Loves of Life

Today is beautiful.  I must say, I love winters in Redding.  Today its suppose to be almost 70 degrees...in December!

Merry Christmas!

There are a handful of things I like and love. Coffee, my wife, grace, dubstep music, early mornings, family, the Church, worship, wine, hearing God, beer, strategy games, listening, people, Holy Spirit, beat-boxing, Jesus, friends, design, color, supernatural school, sunrise, building, snuggling, hugs...

...and the list goes on.

What do you love? Do you know what you love?

God created me for glory and I bring Him glory through enjoying him and the way he has made me.

Merry Christmas from Cierra and I!  We love school and are on the biggest adventure of our lives...thanks for your love, thoughts and prayers.

A Day in Rest

We are already more than a month into school and yet it feels like we have been here for a year!  Our home is full, with two Dutch (Ton and Rianne), two cats, our selves and Holy Spirit.

Tuesdays:  We wake up to our cats...breaking down our bedroom door, pleading for their morning meal-pitifully I must say.  Next is breakfast: french press coffee, fresh bread from the bread machine and maybe an egg and O.J.  Cierra is on call for massage at the day spa she works at, so any given morning she may have a massage or two and sometimes nothing at all.  The rest of the morning we find our selves either on the couch with a book, on our patio with a book, or in the armchair with our computer, often times working on different assignments or filling ourselves with inspiration from music and visual art.  School starts at 12:30, which usually finds us rollin down the road with our car packed with housemates and others on our way to school, sometime after 12:00.  We then get to experience the presence of God in worship for about an hour followed by teaching from 1 or 2 people and then we all split off to different Bible classes for the last part of the day.  One of the best part of any given day is the evening meal, which we usually all eat together, enjoying some sort of fusion dutch/americana recipe contrived by our head chef Rianne.  Confession...we are such homebodies!  Evenings are a time to talk over a glass of wine and process the day or perhaps worship more, or pray, or just lay on the floor and enjoy whatever Holy Spirit wants to do.  Then, slob lecher (spelling??).  Goodnight in Dutch.

A somewhat deep thought: What saves us? Faith in Jesus? I used to think so.  Don't get me wrong, Jesus is the ONLY way to the Father and salvation is only through what He has done on the cross, however, there is something interesting to look at here.

Faith in Jesus does not save us.  It is the grace of God that saves us.

Eph 2:8

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,

Now, once you get past the anxiety of the statement I just made, let Holy Spirit draw you into the freedom that this will produce in your heart.  You don't have to work for your salvation.  Faith is simply the turning of our will in the vivid realization of what Christ has done for us on the cross.  We don't have to "work up" enough faith to get saved.  We simply let ourselves agree with what has been done for us.  Just know that you don't have to work to attain your salvation, and you certainly don't have to work to retain you.  Walking with Jesus should be characterized by rest.  Are you at rest?

We love you.

Jason and Cierra.      

The Church and the City

As I watched this interview, it brought so much hope and encouragement to me.  My heart is for Portland, and I am excited to witness God's move of love in it. Click here to watch.

Portland Mayor Sam Adams, City Commissioner Diane McKeel, Kevin Palau and Ken Weigel present a panel at the Q Ideas Portland Conference.

Summer Sun, Shine On..

     It's been about a month and a half since being back home, and time is flying by like we knew it would! On July 2nd, one of my close friends got married to the love of her life in the beautiful hills of Santa Barbara. I had the honor to be in their wedding party on that hot summer day.  I flew down in time for the bachelorette party and last minute wedding preparations. Jason was able to join me a couple days later and ended up being a huge help (as he always is) setting up for the day of the wedding. The wedding was beautiful, as was the gorgeous bride! It was wonderful celebrating their union and their new covenant between each other.  My parents and brother were at the wedding too, so Jason and I had a great time spending some time with them.

      After the wedding, it was officially vacation time! We headed out with my family to San Louis Obispo, about an hour north of Santa Barbara to stay with a relative on my mom's side of the family. We were there for the the 4th of July, and like anyone would on that night, went to a drive-in movie theatre! Well, I guess that's not exactly the tradition for our country, but we decided to change it up a bit. :) It was relaxing an lots of fun just hanging out with my family for a couple days. I miss being able to spend more time with them. I am hoping that they will move to Oregon someday to be closer to us!

      After a couple of days in SLO, my parents, Jason and I jumped in my dad's truck and headed north to Angels Camp, CA. There we met Jason's family at a resort where we stayed for 4 days. We had a ton of fun touring caves, exploring redwood and sequoia forests, swimming and tubing on the nearby lake and playing card games. Jason and I are SO blessed to have AMAZING families that actually get along, and by getting along, I mean love each other! We really enjoy being with each other and have a ton of fun together. We could have definitely spent more time with all of them, and are so thankful for the time that we were able to spend with all of them.

     So now it's back to remodel construction for Jason and for me, enjoying the Oregon sun (when it decides to shine it's face upon us), time to breath, rest, enjoy spending time with friends, farmers markets and setting new goals for myself.

     I hope all of you are enjoying this summer with your family and friends. I would love to hear what this summer entails for you! Feel free to comment, or send us an email!

Love,
The Wortmans

Recounting the steadfast love of the Lord

Isaiah 63:7

^"7I will recount the steadfast love of the LORD,

   the praises of the LORD,

according to all that the LORD has granted us,

   ^(B) and the great goodness to the house of Israel

that he has granted them according to his compassion,

   according to the abundance of his steadfast love. "

Wow, It has been a long time since we have updated the world on how we are doing and what we are up to! It has been a crazy whirlwind since our mission trip to San Francisco at the end of March. God is SO amazing and so GOOD! He has been molding us and changing us this year and we are still processing, even now all that He has done and is doing in us through this past year at Bethel! 


