Steve Lavey | 20 Million Minutes

Burma Disaster Relief: Park To Send a 10,000 gallon/day Water Purifier May 9, 2008

Posted by Steve in : Volunteers, Church, Urban Church, The Cultural Conversation, DifferenceMakers, Entrepreneuring, Faith at Work , add a comment

As many of you are already aware, last weekend Tropical cyclone Nargis claimed thousands of lives in Myanmar early Saturday morning 2:30am. By daylight, the full effect of the storm was obvious. Homes were destroyed, giant trees crashed through buildings, and were lying uprooted, blocking roads. Blackouts, water shortages and rapidly rising prices were reported in Rangoon, a city of 5 million people. The cost of gasoline has tripled since Saturday.

International news organizations are not allowed to report from Myanmar, but the news that is trickling out is horrifying. The death toll is estimated to be at least 100,000 and another 41,000 are missing.

Jackson and the elders would like to invite you to pray right now for the people of Myanmar, especially those who have lost husbands, wives and children - and those whose loved ones are still missing. And as you sit down for your lunches and dinners this week, continue to pray for this country which is in terrific need.

We will be taking a special offering during our services the next two weeks which will go directly to relief efforts in this devastated country. Hundreds of thousands of people in Myanmar are suffering in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis. They need your help, and quickly.We will provide envelopes for you to put your donations in, so please come prepared to give.

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Here is a quick update to all our readers about where Park will be redirecting its special offerings this week for relief efforts in Myanmar. There have been many questions about how relief is going to get there with the military junta not allowing aid relief workers in and seizing aid shipments. We have been working to find a relief agency that is onsite and able to get our donations and use them in a way that will get aid to the people in Myanmar as quickly as possible.

We will be collecting donations for Water Missions International based in South Carolina. They are working with World Vision, which has had a national office in Myanmar for 40 years,and Samaritan’s Purse to provide water purification units.

Our goal is to raise $15,000 to buy a water purification unit which will provide at minimum 10,000 gallons of fresh water daily to help meet immediate needs in this devastated area. Also, this unit will be part of an ongoing community development program which will continue to help provide clean water for years to come.

Water Mission International has already deployed 12 units to Myanmar as of this morning (details here) that they knew would get through. They want to be good stewards of the donated resources and ensure that needs are being met, so units will not be sent until it is confirmed that the resources will reach the people in need. World Vision is aware of the situation and will let Water Missions know when shipments can begin.

Volunteer help will be needed upon assurance that the resources will be received, so Park will be sending a team to South Carolina to help assemble the unit we provide before it is shipped to Myanmar. Details will follow.

Continue to pray for this horrific situation, for those affected, and those working to provide aid. And please come prepared to give this weekend.

If you have additional questions about Park’s response, please email Scott Clifton.

Are you part of an Expeditionary Force? April 20, 2008

Posted by Steve in : The City, Breaking News, Church, Urban Church, Methods & Strategies, Missional, The Cultural Conversation, DifferenceMakers, Culture and Faith, Faith at Work , add a comment

The Missional Challenge has an excellent article about the local church becoming a Expeditionary Force in the city — take a read…..

Dr. Ray Bakke describes the church as an expeditionary force in The Urban Christian (1987). He views Christians as ministers to their worlds of relationships. For example, a banker who is a Christian doesn’t simply serve at his church by teaching Sunday School or being on the Finance Committee. Instead, he would “identify a mission within the bank, perhaps running a Bible Study with his colleagues or even planning resources to help build up neglected neighborhoods.” (p 132)

Bakke sees several advantages to an urban church which sees itself as an Expeditionary Force, emphasizing its role to “go” on mission into the city:

It legitimizes the call to lay mission

It reaches more widely and follows the urban twenty-four-hour clock

It fulfills the need of specialized urban people to affirm their personal vocations as their ministry

“In this model the pastoral task is to help these members identify, plan for and equip themselves for their diverse ministry opportunities.” (p 132)

Where are you in your vocation as a missionary force?

