In fire’s aftermath, Restaurant Row eager to get back to business - The Boston Globe

In fire’s aftermath, Restaurant Row eager to get back to business - The Boston Globe

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The Restaurant Row Revival Block Party was awesome - great band called Prospect Hill, the youth break dance team had serious skills, and the drum group was a blast. I got to meet a lot of awesome people from around the Fenway neighborhood who are really trying to give back to the community and make this neighborhood a great place to live. The Fenway CDC and Lori did a great job putting it on, and I am glad there quite a few Fenway Church members there helping out! Read about the Globe wrote and learn about the tragic fire that hit this row of restaurants in January. Let's all pray and hope they make it back!

Thoughts On Ruth

Ruth is a magnificent, short book. It is the story of the lives of ordinary people in an ancient agricultural world living in a society where many were choosing to do whatever "was right in their own eyes."1 (Not unlike our own!) The result as we learn from the book of Judges was a Israelite culture where sexual immorality, rape , civil war, and violence were common - a culture slipping toward collapse. In the midst of this culture, we are introduced to a small family which flees the famine in Israel and settles in Moab, a culture know for its sorcery, child sacrifice, demon worship, and antagonism towards Israel. Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire.

In Moab, our friend Naomi takes center stage. Her husband (Elimilech) whose idea it was to move to Moab dies. Naomi's two sons marry Moabites (Orphah & Ruth), but after a few years Naomi's sons also die. Naomi is heart broken, poverty stricken, and very angry with God. She returns to Israel upon hearing that God is again blessing his people. Despite this news and the kindly accompaniment of her daughter-in-law Ruth who pledges to join Naomi's people and follow her God, Naomi remains bitter and depressed.

As the days go by, Ruth realizes that they are running out food as they live in Naomi's home that is about to be foreclosed on. She patiently waits for Naomi to take action. When she doesn't, Ruth asks Naomi for permission to go out into the harvest fields and scavenge what barley is left in the fields. Ruth's commitment and submission to Naomi is not without reward as she happens (perhaps by divine chance) to enter the field of a man named Boaz.

Boaz is an able man although getting older in years who unlike most of people of his day still sought to live according to God's ways and laws; God is central to everything he does. He greets his workers in the morning with the blessing of God and notices a new young woman in his field. He soon finds out she is Ruth, the Moabitess, and he welcomes her to Israel promising that she will find refuge on the shadow of the Lord God of Israel. Knowingly or unknowingly, Ruth has found herself in new land, a land where Lord God is King. Unknowingly, Boaz will end up fulfilling his promise of God's goodness to Ruth.

As the story unfolds, we see Ruth's commitment and patience as she waits for God's promise to of good to come to past. We see Boaz fulfill God's plan of redemption for Ruth and Naomi as he demonstrates God's goodness by purchasing Naomi's land and marrying Ruth.

The story of Ruth reveals that God is both good and sovereign (in control). The main characters struggle to reconcile these two truths in the face of death, economic crisis, pain, and suffering. Elimelech and Orpah are examples of people who the circumstances of life and not who God is motivate their decisions. They die in Moab apart from God. Naomi represents a follower of God who is desperately struggling with her faith finding it almost impossible to believe a sovereign God is good in the midst of her suffering. Her honesty and openness give Ruth a flickering yet real faith to seek after.

Ruth models an ideal follower of Jesus who not only is coming into a belief that God exists but is actively seeking him out by serving and listening to an older believer (even though the believer is clearly in a crisis of faith). Ruth models kindness, faith, humility, and obedience. Ruth's statement to Naomi, “All that you say I will do.” clearly foreshadows Jesus command to his own disciples to "obey everything he commanded them."2 Ruth exhibits a tremendous level of respect and trust by refusing to chase after other younger men as many of her fellow peers were.

Boaz introduces us to the concept of redemption. Ruth and Naomi no longer have a right to live in Israel - God's kingdom - because their land is being foreclosed on. As human beings we have no right to a relationship with God because we have lived lives filled with lies, selfishness, and rebellion to God's way. Thankfully like Boaz Jesus paid our redemption price by his blood shed during a brutal death on a cross. Because our redemption price has been paid in full, a relationship with God is possible. Like Ruth and Naomi we must in the face of tragedy, suffering, and the injustice of this world believe Jesus exists, Jesus is sovereign, and Jesus is good. As we join with his church (his people) in knowing him, we discover that the circumstances that seemingly brought great pain and torment into our lives were the very circumstances that God was using to draw us into relationship with himself.

Thus, the book of Ruth is the story of God's incredible grace in using Elimelech's flight to Moab, the death of Naomi and Ruth's husbands, and the poverty they faced to bring Ruth, a Moabite woman that would have died apart from God in pagan land, to a place of relationship with himself and a part of his son Jesus' lineage.

Read the story click here.


1 Judges 21:25, 17:6, 18:1
2 Matthew 28:20

The Book of Ruth

Two women struggle through fear, devastation, death, doubt, and famine while holding onto to each other and learning that there is a God who always provides. Share their journey as we sojourn through the book of Ruth and discover the power of commitment, waiting, and love.

Sundays September 20 & 27 10:30AM // 1PM @ Fenway Church

Meeting @ 69 Kilmarnock Street Boston

Our History Through Sept. 12, 2009

In February 2005, I had been living in a studio apartment on Boylston Street next to the Fens for just over a month when I had a vision. God had already been speaking to me about church planting in Boston for almost a year, and I knew after spending 4 years going to school in the Fenway where I wanted to start. I moved to the Fenway mainly because couldn't imagine Jesus starting a church some where he didn't live. That month I had a vision. In the vision, I saw a light coming on in an apartment in a large brick apartment building along Boylston Street. I looked in the window, and I saw 3 or 4 people playing a guitar and worshipping Jesus. The people there had the door open and after a moment they began leaving to go knock on other people's doors. I could tell people in the building knew that worship was going on in that apartment. Suddenly, I saw a light go on in another building. Then, I saw multiple lights going on in the same buildings. I knew those initial worshippers were seeing others begin to worship Jesus. As the Fenway began to fill with these lights I heard God say to me, "Build a structure that can contain the coming revival."

That summer, I married Betsy - a radical Jesus follower and an amazing girl from Montana - who I had met while at Boston University. In the fall of 2005, we began a house church with the goal of "Proclaiming the kingdom, meeting the needs of a generation, and forming communities of the Spirit and power..." We saw people delivered from demons, the sick healed, people meeting Jesus, and a growing community of 20 people emerge. Much of our initial focus was on the 20,000+ college students that lived in the Fenway (some who would only be with us for a year or two).

In the spring of 2008, our team felt God leading us to begin meeting publicly on Sundays to have a visible proclamation point in Fenway of who Jesus is. In October 2008, we launched a Sunday meeting in a brand new local club in the heart of the Fenway - ironically called CHURCH. Over the next 7 months, we grew from a team of 20 people to a gathering of 60+ even going to two Sunday meeting during the spring semester of 2009 and baptizing four people. We received a fair amount of media interest with an independent film team documenting our journey for over a year and 2 articles in the Weekly Dig (Barstool Churches) and BU's Daily Free Press (A Church in a Bar). Our church became very involved in the community especially in partnering with Operation Peace to serve the Fenway neighborhood.

In a week, we will again launch a second meeting with meetings at 10:30am and 1pm on Sundays. I am more excited than ever to see more people experiencing Jesus at our meetings, worshipping in their apartments, serving the Fenway community, and learning what church is truly all about.

Learn more about us at www.fenwaychurch.org .