I’m going to come out and say this…I have a man crush on Moses.  Of all the men in the Bible, I have always found myself drawn to Moses.  I truly think this is a God thing.  Because of all the men in the Bible, I relate to Moses the most.

We’re both miracle babies (my mom wasn’t suppose to physically be able to have children).  We’re both overly ambitious (although I haven’t killed anybody…yet).  We’re not the “bestest” of speakers.  God has used trials, tribulations, and time to prepare us for our callings.  Most importantly, I feel like God has given me the same clarification on my calling that He gave Moses.

In Exodus 3, God tells Moses that He is going to use him to deliver His people out of Egypt.  Moses’ response is the same as any person who has a great calling put before them,  “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”   Moses is scared, perplexed, shaken and lacking confidence.  How could a screwed up man like him complete such a large task after he had failed so many years before?  He has been hiding in the desert for 40 years, and he is looking to God for a sign to give him confidence in his calling.

God’s response is classic.  He doesn’t give him some pep talk about how awesome Moses is and how God has been preparing him 40 years for this very moment.  Instead God tells him, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

This one verse has been the summation of my entire calling.  October 27 of this last year marked the 10 year anniversary of God calling me to vocational ministry.  I have known since then that God is calling me to serve Him as my full-time job.  And as I have sought Him for clarification of the years, His sign has always been the same.  It’s not a pillar of smoke or fire, or a damp towel on my front porch, or a star in the east.  Instead God has quietly told me He will be with me, and I’ll know I’ve fulfilled my calling when I look back and see that I’ve fulfilled my calling.

For this reason, I have never really looked forward to try and figure out what God wants me to do.  Instead I’ve looked backwards to see what Jesus has done in my life to determine where He wants me to go next.

By looking at the last 10 years of my life, I can see that Jesus has been moving me towards pinnacle moment in my life.  In college, I went on a mission trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for two-and-a-half months.  My main point of contact there was the head of the Purpose Driven Church Planting movement in Rio.  Him and others spoke into my life saying they saw in me great potential to plant churches in my future.  I filed the information deep in the recesses of my brain and went on with my life.

I came back to Eastern New Mexico University, started a interdenominational Bible study with my best friend, married the most beautiful woman in the world, graduated, and got a job as a youth minister in a small town in the panhandle of Texas.  It was during my time as a youth minister that God stirred the memories of Brazil in my head and moved in my heart.

I don’t remember the day or the time, but I remember the intense emotions and distinct clarity.  I knew that God wanted me to plant a church.  So I did what any young ambitious newly married kid does only a year-and-a-half out of college, I turned in my two week notice and made plans to move to Portland, OR (motivated by the book Blue Like Jazz).

When reality snapped to, we figured out that we had no jobs, no place to live, and no friends in Portland.  Therefore we did what every young ambitious church planter does, we packed up all our stuff and temporarily moved into my mother-in-law’s house in Albuquerque, NM.  It was going to be our half-way point on the way to Portland

We tried our best to find a way to get to Portland, but God kept shutting the doors.  And the longer that we stayed in Albuquerque, the more Jesus opened my eyes to the beauty of this city and broke my heart with the sin of its people.  In the quiet of our hearts, God showed us that He had other men for Portland, but He wanted us to stay here in Albuquerque.

As Shannon and I began to settle into Albuquerque, getting jobs and a home of our own, we started looking for a church that we call home while we prepared to plant.  We scoured hundreds of church websites and visited numerous in person.  We began to get so discouraged by what we found.  And as time went on, we began to see why God wanted us to plant a church in Albuquerque.

But like a diamond in the rough, we came across a small church that was meeting in a run down theater on Central Ave, City on a Hill (now Mars Hill Church Albuquerque). The church was a place of love, grace, and mercy as you would see the rich rub elbows with homeless and the messed up mingle with the self-righteous.  The pastor, Dave Bruskas, had planted the church only a few years earlier and had a heart to help young men plant churches in Albuquerque.  He had a deep love for the city and an even deeper love for Jesus.  His passion was infectious (and still is to this day).

It was during this time that a few things happened.  First, I felt like God told me to wait.  I had some growing up to do, and like the disciples, I needed to go up to my room and wait for the Holy Spirit to come.  Second, I learned about Acts 29, Mars Hill, and Mark Driscoll.  Through them I learned what it means to be a church planter and more importantly a husband and father.  Third, I got a job with UPS doing sales.  By working for UPS, I have traveled all over Albuquerque (and half the state of NM).  I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of this city.

