Since Whitney and I began our journey with Jesus, we have always desired to be sensitive to God's leading on our lives. This included interning with Cru, and then joining staff. We talk often with students about a willingness to follow God and go wherever he would call you to go, say whatever he would call you to say, do whatever he would call you to do, and to give whatever he would call you to give. We have really prayed that God would make that true of us as well and not just our students. Well, that is easy to pray and hard to follow. But, by God's grace and power, we are trying to follow.

Over the past few years God has been slowly tugging on our hearts and moving us in the direction of Church planting. This started with our experiences of a gospel-centered church, New Life Presbyterian, that we have been involved in for the past few years and has been fueled greatly by our ministry to college students at Ball State. We have encountered countless students that have some church background, being from the midwest, but know nothing of the gospel and do not have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. This burdens our hearts greatly and ignites a passion within us for this not to be the case.

Simply put, we want to see lost people come to know Jesus, so that the gospel will go to all nations and the great commission will be fulfilled (Mat. 28:18-20). This has always been our motivation. And as we have been seeking The Lord about how to best steward our gifts and lives towards the completion of this, church planting has been His answer. Research shows that new churches are usually far more effective at seeing people come to faith in Jesus and engaging unchurched people with the gospel in a community. This is why we are sensing a call not only to plant a church, but to commit our lives to planting churches that plant churches that plant churches...until Jesus returns.

We have for the last few years believed that God was calling us to church planting, but thought it was still years away. But, God has a way of changing our plans and bringing things in his timing. God has surprisingly presented an opportunity through our local church, New Life Presbyterian, for me (Josh) to take a full-time role as a church planting apprentice. This support-raised position will allow me to finish up my seminary, pursue ordination, learn a whole lot, and begin the work of planting a church. Our current timeline is to pursue launching a new congregation in 3-4 years. We are still determining location, but have narrowed it to somewhere near our current location.

In order to assess our readiness to such a task, the church sent us to the church planting assessment center for our denomination, the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America), earlier this February. This weeklong intensive assessment was so helpful and confirmed many of the things that God was doing in our lives and that others were recognizing. We were given the go ahead for church planting after completing an apprenticeship. This was incredibly encouraging as the assessment center has a very high rate of success for establishing self-sustaining congregations, especially when compared to the national statistics for church planting. This has given us incredible confidence to move forward- not confidence in ourselves- but in the one who has called us- God himself.

In light of all of this, we are leaving staff with Cru in June of 2014 and beginning our work in church planting. As an apprentice, I want to take the posture of a humble learner and soak in as much as possible over the next few years to prepare me for a lifetime of work in church planting.

Please pray for us as we get ready for this transition. Cru has been so much a part of our lives for the last decade and we are not sure what it will be like to leave (though we hope to volunteer some time with the Greeks!). We have shed many tears about this when we think of all the ways God has used this wonderful organization and the people on our teams to shape us and our walks with God. It has been difficult to process all of this over the last few months, especially as I do things like give my last official weekly meeting talk as a Cru Staff guy last night (3/27/14). But we are confident in what The Lord is calling us to do and so we want to step forward. So, please pray that God will continue to show us the way forward as we trust him, stepping out of what is comfortable to us now and into the unknown.

As we prepare to leave staff, a few things that we would like to say to all those who have been a part of our Cru lives (staff friends, students, supporters, family, friends):

1. Thank you. We have been overwhelmed with emotion several times (knowing more to is to come as this gets closer) when we think of the very specific ways that you all of shown us Jesus. We cannot think of better way to spend almost all of the last decade as students and now staff with this wonderful thing called Cru.
2. We are incredibly indebted to Cru. This sounds like a repeat of #1 because it is a repeat. I just can't say it enough, we are so thankful. The way that we walk with Jesus, study the Word, participate and are committed to Evangelism and Discipleship. All of it, in so many ways is connected to our time in Cru. This is one of the things that fuels us forward. We want to take everything that Cru has taught us and apply that to the work of Church Planting so that all nations will hear the gospel and that Jesus will be lifted high.
3. If you ever have the opportunity to support, join, volunteer, go with, or otherwise rub shoulders with Cru staff- do it.
4. A special note- if you are on staff- please still be our friends! We love you all!

