Hey friend

We had a great week in San Francisco. We were able to have people over for hospitality and were able to encourage them. We also host a small group at our house to help people to achieve goals that God put on there heart. Moving forward in our faith is often easier if we have others that encourage, pray with and stand with us in our growth to move forward. We want to encourage you to find a small group at your church which helps you to grow.

We also celebrated the birthday of our new Staff George and the graduation of our Fall DTS Students. They did such an amazing job with helping out in North Beach. Pray for them while they transition into a different kind of mission and that God will remind them of the tools they learned on reaching out to others to do so in there community.

Declare truth

John 1.1-3

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

A little while ago we found out that California is going through a drought season since over the last years we never had enough rain. It’s a pretty serious things since a lot of food is growing here. So a little while ago, God put on the heart of a friend of mine to read a Psalm before the offering. The Psalm didn’t fit in any way to the offering, but at the end it talks about rain and how the writer asks God for it. So God put on the heart of my friend to make a declaration for rain. The next day it started to pour down rain against all weather forecasts.

Now we can say it was just a coincidence, but I don’t believe it was. I believe that the words God put in our hearts and that we speak out have power. If you think about the bible verse above you see that everything was made by the word. God spoke things out and they happened. The Prophets spoke out things and they happened. Jesus spoke out things and they happened. They apostles spoke out things and they happened. I think you get what I’m trying to say. Just think about this: you tell yourself every day that you are useless and some people make comments in the same direction you start believing it. So your words that you speak have power to shape you negatively. The same is true if you keep speaking out the promises God gave you or speaking out the truth about yourself. Look at the ministry we are doing. For a while we didn’t see many results, but we kept speaking out the Promise God gave us and kept believing. Now we see it more and more come through.

We need to declare truth over ourselves. Declaring truth forms beliefs and beliefs start to change us.

If we have doubt, we don’t believe what god says about us, or if we have a calling and don’t believe it we have to keep declaring truth about the situation. I want to challenge you to declare truth over your life this week. Speak the truth over your circumstances. As an example you have a hard time believing that you are loveable, speak out the truth that you are Gods beloved. If you feel you are an evangelist but you are afraid of speaking, start declaring over yourselves that you are a speaker and that your words make a difference. Start this week to declare truth. God sees you so valuable and has a great plan for your life. Start believing it by declaring it daily.

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen

Hey friend

We hope you had a wonderful week. Our week in San Francisco was awesome. We had great opportunities to move forward with the ministry and see the lives of people being transformed. We see every day again and again how God cares about His children, and we are called to do the same. When we do that it transforms people and we have many testimonies of that.

We also had a ministry evaluation meeting with all the bay area ministries. It was an encouraging time.

God cares about the things we care about

One of my (Markus) big dreams was to race with someone on a racetrack. That is not the most spiritual thing, but it is something that really brings me joy. So a while ago I became friends with someone through sharing about the ministry who really loves cars. The other day he called me and said Markus we are going on the track to race. You can’t believe how much joy that brought to me. I loved going fast over the track. It was just amazing. This event made me think about how much God actually loves us. He knew how much I love fast things. So while being in His calling and doing the work He called me to do He opens the door to fulfill a dream of mine. It was nothing that would change the world, but it was Gods way of saying Son I love you.

God cares about the things we care about.

Jesus talks in Luke 11.11-13 about how a father would not give his child a snake if the child asks for a fish. God really cares about each one of us. But how deep in our core do we believe this truth? In which areas do we believe it? Do we only believe it for so called spiritual things or do we believe it for every area of our life? A good father doesn’t put conditions on the love for His children. God will never put conditions on the love he has for you. True love doesn’t have conditions. Even if you don’t follow Him he loves you. I’m sure it is breaking his heart to see how one of his children is walking away from the best he has for it. But he will never stop loving this child. It is a radical love. I’m not saying that life will never throw a curveball at you, and that things cant be hard, but in all of it God will always love you.

Remember this week that God has good things in store for you.

With that have a blessed week

Markus and Jen

P.s. Here is a video of 1 lap on the racetrack. And another great story, God enabled me to pray and bring hope to 2 people during the day at the track. He can use us anywhere.