Can you imagine the missionary force that could be released in every town and neighborhood in America if local churches would begin to see themselves as an expeditionary force? <MORE>

Willow To Eliminate Mid-Week Service April 17, 2008

Posted by Steve in : Chicago, Breaking News, Sunday Services, Church, Urban Church, Methods & Strategies, The Cultural Conversation, Culture and Faith , add a comment

(Christianity Today.com) For three decades Willow has been focused on making the church appealing to seekers. But its detailed and thorough research (summarized in their new book REVEAL) shows that it’s the mature believers that drive everything in the church—including evangelism. Greg Hawkins, the Executive Pastor says, “We used to think you can’t upset a seeker. But while focusing on that we’ve really upset the Christ-centered people.” He spoke about the high levels of dissatisfaction mature believer have with churches. Drawing from the 200 churches and the 57,000 people that have taken the survey, he said that most people are leaving the church because they’re not being challenged enough. Because it’s the mature Christians who drive evangelism in the church Hawkins says, “Our strategy to reach seekers is now about focusing on the mature believers. This is a huge shift for Willow.”

One major implementation of this shift will occur in June when Willow ends their mid-week worship services that had been geared toward believers. Instead the church will morph these mid-week events into classes for people at different stages of growth. There will be theological and bible classes full of “hard-hitting stuff.” Hawkins said most people are very enthusiastic about the change.

On the seeker end of the spectrum, Willow is also changing how they produce their weekend services. For years the value people appreciated most about the seeker-oriented weekend services was anonymity. This is what all their research showed. People didn’t want to be identified, approached, confronted, or asked to do anything. But those days are over. “Anonymity is not the driving value for seeker services anymore,” says Hawkins. “We’ve taken anonymity and shot it in the head. It’s dead. Gone.” In the past Willow believed that seekers didn’t want large doses of the Bible or deep worship music. They didn’t want to be challenged. Now their seeker-sensitive services are loaded with worship music, prayer, Scripture readings, and more challenging teaching from the Bible.

Willow has been wrestling with the research from REVEAL since 2004. Hawkins said, “We’ve tried incremental changes for four years, but now we know we have to overhaul our whole strategy.” Small steps are no longer the method; Willow is revamping everything. “It would be malpractice for us to not do something with what we’re learning.”

In the larger REVEAL survey taken by 200 churches, people were asked what they want most from their church. Three of the top four responses were:

1. Help me understand the Bible in greater depth
2. Help me develop a closer personal relationship with Christ
3. Challenge me to grow and take the next step in my faith

Hawkins said that sometimes Willow gets accused of managing the church based on market research; of simply giving people what they want. “Look at what they want!” he said while pointing to the screen. “They want the Bible, they want to be close to Christ, they want to be challenged. Yes, we will give them what they want!”

Easter Creativity - God is at Work! March 31, 2008

Posted by Steve in : The City, Sunday Services, Church, Powerful Passages, Methods & Strategies, Missional, The Cultural Conversation, The Arts in the City, DifferenceMakers, Culture and Faith, Entrepreneuring , 1 comment so far

It’s now a week after Easter and I am checking out the blogs and news to see how God used people this Easter weekend and what drew people in to hear the Word of God on Easter. Wow! There is lots of creativity out there and that affirms that God is working His plan with the churches here in the United States and new creative thinkers are bringing the Gospel to the folks. I love God’s verse on creativity in the church — in Luke 14:23 (NASB) it says:

23“And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled.

“COMPEL THEM TO COME IN” –

Here are my “Sweet Sixteen” creative teams who I found that did a lot of brainstorming, planning, hard work and execution with excellent creative ideas to COMPEL PEOPLE TO COME IN this Easter — To God be the Glory!:

1. The Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina that is just over two years old celebrated as 4,800 people showed up for services for an excellent start to a series called “Breakout” and over 500 people gave their lives to Christ! Check it out here.

2. Oak Leaf Church, less than 19 months old, did a message on TATTOO and left their mark by giving tattoos live on stage for all three services. The point of the message was that external marks are meant to point to internal life change. The point isn’t the mark, it’s the story and the meaning. In the same way, external behavior modification is never enough…what makes us Christians are our changed hearts. They were praying for 1,000 people but had 1,350 with 60 people accepting Christ (read about it here)

3. Craig Groeschel and the folks at multi-site Lifechurch.tv Started a new series on Easter and handed out fortune cookies with a note inside of them inviting people to the series entitled “The Warrior.” They placed huge barrels of fortune cookies outside and asked people to give them to their friends. More than a grand total of 31,000 people attended all 13 LifeChurch.tv campuses this Easter weekend with 479 hands raised during altar calls.