 

We will be sending out more updates on all of this and what God is doing so stay tuned or sign up for our email updates through mailchimp.

In Christ alone,

Josh, Whitney, Tyko and Finn

 

The Gospel Message is Really Simple from Josh Holowell on Vimeo.

The Gospel message really is quite simple. Jesus Loves Me. Its so simple that we are able to train Tyko to start sharing the gospel by using the Knowing God Personally booklet. Next week I might just take him to campus with me to share the gospel with students!

Happy Baby and Happy Mommy!




Finnigan Jason: 7 lbs. 1 oz. 19.5" born at 11:53 pm on Friday July 13th (don't worry, we are not superstitious, in fact we are anti-stitious).




Tyko got to meet his new baby brother!




Finnigan Jason with his middle namesake Jason (we love them both so much)!




Tyko sleeping with his new Woody doll that he got from Finn (such a good little brother)!




Super sweet and cute!


Today, one of our best friend's and Finnigan's middle namesake Jason preached from Col. 1, one of my favorite passages. We obviously were not able to make the message, but I got an advanced look at the manuscript and I pondered the text a little and the birth of our second son. The Lord says through the Apostle Paul, speaking about Jesus:
"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together."

Finnigan was created by God (through us of course) but by Him and most importantly for Him! So many voices will tell him that he was made for us, or for someone else, or most likely for himself, meaning he gets to be and do whatever he wants. But God's word corrects that and shows us that he was created for Him and His glory! And this is our prayer for little Finn. That he would gaze for all eternity at the beauty and majesty of God the Father through Jesus the Son by the Holy Spirit! That he would know deeply the love of God in Christ Jesus, repent of his sins, and trust in the finished work of Christ on his behalf and spend the fullness of time in a constant joy of the glory and majesty of God and his character. That he would use all of his life to reflect the glory of God through his creativity, work, marriage God-willing, play, fun, and joy. And that the world would look at his life and not primarily say "aww, he's cute" or "he's so great" or "he's such a tall athlete" (probably not- dad's dreams) but that they would say those, but primarily people will look at the fullness of Finnigan's life and say "Jesus is wonderful!" Would you all pray with us that God would grant this by his sovereign grace and mercy?

-In Christ alone,
Josh

Just to give you a little window into our lives:

Well, there you have it! The secret is out. We are having another baby! We are so excited for this blessing from God and look forward to meeting this new person in July. Please pray with us that this son or daughter of ours would not be our son or daughter primarily but a son or daughter of God through Jesus Christ. Praise be to the Lord!

Over the last few months we have been thinking and talking a lot about prayer.  So, I wanted to share with you some of my thoughts:

1.) Do it!- I can think and talk a lot, but do I actually believe prayer works- the only way to show that is by actually going to our gracious Lord in prayer.

2.) Trust God for BIG things.  I have been continually amazed at what engages my heart the most in prayer, and that is praying for big things from our big God who loves to answer prayer and glorify His name.  When we ask Him for big things we are acknowledging his power and if he answers them, it could only have been from him.

3.) Be Patient.  We must trust that he is both sovereign and good and be patient, knowing that he knows what he is doing and how he will do it.  This helps us realize that sometimes the best answers are the ones that he leaves unanswered because he is all-wise and not only knows what is best for us, but accomplishes that for his glory and our good.

4.) Listen to as many people talk about prayer as possible, and read good books.  Stories of other people and their prayers are awesome, inspiring, convicting, and encouraging.  Here is one that I listened to from the Desiring God Pastors Conference on Prayer by Francis Chan- it's awesome.  Check it out here!

