North Beach Team
Unser Herbst 2014 North beach DTS Team

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen

Friendship Part 1 Committed and consistent

Over the next few weeks we want to look at what makes a great friendship. We hope you get encouraged and empowered to build a great friendship!

A little while ago we were able to see our friends up in Seattle. When my friend and I spend some time talking he talked about how our friendship is really committed. We call each other once a week and pray for each other. We did that since almost the beginning of our friendship while he still lived in San Francisco (of course sometimes the week thing didn’t work out). Over all those years our friendship got deeper and deeper and it has to do with 2 things, being committed and consistent. It doesn’t matter if you are in a good or bad season in your life, you will walk through them together with a friend at your side. When you look at the bible you can see friendships like that, Jonathan and David or Paul and Timothy. They stood with each other in bad and good seasons. You help each other through those, but then you also have fun together in the seasons between.

So when you want to have a lasting friendship make sure you are committed and consistent. This is true for your friendships to people, your marriage and also for your relationship with God. It is also true for ministry. To bring the good news to neighbors and friends, being consistent and committed is really important. Through that people will see you for who you truly are and they see through the way you treat them more about your relationship with God.

Our encouragement for you is to have or find a committed and consistent friendship and to invest into it. Set time aside on a weekly base to spend time with each other. After you setup a great friendship start to do the same when you bring the good news to people. It will make a difference in your life and it will make a difference in the lives of others!

Hey our friend

We hope you had a great week. Our Fall DTS graduated last week which was exciting since each of them will now go out and apply the things God taught them in this last season. Please keep them in your prayers since transition seasons are often challenging and can make you feel as if you are alone. Pray that they feel Gods presence really strong on their lives in that season.

Please keep praying with us for a new location for our game night. For now we will have it at our apartment, but in the long run our apartment is too small to host all the people, so we are looking for a new location. We have a potential location but don’t know if it will work out and if it is a good fit. Please pray with us for a perfect new location.

Thank you so much for praying with us.

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen