Just before I was about to leave California a year ago in the RV, I prayed that we would get to be a part of a new church starting there before we left.

The rig parked in Coronado State Park 1 week before we were leaving 👆

I had run out of time -- so I thought.

Then I met Tim.

I sat at a coffee shop with my Bible and this giant dude in moccasins came and sat next to me to talk about Scripture. I was blown away by his knowledge of scripture, his humility and if I'm honest, his hair.

He shared his story about leaving college basketball to pursue God and what he had next for him. After a week of dinners and hangouts, it was obvious that God had a clear call on Tim's life.

We started working together on some ways to reach the community and we connected him with some other church leaders, and next thing we knew Tim had a Bible study in that coffee shop.

This is a picture of Tim and his daughter when we had dinner in my 5th wheel on the beach.

1 year and 18 baptisms later, they have a gathering in their home in Sacramento called Shepherd's Tent where many of his friends who he used to play ball with meet weekly.

They are starting a basketball camp that trains the kids and teaches them about Jesus, and they invest in a South American mission.

Locally, they have an ambitious sustainable project that they are working on in their town that I'll tell you more about soon, but here's what I hope you'll take away from this email:

The Church is alive and active because the God we serve is alive and active.

As numbers of North American church attendance look dismal, the amount of leaders raising up to reach their communities and friends is staggering. That's why we started Oasis: to build trellis for the vine of the expanding missional church.

The Church is strong the Spirit of God is moving in people all over the world - we're just not looking in the right places to see it.