But one area has always stood out to me as I make my daily visits to customers.  Uptown has to be one of the more unique areas of Albuquerque.  If Nob Hill is the cultural hub of  Albuquerque, I would say that Uptown is the socio-economic center. You have the wealthy and affluent who come to work in the high rises and play at Q Mall, but there are also the gang-bangers who come from the War Zone to roam the Coronado Mall.  You won’t find another place in Albquerque where more diverse group of people live, work, and play.  It has captured my heart (but more on this later).

The last thing that happened was I listened to a podcast that would change my thoughts on church planting for the rest of my life.  Up until this point I had planned on flying solo.  I was going to gather a small group of people and start our own church named after a weird latin term or vague Harry Potter incantation.  But God had other plans. As I listened to Doug Swagerty from Harbor Church in San Diego talk about why and how they do multi-site churches, God made it clear to me that this was His plan for me.

The organization, efficiency, and team-work that went into planting a campus as opposed to a new church spoke to the core of who God made me as a person.  It was then that I had determined that God didn’t want me to plant a church, but to plant another campus for City on a Hill in the Uptown area.  He wanted me to carry the vision and mission to another part of our beautiful city.

This brings us to this moment in time.  For the past three years, I feel like have been metaphorically sitting on the bench waiting for God to call me into the game.  Like Moses wandered in the dessert shepherding sheep for 40 years, God has been having me wander in the dessert waiting for His timing.  But as City on a Hill has made the transition to becoming Mars Hill Church Albuquerque, I feel like God has been calling my number.  The Holy Spirit has began to move fresh my heart, and I hear God saying, “Qualls…get in the game.”  I feel like God is calling me to be on mission with Jesus in Albuquerque as He reaches our city to impact a region to influence the world.

Working along side Dave Bruskas, we are looking to start a Mars Hill Church campus in the Albuquerque Uptown area.  Through Mars Hill’s campus model we hope to reach hundreds of thousands of people through preaching the gospel, planting Acts 29 Churches, and hosting Resurgence and Acts 29 events.

In preparation for this, I will be going to Re:Train starting on August 16th of this year.  Re:Train is a one year training center that trains “missional leaders to live for Jesus and lead their churches to effectively reach their cultures with the gospel by staying culturally accessible and biblically faithful.”  I see God using this training as a final step to prepare me for the mission put before me.

Looking back on the past ten years of my life, I can see how Jesus has been leading to this moment.  Each trial and tribulation has been there to bring me to this point in time.  He has led me here, and now He is telling me once again, “I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”  I don’t know exactly what the next few years entail.   But I know this, years from know there will be a Mars Hill Church in Uptown Albuquerque, and we will worship and serve our Lord Jesus on that mountain.

Here’s the deal though, I know I can’t do this alone.  And I know that I’m not the only person that God has called to do this.  I need all the help I can get.  More importantly, I need your help.  I completely believe in the sovereignty of God.  So if you have gotten through the 1841 words of this post to this point, I believe that God has a part for you in this.  I ultimately don’t know what that is for you (that’s between you and God), but I have a few suggestions.

1. Pray

I have seen God move in amazing ways through prayer.  I know that God chooses to work through the prayers of His people.  Therefore, I desperately ask for your prayers as I move forward with this endeavor.  Pray for me as I go through Re:Train.  Pray for God to bring laborers.  Pray for my family.  Pray for provision (finances, locations, volunteers, ect.).  Pray for a pouring out of the Holy Spirit in Albuquerque.

2. Join

Join in on the mission in Albuquerque.  As we get closer towards starting this, I will be getting out more information. For now this would simply mean joining the Mars Hill Church campus in Albuquerque.  Join a community group and start serving.  If you are interested in joining, email me, and we can start a conversation.

3. Give

Bread is made for laughter, and wine gladdens life, and money answers everything. – Ecclesiastes 10:19

Unfortunately, it is going to take money to do this.  Fortunately, I know that God will provide.  He will use His people (you) to provide for the tasks that are ahead.  The biggest financial burden at the moment is Re:Train.  I need to raise $2,000 in the next five weeks.  This will pay for my first month of training, travel, lodging, and a basic laptop.  Please pray if God would have you support this task financially.  If you feel moved by God, you can use the ChipIn Widget below or email me and I will send you my mailing address.

I am excited to see what God is going to do in the next few years.  I look forward to sharing with you what God is doing as we go through this journey together.

I can’t believe that it was only a year ago that we got in a car wreck, went in and out of labor for 30 hours, found out Asa was breach, and had an emergency C-section.  Now our little bundle of joy isn’t so little anymore.  He was born 6 lbs 11oz and now weighs over 22 lbs, and you can ask anyone that has held him that he is pure muscle.  The only thing squishy about the boy is his poop.

