Sunday, December 13, 2009

2 Down and 1 to go!

Well, we heard from the church in Mass and - WOOHOO - So far so good! The deacons gave TJ the thumbs up. Our next step is for the church to fly us up to visit and officially "candidate" in mid January. The pastor will call us back with an official date and official invitation from the church leadership to come and "candidate" after their next meeting. Hooray!

TJ will preach that day and we'll probably do some sort of meet and greet (dog & pony show) with the congregation. As long as we behave ourselves, the church will vote and hopefully "extend a call" (aka make a job offer) to TJ.

Seeing as we have our own timing issue with this littler girl growing in my belly, we'd probably be moving after she shows up which is sort of nice and I can nest a little and set up some manner of nursery. Plus the thought of driving a uhaul to the Northeast in February just sounds brutal. Exciting, but brutal.

Please keep praying with us and praise GOD that so far things have worked out.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Reminder: please pray tonight!

My next phone interview with 2nd Congregational Church of Douglas, MA is tonight!

I'll be talking with the pastor, the deacons and one elder who wasn't able to make the previous interview. If this interview goes well the next step will be for us to fly up and visit the church for a formal interview.

By the way, to fill everybody in on the details of this position and why we're interested in it I explained all of that below. You can see it by clicking here... or you can just scroll down...

Thanks again for your prayers!

TJ

Thursday, December 3, 2009

What's this all about?

Thanks so much for all of you who have been praying for us!

I wanted to post some more details about what exactly we're trying to do and why we're trying to do it so you can better understand what you're praying for.

Our Goal: We're trying to move to and minister in the NorthEast with the ultimate hope of planting a new church in one of the cities in the region.

Why: In the NorthEast and especially New England only about 2% of the population considers themselves to be Evangelical Christians while over 35% are atheists/agnostics. There are many churches in the region but very few of them preach the Gospel and most have long abandoned the Bible as anything more than mythology and nice stories. The NorthEast is also home to many of the largest and most important cities in the country and is the center of elite education in the country. It's also the wealthiest region of the country but still has pockets of staggering poverty. You could say that New England really is a mission field within the US. In spite of all of this almost nobody is interested in going to Minister in New England. The vast majority of graduates from various Reformed and Evangelical Seminaries in the US are hoping to minister in the SouthEast or the West and even many who are from the NorthEast are leaving for greener pastures. Long story short, the NorthEast desperately needs people to come and preach the Gospel and we believe God is calling us to be some of those people.

What: So what are we doing to get to our goal? I'm currently interviewing for the job of Assistant Pastor at Second Congregational Church in Douglas, MA. The biggest reason I'm really hoping this will work out is because of Bill Broderick, the Senior Pastor. Bill is looking for people who are willing to come minister in the NorthEast and wants to help prepare them for it. If it works out Bill's plan is to mentor/train me for two years in how to minister in the NorthEast and specifically how to revitalize dying or dead churches and restore the Gospel to the region. I'd also be meeting regularly with Al Baker from Christ Community PCA in West Hartford Connecticut and a group of guys who are trying to learn to preach and ultimately reach the region with the Gospel. At the end of two years I'd be free to search for a senior pastor position in the NorthEast or even plan for a church plant if the Lord is leading us in that direction at the time (personally I think I'll need a few more years to prepare for that).

Prayer needs: Here are a few specific needs that we would love you to pray for. Obviously my upcoming interviews need to go well and the congregation needs to like us when we go up to visit. In addition, the church needs to be willing and able to come up with enough money to pay a significant portion of what we'll need to live. Then (unless the Lord provides miraculously on that one) we'll still need to raise about 40-50% of the salary. This means our friends, family and supporting churches will need to be willing and able to support us monthly for the next 2 years minimum with a grand total somewhere around $20-$30K per year. We'll also need at least one new(er) car right away as the chances of mine making it through a NE winter are about zero (if it even makes the trip up) and we're really not sure how long the van will last either. We also need the timing to work out so that we're able to either move by the middle of February at the absolute latest or that we're able to wait until the end of April and still somehow pay our bills once the baby is born until we move.

So there you have it. Please keep praying for us as we wait and learn to trust the Lord to do what is best!

Sunday, November 29, 2009

2nd phone interview - a week from Tuesday!

Since TJ's last interview was postponed due to a stomach virus sweeping through the Deacons, his next phone interview will be Tuesday, December 8. Please pray this will go well - as part of his responsibility would be to oversee the deacons, they may have a new batch of questions to discuss.

