Church Hopping, House Church, or the Wilderness?

I noticed that on the Flying Zehrings post Joel wrote that he would hope that I would blog about our recent experiences of where we believe God is leading us.


Well, it started two years ago on a whim. My friend Kadi and I were on our way to Youth Specialties (a youth workers conference) in San Diego. One of the speakers, who also happens to be my all time favorite speakers, was Francis Chan. He just wrote a book called "Crazy Love" which I haven't finished so I can't comment on yet. But he was also talking about his recent sabbatical that he took from pastoring a church. The whole theme of the week was about telling a story. And Francis talked about how churches were today. He said something from the stage that stuck with me. He said, "If all we had was the Bible to use to show us how church was to be, would it look the way it is?" I was pretty much kicked off my seat. I didn't even need to think about it, the answer in my mind was no.


At this time, I was a youth pastor at a church. I was loving what I was doing but I was plagued with this thought. I took it to the staff and tried to talk about it but I couldn't get a peace about what they were saying about this topic. I was confused and very much trying to figure out what it all meant for me and my calling into full time ministry.


At one point, I threw the idea out to Joel about starting a house church. You know doing it how it was done in the Bible. I had no idea what that meant or that house churches even existed. In my mind if a church was meeting in a house it was a church plant. But Joel started taking this idea and running with it .


But my mind was made up. I was called into full time youth ministry how was I suppose to start a house church with this calling. Well, it turns out, having a baby, changes it all. Once Nathan was born and I spent 3 weekends in a row at camps without my newborn, I was ready. God was leading us for over a year to take this step of faith. A step of faith with our future church, our finances and our ministry to people.


We were ready to walk away from the institutional church and start a house church. But of course, we still had no idea of how to do it. So we found the small pocket of house churches or simple churches and started networking. What we weren't prepared for was the way these bodies of God were "doing church" was not what we believed God has laid on our hearts to start.


We are looking to start a church in our home, that does life together. Its not a once, maybe twice a week thing. We want Bible studies that are discussions not sermons, we also feel led by God to have meals together, to "break bread", to serve and witness to others together, we want to help the widows and orphans. We want the Lord to be the leader! No pastors, just facilitators. We want there to be unity with the tithes and offerings. We truly believe that God has laid all of this on our hearts to seek out how to make this happen. Please prayerfully remember this when you think of us.


Is it lonely? Yes. We have stepped away from the comfort of an institutional church with a heart not to sheep steal. So with that means setting aside friendships and relationships that we value so much. We didn't want to, but that kind of comes with the territory. We are wandering right now but we fully believe and are at complete peace about this new calling on our life! Joel and I are more than willing to talk more about this with anyone! So it looks like we may just start one up and meet as a family until some one else joins us. But we are excited and we are ready!


Sorry for the extra long post, but that is the benefit of a blog. Its my heart spilling out onto a post!

As Promised!

So on Wednesday Taylor got picked up about an hour early which left Nathan and I some extra free time. So we decided to surprise Joel at his school. On Weds. Joel doesn't come home until 8PM because he privately tutors kids all afternoon. So this extra time for Joel and Nathan was well received all around. Since I remembered my camera I took pictures of Joel's classroom. It looks way better than the last time I was there. I just wish I remembered to take pictures of Nathan making laps around desks in another teacher's room or all the teachers oohing and ahhing over him outside as he walked all over the grassy areas. The funniest part was when we got outside on the grass Nathan kept grabbing his feet because he wanted us to take his shoes off so he could feel the grass on his feet. He is our mountain man! This is taken from Joel's desk. He has almost 30 kids and loves to have an open floor space for discussion times. You can see Nathan exploring and making a mess with his snack. Here is the front of his class. Joel's classroom is located to the left of the school and the only one that has a gate by the front door. These are the boards I decorated before school started. I always enjoy doing this part but it was not fun with a little one climbing on your legs the whole time! The mascot is the rattlesnake and the students are called rangers. So Joel has a board dedicated to badges of honor. When the class gets a certain amount he gives them free play or a Super Happy Fun Time Hour! The cleanest his desk will ever be! Let's be honest its the start of the year and Joel hasn't had time to get things piled up.
Just a fun shot to take!



This is a fun Saturday morning for us! Oh and did I mention that Nathan is walking everywhere now. He has the best balance too! Especially when he has juice. He will never give up the juice cup and I think this proves it!

2 days later, The Sand Box!

This weekend, Joel and I built a sandbox for Nathan. Now, its not your ordinary sandbox and its not very small either. This idea of ours started out about a couple of months ago when we took Nathan to the beach in CA for the first time and he loved the sand. He played for hours before it was time to leave. So Joel and I got to talking about buying/building one for him. We know that there are places that sell already made single person sandboxes and we thought that is an option. But if you have ever seen Nathan he can rival a toddler in size! So a small single person one was out. Next we thought of buying a playground with a built in one but those are way out of our budget. Last, we thought, why don't we build one, I mean, how hard can it be?


Well, technically, not that hard, and the labor not that long, if you don't have a kid that needs attention and job that takes up time. Just to give you the info. of the sandbox, its 138 sq. ft. and has 3 tons of sand in it.


This is Joel laying the boards out so that he can nail them together after he digs the trenches.



Next was the part I did after Nathan went to bed and that was filling in the trenches and laying bug killer down, then the weed blocker. I did it at night so there are no photos of that part.


Lastly, the back breaking part of hawling the 3 tons (that is 6000 lbs.) of sand from the front yard to the back yard.


After that part, which didn't take as long as we thought it would, Joel raked the sand, made it level, washed the table and added some toys and we were done!



And the pure enjoyment on Nathan's face was totally worth it all!

Oh wait! That's my enjoyment. Nathan was still napping when I tested it out. Here is a video to show his...

The life of a stay at home mom!

School is back in session and with that means having to watch Joel walk out the door every morning and Nathan, Taylor and myself along with any other babies that I may be watching on a part time basis start our day.

Nathan is a full time mobile baby. He will be 10 months on Aug. 10 and already walking and exploring every thing he can. However, the voice of his mom middle naming him usually works to stop him from doing whatever it is at the time that a he should not be doing.



Taylor is her usual keeps to herself baby. She is by far the easiest baby ever! She's lovable, talkative and hardly ever cries! Plus, her and Nathan love each other so much! They are truly buds!


The main thing that they are learning right now is to share things. Mostly books right now. Nathan will sit directly on the book if Taylor won't let him look at it with her! And Taylor will try to take the book away from Nathan. So our lessons right now focus of sharing!

Joel has started school and as much as I wanted to get a picture of his classroom I forgot. So that will be in a later post!


Now the fun begins. Around 4 pm every day Joel walks in the door and so does Taylor's mom Victoria. They talk about their school day and then we discuss babies and how their days were. Nathan starts to fuss because he wants Joel's attention and then the evening begins!

Most days are uneventful but busy. I love nap time because that is when I eat and for a little while there is quiet in the house. Except for the times when Nathan talks in his sleep!

Blogging?

This morning I woke up and came from the bedroom and share with Joel something that came to mind. Maybe I should start a blog. "Why?" he asked. I answered with the typical "I don't know, to see if I can." So now with Nathan napping the day away, I thought I might set it up.

I have no idea what may come of this or if it will be interesting but I thought I would give it a try.

You all reading will be my guinea pigs for this experiment.

Thanks and tune in for more to come of whether or not this becomes an addiction of mine!