toddjohnston.org

The last year or so of my life has seen it’s share of changes, some for the better and even those that didn’t seem so good at the time have turned me for the better. I’ve enjoyed my first year of marriage and couldn’t ask to be blessed with someone more wonderful than Rebecca. I left my old Job and am starting a company (btw-I’ve learned that the phrase “I’m starting a company” can continue to be used as long as you feel the need to). My wife and I left a hurtful situation at a church that we were heavily involved in. We still miss many things about the place, but are growing in the humility that comes with embracing the reality of the Gospel–something we have realized we have so easily overlooked in many ways for far too long. It’s easy to get “cut in on” as Paul says (Gal. 5:7) and lose sight of the wonder of the cross–Christ as our righteousness, trading it instead for man’s view of what makes us right with God.

One of the joys of my business is that I can work from pretty much anywhere, something I’m going to take advantage of in my new home in Rome. I’m planning on taking up residence in a little coffee shop and/or book store, get involved in a genuine real way in people’s lives, and share the love of Christ–the love that caused him to become nothing so that he might be glorified by the lives of the redeemed (Phil. 2:1-11).

I’ve been reading “The Reason for God” by Tim Keller with some friends of mine and have been reminded and growingly blown away how he approaches the lost–with an exposition on the Gospel that dismantles the presumptions of the even the stanchest of atheists–while diminishing the pride of even the proudest of Christians. It will be a huge resource I’m bound to return to time after time when stepping out onto this new mission field of life.

Pray for me as I return to a mission field I have fond memories of from times past–the starbucks/barnes & noble. Pray that I won’t just be “that christian guy” that hangs out and annoys people that are trying to enjoy their coffee. I don’t want to approach the lost from my “superior” condescending spiritual view point. Instead I want to approach the lost from the perspective of a gospel-saturated broken servant who knows how much I NEED Christ.