If this goes well, the next step would be for us to go up and meet the church (I better behave myself, huh?) and the church votes to extend a call or not. We really don't know how all the "timing" of this goes...the only "timing" issue we really have is our little girl who will show up sometime in late March. At our last OB appointment (which went fine) the doctor said he would not recommend moving past Valentine's Day. This week marks 23 weeks, and little "Ruth Elling" weighs about a pound and is 11 inches long. Kerstin feels her kick and is beginning to believe there's a future ninja in there.

So.........we'll continue to wait and see what God does, and watch His plan unfold; all the while acting like antsy kids on Christmas eve. Thank you for being on this journey with us and please please please continue to pray.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Interview part deux - tonight!

TJ has the phone interview with the deacons tonight. Please pray this whole process continues to go well and go smoothly.

Another exciting development to add in our family is we found out we're having a GIRL! Kerstin is 21 weeks along and things are going really well.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

One more step in the right direction....

So I had part 1 of my interview last night...

Since there were scheduling problems with trying to get all of the elders and deacons together to talk to me I had a phone interview with the Pastor and the elders last night. I feel like it went really well! They seemed pleased with all of my answers to their questions and didn't raise any concerns. I'm talking to the pastor on Thursday and I'll know for sure how it went then.

The next step is for me to have the same basic interview with the deacons as soon as they can get together. If that goes well the next step will be the whole congregation and before that happens it will be time to start figuring out all of the specifics. I should find out when my interview with the Deacons will be on Thursday as well.

So please pray that the interviews continue to go well and that all of the details will fall into place! If everything works out I'll still need to raise somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of my salary so feel free to start praying for that too!

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

UPDATE!

Quick update and prayer request:

My phone interview has been moved up from next week to tonight! I'll be talking with the pastor and elders tonight at 8pm; please pray that it goes well!!! I'll still need to talk with the deacons sometime in the next couple weeks but they weren't able to get everybody in one place at one time so Bill, the pastor, bumped up the interview with the elders so that the process won't get delayed.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The judges have voted and.....

Well Bill, the pastor of Second Congregational Church in Douglas MA, officially pitched the idea of hiring me to his elders and deacons and.....


(overly long and dramatic reality show like pause.....)


They responded very positively! He said the meeting went very well and that everybody was open to and interested hiring me, which would require a significant budget increase on their end. So that is a great first step!

The next step comes on November 10th. That evening I'll have a phone interview with Bill along with the joint meeting of all of the elders and deacons. I'll have some prepared questions to answer and then it will be open to the elders and deacons to ask me anything they want. They currently have my resume, testimony and some other info to review so they can have some idea who I am and what questions to ask.

Please pray that the interview will go well! Please also pray that as they review my resume they won't be turned off by little things like me being Presbyterian.

Now, if the interview goes really well and the elders and deacons want to hire me, that's still only step 2. After that will come the really crucial part of the process. Since this is a congregational church the congregation will have to vote to hire me. This could happen in one or two steps:

If the congregation is in favor of it Bill could make a motion to call me as the Assistant Pastor and they could hire me on the spot. However, if the congregation is skeptical (like I said, it's a big budget increase for them) he might have to present the proposal to hire me and then wait another month for a vote so they have time to build support. The problem is that the congregational meeting normally doesn't happen until February. This could mean that even if things go well it might not work out until around our due date, which would mean we'd likely wait until May to move. This is a lot more delay than we want so we're really hoping that doesn't happen.

On the other hand, if the interview goes really well and the elders and deacons are excited about it Bill would like to call an early meeting in January and if the congregation voted to hire me then we could move by the end of January. This is the best case scenario, but it's really what I'm hoping for and what I'd ask you to pray for. We've been preparing for a long time for this and we're ready to get going!

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Pray this week!

It has been a long time since our last post - so here's a quick summary of what has been happening the past couple months:


1) We've been waiting/searching for on an opportunity in New England.

2) Kerstin's belly keeps growing - 17 weeks along next week!

3) TJ went to Newark for a week for an evangelism and prayer seminar.


Now you're all caught up.


Tj has a very strong lead on an Assistant Pastor job up in Douglas, MA. (Douglas is on the Rhode Island border, half hour or so from Providence) The Senior pastor at this church really wants us to come up there - he just needs to meet with the elders and deacons to see how they'd like to proceed. This meeting is happening this week sometime. TJ met this guy when we were in NE in August - and they have some pretty good mutual connections. It's ALL in who you know, right?