4. Scott Hodge and his team from Orchard Church in Aurora, Illinois dropped Easter eggs from a helicopter. 20,000 eggs and thousands of people (see pictures here)

5. National Community Church in DC also celebrated with 20,000 eggs and a baptism service on Saturday (read about it here)

6. Gary Lamb and the folks at Revolution Church in Canton Georgia also dropped Easter eggs from a helicopter. I love this idea from all three of these churches! Check out the story and pictures.

7. Eric Bramlett and his team in Naperville IL at Community Christian in Naperville have a really funny video as they debuted their series called “Losing My Religion” which started Easter Weekend. Check it out HERE.

8. High Desert Church in CA continued their series called “The Most Spectacular Show on Earth” and had more than 6,000 attend and over 100 people come to Christ after battling spiritual warfare with everything going wrong on their sound systems at their various locations.

9. Travis Johnson and the crew at Life Point Church in Homestead FL held a Moonlight Easter Egg Hunt (7-9pm) and had 7,000+ people show up. How creative is that idea? A moonlight Easter Egg Hunt!? They had a great turnout on Sunday with many coming from the community who attended that Easter Egg hunt.

10. Cross Point Church in Nashville had an amazing Easter at their two campuses locally (read a great letter from someone who was greatly impacted here) and at their new church start-up in the Dominican Republic. A team of 20 from Cross Point spent their week working on the church building and while the building was far from being completed, the pastor led their first service in the new church on Easter Sunday. How cool is that?

11. Check out the things Granger Community Church had people hold in their hands during the service. HERE are the pics. Read about it here and here.

12. NewSpring Church saw 12,000 people attend their services and over 120 people receive Christ (read here) and held a great service in their Man Series called “Ultimate Fighter”

13. The team at Seacoast Church launched a new campus on Easter in one of the most crime-ridden areas of the country. HERE is the story.

14. Connexus had more than 1,300 at their two compuses with some moving stories.

15. Jordan Creek Church played the Upside Down Video.

16. A worship leader in Atlanta experienced what true worship is really all about (read this moving story here)

PS…BONUS COVERAGE I just found out that Saddleback Church opened two new sites on Easter and their San Clemente site celebrated its one year anniversary! The first service of Saddleback Corona gathered 490 attenders and 43 accepted Christ. That’s almost 10 % of those who attended! The first service at Saddleback Irvine gathered 1,826 attenders and 34 accepted Christ! The service at Saddleback San Clemente (open one year) gathered 1,550 attenders and 39 accepted Christ!

Jesus Time on Earth: 0-33 A.D. March 21, 2008

Posted by Steve in : Sunday Services, Church, DifferenceMakers , add a comment

With Abby Jill Brauhn’s passing last week, I was reminded by someone about the story of the dash that separates your birth date and the date of your death on your gravestone and it really stuck with me as I reflected on Jesus’ time on earth –

so short but so impactful and world-changing.

The story was about a man who had a revelation while sitting in a cemetery where a loved one was buried.

He looked around at all the tomb stones and he noticed how each one was very similar. Each marker told a story. It told the person’s name, their date of birth and their date of death. Some even had a brief sentence such as “A loving husband and father” which inadequately tried to describe the life of that person. The man began to think of all the untold stories contained in each tomb stone. They each told of the beginning (date of birth) followed by a dash and then the end for that person on earth; However, what happened in between? The man thought, what was in that “dash” for each of these people? Then it hit him. We all are living in our “dash” right now! That little line, that seemingly insignificant hyphen is our very significant life. Jesus came to earth for 33 years to sacrifice His life for all of our sins, yet that amount of time is so inconsequential… just 33 years.

Yet the amount of teaching, mentoring, living and loving that Jesus did during His “dash” and His dying on the cross and His Sunday resurrection changed the world forever. He lived His “dash” , His time on earth, to the fullest. Here is what Philippians 2 says Jesus did with His dash:

6Who, being in very nature^[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature^[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

So, how is your dash looking? Are you truly living a life worth living in that little line between your birth date and your date of death? Remember – it is your choice! Check out this link to a moving visual poem about the ‘dash”. Click here.

If you are in Chicago, join us tonight at 7pm for our Good Friday service at Torrey-Grey Ausitorium at 840 N LaSalle Street on the Moody Bible Institute campus.

