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Today it has been five years since fresh life began! If there is one word that encapsulated that day it would be the number 14. It was Sunday, January 14th, the temperature was 14 degrees outside and there were 14 people that came to our first service. It is very special now to look back on the small beginnings of the great things we have seen God do. We have put together a very special film to preserve our history called, The Fresh Life Story. (If you haven’t seen the trailer check out this post!)

It will be played this weekend at all fresh life campuses and online experiences so make sure to catch one of them if you can. I can’t think of any project that has been more difficult and exciting than trying to encapsulate what we have seen God do in these 5 years in Montana in this documentary. I pray God uses it in big ways! If you can’t make it to a fresh life campus or webcast this weekend we will be making it available for purchase in the coming days so stay tuned.

As a fresh life birthday celebration warmup, I thought I’d prime the party with a little video I shot for my blog, with my phone, explaining how and where I made the decision to move to Montana. In case any of you are reading this post during a layover or are killing time with nothing to do…let me just tell you this, God can move in a life and in this world cataclysmically through an hour in an airport. I marvel now when I think back to how much God has accomplished as a result of this hugely pivotal moment that seemed arbitrary at the time.

We just finished the first ever, out-of-town skull church event. It was two hours away in Missoula, Montana. Zoo-Town, as it is called, is a college city and has a bigger population than the greater Kalispell area. We have had a heart to come here and preach the gospel for years and I am so thankful that God has given us the opportunity.

This whole thing was a step out in faith for us. We have never done ministry here, my radio show isn’t on the air, and even though we have seen God do amazing things through skull church at home and online, we have never tried to take it on the road. I don’t have a problem telling you that it was a little scary. Would anyone come?

The venue was way rad. A super vibey old-school theatre. (we tend to be drawn to the phantom of the opera type of rock and roll clubs to do church in.) When our setup teams arrived the cleaning crew hadn’t yet arrived to mop up from the previous show and it was gnarly. Their was still the smell of freshly smoked pot in the air and a mixture of vomit and spilled alcohol on the floor. What better place could there be to preach the gospel?

Missoula is a city that needs the gospel. It has the feel and worldview of what you would find in any university town. Pastors that partnered with us in this outreach told me that it is a very unchurched city with very low numbers of the people attending any place of worship at all. We definitely encountered some very vocal and hostile opposition as we sought to shine the light of Christ but we also found many to be very open and interested as well.

Each night we had great crowds. We didn’t know what to expect and were blown away as hundreds poured in. In addition to those there in person we had several thousand joining in on the live webcast from all over the country and other parts of the world. Best of all, by the time the weekend ended we saw eighty-nine people make professions of faith in Christ!

I am overcome by God’s goodness for letting us be ambassadors of the gospel. I am thankful to freshlife for being a church that cares about the lost in other places. And I am blown away by the mighty men and women of my team that not only fought a giant this weekend–they ran to the battle.

Here is a lookbook to give you a feel of what we saw God do.

With the exception of vacation, It is an unusual thing for me to have a weekend off. If I am not preaching at my favorite church in the universe, this awesome place called freshlife, I am usually in the pulpit somewhere else. This past week was one of those rare occasions where I found myself out of town but free from any speaking engagements on Sunday morning. So what did I do? I went to church! I know, I am kind of a junkie, but there is never a good reason to miss gathering together with God’s people to worship Him–wherever you are. And it is always eye-opening to see what God is up to in other churches.

Since we were in Charlotte, North Carolina, my wife and I were looking forward to visiting Elevation Church, which is pastored by Steven Furtick. This explosive move of God began five years ago and in that time they have grown to over 9,000 people meeting at 4 campuses. I have been blessed following this extraordinary ministry through the internet the last few years. It is one of the 5 or 6 podcasts I listen to almost every week.

As a church, we have learned much from Elevation. Back when we were gearing up to launch the Whitefish campus, we sent some members of our team out to Charlotte to learn from Pastor Steven’s team. I knew that the team I sent would witness cutting edge tech and get a vision for excellence across a multi-campus ministry. What I didn’t know was that they would come back different and that the experience would drastically change our church. The concept of honor is one of the key values to Elevation church. They honor those above them, those beside them and those under them. It is infectious. Since that visit, an epidemic of honor has swept through our culture and has changed us for the better.