He can crawl. He can pull himself up.  He can walk while holding on to things. He will eat ANYTHING you put in front of him.  He smiles anytime you point a camera at him.  He can do sit ups. He babbles all day long.  He is always smiling (even when he cries…it’s weird).  He is a sharp dresser.  He speaks three languages.  He paints and I’m pretty sure he knows how to do long division.

He is a blessing from God and Shannon and I thank Jesus every day for the gift that we have gotten in Asa.  Happy Birthday Asa!

Here are some posts from the past that I would recommend checking out if you want to be nostalgic. 

• Video from Asa’s Birthday 
• Air Bag + Face = Pain
• Asa in the Morning
• Asa in His Bumbo for the First Time
• Asa is Crawling!!!!

Also feel free to leave a comment below to share your birthday wishes for the boy.

So I’m following Brook’s footsteps and taking over a month to do this.  I was tagged…the idea is this:

1. Post these rules on your blog
2. Write 6 random things about yourself.
3. Tag 6 people at the end of you post
4. If you tagged, DO IT and pass on the tag.

So here I go….

1. I can wiggle my ears…independently.  I can wiggle just my right ear, or I can wiggle just my left ear.  This is what happens when you have no life.
2. I had a dog named Vern when I was growing up.  It was so dumb that it would run into the fence when you would call it from the other side….needless to say this would happen often.
3. In Jr. High I was the stinky kid.  I hit puberty and no one really told me that I needed to take a bath more than once a week.  I’ve gotten better though.
4. I was a die hard anti-Apple until about 2 years ago.  I saw the errors of my ways and converted to the one true computer…and I’ll never go back.
5. I have a tattoo on my back of a cross with tribal print behind it.  I would get two sleeves too if UPS and my wife would let me.
6. I’m my own uncle….yep…try to figure that one out.  Just so you know…there was no incest involved and everything was legal.

So there you go….now here are my six.

Shannon, Dustin, Brad, CJ, Clayton, and BK

Every now and then I have to go on business trips for UPS.  I really don’t like going.  Generally their pointless, but mostly it’s because I have to be away from Shannon (and now Asa).  I have to eat alone, watch TV alone, and sleep alone.  It’s really depressing.

But this week Shannon and Asa went with Shannon’s mom to Denver to see some family.  I have determined that I don’t like going on business trips…but I hate having my wife and kid leave me at home alone.  Like a business trip, I have to eat alone (and now I have to make it too), watch TV alone, and sleep alone, but I have to do this at home where everything reminds me of them.

I’ve been cleaning the house today so Shannon can come home and relax, and everything reminds me of the two of them (hince the reason I’m blogging to take my mind off of it…but I’m blogging about them so it’s not working).  Making the bed, folding the laundry, cleaning the kitchen, picking up the house, all reminds me of the two of them.  So I’ve determined that I’m never letting them leave me home alone again…..yeah that’s about it.

So men…if you’re at home with your wives and kids…realize your blessing and tell your wife how much you love her and spend some time playing with your kids.  Sometimes you don’t realize how pitiful you are until you’re all alone again.

P.S. Don’t worry about me…Shannon and Asa come home tomorrow.

For those of you that don’t know, I work for UPS doing sales.  I know it might seem like I blog and twitter all day long, but I do work.  I don’t travel a lot for my job, but every once and awhile I do have to have some major windsheild time.  Twice a year, for sure, I have to visit all the UPS Stores in Southern New Mexico.  That is why I’m in Las Cruces right now passing the time by writting this blog.

As I spent close to eight hours today staring out the windshield trying not to swerve off the road into the ditch to end my misery, I had some time to think.  Here are a few thoughts from my day.

1. When they have the signs on the side of the road showing the restaurants that are at the next exit, they should put the phone number to that restaurant on there too. This way you can order before you get there. Cause God knows you have no desire to wait in line behind Billy Bob’s Ford truck with the lift kit and gun rack to get your hamburger that has been in the warming been for five hours.
2. I would pay to use the bathroom if I knew that it would be clean.  I swear why do people use public restrooms if all they are going to do is pee on the floor.  Just go outside…you don’t have to get a key for that.
3. Why is it the gas stations in New Mexico have 12 types of whiskey, but doesn’t carry Rock Star Energy Drink?
4. New Mexico has a lot of long straight roads.  They should set up inflatable bumpers like they have at the bowling alley for little kids on either side of the roads.  This way I can set the cruise control and take a nap.
5. There is a freaking AUX button on the radio in my rental car…but where the hell am I suppose to plug in said AUX device!  It’s a freaking conspiracy!  There should be a law passed to make iPod docks standard in all new cars.  Enough said!
6. There sure is a lot of dead grass in New Mexico.  Somebody really should water our state more.
7. Why does one butt cheak always go to sleep before the other one?
8. If all the worlds population can move comfortable into the state of Texas, why aren’t we starting to move everyone there?  It sure would make things easier.
9. Ohhh yeah.  It’s Texas.  That’s why.
10. I sure do miss Shannon.