It’s Good Friday, But Sunday’s Comin! March 21, 2008

Posted by Steve in : The City, Church, Powerful Passages, DifferenceMakers, Culture and Faith , add a comment

As we sit and reflect on this Good Friday, the story of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion is one of betrayal, brutality, despair, and pain. Yet we know even before His death that redemption was promised to be coming soon. We know that the story does not end at the cross. We know what many did not realize – although it is Friday and despair ran rampant among his followers — that Sunday’s comin’ — Jesus rose from the dead, conquered death, and provided a pathway for us to have a relationship with God. This is my FAVORITE video on Good Friday (the preacher is S.M Lockridge, who also did “That’s My King“).

In two days, we will celebrate Easter, rejoicing in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and recognizing what enormous sacrifice Jesus made for each one of us so that we could spend enternity in relationship with the living God. Be reminded of this truth during Easter: God has worked, is working, and will work through all things, even now as we find ourselves awaiting his return. This is important — please comment if you have any questions I could help you with.

The Joy of Abby-Jill March 16, 2008

Posted by Steve in : Family, Church, Inside Park, Leader Zone , 3comments

This weekend I sat with hundreds of others (really an old-timers Park alumni meeting, it seemed like) and celebrated the life of Abby-Jill Marie Brauhn, a friend and former staff-member at Park Community Church, who lost her battle with cancer this week. Rich Case did an excellent job in his message and Rich Johnson was superb leading the worship…..there were so many Park alums who joined together to do the set-up food and singing….. it was Park at its finest. The stories that people told were so funny and so typical Abby-Jill.

My most stiking memory was how Abby loved everyone. Yes, she was very skilled at business, yes she was a terrific organizer, yes, she was a top-notch leader….but she loved people. From the rich to the poor, from the “got-it-together” to the down-trodden and broken-spirited. I learned a lot about people caring from Abby — she wanted each person to know the security she had through her faith in Jesus Christ. She has such joy in her relationship with Jesus. That’s what I will remember most…..

I know there were lots of people whose life she touched in dramatic ways over the years through coffee conversations, to late night dinners, to pajama parties for her girlfriends to travelling with others. More than 300 people took Park trips to the FFHM orphanage under her watch and had their lives completely changed. I am profoundly sad and greatly grieving her loss.

I also realized, like my friend Jill’s post, that in that celebration service with so many 1990’s Park alumni there, I yearned for a moment in time that I can never go back to (and so that is probably part of my grief too). We got to sing all my favorite praise songs (which were also Abby-Jill’s favorites) with so many people that I love to hang out with, yet many have disbursed all over the country with scores of kids and new responsibilities.

As Jill said so well “This week Abby-Jill got to fully realize what I got a glimpse of this weekend. We aren’t meant for this world and I find myself strangely longing for that place when I am once again singing in a room full of “family” without a care in the world. Thank you AJB for reminding me and for touching my life once again.”

God gave us Abby-Jill for a moment and she is home now with the Father.

Man, heaven is going to be a good place, dontcha think?……..

Check out another Park alum’s thoughts here.

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE MEMORIES? LEAVE A COMMENT

Barna — A New Perspective on Unchurched March 6, 2008

Posted by Steve in : Breaking News, Church, Urban Church, Methods & Strategies, Missional, The Cultural Conversation, Internet Resources , add a comment

According to a new study released by The Barna Group, popular measures such as the percentage of people who are “unchurched” - based on attendance at a conventional church service - are out of date. Various new forms of faith community and experience, such as house churches, marketplace ministries and cyberchurches, must be figured into the mix - and make calculating the percentage of Americans who can be counted as “unchurched” more complicated. The fact that millions of people are now involved in multiple faith communities - for instance, attending a conventional church one week, a house church the next, and interacting with an online faith community in-between - has rendered the standard measures of “churched” and “unchurched” much less precise. According to Barna, one way of examining people’s participation in faith communities is by exploring how they practice their corporate faith engagement. Unveiling a new measurement model, Barna identified the following five segments:

Unattached - people who had attended neither a conventional church nor an organic faith community (e.g., house church, simple church, intentional community) during the past year. Some of these people use religious media, but they have had no personal interaction with a regularly-convened faith community. This segment represents one out of every (more…)

Christians in the Culture March 6, 2008

Posted by Steve in : Weblog, The City, Church, Methods & Strategies, Missional, The Cultural Conversation, The Arts in the City, Provision Theater, DifferenceMakers, Culture and Faith , add a comment

For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in how the culture ebbs and flows and who drives the culture. I’ve also seen a more determined generation who wants to drive faith and values into the culture. hidden chicago A good friend of mine, Dave Carlson of Bucktown Pictures, has continually told me that the movie theaters are the churches of the next century and movie directors are the priests so we better wade into the culture and not shrink from it as Christians.

