Bring It On 2015!

Man 2015 is just 2 days away! I always heard my parents talk about how the years just fly by, and I never believed them until now! Time is flying by and at warp speed!

We had our third and final preview Service December 14^th. That weekend, we had a mission team of 40 college students from South Carolina help us throw a winter festival at our local Rec Center. We had Gingerbread House Building, Balloon Animals, Face Painting, and Hot Cocoa…..what more could you ask for! We had one of our lowest turn outs at this event (75 people not counting the mission team), but we had more gospel conversations with people than we have ever had at any of our other events. Isn’t funny how we worry about numbers or have what we think is the metric system for success and the Lord just turns that upside down!

 

The preview service went really well although I don’t know that I have the time nor space in this blog to tell you all the “bumps” we hit along the way that weekend. From almost not having a gym to throw the winter festival in, to the printing of the fliers for the church plant, to mics magically working and not working, if it could be difficult-it was. But despite my expectations not always being met as to how I thought things should go, we had an awesome weekend and an awesome service and the Lord was glorified (which is way better than my expectations)!

 

We will have our actual launch service Sunday January 18^th 10:30am. From there, we will have weekly morning services. We will be sending out a mailing prior to our launch service. Please pray for these post cards to reach the people of our community. Please pray for these post cards to be put on the fridge and not in the trash can.

We will have one of our partner churches, Mt Airy Baptist, coming in for our launch Sunday as well. They will be helping us spread the word that weekend and throwing a Pancake Palooza the Saturday before the service. Please pray for people to come to the event, for us to have gospel conversations, and for the people to come check out the church the next day.

One last bit of news….Tony and I are official home owners of this lovely little house! We could not be more thrilled! While we are already quite busy with the church plant, we could not be more excited to be in this house. We had the blessing of having so many people pass through the doors of our old home and the joy of having so many gospel conversations with friends - please pray the same for this home. We hope it will be used for His glory!

Thanks for all your love and support you’ve sent our way in 2014. Cheers to 2015 and all the Lord has in store for each and every one of us!

Christmas Time is Here!

Hey Friends! We are just 17 days away from Christmas, and this girl can’t wait! I love the decorations, music, ugly sweaters and all!

Since my last blog, I won first place at the Old Brooklyn Chili Cook Off making me the two year reigning champion woo-hoo! I’ve always known Mom’s Chili Recipe was good, and I am glad to see the people of Cleveland agree!

We had our second preview service. I would be lying if I said it was an easy service this time around. But God is good both in easy times and not so easy times, right? The week prior to the service we had several discouragements along the way including having no clue who would be leading music, but the Lord provided both a music leader for the time being and the encouragement we needed. We had right at 50 people at our second preview service, and we couldn’t be more excited to see all the Lord is doing in our community as He continues to draw new people bit by bit!

We went to Alabama to see my folks for Thanksgiving. We had a blast hanging out with family (especially my adorable niece Abby)! Mom kept us well fed with great food, and we totally got in to the southern spirit by going cane pole fishing in my Dad’s pond and shooting a gun for the first time….Roll Tide!

 

This coming weekend (December 13-14) we will have a mission team in town of 40 college students from South Carolina. Please pray for this to be an easy team to manage and for both us and the team to be an encouragement to one another in the Lord. We will be hosting a Winter Festival this Saturday at our local Rec Center. Please pray for lots of people from the community to not only come but also connect with our members and join us at Gateway Church Old Brooklyn. Lastly our Third Preview Service is next Sunday evening. Please pray for the Lord to draw His people to HIS Church to hear His Word.

Thanks friends for your support! May we not be overwhelmed this season by the chaos that often surrounds our Christmas Traditions, but let us be overwhelmed by the gift of God’s Grace in Christ and let the chaos fade in to the background.

November....Already?

It’s November….AH! Where is the time going? Halloween was great despite the cold and the rain! Tony and I dressed as Mario and Luigi! And we had our community group’s help in being the best house on the block with candy, popcorn, hot cider, fliers about the Church Plant, and hoppin’ music haha! We had a blast!

Now that Halloween is over, it’s gets dark early, it’s cold, and they are talking about that four letter word….SNOW!

There are definitely a few exciting things happening in November! Next weekend is our neighborhood’s annual Chili Cook Off. I tied for first place last year so let’s see if I can keep the title or not;)

The next item will be our 2^nd preview service. Please join us in praying for the Lord to bring people to HIS church to hear the Good News in HIS Word.

And of course right after that is Thanksgiving. We will be headed down south this Thanksgiving to see my folks and this cute little pumpkin head below! Can’t wait for some Southern Cooking and fun times with the family!

