MHC|WS Campus Biblical Living Pastor James Noriega and his wife Gina are sponsoring and mentoring four men and three women who have committed to the year-long program described above. The Biblical Living ministry includes Volunteer Biblical Counseling and Redemption Group leaders, and are concerned with the soul care of the body of MHC|West Seattle.

The DTP participants sponsored by Pastor James and Gina are Rob Fix, Neil Huck, Ashley Malcom, Kalen Peters, Kristen Peters, Maria Reigner, and Justin Williams. All have joined the DTP this fall to help build the capacity of soul care as we continue to center ourselves on the Gospel.

Rob Fix was born and raised here in the White Center plateau area, and now lives with his new bride, Meilee. Rob has been part of the Mars Hill family since 1999. Rob was raised in a Catholic home and was an active member of Holy Family Parish as a student and altar boy. After high school, Robert was called to Mars Hill by the Spirit through his niece, and after taking care of a 20+ year addiction he has a strong passion to be used by Jesus to bring others out of the bondage of personal addiction.

Neil Huck has lived in the Seattle area all his life and has been a part of Mars Hill Church for over five years. In the past year he has felt a clear calling toward church leadership and has been involved with the Proxy ministry, as well as Redemption Groups here at the West Seattle campus. Neil desires to step into the leadership that the Lord leads him into, whatever that may be.

Ashley Malcom came to Seattle three years ago from Colorado. In the midst of calling her to Mars Hill Church about a year and a half ago, God called her out of a passive relationship with Jesus. After years spent studying and living in the world of secular psychology Ashley feels a call to Biblical Counseling. She is currently serving in Redemption Group Ministry and as a Volunteer Biblical Counselor.

Kalen Peters is a native of West Seattle and has lived here all his life. He began attending Mars Hill during the spring of 2003 in High School before embarking on several life changing journeys. After several years of searching and “rebelling,” Kalen eventually settled back into his community and shortly thereafter made Mars Hill West Seattle his home. Some unearthed distortions and sins led him to Redemption Groups where he received truth in a clear uncompromising way. After experiencing much healing and revelation of what Jesus’ death on the cross truly did for him, Kalen began serving in the ministry to offer the same freedom and truth he himself received. Kalen serves with his wife Kristen.

Kristen Peters has grown up in the Seattle area and has been a part of Mars Hill for about four years. God has called her to participate in the soul care of His people. The passion she has for counseling has grown as she watches God transform lives. Kristen serves as a Redemption Group Leader and works for Mars Hill’s Central Operations department.

Maria Reigner was raised in Waukesha, Wisconsin and moved to Seattle one year ago. She has been attending Mars Hill since her move and is passionately pursuing the DTP at the West Seattle Campus. God has called her to soul care, which is playing out now in her co-leading Redemption Groups and supporting the Biblical Living Department.

Justin Williams is a Seattle area native who was saved by Jesus when he was 20 years old. Justin has been serving at Mars Hill West Seattle for the past year, growing as a disciple of Jesus, and trying to discern God’s calling on his life. Justin is currently serving in Biblical Living and Redemption Group Ministry with the hopes of playing a part in what Jesus is building at Mars Hill West Seattle.

Please join us in prayer for these men and women and their families, for sponsors James and Gina Noriega, and for the Biblical Living ministry. If you are interested in serving in the Biblical Living ministry or are in need of soul care, check out the Redemption Night / Counseling page. You can also check out Pastor James’ weekly video blog HERE.

Find out more about the Discipleship Training Program HERE, and watch this space as the series continues, introducing you to more DTP participants.

Compassion Connection was our hosting organization in Ecuador. In this video you’ll meet Steve Youngren, founder and director of Compassion Connection, as he introduces himself, explains a bit of what they do and how you can help.

To read other posts in this series click HERE.

Last week we looked at propitiation and expiation, sin paid for and removed. Here, we will see how those roll right into justification, Christ’s righteousness imputed to you. Martin Luther calls this the great exchange:

“This is that mystery which is rich in divine grace to sinners: wherein by a wonderful exchange our sins are no longer ours but Christ¹s, and the righteousness of Christ not Christ¹s but ours. He has emptied himself of his righteousness that he might clothe us with it and fill us with it; and he has taken our evils upon himself that he might deliver us from them.” (Isaiah 53:4-6, II Corinthians 5:21)

In essence, God takes your filth and in return, he gives you his righteousness. If you can ponder for a moment Jesus, taking upon himself your sin—him who knew no sin, becoming the curse of God… Jesus became your obscenity to God; he was obscene to God. Because Jesus became that curse, you’ve been released from the curse of the law.