Hey our friend

We had an exciting week here in North Beach. We went to a neighborhood lunch to connect with more people from the community and had a neighbors brunch.But we think that the most exciting thing was an answer to something that we prayed for over 1.5 years, a new fulltime Staff member. We are happy to announce that our friend George joined us fulltime here in North Beach. Thank you for praying along with us in this area. Thank you. Now the next prayers are for groups to be launched in the neighborhood and that God brings more Christians in the neighborhood to us to start groups to reach out to there neighbors. Thank you for all your Prayers!

Role Models

The other day I woke up in the morning and I had this thought in my head about good role models. When you look at the role models in the media you don’t see a lot of things that you should look up to. Years ago a good friend of mine was a huge fan on Kurt Cobain from the band Nirvana. When Kurt killed himself he was devastated. In his case the devestation actually drewhim to the best role model, Jesus. In today’s time a better example would be Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus. So many young people are looking up to them, but what they learn and imitate from them is far from being good (I don’t want to judge them, instead I rather pray for them). The same is true for politicians and different leaders. So how do we bring change in that area? How can we be a good role model for the people around us?

We need to start looking at the things the bible teaches us about that area. If you read the book of Timothy you find lots of things what a leader should look like. It is important for each of us to start living that way. People need to see healthy marriages, so let’s live a healthy Christian marriage, by loving and honoring our wife or husband how the bible teaches us. People need to see healthy role models in the followers of Jesus. If we do the same things as the world does, how can we expect people to believe that we want to live a different live focused on Jesus? We need to start looking into the mirror and see the areas we have to grow in. When we do that, others will see it in our life and start realizing that Jesus is the one that brings the change. Another important thing is that we live our life genuine. We need to be the same person at work, at church and in our homes. We need to be authentic with good and bad things. Nobody expects any of us to never make a mistake, but the thing is we need to make sure that we are dealing with the mistake in the right way, meaning asking forgiveness for it and fix it.

Jesus said once to his disciples that the people will know that they are his disciples by the love for each other (John 13.35). So the most important one is again a genuine love. And when people observe in us that they are loved and special and they can see that in our lives we are good role models that can point them towards a loving father. Let’s look at our life this week and see in what areas we still have work to do to become a role model and in which we are doing good! Remember that you are amazing and loved.

Have a blessed week

Markus and Jen

Hey our friend

We hope you had a wonderful week. Ours was great here in San Francisco and we finally got back in the total swing of things. On Saturday we were invited to a book release party of a friend from the neighborhood. It was a great opporturnity to get connected with more people that live here.

It is also exciting to see all the people again and minister. Please pray for us and our students that the children, adults, and any person we get in contact with will see Jesus in us. Please pray that for all Christians around the world.

Why is Christian Community important?

“I love Jesus but I hate the church.” A phrase that I heard many times over the years from different people.

I think that this is a paradox. How can you hate something that Jesus called into life through Peter? I don’t think that would a good idea. But let’s look at the facts why a church/ Christian community is so important.

First of all a church is a place of discipleship. I wrote about this 2 weeks ago so click on this link to see more what it was about.

Another important point is that when you are in a Christian community you have people that truly care about you and also deeply know you. They hopefully see all sides of you. Sometimes it is hard for us to see what we are gifted in, but by being a part of a community others sometimes see clearer. When I think back, I saw many times how fellow YWAM’ers called out gifting’s they saw in me and after I knew them I was able to grow in them. Now God can use me in a different capacity than before. That is true for each one of us.

But it is also true for wrong things in our life. When you drive a car and you look in the side mirror, there is always a blind spot in which you can’t see. There are often things that we do because of wrong things we learned in the past (read last week’s blog on that topic). But in a community where we have a loving relationship with each other, people can call those things out in us and we are able to see them and work on them. They can also keep us accountable in the process to keep us moving forward.

The church is also a place of Refreshment. Spending time with other Christians and hearing how God is working in their life is a really life giving thing and it encourages us in our heart. It is also great to share about challenges we face in sharing our faith. Through that we can learn from each other.

So when you look at Church you see the need of it. I want to encourage you to read the book of acts, to see how church worked in that time. So get involved in your church community.

Have a blessed week

Markus and  Jen