Recently, I have been introduced to the Wedgewood Circle folks, sort of a national angel investment network of successful entrepreneurs, investment institutions and high net worth investors who provide investment capital, strategic guidance and relationships to contribute to the renewal of the culture by investing in cultural “artifact” creation in the key influential sectors of film, music television, publishing, theatre/performing, fashion, fine arts and computer/console gaming. I like what they are doing.

I also like what Gabe Lyons and the Fermi Project is doing. Fermi Project is a broad collective of innovators, artists, social entrepreneurs, church and societal leaders experimenting with ways to advance the common good in culture.

Well over the last ten years, many have begun to make an impact in Hollywood and recently, Beliefnet has chronicled their top dozen most influential and powerful Christians in Hollywood? Well, Beliefnet has come up with their list, and it includes names like Mel Gibson, Denzel Washington, Patricia Heaton, Angela Bassett, and Martin Sheen. Sounds like a pretty diverse list with a pretty broad theological definition, but none the less, interesting. You can read more here…

Free Webcast: Multi-Site Church Strategies and Ideas with Mark Driscoll et al. March 4, 2008

Posted by Steve in : The City, Chicago, Church, Methods & Strategies, Missional, Culture and Faith , add a comment

For those of you churches looking into the multi-site model (Park Community Church already has two locations and we are praying/strategizing on four more) join Leadership Network’s Greg Ligon and special guests John Bishop (pastor of Living Hope Church), Dave Browning (pastor of Christ the King Church) and Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church) as they talk about multi-site strategies and models of ministry. This free online event is scheduled for Tuesday, March 18 at 3:00 EDT. You must register (again, it’s free) to save your place by going here.

Which is the Urban Church? March 4, 2008

Posted by Steve in : Weblog, The City, Chicago, Breaking News, Church, Urban Church, The Cultural Conversation, Culture and Faith , add a comment

I came across this great illustration series by Steve Collins of what an urban church is not and what it is — tell me what you think. Check it out the excellent slideshow here.

DWELL: Driving Urban Church Planters March 2, 2008

Posted by Steve in : The City, Chicago, Church, Urban Church, Methods & Strategies, Missional, The Cultural Conversation, DifferenceMakers, Culture and Faith , add a comment

At Park Community Church, our vision is to be a Biblical community where the Gospel of Jesus Christ transforms lives, renews the city and impacts the world. Being a city center church, we are focused on reaching the city of Chicago and would like to reach 1% (29,000 people) of the city in the years to come. That is why we love conferences that focus on the major global centers like Chicago or New York, and one of those great get-togethers is coming up.

dwell conference

The Dwell Conference is scheduled for April 29-30, 2008 in New York City and involves two of our favorites: Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City will be co-hosting and partnering with Acts 29 Network in a premiere church planting event to create a world-class training for urban church planters. It has a fabulous lineup of some of the most influential church planting leaders as speakers at this event: Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll, Ed Stetzer, CJ Mahaney, and Darrin Patrick.

I also love their anchor verse for this movement of planters (as it has been an anchor for our church about urban living for years):

Jeremiah 29:4-7
“Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and DWELL in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters—that you may be increased there, and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the LORD for it; for in its peace you will have peace.”

Great Reminder on Stewardship as a Leader February 27, 2008

Posted by Steve in : The City, Family, Church, Urban Church, Methods & Strategies, The Cultural Conversation, Culture and Faith , add a comment

Tim Stevens, the Executive Pastor at Granger Community Church is a person I respect greatly, and he has another great nugget of wisdom for leaders of all types concerning how to get a strong financial framework in your life. As I move out of the church business and into my sports-oriented social networking start-up, FanFuego.com, these lessons hit home for me…here are some of my favorite nuggets on maintaining a good financial situation…read the whole article here.