Stay warm folks, cuddle up in a blanket and enjoy some couch time with those ya love and some college football of course!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween Eve Gang!

I hope you have your costume ready for tomorrow or you’re little ones costume ready for tomorrow or you’re at the very least enjoying some Halloween candy! Candy corn are a weakness of mine I’m afraid! 

Thank you so much for your prayers and support friends. They have been felt in a mighty mighty way! 

The Fall Festival went tremendously well. Due to yucky cold wet weather we were moved inside, but that didn’t stop the party! The Lord blessed us with 250 people coming and enjoying a bounce house, painting pumpkins, and free food. We had so many good conversations with people in the neighborhood, and had a great time as a group serving together! (Thanks to Mark Madere for the photos!)

The Preview Service also went tremendously well! The Lord blessed us with 61 people at our first preview service! We literally had no clue what to expect, but we could not be more thrilled. The worship team did a great job, the kiddos in nursery and kids church had a blast, and while I may be a bit bias Tony knocked it out of the park.

Now we are human, and there are a few kinks to work out still such as lighting on certain parts of the stage, more signage etc. But the things that matter went well! 

Tomorrow night will be Halloween and if it’s like last year we will have a consistent line of kiddos out the door. Please pray that we will have great conversations with people about Christ and coming to the church.

Our next preview service will be November 23^rd. Please pray for the word to continue through the neighborhood about the church. We had 14 people from the neighborhood not connected with a church at our first preview service, and we would love to see this number grow!

Y’all are awesome! Thanks for your support whether it be prayer or financial. Please feel free to message me if you would like to be added to our prayer updates or learn more about supporting Gateway Church Old Brooklyn financially.

Happy Halloween folks!

It's Happening!

Ok I’ve got to get back on the blogging bandwagon. Life has been so busy, and I have just simply fallen off the wagon. But don’t worry, I’m jumping back on!

I promise I’ll start posting at least every other week….might not be too lengthy….but it will at least be something!

Exciting happenings since my last post:

I turned 26 wooty woot! Now I’m over half way to 50, right?

 

Tony and I celebrated 3 years of marriage! Crazy how it feels just like yesterday that we tied knot, but yet you can’t really remember what life was like prior to your spouse being in it!

 

Our Wednesday Night Community Group has grown to 20-25 people! Praise the Lord, He is gathering His people to His Word and Fellowship with one another.

Exciting things that are coming…..and coming quickly!

Tomorrow Saturday October 18^th 2-4pm we will be hosting a Free Fall Festival at our local Rec Center. It will be a great time with pumpkin painting, bounce houses, and free food!

The community is excited for this event! In fact, local stores have donated hot dogs, buns, pumpkins, paint, brushes, and hay bales all for the cause! How Cool!

Please pray for people to come! We want to let everyone in the neighborhood know about our upcoming church services and start having gospel conversations with them before they even come in the church door!

Please pray for us to have enough helpers. We had over 400 people come to one of our block parties this summer. So please pray we have enough help to man all the booths and engage the people in conversation.

Sunday October 26^th is our first Preview Service! Ah! How did it sneak up on us SO quickly!

 

The Lord is faithful in so many ways. But especially blessing us in the last few weeks with a Children’s Minister, Hannah Krabill, and a temporary (for now;)) Worship Leader, Jordan Neimetz and his wife Leah Neimetz. These three individuals are so gifted, and we are SO excited to have their help.

Please commit to think and pray for us Sunday October 26^th from 5-6:30pm during our first preview service. The enemy does not want planting a church in Old Brooklyn to be an easy task. But we serve the Master who is greater than the enemy!

We will have three preview services this year (they are trail runs for us that we still invite the community to.) The services will be October 26^th, November 24^th, and December 11^th.

Our launch Sunday will be Sunday January 18^th, and we will start meeting weekly at that point.

Please pray for us to lean in to God’s strength and not our own! These are not tasks we can accomplish by our own might!

Thanks for your support!

 

Summer Mission Team Run Down

My oh my it has been far too long since I have updated my blog, and I have SO much to catch you up on! We have had a great summer of mission teams so I’ll dedicate this blog to them and include plenty of photos to get you through this long catch up post. Deal? Ok Deal! Let’s dive in!

Our summer started off with a group from Mt Airy Baptist in Easley South Carolina. This team consisted of 5 guys that helped us follow up with the elderly we helped shovel snow for in the winter.  Since the snow was gone, we put the team to work planting flowers. The residents loved it and several of them have visited out Bible Study since then!

 

They also helped us host a Taco Night at our home followed by a Bible study. Our home was busting at the seams with people. What a blessing!

