777 church update (Dying for Change)
In the past 14 years as a believer in Christ, the book of Acts chapter 2 has always had a tremendous impact on me. It says, (paraphrase) "The early believers devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, the fellowship, sharing meals, and prayer". it also says, "the Lord added to their number daily, those who were being saved.
Unfortunately throughout the years I've never really experienced this kind of intimate fellowship. Our modern church practices aren't really conducive to this kind of thing. We live in a western society of corporate models, programs and institutions. Its all about marketing, consumerism, and hierarchy. its so impersonal and contrary to what I believe God has intended for intimacy. What happened? Where did we go wrong? Well, I could spend all day giving my opinion on that but will that really change anything? No.... So rather than sitting around crying over it, our little church has decided...WERE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT!, NO! WE AINT GONNA TAKE IT!... WERE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE! (Twisted sister.. late 80,s). We refuse to conform to our western society! Our new motto is DYING FOR CHANGE!
We have always desired to start home churches based on Acts 2 and it's finally happened. 777 Church in menifee started in the home of Carlos and Tiffany Frutos two weeks ago and it's been truly amazing. Within two weeks we have made contact with over 100 people in the community, spent all day at a community event talking with people, including the mayor, who loves and supports our vision. We have already seen 4 people make authentic decisions to follow Jesus Christ and be baptized. We couldn't have asked for a better start and we truly anticipate more miraculous things to come.
Our newest home church in East highlands started last week in the home of Mike and Becca Fallon and already I'm hearing great reports. I will inform you of all the great things going on there in the future. We're also starting the Riverside Home church in a couple weeks at Jason and Erin karpynec's house.
Our Central meeting place in San bernardino put on a communion dinner Friday night at Dr Mark and Kathy Stinson's house and our family came together from all over the inland empire to celebrate the sacrifice of christ. it was an amazing experience. We also had an impromtu Baptism at my house on Sunday after our San bernardino gathering were 7 people devoted there lives to Christ.
We are so honored and blessed that God is allowing us to experience these things and i'm just praying that everyone in God's family would be able to experience the same. Below I have added some picutres to share part of these experiences with you.
777 Church
Is it true? Did I branch out and start a Church? Yesss..........it is true....I am nacho, the luchador (:
For those of you who are not aware, I did Plant a new 777 Church in San Bernardino. You may have heard a lot of weird stories so I figured I would set the record straight. The first question you probably have is, "are you and Sandals ok"? The answer to that is.... Absolutley! We Have always had our ups and downs, just like any authentic relationship, we come from 2 different worlds, but I love my brothers and sisters at Sandals.
Let me just give you a little history about my journey with Christ. About a year after my crazy first meeting with Christ, God revealed to me a calling to be a pastor. I didn't know exatly what that entailed, but I knew it would be dealing with extreame people like myself who did not grow up in Church. At the time I was at a great Church called Victoria Community Church (The Grove). I trained for 2 1/2 years to be a Pastor, was supposed to be licensed, but wasn't???. I started a ministry back then called "crosswalk". I know, a little cheesy and churchy, but I was learning how to keep it real, it's taken a while. Anyways, I started this ministry out of frustration from bringing my unchurched friends to church and them not fitting in. So I began playing music and preaching at an outdoor venue, with the whole barbeque, hang out vibe. I had about 40 to 50 people attending and many people got saved. Great times... about this same time a similar ministry started. This produced a little problem.... this ministry wanted to reach the same crowd as me, only with a different strategy. Well of course the church had to make a decision on who they would support, because we couldn't have 2 ministries doing the same thing, so the support went to the "porch".
Many people in crosswalk were hurt and wanting me to start on my own, but I knew I wasn't ready and had much to learn. So for the next year I resigned my staff position, commited to a 5 year bachelors program at CBU and stayed at "The Grove".
These were tuff times for me. I would lead people to Christ and try to get them plugged in but most of them didn't really identify. So one day I was at the shop in corona and I got a call from Matt Brown at Sandals Church. I knew Matt from when Sandals use to meet at the Grove. He knew I had a crazy testimony and asked me to come and speak at the Sandals first mens retreat. Starving to do ministry I gladly accepted.
That weekend was powerfull, I preached and felt like I could be myself. I had a great response from the men and began seeing an opportunity for me to provide some help at Sandals in the area of evangelism and outreach. So I went to Pastor Tom at the Grove and informed him of my idea to provide help to Sandals Church. He was in full support.
I then went to Matt and gave him the idea. He was very happy to hear of my desire to come on board and began working on getting me there. I began attending Sandals doing outreach ministry. When I got there they had no outreach ministries, so I started a street team, Homless ministry, events team, Baptisms, follow up, blue card accepting Christs, pasos (mexico missions) ect.. all these minstries are now oversaw by full time staff members.
In the fall of 2005 I broke my neck riding motorcross and began a year of living hell. At the same time I was helping Heather Veitch advance as an evangelist and trying to oversee J.c.'s girls. This was an impossibility for me in a hospital bed so I had to release control of jc's girls to Matt. It was hard for me to do because I cared so much about the mission, but there was so much I couldn't contribute.
In the middle of all this, I got hit with the worst case of anxiety and depression imaginable. These were very dark times and I began really seeking the Lord. I went to my partner willy and said "we need to seek the Lord on what he wants to do in the future", Willy has been with me since the beginning along with joey, and Willy said " lets get back to the heart of worship. We will meet every Wednesday for prayer and Bible study". This is were the vision for 777 started.
Threw all of this I believe 100% that the vision for 777 is meant to grow beyond the boundaries of a small ministry in a local church. I have always felt called to be a Senior pastor. I want to see 777 church's grow across the world. Our mission is to "reach and teach the unreligious how to keep it real with themselves, others, and God.
All this to say that this current move is just a small part of a bigger picture. I have been truly honored to serve at Sandals Church. Matt Brown is truly a great guy. He's a man of faith and loves people. I sat back at my last Sandals Service on Easter and I really feel good about my contribution to the church. When I arrived in 04' I counted three people with tattoo's in a congregation of 700. I watched almost 3,ooo people walk through the door on easter many who you could tell came from the world and many tattooed people..... heck even the sermon was on tattoo's. I feel that Riverside is well taken care of. I now turn my heart to San Bernardino County. A very dark place who needs Jesus. To keep up with whats going on with 777 Church just go to our web site @ 777church.com. Please keep praying for me and my family as we step out in faith. God bless you, T.J. 777
A good 777 response
Just a quick note from my friend "prinzez" from myspace.... this is what she thought of our 777 gathering..
I also wanted to give a shout out to my myspace friend TJ 's 777 souls meeting this past weekend. Its a group of people keeping it real with God and others...I felt connected when I saw the message on his page, and I had to go find out in person...It was really very cool!! Very down to earth people :o) I also brought a friend who " doesn't like church" ( normally) but, she was impressed with 777. The message was timley, and she wants to go back. ME TOO! I could see and feel the people lovin Christ and each other, and it rocks!
vision
- "Dying for Change"
