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.