Breaking News!

Many of you have kept up with my family’s journey over the last year as we sold our home and searched for another.  I have been waiting for almost a year to write this blog and today I am able to write it…I will warn you that it is long so pull up a chair, take a seat, relax and please take the time to read.

First, let me say a great big thank you to everyone who sponsored a Dominican mission team member over this last month!  We have had all 10 Dominicans fully sponsored as of Sunday!  I will report on how their mission trip goes later this year.  Praise God and thank you for being faithful to pray, give, and share the word with others about this need!

Second, I ask you to pray for me as I preach at Audubon Drive Bible Church in Laurel on June 23.  Pray that doors would open for me to preach and to lead family discipleship conferences, missions conferences, revivals, harvest days, and to just share about the work of Mission Surge.

Finally, I want to share with you about this journey that my family has been on for the last 3+ years!

Let me begin all the way at the beginning.  Several years ago (in 2010) Mandy and I began to feel compelled to be totally debt free.  We had everything paid off except for our home we purchased in 2007.  To make a long story short I will say that we put together a plan to sell several things, remodel everything, and add onto the HUD foreclosure we had purchased in 2007 in order to sell it for a profit.  We would then pool all of our resources together with that profit and purchase another home debt free…or at least close to debt free.

I made a list of all of the repairs and additions that we believed necessary to make a descent amount off of our home and committed each one of them to prayer.  It would take a host of pages to share with you how many times God miraculously provided materials for little or nothing.  I can’t name all of the free manpower He provided.  And there were even times He provided money to accomplish all that we set out to accomplish on that home.  We attempted to acknowledge Him in all that we set out to do trusting that He would direct our paths. 

Over the next two years I watched the prayer list dwindle as each prayer was answered one by one.  Finally, in May of 2012 every prayer request, concerning this vision, had been answered except for two. 

     1.  That God would provide a buyer for our home and

     2.  That god would provide us with the home he wanted us to have.

It only took God 2 months to answer one of those requests.  On Sunday, July 8, 2012 we had a solid offer on our home.  God had answered so many prayers so promptly, we felt sure that He would provide us with a new home (debt free) by the time we had to be out of our old house.  He didn’t…

and we found ourselves moving into an empty house in the area in order to house sit while we house hunted.  It was a little more difficult finding a home because I had come to believe that God wanted us to buy a home with 6-8 acres or more (I have 4 boys that I believe should grow up working hard and learning about raising food etc…just a personal preference).  When you consider how much money we had to make this purchase it seemed like it was going to require a miracle.  But we looked as we lived in this transition home rent free by God’s grace.  The house we were house-sitting in was scheduled to go on the market in the spring of 2013.  We had several months to search for a house and we were sure that God would provide us the home that He wanted for us before we had to move again.  He didn’t….

The house we were living in sold in January and we had to move out before Feb 1.  To make things more interesting we found out that we were expecting baby 5 during this time.  Many questions began to surface in our minds.  Should we rent?  Well, rent in our area is more than our mortgage was and we couldn’t afford it.  Should we just settle for a small house in an older subdivision that we could hopefully afford?  Even though I felt like all eyes were on us I couldn’t throw in the towel on the vision that I believed God had given me for a home, debt free, with 6 to 8 acres or more.  But where would we go in February?

We swallowed our pride (at least some of it), moved our furniture into storage and moved ourselves to my in-laws.  Now the pressure was really on.  As the arrival of the baby crept closer and closer we felt sure that God was going to provide us a home before he was born.  He didn’t….

Silas was born May 14^th to homeless parents!  Well, we had a roof over our head by God’s grace, but we didn’t have a home yet.  We began to look at higher priced homes that would require us to borrow.  We begin to look at homes with no acreage.  We began to exhaust every means available to us and finally came to the place where we felt as though God was not going to answer that last prayer request related to this vision.  He had answered all of the other requests promptly and on time.  We had been waiting, asking, seeking, and knocking concerning this last prayer request for 2 months shy of a year!  It has been a journey to say the least and we were on the verge of throwing in the towel on the vision.

Then as suddenly as an afternoon shower arises, God put a house before us that we had made an offer on 3 months earlier.  It was a foreclosure with 8.3 acres and a 40 X 40 barn as well as a basement office area for me.  Did I mention it had a basement office area for me?  Our offer had been rejected 3 months earlier and the home went under contract with another family.  We moved on until out of the blue the contract fell through and the home came back on the market.  The bank was past ready to get rid of it.  We made our original offer again and within 3 hours we were under contract for the first time in almost a year of house hunting…and we were able to purchase it without borrowing a dime by God’s grace. 

This is the home we plan to close on Friday

God has finally answered that last prayer request!  We close this Friday and I now have another prayer list.  Since it was a foreclosure it is going to need a little TLC.  Once again I am praying for materials, manpower, and money to make those repairs without borrowing…I just hope it doesn’t take God a year to answer them! 

Please pray for us as we begin the next phase of this journey.  We are overwhelmed at how faithful God has been.  We have learned a little bit more about what it means to wait upon the Lord.  We have learned a lot more about ourselves and our weakness.  In so many areas of this journey we failed, our faith faltered, and our attitudes were less than acceptable.  We are grateful for God’s grace and forgiveness and mercy.  And we are grateful that He has been faithful to fulfill the vision that we firmly believed He gave to us more than 3 years ago.  Please pray for us as we begin the work on this home with a 1 month old, 2 year old, 5 year old, and two 8 year olds.  It is going to be a challenging, yet exciting time.  Please pray that God would provide what we need to get this home ready to move in ASAP.  Thank you for being faithful to pray!

