RevolutionRaleigh.com

I am very excited to introduce you to our new church. It's called Revolution, and they have a heart to reach the urban population in Raleigh, NC.

The story of this church is really amazing, and the pastor an equally amazing person.
I came across this church on a bulletin webpage of the Raleigh Baptist Convention advertising a new church plant needing nursery items. The name was Revolution and I thought that was a very interesting name, and if their pastor reflected the name of the church, I and my husband would love to see what they are about. Well, I drove by their meeting place that week and met a couple painting the kids classrooms. Their building was very retro and I was very impressed with the look and the people that would be attracted to that.

My husband then called and talked with the pastor and we visited the next weekend. Oh, I forgot to mention they meet on Saturday night which I also thought was an interesting idea. They also have a graphics guy who is amazing. You can tell by the website. He is into doing everything top notch and does graphics for some well known organizations in the secular business world.

The exciting thing as I said in my last blog post is they are weak in the area that Ken and I (okay mostly Ken) are very strong in. Ken has been meeting with the leadership team the past few weeks and is going through basic beginning stages of church planting and helping them develop their leadership teams and home groups. He is helping them come up with the purpose and vision and mantra of their church (what they want to say over and over so that people take that away with them and into the marketplace), and asking them alot of questions that they never thought about the why and how to reach the people they are wanting to reach.

I am also helping with the development of greeting and first touch teams, and the women's ministry. They currently have a ministry that feeds the homeless, and we are beginning a number of outreach ministries in the area. Last week fed a local football team their Team Dinner the night before a big game, and that was so successful the coach has asked us to their pregame meal for their homecoming game this next weekend, and since they want it off campus asked if they could do it at our church. How amazing is that. We also last weekend served breakfast at a local biker rally in Raleigh, and our pastor spoke at the Sunday morning service on the streets in downtown Raleigh. Their were about 500 bikers at the Sunday morning event.

The vision and ideas of the pastor and the creative graphics guy are amazing, and God now has brought Ken and I along to help them implement their ideas, and organize the structure of how people get connected int the church once they came. It seems almost too good to be true. All my husband and I have ever wanted to do was full-time ministry... and even though we are not full-time yet, God is giving us the desire of our hearts right now in using our gifts and things we have learned for Him.

On another note, a family is coming from New York this Wednesday to look at our house. Ken and I would love to move closer into downtown Raleigh to be closer to our church and the people we are ministering to. We also need to lower our living expenses so we can pay off our debt which would move us closer to doing what we're doing now overseas.

God has been so amazing in our lives lately, we want to give him all the praise!!...

God's grace, God's suprises, and God's timing

It has been so long since I've posted... I am still alive and growing tremendously in Christ which He sometimes calls us to do alone, or sometimes without those things we tend to hang onto... blogging being a most recent one these past couple of years...

Things in our life seem very normal yet they definitely are not. We are having an opportunity right now to do here what we hope to do in France and/or Europe someday. I came across a not yet launched church plant where the pastor felt called to start this church in downtown Raleigh, yet confessed was struggling with how to do it. We began visiting this church and after a number of weeks Ken had an opportunity to meet with the pastor and he was dumbfounded at everything we were seeing and everything that really needed to take place before you could successfully launch a church. He invited Ken to come talk with their leadership team and he blew them away also with all the information we had learned over the past 3-4 years visiting churches all over the U.S. and going to some really great church conferences. The pastor then invited Ken to basically help them start from scratch with everything they now needed to do, even offering for Ken to lead a conference for their leadership team and/or their core group leading them up to a launch.

For the first time I really saw how God has put together and prepared us (okay prepared Ken) to do what God has put on our hearts to do in France. We want to help people plant successful growing churches in France and Europe relevant to the needs of the people they are reaching. I always kind of wondered what it would look like... and now I really believe we could hit the ground running. God has prepared and trained my husband in very specific ways that are just amazing when he puts his personality and gifts with it.

For an update, we are still "in process" with the IMB (Southern Baptist- Inernational Mission Board) and really have completed all the paperwork and now just have to sell our house and pay off some debt to be able to go through the indepth interviews and training. We have a couple coming next month from New York to look at our house and sound very interested... but anyone who has sold a house knows nothing is a given until the papers are signed... and I know my God knows about the financial crisis here is the U.S., so we are just praying for patience and to grow in those ways we still need to grow in and learn as we wait on Him. BUT PLEASE PRAY WITH US, because maybe God just want more people to pray for this wall to be torn down.

Okay, now for the next interesting news that has kept me from blogging for the past month (you might need to sit down if you know me very well) but... we are expecting our fifth child in late February... I draw a blank even as I write this. It has been something very challenging for me to get my mind around....or to even talk about. We had not done anything permanent to not have anymore children b/c we did not have insurance the past few years... and now that we do have insurance, I guess God just wanted to slip this in in case we were feeling like we were in control of our lives.

So there I said it... I will blog about this more, but for now I just wanted to say hello and I'm still not sure if I'm back regularly... but since we all need prayer warriors to pray with us and for us and sometimes when we don't know what else to pray... for the sake of lost and dying people in France and Europe pray with us God would remove these barriers and we would be able to get overseas and help those who are already there waiting for us and for those we will recruit to help us. I write this with love and prayers to all who read this and especially to those who have been on this journey so long with us.

Pray Pray Pray

I think the only family in America right now that can get a loan is coming to see our house tonight at 6:30pm. Therefore I will continue my cleaning and painting frenzy (yes, I have to paint every time someone comes to see our house. That comes with having 4 kids, 3 of them boys. Next time we'll use satin paint :-) I also have to fit in mowing our acre yard today since we just found a neighbor who will loan us his lawn mower... Yes, our lawn mower is broken, and I have to say from the last time I mowed it and borrowed my parents lawnmower, everyone needs to push mow their yard every once in a while just to appreciate the invention of the riding lawn mower. :-)

Anyway, God is good and his plans are perfect. That is why even if these people do not buy the house, I will rejoice because His ways are perfect... and I do love our house... :-) and it is really clean!!!