We managed to sneak in a trip to San Diego this summer to celebrate one of our best friend’s Dan Webb getting married. It was such a blast catching up with all of our college buddies while of course being in the beautiful land of San Diego! Definitely a city worth all the hype it has and a wonderful time with friends!

Upon our return, we had a group from Richardson Baptist Church in Texas. I must say after hosting this team of over 70 youth, I do truly believe everything is bigger in Texas! We were not only blessed with their help to pull off a great Arts and Crafts Camp, but we were also blessed with a HUGE block party including 400 attendees from our community! Whoa our God is amazing!

Next we had a team from both Shelbina and Atlanta Baptist Churches. We had a blast with these two teams from Missouri. They helped us pull off a soccer camp, mini block party with a 200 attendee turn out, and paint a trailer home for a local resident. The teams were led by Jon Macky one of Tony’s friends from his days in the youth group. We had a blast with these guys while hearing great stories from Tony’s good old days.

 

Speaking of Tony’s friends, our next Group was from First Baptist Church Powell in Powell Tennessee which one of our college buddies Chris Garner grew up in. We had a great time with them helping out at our community garden and handing out flyers for our upcoming Game Days. They were a huge help and refreshing encouragement!

We then had 2 back to back weeks of World Changers and P2 teams. One day Tony was juggling 3 teams at once. Two of which were at 2 different construction sites and one team that helped at the Garden and Rec Center for Game Days. We look back and laugh that it was only by God’s great might Tony pulled off coordinating all three teams and getting them lunch. But thanks to all these teams’ help, several home owners have homes that are now up to building code and we have made countless relationships.

Our last mission team of the summer was from Louisa Baptist Church in West Virginia. This was to be honest the oldest group that we had of the summer, but you would have never known it by the work they did, energy they had, and encouragement they gave. They did a great job assisting us with our last Game Day at our local Rec Center. The Center is always busting at the seams with people and we don’t always have enough of our own people to engage everyone. What a great help to have the team play basketball with the guys, games with the girls, or just be there to chat!

 

There are a million stories I could share of the summer. Some good, some not as planned, and some just plain funny. But the biggest story of this summer is the Lord’s grace and strength. He gave us strength to make it through all the planning and coordinating of the teams. He gave us strength to pull off all the events despite items not going along with our plans. He has given us grace that has changed our lives and graced us with opportunities to join in the mission of sharing that same Good News of Jesus with our community!

Thanks to everyone that served with us this summer. It was such a blessing to see the Church body from all around our nation reach out to our community making kingdom impact.

The Seasons Are A Changing

As I type this, I am sitting on my front porch watching a storm roll in off Lake Erie. It’s amazing to watch the seasons change. All winter I looked out the window to see only piles and piles of white snow. Now I look out the window and am in disbelief of how fast our grass is growing.

As the weather seasons are changing it seems so are our life and ministry seasons. When we first moved to Cleveland in August, it was a season of newness-trying to adjust after so many changes. We thought-Lord did we make the right decision leaving our comfortable lives in Louisville? Now I can easily answer that question with a yes, but there were plenty of days that I wasn’t sure.

Then came the winter when we thought how can we possibly build relationships in this awful cold, but God was there too and allowed us to build relationships with city officials and people that needed assistance shoveling snow.  

Now we’re coming up on summer, and we feel a bit overwhelmed juggling lots of mission teams over the summer and thinking about the looming question in the fall of if we should plant, semi-plant, or wait till next Spring. The Lord was with us in these other seasons, and we know the Lord is with us now.

Our trip down south went wonderfully! We were greatly encouraged and loved on by the church we visited in South Carolina. We’re excited to say they will be bringing a mission team to us this summer and then we will further explore the possibilities of partnership.

We also got the opportunity to visit my parents in Alabama and caught a few fish while we were at it! It was great seeing them.

After our trip we had a local mission team come help us spruce up our local Rec Center Estabrook. We will be having several Arts and Sports Camps at the Rec Center this summer, and it was a great opportunity to continue building our relationships there.

Tomorrow (May 14^th) our Community Garden opens! Our Missional Community will be meeting there to plant literal seeds and hopefully Gospel seeds as well! Please pray for us that we would have a great evening of building relationships with fellow gardeners, and these relationships would continue throughout the summer.

Saturday Old Brooklyn is sponsoring a street fair. We will have a booth at this fair handing out fliers for upcoming camps we will be holding this summer and free face painting. Please pray this would build great momentum for our camps this summer, and we would be able to build relationships with those in our area.

It’s going to be a busy summer, but we know the Lord is with us and we are excited for what He has in store!

Spring Sweet Spring

Oh Spring sweet Spring! How I have missed you! It is beyond amazing to step outside without a coat, scarf, boots, hat and ear muffs on and enjoy a nice warm breeze after quite a long bitter winter!

