I pray this prayer often, “Break my heart for what breaks
Yours, God”. About the only thing I pray
more often than that is “help me”. I
believe that God is giving me new perspective on many things, but a major thing
that is happening is how he is breaking my heart for the people in our city. It began about 6 months ago when I started
watching Sara and Zach’s kids and serving in the busiest and least served in
area of Children’s ministry, the “hang out room”. I wrote a little about this in an update a
few months ago, but a lot has happened since then. I became the only consistent servant in the
hang out room aside from the one time a month I was serving at each preview
service for the East Bay campus. I loved
serving in the hang out room and even began to question how I would be able to
move to the East Bay campus when it launched because God had given me such a
heart for the kids in the hang out room.
He also gave me a love for staying home with the Sutton’s kids and even
though it comes with its challenges, I have loved it! Over time though, I
started to feel conflicted as God started to shift my attention back to East
Bay and remind me that before He even brought us to Florida, East Bay was on my
heart. I had been praying for this community
before I even moved here. Today the
campus pastor mentioned that this area of town is decreasing in church
attendance. That more people are
quitting church than starting church.
There is a big difference, being in the south than there was being in
Utah. With either a Baptist or Methodist
church on every corner, it’s easy to assume that everyone here is a
Christian. That’s just not the
case. Many people have at one time
attended church, but not many are serving and following Christ. I’ve been seeing more and more of this as the
months have gone by and slowly my heart has been breaking for the desolation here
of people who truly know the Lord and what that is doing to their
children. Many kids are living in broken
homes, physically/sexually/emotionally abused, growing up with little hope for
a better life. The thought of my
children living in that environment actually brings tears to my eyes. So months ago when I signed on to serve in
Children’s ministry, it was because God put it on my heart to serve where the
biggest need was, not thinking I would ever do more than play with toddlers and
hold babies every Sunday, God has turned into something different. A conversation with the woman who was
initially signed on to lead Children’s ministry at East Bay turned into lunch
with the Family ministry’s director and her Children’s ministry staff, and
after spending some time in prayer, I am now confident this is God’s direction
for me. My heart is that every child
will feel welcome and safe at Northstar despite what life may be like outside
of church and that God will use this campus to turn the hearts of the community
to a better life, a hope for the future.
Some other things that are going on:
Steve and I have been leading a small group. We chose the curriculum, Real Marriage, and
the church ordered it for us. Their
normal summer semester only runs 6 weeks, but we were given the privilege to
run for 11 weeks needed to complete the study.
Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship and Life Together was
written by Mark (Pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Wa) and Grace (his
lovely wife) Driscoll. The small group
curriculum has a video for each week’s lesson and a participant’s guide that
line up with each chapter in the book.
He also preached the series at church, which line up with each chapter
of the book. I had read the book soon
after we moved to Florida and our Pastor at Northstar preached a series called Undressed
and quoted the book a few times in his messages. It’s a bit different from any other marriage
book I’ve ever read and we were drawn to the teaching style of Mark and Grace. I had low expectations for our group,
thinking that because it’s the summer semester, we wouldn’t have many people
sign up. Our group maxed out at 24
members and since we started, only one couple that have been there, have only
been there once. Everyone else has kept
coming back with the exception of maybe missing one week. A few of the people who signed up never came
at all, which from what I understand is common for small group sign ups, so
nothing to be concerned about. We are
about half way done with the curriculum right now and it’s going well. I look forward to Wednesday and love serving
these couples together with my husband.
Celebrate Recovery is still a major part of my life. Healing comes when you share with other
believers what God is revealing in your life and allow God to change you from
the inside out. Celebrate Recovery
helped me start that process a little over a year ago and I know I wouldn’t be
who I am today without CR. The group
here is quite large and I have even led breakout groups a few times. I auditioned for the worship team a couple
months ago and have been singing with them every other week since. I am still very self conscious and keep being
told they can’t hear me, but I keep going back, knowing that as time goes on I
will gain the confidence and get better and better. I really love it and I’m glad Sara convinced
me to overcome my fear and audition.
The women’s ministry that Sara leads is slowly growing and
at the end of August we will have our first gathering. I still don’t know where I see myself in this
ministry, but God’s been leading me to stay involved and my role will be
defined as the ministry grows. I don’t
know what that means, but I’m excited to be a part of it nonetheless.
The week after next I’ll be meeting with a person in
Recovery and Care at Northstar to begin talking about leading a bereavement
ministry. It’s been a slow moving process
but with everything else that’s been happening, I know it’s just God’s timing
for things to come together. I have had
a few responses to my list of questions about personal experiences with loss
and if any of you are interested in sharing your experience, let me know, I can
send you the list of questions. It’s not
too late to contribute, it’ll never be too late, but I would like to have a few
more by next Monday.
Steve got a new job, installing insulation and works a lot
of hours, but seems to enjoy his job a little better than he did when he was a
forklift operator. The pay is a little
better and he works more hours so we are feeling like we are a little more
stable now. We have been able to make a
2 month, weekly budget that has allowed us to save for a sensible car, that the
Lord has put in our laps and we’ll be able to pick up sometime this week and we
also have a plan to move into our own place by September 1st. It’s been a learning process and we are still
learning how to stretch our budget and save for what we want.
Florida is very hot, the humidity is thick, it’s rained more
in the last month than not and 2 weeks this month we had visitors from Utah
here with us. I have experienced
fireworks reflecting off the ocean and more wildlife and bugs than I can count.
Life in Florida is quite interesting!