Why we choose not to have a nursery or children's church at Providence: conclusion

For the past 3 days, I have been posting our reasons for not having a nursery or children’s church at Providence.  These are not all of the reasons, but are 4 primary ones.  Today is the final posting in this series.  If you have not read the prior 3 reasons, please do so before reading the grand finale.

Reason 4:

            The fourth reason we do not have a nursery or children’s church is the most important and significant reason.  Isn’t it common to save the best for last?  We do not have nurseries or children’s churches at Providence simply because we do not see nurseries or children’s churches in the Bible.  In fact, we often see children in the congregation.  Here are a few examples…

“Assemble the people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, and be careful to do all the words of this law, and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as you live in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.” (Deuteronomy 31:12-13, ESV)

“While Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, a very great assembly of men, women, and children, gathered to him out of Israel, for the people wept bitterly.” (Ezra 10:1, ESV)

“At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:1-4; cf. Mk 9:36-37)

This is similar to an encounter in Matthew 19:

“Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And he laid his hands on them and went away.” (Matthew 19:13-15)

Paul addresses children directly in at least two of his epistles that were to be read aloud to the assembled congregation. He writes:

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 'Honor your father and mother' (this is the first commandment with a promise), 'that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.'” (Ephesians 6:1-3; cf. Col. 3:20)

            If children are seen with their parents in many (if not all) of the assemblies in the Old Testament…and if they are addressed in the congregations of the New Testament along with husbands, wives, fathers, and mothers…doesn’t it stand to reason that if Moses or Ezra or Paul or Jesus showed up in the flesh in most of our churches, they would wonder where all the little ones were?  We have just chosen to play it safe at Providence, just in case they do happen to visit one Sunday and inquire as to the whereabouts of the little ones. 

            Now, let me clarify in conclusion again that I am not saying that your church isn’t orthodox if it has a nursery or a children’s church.  I am just sharing with you some (not all) of the reasons why we at Providence have chosen not to have a nursery or a “children’s department.”  It isn’t because we are a new church and haven’t organized these departments yet.  It isn’t because we don’t have the budgeted money to hire out help yet.  It isn’t because we don’t have the volunteers.  It is because we believe children enhance worship, are encouraged and shaped by worship, are the responsibility of the parents instead of the “nursery workers,” and we are completely within the boundaries of Scripture to function this way.  And on top of all that our children’s ministry isn’t hurting.  We actually have more infants and children than adults!  I hope this helps those who care to understand why we function the way we function.  Yes, it can be challenging and demanding, but the benefits sure outweigh the costs!  Keep your eyes open.  I might even address why we choose not to have traditional youth ministry in the near future!

For the past 2 days, I have posted reasons we have chosen not to offer a nursery or children’s church at Providence.  This is simply an attempt to answer the “strange looks” that I get when I am asked if we have these programs.  If you have not read the first 2 reasons, please do so before reading below.

Reason 3:

            The third reason we do not have a nursery or children’s church at Providence may seem less spiritual, but it is a reason nonetheless.  I have never been a part of a church that had more volunteers for nursery and children’s church than we needed.  It was always like pulling teeth to try to find someone to work in these areas.  That usually meant that the same 2 or 3 people always did the work which meant that those 2 or 3 people seldom if ever experienced corporate worship and the preaching of the word.  It was their “ministry” and their “sacrifice” and it is really unfair and unnecessary in my view.  What is even scarier is that it often seemed that those 2 or 3 people who made it their full time ministry to be in the nursery and children’s church were perfectly content to seldom if ever worship corporately or sit under the preaching of the Word. 

            So, at Providence, we have speakers in the side rooms out of the two exits.  If the little ones can’t sit still for the hour and a half long service they can be taken into a side room by their mother or father and be taught to sit still...by their mother or father.  And because of modern technology, they can hear the sermon through the speakers and not miss much at all while taking opportunity to train their little ones to sit still.  

           I know what you are thinking.  Sit still?  My 2 year old would never sit still.  You would be surprised how quickly most little ones learn to sit through the service.  If they are practicing at home by sitting still while mom or dad reads or teaches etc. and are brought into the service week after week, they learn really fast.  Now, I am not saying that there are not times when 2 or 3 little ones become a challenge all at the same time during a service.  It happens periodically.  We deal with it.  We survive.  And it doesn’t happen often.  We have found that it is easier and more beneficial to leave the responsibility of the children during the service to their parents.  

           Again, I know what you are thinking.  What about the single mom who shows up with 2 or 3 kids.  How does she juggle the kids alone.  Well, that is where we are thankful for older teenage girls in our congregation who aren't separated into a youth service!  These young ladies have a great opportunity to minister to those who come into our congregation by simply sitting with the older children and helping during the service if necessary.  That is a ministry, it is organic, and get this…we don’t need a nominating committee!  It is just simpler this way.  But that is not all.  The most important and significant reason is still to come!  Tune back in tomorrow.