HEYP!

So Sarah and I just drove up to California for Thanksgiving with her side of the family. On the way here, I realized that the stereotypical stories we hear about California drivers are apparently true. First, we were almost run off the road by a semi truck. And when I say run off, I mean intentionally. The guy was first flicking me off from behind when I guess he disapproved of how “slow” I was going (I was 10 miles over the limit at this point), then he switched lanes, pulled up next to us and switched lanes again, coming inches away from hitting us. Thank God for brakes. Whew!

Then we were further impressed with California’s driving when we were almost hit TWO more times. Wow. Thank you Cali.

On a lighter note, Thanksgiving was great! Sarah’s grandfather made a very impressive dinner that was perhaps the nicest Thanksgiving meal I can remember. Thanks Papa Gordie!

Welp, see ya later!

Well, if you were there yesterday, you probably felt the same level of excitement as I did over the new ministry launch for student ministries at New Life.  We began new services for high school and junior high called “Velocity” and “Revolve,” respectively. In Velocity, we began a dynamic multimedia-driven series called Cinematic Jesus in which we teach out of video clips. For this service, we taught from the film Transformers and this next week we’ll be seeing how God can speak to us through the film Bruce Almighty. In Revolve, we began a series called Collide and the message was “Colliding with your Direction,” in which we talked about how we sometimes follow the wrong direction in life even though our intentions might be pure.

Attendance was up a ton, with a total of 65 in Velocity and 66 in Revolve, making an overall total of 131. A HUGE thanks goes to all of the leaders and students who helped prepare during this past week and who invested in making yesterday an amazing experience. So next week I hope you can join us in our next week of our new ministries!

As many of you know, there are some pretty big things happening at New Life in the next couple months. We’re making a big shift in student ministries and it looks like God is already doing some pretty cool things in the lives of our students. Over the past 4 months, God has grown our junior high ministry to over twice the number of students each week and we’ve seen some kids make some major movements forward in their relationship with Jesus. We (Sarah & I) have been given the great opportunity to meet a ton of new people on Sundays who are interested in being a part of the junior high ministry. We have also been given the sense from many parents and students that our current Saturday evening service time is too conflicting for many of our families who wish to enjoy the worship experience with their junior high child before dropping their child off to go to the student service.

Among these and several other reasons, we are now making the exciting leap to Sunday mornings and look forward to what God is going to do in an entirely new worship experience for our students during the 10:45am service time. Our junior high students will experience an awesome time of games, music, teaching, and discussion about God in our 75 minute time called “Revolve.”

As excited as I am to see a new ministry take shape, I’m even more excited to see the many exciting ways that God is going to use this next chapter of the ministry to change the lives of our students and families.

So, on August 16th, I hope to see all of you junior high students at our new “Revolve” experience!

I was cruising around on the net earlier and happened upon the following video. To hear this pastor plead with our President for courageous leadership to fight for the lives of our unborn children. This video will capture you:

Today I continued some work on my house to prepare it for renting out or selling. To speed up the process, I put an ad on craigslist to see if I might be able to find someone else who could help me along the way. I was surprised to get a slew of calls from various people in the Nashville area looking for work. My phone rang every minute for probably 3 or 4 hours, and never stopped until I took the ad off the website.

Pretty soon, I had a guy coming to take a look at the house who made an offer of $300 to do the work. Now, I’m certainly not an expert, but I’ve been renovating this house since I bought it and I know that the cost of this project is worth far more than that. I’d say that there is probably about 60 hours of work here, which means that a typical contractor would charge me anywhere from $45-65/hr. That means that I should be looking at a job of somewhere between $2500 and $4000, and that’s just for labor only! So, as you might guess, I was amazed when this guy offered to do the work for so little.

Since I let the guy start working, he’s done a great job, and I’ve found out a little about his life situation along the way. The truth is, here’s a guy who has fallen victim to the current state of our economy. It’s so unfortunate. His life has been so rough lately that it had me so moved. I offered to have him do the job and, depending on the quality of work, I’ll bump up the price to help him out. Crazy, huh?

Just finished a little work in the basement. Sarah and I are doing whatever we need to in order to prepare to move. For those of you who are out of the loop, we’re looking very closely at a church in Phoenix right now and believe that this may be where God is calling us to do ministry. We’ll see what God does!

As most of you have probably heard, Sarah and I have made the announcement that we will be moving on from our time at BCC and pursuing God’s next chapter for our lives. It has been an incredible run here and we will miss every one of our BCC students and friends. I also want you to know that whatever feelings you have regarding our departure, whether positive or negative, your feelings are valid and I understand completely. I have enjoyed every moment at this church and will miss each person here. I will always look back to BCC as my “first love” in ministry. It has been a great honor to serve alongside such talented staff and volunteers, and to minister to such an awesome community of teens.

That said, I want you to know how thankful we are for our time here. Each person at BCC has been incredible to us and we have felt so privileged to be a part of what God is doing in your lives. We love all of you and will never forget our time with you!