Experiencing the church in person was awesome. Even better than I expected. The work that God is doing there is powerful, and they do absolutely everything with excellence and on purpose. Their facilities and use of media are killer–state of the art and LOUD (it’s the only other church besides freshlife I know of that offers ear plugs at the door.) The message was outstanding. They are in a relationship series and Pastor Steven taught verse-by-verse through John 4 and showed that Christ calls us from the polluted wells of this world to the Living Water that He offers. It was powerful.

What really stood out during our trip is the way that the vision of the church has been amplified and rings out powerfully from every detail and crevice of the experience. Every single staff member or volunteer I spoke to was passionate, enthusiastic and seemed elated that they were allowed to be a part of what God was doing at the church in reaching people far from Him. It was inspiring.

Jennie and I were also very stoked to spend some time with Pastor Steven Furtick and his wife Holly while we were there. Since meeting a few months back, he has gone out of his way to invest in and encourage me. This is literally an answer to prayer. When we launched freshlife, just about all of my ministry mentors and leaders that I looked to were substantially older than me. Men like Pastor Skip Heitzig, Pastor Greg Laurie, my dad Chip Lusko and more recently Pastor James MacDonald. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I am extremely thankful and grateful for the fathers in the faith that God has given me and their wisdom has both steered me through turbulent waters and kept me from pitfalls. But I have also specifically prayed for pastor friends my own age. The problem is that the megachurch-while-in-your-twenties club is not a huge one. It is an unusual mixture to have a handful of kids under five at home and a less than five year old church that has exploded.

God has answered these prayers with friendships with men like Pastor Pedro Garcia from CCk in Miami and this new one with Pastor Steven Furtick, younger pastors who I feel a kindred spirit and a common DNA with and who are charging it in a big way. I am also super passionate about “passing it forward” by intentionally making time in my schedule for another generation of church planters that God is raising up to plunder hell and populate heaven.

Check out Elevation church online here. And if you haven’t read Sun Stand Still by Steven Furtick go buy it right now here. It will change your life.

I am in the middle of a wild storm at a retreat in the mountains of California. Chains were just made mandatory on the winding road up here. The winds are gusting so much that while I was preaching tonight the power cut out four times and once a mighty, rushing wind blew open some of the windows in the auditorium. (Fortunately it was at an intense spot in my message and I was able to play it off like it was just the Holy Spirit.) I can’t help but find it ironic that I flew on two airplanes from Montana only to freeze in a storm in Southern California. And of course I left all my warm clothes at home and only brought a light jacket! doht.

Weather complaints aside, tonight it was a huge honor to speak to a group of high school students on a winter camp. Fourteen years ago I attended a camp at a lake when God got a hold of my heart and I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed at the thought of what God might be brewing in some of these teenager’s lives. I told them that had God told me, fourteen years ago, what He wanted to do through me, I wouldn’t have believed Him. I only knew that I needed to come to Christ. Even though I had grown up in church, I needed to be born again. I told them this and challenged them that if the Lord tarries and they would follow Him fully there is no telling the history-altering, earth-changing, kingdom-shaking things God would do through them. At the invitation we saw twenty-five respond, making public professions of faith in Christ!

I have one more session early tomorrow morning where I will be challenging them to aggressively pursue the calling God has on their lives, with vision and tenacity. The world has yet to see what God could do with a heart fully surrendered to Him! And then I will be flying back to Montana. This weekend we are in Ruth 3 in our Happily Ever After series. My message is titled, “Sleepless in Bethlehem.” And we will see Ruth propose to Boaz, in the middle of the night, on a threshing floor. It’s a great passage and it will be great for everyone, especially those who are single but moving closer to the point where marriage is hopefully in the not too distant future.

Next Saturday, October 9th, I will be emceeing and speaking at a LoveLife conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico with Mark Driscoll. The event is being put on by The HUB and it will cover the Song of Solomon. It is designed for anyone 16 years of age or older–whether single or married–and will be full of super practical, Biblical insight on love, sex, dating, romance and marriage.

I highly recommend this event to you, whatever stage of the romantic spectrum you find yourself in, if you live in the Southwest. I love the Song of Solomon and have found that a proper understanding and application of the principles that are in it will unlock God’s best in anyone’s love life. Unfortunately, it is often ignored. J Vernon McGee called it “the most neglected book in the Bible.” If we let it remain silent, it’s to our own hurt. You can purchase tickets here. I hope to see you there!