Please join us in praying that God will make it clear if this is where he's leading us. We're really excited to think about moving to the northeast. It will be hard to be so far away from family and friends, but thanks to technology staying in touch will be so much easier. There will certainly be an adjustment as far as the weather goes, but Kerstin is hoping to invest in some skis and pick up her favorite hobby again. Tripod will probably need a coat - and we swore we'd never be those people who put clothes on their pets. But she's so little and starting her golden years....we may as well. Also, if this does work out we'll need to raise a chunk of the money, so please pray that if this is the direction God wants us to go he'll provide.

Monday, August 31, 2009

We are expanding....

This isn't specifically job-related, but it is an exciting thing to pray for.


We are 10 weeks pregnant! We are expecting Baby Turner in late March. This is our first, so we are confused and bewildered at the whole thing. I never knew growing a "mini-me" would be so exhausting and zap my energy quite so much. This is a whole new world for us - and it has turned our parents inside out. One of my Mom's first comments was, "Oh - we get to go SHOPPING!". My Dad has called me a few times to remind me to eat right and not drive crazy.


Planned? Yes, pretty much.


How do I feel? Tired and yucky, but no real "sickness" which has been nice.


Cravings? I had a dream about chicken fingers one night after eating a salad with honey mustard. We went out and had them for dinner that following night - and I really thought they were the best thing I had ever eaten.


On the directly job-related front: TJ is applying for senior pastor positions at a bunch of small congregational churches in CT and MA. There are several pastors in the area who are interested in helping mentor/guide TJ through the frightening process of church revitalization, which is a huge need in the North East. So please pray that one of the opportunities will work out and that it will be a positive situation.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

The post-trip update...

Sorry this is a week late. As soon as we got home we had some family in town for a few days and then back to work. Both of us kept saying "hey, we need to update the blog" but neither had the oomph to do it. So here it is! Thank you to all the prayers, texts, emails and facebook messages we recieved while traveling - we felt, and still feel, loved by all of you so much.

Let me start by saying we really liked New England. The people were great, it was really pretty and the summers are AWESOME compared to 95 and 95% humidity. Yes, the winters will be brutal - but I have every intention of getting some cross country skis and enjoying it. (I'm originally from Michigan, so hopefully that will help). We spent a day in Boston and would move there in an instant if we could - we loved it. It could have been the fact we ate the most incredible canolis ever and walked through an area called "Little Italy" where it smelled like heaven and everyone spoke Italian. We also sat in the Public Garden watching the swan boats drinking fresh squeezed lemonade....yeah, also nice. We also spent some time in New Haven (where Yale is) and it was a similar feeling. There were a diverse group of people running around, walking in parks, hanging out, etc. It just felt alive. Hartford was ok, but the town seem to go to sleep Friday at 6. Boo!

It doesn't look like the Interim Pulpit Supply of New Englan (IPSNE) will actually be a full time job for TJ. At least not until Doug, the guy who will be officially heading up, sells his house in Hickory and moves up. And I don't think the housing market is too hot right now. So as far as that goes, it's probably a no-go.

The church (as in global) up there needs an awakening. Since it's not cool to go to hip churches with one-word names like Elevation, Perimeter, Warehouse, etc, there are very few younger folks really even going - people don't go to church up there. It's boring and full of old people. And unfortunately what we've heard is that most of the churches in New England in general aren't really teaching the Bible, preaching the gospel or getting into messy ministry. It is happening some places, but it's not very prevalent.

We actually went to a "Jazz Service" at Old South Church which was something else. Keep in mind this church was founded in 1624, the building is a couple hundred years old and the most beautiful building I've seen in the US. Sadly, we sat through a "sermon" and "communion" and never heard real truth.

While we were up there, TJ met with a couple guys within the 4C Denomination. (I hadn't ever heard of it either). Historically and on paper it's reformed and similar to PCA, but just lacks some cool fresh pastors (like TJ, he's pretty cool I think). He's actually had a couple good leads that will hopefully turn into full time jobs. Many of these churches have parsonages, which would rock - we wouldn't have to find somewhere to live via email.

Basically it's this: We've narrowed our search to New England and broadened it slightly outside the PCA but without a ministry job for TJ, we aren't moving. Before we had mentioned either raising money or moving up there and just getting any jobs, but that's a big move to do sort of....crazy like that (though even with a church gig for TJ we still may have to raise part of the money).