Hey I’m about to head out to Silver City, Las Cruces, Alamagorda, Roswell, and Clovis this week for UPS. Thought I would give a quick post though through video. Enjoy!

I came home from vacation to 300+ emails for work with UPS. So I made this video instead of writing today (and working).

The following is part 4 of a 5 part series. Go here for Part 1 

So I broke camp and headed to the Budget Rental car desk.  One security exit, two escalators, one air bridge and one elevator later I was waiting for the lady at the desk to get done with her customer.  She finished with her customer and proceeded to give me the “what do you want” look.

“My friend left his Bible in one of your cars.”
“Oh yeah.  Here.” 

One elevator, one air bridge, and one escalator later, I was weaving through the labyrinth of security ropes heading towards the initial check point before taking off half my clothes and walking through the metal detector to make sure I was not carrying a gun in my rectum (“Ohhhh How did that get there?).

I pulled my boarding pass out of my back pocket and handed it to the TSA agent.  Then I pulled out my wallet and opened it up to give the guy my driver’s license.  But it wasn’t there. 

Oh yeah I put it in my back pocket….um maybe I put it in my jacket pockets…ok maybe it’s in my front pockets.  Did I put it in my book that I was reading?  Maybe it’s in my leather jacket pockets?  Did I put it in my suit case?  Ok maybe it’s in my satchel? 

As I continued to wave people past me one after another,I continued to do a pat down on myself that any police officer would be proud of.  A slow feeling of panic started to rush through my mind.

“Will my UPS ID work?”
“No it has to be a government issued ID.”

CRAP! Where the hell did I put it.  I went through all my pockets again.  I know that I had it.  I just got through security with it only an hour ago.  SECURITY!

“I think it might be at the other security check point.  I’ll go look there.”
“Ok”

The following is part 3 of a 5 part series. Go here for Part 1 

I sat down in a comfortable oversized plush seat.  Enjoying the wonderful smell of fresh espresso and pastries, I leaned back and opened up my book for what I thought would be a nice extended reading period.  But about one paragraph in, my phone began to ring.  Looking at the caller ID, I didn’t recognize the phone number.  I had an internal dilemma at this point…to answer or to not.  Everything in me wanted to ignore it and just go back to my reading…but curiosity won out and I decided to answer.

“Hello this is Greg.” (my standard greeting for unknown numbers that might be from someone at UPS)
“Hello Mr. Qualls.  This is _____ with Budget.”
“Yes”
“One of your coworkers was just here looking for his Bible.”
“Yes”
“Well we found his Bible but he said he had to leave or he was going to miss his flight.  He left just 30 seconds ago and if he comes back right now he can get it.  If not we can mail it back to him and charge it to your card.”
“Ohh ok. Well I’ll try calling him.  If not I might just come and get it. Thank you.”
“Yes sir.  Good bye.”
“Good bye.”

I tried calling Diego, but there was no answer on his phone.  Having two hours until my flight was supposed to come and being really cheap, I decided I was going to have to break camp and go get Diego’s Bible.  I needed the walk anyways and it would be a simple trip to the rental car desk and back. 

But God had other plans.

Isn’t amazing how God works things out sometimes.  I’m not necessarily a chatty person when I’m flying.  I know there are some of you out there who look forward to taking flights just so you can talk to your seat mate.  I’m not that person.  I like to read or better yet sleep.  So I wasn’t looking for someone to chat with on the plane today.  But God has other plans.

After shoving my bag into the overhead storage I took my seat by the window.  My seat mate commented about how he ripped his bags on his way to Africa a few months ago and had to duct tape them back together for the rest of the trip.  Now you chatty types would see this as an opportunity to hop into a wonderful conversation about Africa and his trip.  I don’t do that…I smile, nod, and say, “That had to suck.”  I figure this is sympathetic, but keeps me from having to talk anymore.

But God has other plans.  A few minutes later, my seat mate asks if I’m originally from Seattle.  I told no that I live in Albuquerque and that I’m going to a conference in Seattle.  He asked what conference.  Now honestly I was thinking about lying and saying I was going to some UPS conference or something…but I decided to say that I was going to the Resurgence conference.  At this point he told me he was going to the same one.

After talking about the conference a little, he started telling me about his ministry.  He is part of a record label called Reach Records and a ministry called ReachLife.  And for the next hour he showed me videos and had me listen to audio that his ministry has produced.  I must say they are really using their culture to present the gospel in a way that people understand.  You need to check them out at http://www.reachlife.org/.  Pretty awesome stuff.