The featured photo for this post is of Tuolumne City back in the day. It has since lost both the Gold Mining industry and the Saw Mill, which employed most of the town back when.

This morning Jackson (our 18 month old son) and I got to go to Tuolumne and pray with some dear friends. He got a little restless, so I brought him outside and we weeded the back yard of Revive Cafe together, watered the roses, and prayed for the town of Tuolumne.

After the prayer time was over, my praying friends came down from “the upper room” at Revive Cafe (they are there praying every Monday at 6am BTW – just come through the back gate, back door, and up the stairs). They had that sweet spirit you see in each other after you’ve been praying a while together. It’s a calm, trusting in God frame of being, a presence about you. Hmm… maybe that’s because You’re extra aware of God’s presence with us and in us?!

The focus of my post today is very clear and simple: Togetherness around the Gospel of Jesus Christ is vital if we want to see more clearly what God is going to do whether or not we are ready for it. Working together, centered on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, clears our spiritual glasses and helps us appreciate each other’s labors of love.

TY and Pat Atkins are dear friends of my family’s. I’ve already posted about their son and daughter-in-law, Patrick “Pack” and Aimee Atkins. CLICK HERE FOR THE POST ABOUT THEM. I’m sure one day real soon I’ll post about my long-time close friend and fellow adventurist and his wife, Thomas “Tom” and Courtney Atkins who own the Twain Harte Mini Golf just up the hill from where I live.

Today I simply want to introduce TY and Pat. They raised godly children and have seen them married off very well. They have prayed and labored in this county for decades. They have sought to be humble and consistent in presenting the Gospel to their family and friends in tangible and relational ways. They have been faithfully involved in the home church movement in years past and have labored to encourage a more grassroots expression of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our neighborhoods and towns. I’m very grateful for their partnership in the Gospel as we explore what God seems to be up to in Tuolumne City and around the county. God has made it clear to me and so many more that we cannot be isolated missionaries. We are indigenous missionaries, all of us, and we cannot be isolated. We must step out in faith and live out the Gospel of Christ in tangible and audible ways. We must act and back up our actions of faith with bold and yet kind, brave and yet gentle, steadfast in love presentations of the hope that we have in our Savior.

Dear Father God, we recline in Your grace, dive into Your awesome worth, revel in Your provision and constancy. We seek earnestly and wrestle with Your truth for our lives, discuss with genuine interest the things of YOU, Your Gospel of Jesus being the most frequent on our lips. We unite around the major points of doctrine, that Your Son became flesh and bore our sin that we might be free to serve You and make disciples of Jesus Christ. This is our purpose so long as we breathe and move and see and touch and taste and experience the opportunity to KNOW YOU and MAKE YOU KNOWN.