Please continue to pray that God will lead us to the right job for us.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Mid-week report

Well we've been in Connecticut for three full days, about half the time we'll be here, so I thought it would be good to give an update.

Long story short: we're still not sure. We like Hartford and like New Haven even more. We think it would be very possible for us to live here and be happy and enjoy the area, including being 90 ninutes from NYC and 2 hours from Boston. In fact we took advantage of that by visiting New Haven today (about 45 min) and are visiting Boston on Thursday.

We also know there is plenty of potential for ministry here. We met today with the head of an urban ministry here in Hartford and learned that there is a tremendous need for an active, outreach oriented and (especially) incarnational church in Hartford. (For those of you unfamiliar with ministry buzz words that basically means they really need Christians to come live in the poor, drug ridden and run down communities.) This is something we would love to be a part of. What we don't know at this point is whether or not there is going to be any real opportunity to do Interim Pulpit Supply, which is the main reason we're interested in this in the first place. There is a really good chance that tomorrow is going to answer that question.

Tomorrow we're meeting with a representative of CCCC (Conservative Congregational Churches of Connecticut) to find out if they would be interested in partnering with IPS to bring people like me in to their churches to fill empty pulpits. If they are then there is a very good chance we'll be heading this direction. If they're not, however, then it doesn't look good. Basically, if this doesn't work out I really don't think there will be enough opportunity for me to really do ministry here to justify us moving up, at least not for 6 months or more. (That's not to say that we couldn't be involved in ministry with the church and the community here but we don't feel anywhere near a strong enough call to this area to relocate here to have the same kind of involvement we already have with our church in Charlotte, which we love and will be sad to leave anyway.)

So please pray for our meeting tomorrow at noon, because it may well decide whether we move up here or not.

We're also not 100% sure that we will mesh well with the leadership here. The two main people we'd be involved with (Al and Doug) are great guys and we have a lot to learn from them but we're not sure they get us (or our generation) and they're a little more old school in how they think about and do ministry that I think I realized. That's not a bad thing necessarily, just not what I expected.

So please continue to pray for clarity for us and that this meeting tomorrow will confirm this as our calling or make it clear that it's not.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Movin on up to the (north) east side???

Well, we're leaving this Saturday to go to Connecticut for the week to meet with the people involved with Interim Pulpit Supply, to check out the area and generally explore the possibility of moving (on) up to work with this ministry. We're hoping and praying that God will use this trip to make it clear to us whether or not this is the place God is calling us to be. We'd definitely appreciate it if you would pray for the same thing.

Either way, nothing has changed financially. If we do believe that this is the direction in which God is leading us we will have to raise all our own money, which is a scary thought. So please pray that God would work out the provision for this if it is his will (and help us find that dee-luxe apartment in the sky). Please also pray that if this isn't the place God is leading us to that he would reveal the direction we should be going in and do it soon!

Sunday, July 19, 2009

I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not sure...

I borrowed that quote from my friend Jeremy because it feels appropriate at the moment. Today we had lunch with Doug and Ann Miller, who will be heading up Interim Pulpit Supply in Connecticut. To make a long story short they still really want us to come to Connecticut with them and help get this ministry going. The only problem is that there is exactly zero dollars to pay us. We're most likely still going to go up in two weeks to meet the people involved, get acquainted with the area and pray that God will give us a clear sense of whether or not this is the place for us. If we feel that it is the place for us we'll be 100% on our own to come up with the money through raising support and/or getting jobs.

Obviously, this isn't exactly the circumstances in which we were hoping to move 12 hours away to a brand new geographical region of the country. Please pray that if God wants us to continue pursuing this and to be willing to do whatever it takes to get there that He will make it abundantly clear to us.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Not so much...

So the opportunity to move to Connecticut with Interim Pulpit Supply is not looking very good at the moment. The church that was considering hiring Doug and I has decided they're not interested. To be honest, this strikes me as pretty strange considering that they haven't had a pastor in over a year and two people have turned down jobs there. So, though we're not happy about it at the moment, we might have dodged a bullet here, but we'll never really know.

Either way, that leaves us even more uncertain what is next. We're going up to Hickory to have lunch with Doug tomorrow and reassess where we're at. It's hard to know at this point whether to continue pursuing this or move on to something else. There's nothing very definitive to move on to at the moment, though. We are hoping to talk with a pastor about the possibility of helping plant a church as an assistant in a couple weeks, but we don't know where that will lead.