Jesus not only took your curse. He became your curse, and you became his perfected righteousness. You see, there has to be an exchange for a full justification. Just leaving you with removed sin means that you are now not unrighteous. But because of a complete justification, Jesus has given you his righteousness. His righteousness is imputed to you.

In counseling we often see distortions in believers living by a works-based philosophy which comes from practicing ungodly repentance. You have been set free from the law, free from works. You don’t work at God’s love; his love has been given to you. The believer without an understanding of justification tries to behave his way out of sin. As a believer, the gospel isn’t about un-sinning or managing your behavior. In Matthew 5:28 it says that sin doesn’t start with a physical act; it ends with it. Sin doesn’t start when you open your computer and go to a porn site, when you over-eat, when you under-eat. The start of sin is in your heart. When you understand justification by the cross of Christ, it doesn’t leave you trying to figure out how not to sin. The cross of Christ frees you from sin. Your behavior becomes about God, not about your behavior.

Additionally in counseling, the idea is to sniff out religion, self-righteousness, and ungodly repentance. Once you have discerned the man-made behavior, Christ’s righteousness is revealed to you. I believe Scripture tells you that you didn’t behave your way into sin. How could you possibly believe you could behave your way out of it? You worshiped your way into sin. You worship your way out. Justification allows you to worship your way out of sin. Once you experience the righteousness of Christ, you are giving God glory—not yourself.

Pastor James is a Biblical Living Pastor at Mars Hill Church West Seattle. He currently oversees counseling for the campus, and is responsible for equipping and training volunteer biblical counselors and leaders at all levels.

If you are hurting and would like to speak with a counselor, please email westseattlecare@marshillchurch.org

Subscribe to our blog by email to stay up to date on articles from Pastor James and other Mars Hill Pastors.

This was the sixth post in the series Bringing Counseling Back Into The Church
To read the other posts in the series click HERE.

So, if you’ve been reading along with this series you may be asking, “What does Latin America have to do with Mars Hill West Seattle?” Good question. Glad you asked.

The answer to that question has three parts:

• Gospel: The whole church is called to take the whole gospel to the whole world. (Mt 28:19-20) Therefore, this work is primarily one of obedience as we seek to see the gospel brought to all nations. (Acts 1:8) As a rich, developed, resource-laden country we are in a position to help see countless lives changed, transformed and saved thru the advancement of the gospel. Anything less would be disobedience. This was the first trip aimed at exploring how to deepen our involvement in church planting in Latin America.

• Partnerships: One of my goals was to initiate conversation regarding potential partnerships with like-minded churches and organizations to which we send teams to aid in their local mission. Though we don’t believe in “short term mission” (because mission isn’t something you turn “on” and “off”) we are open to sending teams of people who are living on mission in Seattle to Latin America to help those who are still learning. This could also mean sending long-term missionaries out of West Seattle, which I pray for regularly. If you’re heart is burning as you read this, let’s talk.

• Bilingual campus (?): Lastly, we’re in the early stages of considering what it would look like for Mars Hill West Seattle to go bilingual – english and spanish. Connections to churches and organizations in Latin America could help with this transition. Interested in helping out? Contact us at westseattle@marshillchurch.org.

This is part three of six in the series “Back from Ecuador”. In my next post I’m going to introduce Steve Youngren of Compassion Connection.

To read other posts in this series click HERE.

Happening This Week:

• WED 11/04 – Redemption Night | 7pm – 9:30pm
• FRI 11/06 – Missio Dei | 7pm – 9pm
• SAT 11/07 – Missio Dei | 8:30am – 12:30pm
• SUN 11/08 – Luke’s Gospel | 9am • 11:15am • 5pm

Upcoming Events:

• Give Blood | November 22th, 7pm – 10:30am – 4:30am
• Thanksgiving Eve Service | November 25th, 6pm – 8pm
• Baby Dedications | November 29th, 9am, 11:15am, & 5pm

Recent Blog Posts:

• Pastor James Noriega continues his blog series with Centrality or the Cross in counseling | Propitiation and Expiation.
• We continued our new series highlighting a DTP Ministry. This week it was Community Groups.
• Pastor Adam Sinnett is continuing a new six part series in “Back from Ecuador”

MHC|WS Community Groups Pastor Cliff Low is sponsoring and mentoring three men who have committed to the year-long program described above. They will be helping to build the community group department as well as leading groups. John Lindow, Paul Parker, and Craig Sturm have joined the DTP this fall to help build the capacity of the community as we continue to center ourselves on the Gospel.