Tyko turned 1 on November 17th! It was so exciting to get to celebrate with friends and family, watch Tyko open presents and eat cake. We are constantly in awe of God's grace that we get to participate in the expansion of His Kingdom, not only through our full-time job, but also through raising our son to know Jesus and make Him known! 

Party Time!

Yes..

Who are these people?

Just some friends!

Elephant!

Even our cat joined the festivities!

Center of the fun!

Kids toys are hard to put together!

Touchdown Tyko from Josh Holowell on Vimeo.

-In Christ alone,
The Holowell's (Josh, Whitney and Tyko)

Tyko loves the Kitty from Josh Holowell on Vimeo.



-In Christ alone,
The Holowell's (Josh, Whitney and Tyko)

The last 3 years have been full of major transitions for us. From single students, to married students, to married ministers of the gospel full-time, to now: married parents and ministers of the gospel full-time. It has not been without its challenges, joys, and sorrows, but the Lord has sustained us through all of these and let us maintain the joy of our salvation. We wanted to let all of you into our lives in this new reality for us of parenthood and what it has looked like for each of us.

Whitney: Motherhood is a full-time job. And transitioning from being on campus most of the day every day to being at home most of the day every day has been harder than I thought it would be. I had some naive notions before Tyko was born that I could just bring him along to everything and that it would be sort of normal. That has not been true. But, it has been great. I still get to spend several hours each day doing ministry in various forms, whether that is discipling girls, bible study, training, or staff functions, it is great to stay involved in the ministry here at Ball State. We have also developed through this a vision for our family that we want our children (yes, we want more) to be involved and grow up in this ministry learning from us and our students that life is about knowing Jesus and making Him known. So, Tyko comes on campus with me and to staff functions (which is not to bad- he is kind of a stud- so he is pretty well liked). It has been a good but hard transition full of great joy. I truly love my new role and where God has placed me.

Josh: So, this year has been a lot harder and a lot more joyful than I thought it would be. Being a dad is awesome. Being a dad is hard. Being a full-time minister of the gospel is awesome. Being a full-time minister of the gospel is hard. I have learned that to glorify God with my life and my time is going to take a great deal of discipline and grace. I need to spend time with Jesus, serve my wife and son, lead and disciple the greek men, and fulfill my staff duties. In that I have been tempted to pity myself and my workload, but by God’s grace alone, I have joyfully accepted it and pursued it fully. I am most excited to disciple my son (and future kids) to know Jesus and make Him known. Its a cool thought. So, what does my day look like. Well, I do staff/planning things in the morning, ministry on campus during the day, dinner time with Whitney and Tyko, and some nights with bible studies or meetings on campus. It looks like a day full of duties, diapers, and delights, Jesus, his glory, and his grace. Its different each day, crazy most days, and tons of fun. I can truly say that I am excited for where God has us and where He is taking us. We love our job, and our family. Thank you so much for making all of this possible through your prayers and support- it truly makes our lives possible! We thank God for you often!

Indy CC is unique for the Holowell clan this year with little 6 week old Tyko. Our students from Ball State are loving Indy CC, however Tyko does not. He has been a little off and fussy throughout the week which has made the week more difficult for Whitney but the Lord has been faithful and Tyko is getting a lot more comfortable.
As far as the conference goes: awesome! The main speaker Ed has been bringing the Word to us and we have been focusing on our Union with Christ and what that means for our life. In Colossians 3 Paul declares that our life is hidden with God in Christ and that when Christ who is our life appears we will appear with Him. And that reality makes our life Unmistakably different!

Prayer: today is the day of outreach. Pray for the 2000 college students that will be sharing the gospel throughout Indy this afternoon.

Pictures:

















In Christ alone,

Josh Holowell

Well, we are getting ready for Baby Tyko's arrival. And, we think his room is pretty cool.

Isn't my wife so talented! Praise God for her!