Please pray that God would give us some clear direction on what to do and where to look.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Where we're at right now...

So here's where we're at right now. For several months we've been talking with a Pastor in the area, Doug Miller, about moving to Connecticut to help him organize and develop a ministry called Interim Pulpit Supply of New England. Chances are you aren't aware of the fact that over 30% of churches in New England have no pastors, you may also not know that only around 2% of the population of Connecticut, for example, would describe themselves as Evangelical Christians. These statistics blew my mind. The purpose of IPS is to fill the pulpits of these churches with Biblical, Gospel-minded, reformed preachers. In addition to simply not having a pastor for some time many of these churches lost the Gospel long ago with the move towards theological liberalism. After years without the Word of God people are hungry for the life-changing truth of the Gospel and there is tremendous opportunity there, which is where IPS comes in.

IPS works by bringing seminary students or recent graduates to the area for an internship in which they preach in local churches who have no pastor. The Ultimate goal and hope is that the churches will actually want one of these interns to become their full-time pastor, or that these interns will develop a passion for the area and plant new churches there. Until now, IPS has been a part-time ministry run by people with full-time jobs and responsibility. The hope is that Doug and I will be able to develop it into a full-fledged ministry.

There are only two things holding us back at the moment. Doug needs his house to sell and we need an income. Doug has been thinking creatively to try to solve this problem and we have a potential solution in the works. Basically, Doug has approached one of these churches without a pastor and offered them a 2 for 1 deal. We would both come on staff at the church for one year (or more if they want). He would live in the house the church owns and we would take the salary. (Doug's retired and doesn't need the income.) The elders of the church are supposed to discuss this possibility this week (today, in fact) and let us know tomorrow whether we should come up and meet with them to further pursue this. If that works out we could be moving in a month.

At the same time there are several other opportunities I'm pursuing by applying to several Assistant Pastor positions and we're also hoping to talk with one church about the possibility of helping plant a church as an assistant. This is hard for me, however. I'd much rather be committed to Interim Pulpit Supply and pursue that but it's entirely possible that tomorrow we'll find out that the church isn't interested and be back to square one. And, though we love the potential that this ministry could have, so far God hasn't convinced us 100% which direction we need to go, which, again, makes it hard. If we were convinced of our direction then we could work towards it and do whatever we needed to, but as it is we have to wait on God to make it clear, which is not fun.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

So what are we trying to do anyway?

I wanted to try to give you an idea what our goals are in this whole thing, why I spent the last 5 years working through seminary, why Kerstin spent the last 3 years supporting us financially and why we're now working hard to find me an overworked, underpaid job in a church.

It really started when I was in college. Kerstin and I were involved in a campus ministry at Valdosta (this is actually where we met). For about a year and a half it was a great experience for me and I learned a lot. Things really started to change, however, when I found myself a part of "the leadership." Once I was on the inside I started to learn all about the ministry strategies that were being used by this ministry and my perspective really started to change.

Just to give you one dramatic tidbit, I was having lunch with a group of people in "the leadership" when I heard one leader refer to a particular guy as "a great ministry tool" because he was good looking and she thought lots of girls would come to the evangelistic meetings if he was there. This got at the heart of how they thought ministry should be done. It's simple, evangelize the good looking, popular and influential people because once they become Christians they'll be good looking, popular and influential Christians and this will grow the ministry. This was a big problem for me since the Bible seems to say something about using weakness to show God's strength and it seemed like Jesus recruited a bunch of regular, unimpressive and certainly uninfluential people to lead the church.

So all of this made me start wondering who we were missing because we just didn't think they were important enough to devote our time and energy to. At first I applied this to this campus ministry and started to see a lot of people that we were missing. But it wasn't long before I started to look at the denomination I was a part of (the PCA) and realize that there were a lot of people we were missing there to.

Now, I don't think that the PCA in general was just choosing not to minister to people who needed the gospel. But what I realized was simply that there were certain types of people that the PCA was good at reaching (suburban or rural, middle to uper-class, educated white people) and other types of people (everybody else) that they weren't. At the same time that I was realizing this, however, I had started to take classes at RTS in Atlanta. Very quickly I realized that this realization was more than an observation about what is the case, it was a calling to do something about it.

