July Update

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 1^st.  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!