With the arrival of spring comes some really exciting things for Tony and I.

Church Planting Ministry is really picking up these days so Tony is no longer at his part time job. Between getting sermons ready, meeting with people in our community, and preparing for a summer full of mission teams-he has had his hands quite full.

We had our first ever mission team two weekends ago-YAY!

We had a group of nearly 35 children & parents from Trinity Baptist Church that helped us prepare our local community garden. They did it all from raking to painting pickets to spreading hay. We were extremely thankful not only for all the help getting the tasks accomplished but also the help in building relationships with the local garden leaders. We look forward to continuing to cultivate these relationships over the summer with our own plot in this garden.

At the end of the month we will be heading down south to meet with a church about a potential partnership in the future with our church plant. We’re excited that other people are excited by what God is doing in Cleveland! Please pray this would be an encouraging time both for us and for the church.

I am now off to make my first ever attempt at a bunny cake…..not sure how pretty of a bunny it will be, but it will be one tasty bunny! No worries there will be pictures! May each of you have a great Easter and be reminded that we serve a God that has conquered our sin and death-Praise the Lord!

The Never Ending Snow And Oma-Not!

What a winter we are having! I think everyone on the east coast has gotten their fair share of wintery weather. Even my poor parents in Georgia have gotten hit twice with massive snow and ice….well massive snow and ice for the south. The picture below sums up our life in Cleveland these days haha!

On the upside, this never ending snow has given us several opportunities to meet our neighbors and lend a helping hand shoveling them out of their driveways. With the help of our Missional Community we have helped over 8 different people in need whether elderly or disabled get out of their driveway. We have already been able to follow up with several of these people and hope to continue these relationships!

Speaking of neighbors, we were able to throw a Super Bowl Party for some of our friends and neighbors several weeks ago.

We had a full house of 22 which was a good thing! We needed to be distracted from that awful game! Peyton Manning’s normal Omaha was sadly more like Omanot!

Our original plan was to have a Pre Super Bowl Party for our neighbors at 4:30 and start a Super Bowl party for our friends at 5:30. Well 4:30 came and went and no one showed. We were bummed-but thought hey maybe the Lord knew we could use an hour to breathe before everyone came over.

Then wouldn’t you know it a few of our neighbors came the same time all of our friends were arriving at 5:30. This did mean we had quite a full house-but I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way!

Some exciting things on the horizon! We will be having several mission teams in the Cleveland area over the summer. One of which will be holding a large Arts and Crafts Camp in our neighborhood. Please be praying that great relationships would be built this summer through teams such as this one.

Also Tony met at one of the local high schools in our area for possible future meeting space and it went wonderfully. The space seems ideal and they are excited by the thought of us using the space. We are by no means ready to meet there now- but we’re excited by thought of it as an option.

Please pray for us as we continue to build our core team…especially in the search of a worship leader and as we build relationships with those in our community and share the good news of the gospel with them! Thanks as always for your support!

Polar Vortex, Arctic Blasts, and Snow Oh My!

Well I can now say I survived Polar Vortex 2014. Don’t you just love the names the Weathermen come up with! Like a Squall Line or Polar Vortex-they seriously crack me up! However with as cold as it has gotten-I do think Polar Vortex or Arctic Blast or whatever they want to call it are appropriate terms!

I am proud to say I have yet to wreck the car…..thank you Jesus and knock on wood! I did however get stuck in our driveway though!

I was on my way home slipping and sliding the whole way due to all of the snow on the ground! I finally make it to our street-only to get stuck in our own driveway!

I slowly turned the wheel and inch in to the driveway and get stuck with my back bumper in the street. I get out of the car and due to drifting snow and my short legs the snow was almost up to my knees. I start attempting to shovel my car out so I can get all the way in the driveway. However I really have no clue what I’m doing. Thankfully our teenage neighbor came to me rescue and shoveled me out. Let's just say he got his favorite dessert (pumpkin pie) out of the deal:)

We have also had several visitors this last month!

One of my best friends Sarah Temple brought in the New Year with us!

Followed by another visit by some of our best friends Pete and Kristen Thoni. That is a frozen Lake Erie behind us in the picture below.

Please keep us in your prayers as we get ready to have a “Pre-Super Bowl Party” this Sunday. We are throwing the party as a way to launch our NextDoor Neighborhood. Which by the way is up to 22 people and counting! We’re so excited.

We’ve also had the opportunity to help several elderly people by shoveling their driveways. We’re thankful for the opportunities to help those in need and begin relationships with them. Pray that each opportunity we get to share the light of Jesus with them.