So where we're at now is somewhere in the middle of the journey to do something about it. Our calling and ultimate goal is to plant a church in a community of the types of people that the PCA hasn't historically reached, a community of people in need not only of the Gospel but of a community of faith to be a part of. Because it's not enough for us to minster to people, we must minister among and with them. In other words, they need a church to be a part of. So now that I've finished seminary our next step seems to be for me to get some experience in ministry and, hopefully, to be mentored and trained in preparation for this ultimate goal.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

How did we get to Charlotte in the first place...

A little background in case you don't know our ministry story....from Kerstin's point of view.

TJ and I met in college while both being involved in the same campus ministry. We had lots of mutual friends and were both fine arts majors - I in Public Relations, he in Jazz Performance. Yes, those are both considered fine arts. :) After a long friendship, we began dating. At this point it was like falling in love with my best friend. It was sweet and very secure - if that makes sense. I just loved his wisdom and how thoughtful and considerate he was of people. Even then, I could see he had a "shepherds heart". We were married in March 2002 and had purchased a condo in Atlanta. TJ was teaching music lessons and working at a lab equipment company (which I would later work at as well) when he started checking into RTS Atlanta with the intent of persuing Christian counseling.

A series of serendipitous events had him starting classes in the Fall 2003 at the tiny annex RTS Atlanta campus. Watching him start down this path - which I must admit I had no clue it would culminate into this - was so exciting. He seemed to be energized and just devoured his classes. This is saying alot since he took all four systematic theology classes here. It became quickly evident that full time ministry in a pastoral sense was his calling, and for TJ to complete his Masters of Divinity, we'd have to move to a full time campus - Jackson, MS; Orlando, FL; Charlotte, NC. This was a no brainer for us, Charlotte was the obvious choice.

I was heartbroken to leave my job and my friends there. I was content and comfortable and really couldn't imagine going anywhere I could love more. I had a small group that I was just not ready to give up. As we began exploring Charlotte (via online from Atlanta), we first looked for a church and found Christ Central. We visited the church in May of 05 and met the pastors. TJ was pretty much instantly sold on CCC, I still was hoping God would change his mind this crazy moving idea. It took us until Thanksgiving to get the nerve to put our house on the market and break the "we're moving" news to our friends and family. We found a realtor - who was a believer and she had a very bleak outlook on the saleability of our home. We were asking alot in a really tough market and agains what "industry pros" would recommend. But we knew God called us out of there. So we prayed.

Two months later, our condo sold and we even made money on it! Imagine that. At this point I had found a job, we knew what part of town we'd be in and had found a house to rent with a great landlord. On February 11, 2006 we packed a U-Haul and off we came to Charlotte to live in the crazy arts district called "NoDa". We couldn't have planned the logistics better if we had tried - it's as if God was actually pulling the sovereign card in all of this. :)

While we've been here we've been involved in and had the honor of leading a community group. I've been actively involved in women's ministry and pulled off a couple retreats with the guidance of some amazing women. We have made some incredibly dear friends that I will forever keep in my heart. Things turned out so much better than I ever expected them to. Oh me of little faith....

So here we are - July 2009. Tj has graduated with his M. Div. and here we are, again at a crossroads wondering what's next. I remember being in this similar place 4 years ago and being scared out of mind and wondering why God had to be so crazy to call me to be a pastor's wife.....and now I'm so excited and wished that we were on our way yesterday. When moving day comes it will be so bittersweet. Even so, I can hardly wait.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Calling all prayer warriors...we need YOU!

We are looking for a few prayerful friends to lift us up while we discern God's leading in our lives. We're excited, nervous, anxious, scared out of our minds, hopeful, ready to start. Here are some specific requests/prayer points:
This verse seemed to carry us to Charlotte, so I thought it only fitting it be part of the next step.
Those who hopefully wait for Me will not be put to shame. – Isaiah 49:2

I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. - Psalm 27:13-14


1. God would make it crystal clear which opportunity we need to pursue.

2. God would provide an opportunity that:
a. Matches our gifts/skills
b. Good “fit” for our personalities
c. Provide discipleship/mentoring for TJ

3. God will work out all the details!
a. Financially
b. Logistically (finding a home, packing our junk)
c. Mentally (as we will most likely leave Charlotte and our “family” here)
d. All will work out soon.

4. God will give us a clear passion and vision for wherever we end up, and that this passion will be sustained regardless of circumstances and Satan’s attempts to knock us down.