About

Welcome!  My name is Jay Williams, and this is my blog (all the typing and retyping of the first sentence, and that’s what I come up with).  I am a Christ follower, a husband to an incredible wife, and father to three young children.  I am a church planting missionary who loves to speak and write about the gospel, mission, and community.

Seven years ago, my wife and I moved to the Denver, CO area as missionaries.  Our desire was to move into a neighborhood, love our neighbors, share the gospel, and see what God would do.  He started a church.  A messy, beautiful, confusing, painful, exhilarating church.

Having grown up in and served in just about every kind of church imaginable (mainline traditional, contemporary, and missional; mega, small and downright tiny; liberal, conservative, and everything in between), I have developed a wide love of the Church in all its forms.  But for many years, I have not been able to shake the feeling that we are settling.  Really, I should say that I can’t shake the feeling that I have been settling.  Settling for doing church, doing Christianity.  Then, for a time, exchanging that for being the church, or being a Christian, but that felt like settling, too. The former felt like going through the motions; the latter felt like an excuse for passivity.  I have been fortunate enough to spend a very short time with the persecuted church, and I left that experience wanting to be as desperate for Christ as they are.  For a time after that experience, I thought it was just not possible because of where I lived.  I no longer think that is true.  I believe a life of radical dependence on Christ is possible in any context.  I believe the mission of God is alive and active in every corner of the world, and I believe the gospel is bigger than any culture.

So that is the reason for this blog.  It will be a series of thoughts about living a gospel-centered, mission-focused, life of radical obedience in the strangest of places…Suburbia.  But since I know the gospel’s truth, power, and relevance transcend cultural context, it is my hope that anyone desiring this kind of a life will find this blog an encouragement and a help in that journey.

I would love nothing more than for others to share their stories on these pages through the comments or guest posts.  I am not sure what this will look like in a year, but I am excited to find out.If you are on a similar journey, or are curious, please do not hesitate to contact me.  I am available to speak, brainstorm, encourage, and even tell stories through video.  Learn more on my services page.