We graduated our first year in May and are now home in Oregon. It has been so good to be back home as we have been enjoying seeing and catching up with family and friends. 


Jason has a job for the summer doing remodel construction, and I am still wondering what this summer will look like for me. I have been settling into our summer home in Tualatin where some friends are letting us stay RENT FREE! God is so faithful. It is the perfect little studio apartment for Jason and I as we process the year together and get some time ALONE after spending 9 long months with 6 people, 2 cats and a dog. Wow. What an experience that was. We learned a lot about patience, kindness, honor, confrontation and love... And probably a bunch of other things I am still not aware of. ha. God is good :) I have learned that no matter what, I will always choose to stand on "God is good". Period.  Because He is. I am blown away by the kindness of God. 

As we head into the summer and beyond, Jason and I plan on doing one more year at BSSM starting this fall. We are excited to receive more vision for the ministry and call that is ahead of us when we come back to the Portland area after the next school year. 

So much ahead... We are all in, and running full force into what God is placing before us. 

Blessings, and more to come!

Cierra

San Francisco, here we come!

We will be off to San Francisco for our mission trip on Thursday morning! It is amazing how time is flying by! We have much to update you all and are excited to fill you in on our happenings. Thank-you for all of your prayers and support for our upcoming mission trip! We were able to pay for the trip in full! Thank-you Jesus!

Please be continuing to pray for us as we head out for our 5 day adventure to the beautiful bay city. Our team will be partnering with "The Promised Land" church and ministering to their staff and ministry school students with prophetic words, preaching, art and music. We will also be doing street ministry in the "tenderloin" section of the city.

Our leaders of our trip are Kristene Mueller-DiMarco and her husband, Jordan DiMarco! (Those of you who are familiar with the Jesus Culture artists will know who Kristene is... and if you don't, look up her music HERE !) :) We are so excited for this privilege and opportunity to share the love of Jesus and serve lots of different kinds of people.

Can't wait to tell you about the trip when we come back!

the art of being

"come and rest" mixed media by cierra

Jason painting

more to come from Jason :)

acylic art by cierra

photography and collages 

Welcoming March

March is here!

We are excited to see what it will bring.

Mission trip preparations, revelations, beauty, divine appointments perhaps?

What are you hoping for this month? :)

New job for Cierra!

Praise the Lord!
I now have a job!  I am really excited about it.  One of our friends in our marriage class is also a Massage Therapist. He works from home and at a spa. He referred me to his manager at the day spa, and the next thing I know, I'm talking to the manager about being an on-call massage therapist! Within the next couple days I gave massages to the manager and the head Massage Therapist, and they both loved me! Hooray!

You can check out my new job on their website: Urban Retreat Spa

Jason has been in contact with a painter who has been trying to transplant his successful business here in Redding, but is finding it a hard task. Pray that he will have favor and that Jason can work for him doing something he loves!

Thank you to all those who have supported us in prayer and financially. We are still asking that you lift us up in prayer in this time!

Blessings,
~C

Full of hope

 We are in an interesting place right now. We are really feeling the weight of no support or income.  I (Jason) have been continually applying for jobs and was blessed to be able to do a few days work for an intern at our school who needed some remodeling done.  Its like a roller coaster ride every day.  We applied for food stamps and they just went through last week, right in the nick of time, so now we don't need to worry about food...praise the Lord!  Our phones got shut off this last monday, so we are phone-less. One of the hardest things during this season, since Christmas, is the silence we have felt from friends.  Our best friends have remained in close touch but we have heard almost nothing from others that we normally communicate with.  

Our relationship as a couple has been strengthening tremendously, but not without moments of perceived despair or conflict caused by growing pains.  We are doing a class called Love After Marriage that is put together by a pastoring couple at Bethel and it is AMAZING!  It has been super challenging but the tools they use are SO good and the end result is a strengthened relationship with God that is reflected in the marriage.  I would look into their material if you are married...i have never seen anything like it (and by seen i mean heard of from our limited  perspective of being married only 3 years haha!)! For the class, we meet once a week and are divided into tables of 4 couples, including ourselves.  We were selected to lead our table as "table facilitators" and know that God has put an emphasis not only in strengthening our own marriage but in bringing freedom and life to other marriages as well.  We are only a few of weeks in and can't wait for more!

Last weekend Cierra and I found ourselves weeping by the closing prayer of Bill Johnson's message.  He touched on areas that God has been stirring in our hearts as of late; Authority and Power.  Authority is like the badge that a police man wears, signifying that someone higher than him has given him permission to do what he is assigned to do.  Authority is given to us as children of God, when we receive Jesus.  Power is like the gun that same policeman carries, a practical tool that that can be used in a very impact-full way.  Often people think that they are operating in power when they are merely under a corporate anointing that God's grace is on.  What Jesus modeled was not simply him, as God, doing miracles by the authority of God.  He showed that only our own personal history, or intimacy with the Father is what makes us true living witnesses with power to a real, living God. Power and Purity are one of if not THE life messages of Bill and the need for us to dig our own wells of intimacy with God is of great importance.  

The book that we are finishing this week is Heavy Rain, by Kris Vallotton.  I could talk about it for hours!  As Kris discusses, the Church needs fathers.  People who create a family and who put an emphasis on maintaining relationship and not on rules or doctrine.  The church also needs teachers and so forth within the 5-fold ministry (Ephesians 4:11 and I Corinthians 12:28) in full operation.  Check it out!

Fun stuff.  We have never felt so full of hope and yet so challenged to express it on a daily basis.  God is good. Thanks for listening to our hearts poured out. 

" For this reason I bow my knees to my Father ... that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith  -that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."

Ephesians 3:14-21