John Lindow is a student at Fuller Seminary who will be working on a 9 month internship with Pastor Cliff. He and his family currently live in West Seattle in Arbor Heights. He will be starting up a group in Arbor Heights where he already is on mission in his neighborhood. He will also be involved in starting up another group that will likely start in November meeting on Sunday nights and targeting families that can’t meet on weeknights. John is gifted relationally and has an incredibly friendly disposition. Pastor Cliff looks forward to working with him, as John always brings a positive attitude to meetings.

Paul Parker has been serving in Productions and has transferred his internship to Community Groups. He is heading up Assimilation and will be revamping things to be more integrated with other groups. He is praying about starting up a new group in an area where there is no community group. He will also be helping to find ways to support the women’s groups as they solve problems such as finding host homes and child care. Lastly, he will be helping Pastor Cliff as he leads and administrates all the community groups. Pastor Cliff looks forward to working with him, noting that Paul brings energy and passion to the team.

Craig Sturm and his wife Kathy moved to Seattle to be part of Mars Hill. He has chosen West Seattle as his campus and community groups as ministry of focus. He is part of Re:Train and DTP. Craig brings 20+ years experience as a pastor lastly serving at John Piper’s church. Craig will be helping us solve some of our strategic issues with those who are not in community, those who are experiencing barriers to community and those who are not remaining in community. He will also be starting up a group that will be the first in Tukwila/Renton. Pastor Cliff is humbled to be working with Craig as he will be helping expand our ability to love people in our existing communities as well as developing new areas.

Please join us in prayer for these men and their families, for sponsor Cliff Low, and for the Community Groups ministry. If you are interested in getting plugged into a community, check out the Community Groups page.

Find out more about the Discipleship Training Program HERE, and watch this space as the series continues, introducing you to more DTP participants.

In my last post I discussed the primary objectives of Acts 29 International in Latin America. In this post I’ll explain the goals of our trip, introduce the Latin America leadership team, and recount some of the highlights of our brief, yet productive, trip that lasted a total of four days (with a day of travel on each end). It was a quick, hard-hitting, Spirit-led adventure.

Three Goals
Our trip had three main goals:

• Lead, host and teach the first ever Acts 29 Latin American “Church Planting Foundations” conference.
• Meet as a Latin American leadership team to pray, plan and implement a strategy for reaching the continent with the gospel through church-planting-churches.
• Establish our first round of Acts 29 candidates from the, primarily, Ecuadorian applicant pool.

Leadership Team
The Acts 29i Latin America leadership team currently consists of:

• Jay Bauman | Restore Brazil; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Steve Youngren | Compassion Connection; Quito, Ecuador
• Francisco Benfeldt | Casa de Libertad; Guatemala City, Guatemala
• Dave Bruskas | Mars Hill Albuquerque; Albuquerque, NM
• Mike Gunn | Harambee; Renton, Wa | Mike serves as a consultant and trainer.

I’ll be introducing several of these men in future blog posts.

Evidences of Grace
There were many evidences of God’s grace throughout our trip but I’ll share a few of the highlights.

#1) I’ll begin on a personal note. This was my first time back to Ecuador since I lived there nine years ago. On the way down I took time on the plane to recount the many evidences of God’s grace to me in the last nine years, including graduating from the UW, seven+ years of marriage, two beautiful children, a three-year stint in corporate america, four-years on staff of Mars Hill Church, and two years spent leading Mars Hill West Seattle. Nine years ago I would have never dreamed I would be flying back as a pastor to lead a conference for potential Latin American church planters. It has been a good run so far with God’s fingerprints all over it. He has been faithful and given grace far more abundantly than all I could ask or think. (Eph 3:20)

#2) Another highlight was watching a pastor from the Amazon jungle fill out an Acts 29 application. It required a double-take. It was a small foretaste of heaven where all tribes, tongues, and nations will bow and worship before the throne. (Rev 7:9-12) Imagine paddling down the Amazon river and seeing a church sign with an Acts 29 logo on it. That’s something only God can do.

#3) The last memory I’ll recount was also the most powerful. On the last day of our trip we worshipped with three other area churches and prayed over the men who were feeling led to plant churches. This four hour service was filled with clear preaching, exuberant song, fervent prayer and, for many, tears of joy and repentance. Simply put, it was powerful. The gospel transcends culture, language, and economics.

To read other posts in this series click HERE.

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