As for why we are moving on, I feel that everyone should know our reasons and so I am being as transparent as possible. There are three primary reasons that Sarah and I are moving on. Here they are in no particular order of importance:

1. Fresh Start

In addition, Sarah and I are newly married and have discovered that, given the nature of ministry, we will be unable to establish ourselves as a couple here. In other words, I have been personally established at BCC for quite some time, whereas Sarah is newer to the community. As a result, people identify us separately as opposed to together even though we are “one” as a married couple. This concept would not have mattered much to me before I was married. I would have, in fact, been turned off by the idea of being identified as anything other than an individual. But now, I see the biblical model for marriage and have developed a desire to be seen not as “Brian,” but as “Brian and Sarah.” Entering a church as a married pair will give us the opportunity to start as a couple and not as individuals. It is now important to me that my identity is not my identity at all, but is instead our identity, and getting a fresh start will allow that.

 

While I technically have 8 years of ministry experience, I still consider myself new in student ministry and perhaps will continue to consider myself a rookie for the next 10 years, if not longer. The more I learn, the more I find out that I have barely scraped the surface of what ministry is all about. With each mistake I make in ministry I learn something new. And with each success in ministry, I discover gifts that I never knew I had. At some point along the road, it is good to change settings and get a fresh start, a fresh start where one can do things differently the second time around and take one’s newly discovered gifts to the next level.

2. Health

Sarah and I are both asthmatics and are prone to sinus infections, and as pretty much everyone here knows, Nashville weather is not exactly the greatest climate for health. In particular, Sarah has had great difficulties with the Nashville climate and has found herself continually coming down with a variety of climate-related illnesses. I, on the other hand, have been able to adjust somewhat and be able to survive. If it were just me, I would probably just “tough it out.” Sarah’s reactions to the weather have been much more dramatic, however, and we must at least consider some locations that will better suit our health needs.

3. Calling

Ultimately, any transition in ministry must deal with the matter of one’s calling in life. Sarah and I both have a passion for students, so we intend to continue in student ministry until God moves our hearts in another direction. We have also been given a desire to impact the younger generation to the maximum potential, in a way that utilizes both of our gifts and fuels the ministry we are serving in. These things might include my speaking, Sarah’s worship leading, my leadership of the ministry, and the ministry’s ability to cover the scope of our gifts.

 

At BCC, I have been given the opportunity to build a ministry with an incredibly gifted staff team, to lead staff and volunteers toward a common vision, and to see hundreds of students’ lives touched through the student ministry at BCC. This has been such an incredible blessing, I cannot explain it in words. Recently, God has been helping me come to terms with my desire to build ministry again and to lead a staff team of my own. Unfortunately, this means that I must leave BCC in order to pursue that dream.

With every thought of the people at BCC, it will no doubt include a mixture of excitement and grief. Excitement because I can hardly imagine the extent of what God has planned; and grief because it is never easy to say goodbye, no matter how positive the transition may be. I am confident that God has something amazing planned for our lives in ministry. I am also confident in His providential plans for the student ministry at BCC. The best days of this ministry are ahead of it, not behind it, and I look forward to hearing the stories of what God is going to do in the lives of our students. Each person at BCC holds a special place in our hearts.

With love and affection,

Brian Drinkwine

Well, I’m at the doctor’s office right now taking advantage of the wi-fi access. My ear has been irritating me for some time now, and I’m curious to see what the verdict is. Anyway, not much to say other than that. We’ll see what the doc has to say.

Oh yeah. That’s all I gotta say.

Oh yeah.

5 years ago I remember that the common questions among people my age was “What is God’s will for my life?” Most of my friends struggled with this question in every facet of life, from where to go to school to where to go to church to which girl is the “one.” The central core principle of this is, “Is my choice going to be something that honors God and reflects some sort of wisdom or discernment?”

Today, these questions remain, but I believe that the nature of it has changed. With the rise of many pastors whose core teaching is that our plan is at the highest level of God’s priorities, people don’t ask “What is God’s will?” as much as they ask “Can I trust that God will work this out?”

In other words, we ask ourselves, and God, “If I choose to take this path, can I trust that God will take care of me?”

“So,” you might ask, “What’s the answer?”

I don’t know.

That’s right. I don’t know. I guess I respond with this question, “How do I know that my interests, my physical safety, my well being, my financial security, is at the highest level of God’s desires and plans?”

If God has given you a passion or a gift and your responsibility is to carry out that passion in a way that honors Him most, then shouldn’t we think that it is His interest that matters most? If that’s the case, why would we even be asking the question of whether we can trust God in the decisions in front of us? After all, trust has nothing to do with depending on the circumstances of the outcome, but rather depending on the promises of God.

He is most important in the decisions we make and the question may need to be changed all over again not to elevate the importance of our well being, but rather the importance of following God himself. Perhaps we should instead be asking, “Am I seeking God’s purposes in this?”

Are we really so inclined to think that God doesn’t know best for us, or do we instead believe that He somehow wants the best but is up in the Heavens striving and straining to somehow, maybe, one day reach us in an effort to “work things out” for our good? No, our well being will never be dependent on our circumstances, but instead on God Himself. If He is our focus, then He will be our well being, and there will never again be a need to ask, “Can I trust that God will work this out?”