If this is an area of concern for you, you should know that at Park, we have one of the leading stewardship experts in the land named Matt Bell. Check out his website at www.financially-speaking.com and you can subscribe to his excellent Biblical newletters on good financial management practices here.

credit cards

Don’t use a credit card for anything you can’t pay off right away. Use a credit card for convenience, but don’t ever pay interest. If you can’t control yourself, get rid of the cards.
Tithe–I really believe that God blesses those who tithe. I think he keeps the car running longer, the roof from leaking as soon as it would have, and He loves to sprinkle you with raises and added cash you didn’t expect.
Give generously. The tithe is the minimum. We began our first year of marriage giving 10% of our income and then increased it every year until we got to 20%. The first 10% goes to the general fund at our church. The other 10% we use to support missionaries, give to new building projects at our church, and bless people who come into our lives.
If you are married, don’t ever make a big purchase without talking to each other. Really, trust me on this. [AMEN BROTHER - I LEARNED THE HARD WAY )
Teach your kids to handle their money. They aren’t going to learn financial management at school. No one else is going to teach them to be generous. By the time they’ve been out of your house a week, they will have already received 14 credit card invitations. Teach them early.
Set aside money for fun. Fun with your spouse. Fun with your kids. Fun for yourself (for me, that means buying a geeky gadget on occasion).
Don’t wait until you have more money to put wise financial management into practice in your life.

Reminder: We are in the Hope Business February 25, 2008

Posted by Steve in : The City, Chicago, Volunteers, Church, Urban Church, Methods & Strategies, The Cultural Conversation, Culture and Faith , add a comment

As we see more and more people step over the line of faith each week at Park Community Church, I was reminded this week in an article by John Ortberg, Senior Pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church that as Christians, we are in the hope business. And as a leader, the one task a leader can never delegate, especially in the church, is hope.

As leaders, we need to be hope leaders, not forgetting our sins and failures but coming to the cross, confessing, learning from it and continually reminding ourselves that we live with hope, under grace. As a leader, we need to surround ourselves in ministry with those who can breathe hope and energy into our lives so we can do the same with those we lead. This may be outsiders or may be your ministry team.

When people see a leader with this kind of vital optimism, who radiates a sense that together we can do what needs to be done, then people tend to decide not to waste their energy wondering about “if” but focus their energy going after “how.”

Check out the article.

Seal Found of First Jeruslam Temple Servants January 17, 2008

Posted by Steve in : Breaking News, Church, Urban Church, The Cultural Conversation, Photos , add a comment

A black stone seal found in an archaeological dig in Jerusalem adds more proof to a growing mountain of tangible evidence showing the accuracy of the Bible’s account of history. The seal, found in excavations taking place in the City of David just south of the Temple Mount, bears the name “Temech,” listed in the biblical book of Nehemiah as one of the families of servants in the first temple of Solomon who were sent into exile to Babylon after the destruction of the temple in 586 BC. The seal was found in stratified layers of previously unexcavated debris during the third excavation season of Eilat Mazar. Dr. Mazar works on behalf of the Shalem Center and the Ir David Foundation and under the academic auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

In the 5th century BC, the Persian King Artaxerxes i made Nehemiah governor of Judah to return to Jerusalem and repair its walls, which had been left in ruins since the destruction of the first temple. As part of this renovation project, a tower was built along the eastern ridge of the top of the City of David. This tower, and the city wall adjacent to it, were erected very quickly on top of several layers of debris.

Though it still stood until very recently, that tower was in a state of disrepair and ready to collapse. Beginning this past summer, Dr. Mazar and her team methodically dismantled it in order to reconstruct it, and then excavated the layers underneath that had been sealed for centuries by the tower’s construction. In that debris near teh Dung Gate lay this stone seal.

Photo: Edwin Trebels courtesy of Dr. Eilat Mazar

According to the Book of Nehemiah, the Temech family were servants of the First Temple and were sent into exile to Babylon following its destruction by the Babylonians in 586 BC.
The Bible refers to the Temech family in the Book of Nehemiah: “These are the people of the province who came up from the captivity of the exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken captive (they returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own town,” [Nehemiah 7:6]… “The Nethinim [7:46]”… The children of Temech.” [7:55].

“Perhaps it is not by chance that the seal of one of the members of the Temech family was discovered in our excavations that is located only dozens of meters away from the Ophel area, where the Nethinim lived at the time of Nehemiah,” said Dr. Mazar, referring to Nehemiah 3:26. “The seal of the Temech family gives us a direct connection between archaeology and the biblical sources,” she said. “It is tangible evidence that relates to a known family mentioned in the Bible.”

This seal follows other, similar discoveries made