Giving for God

Jared and I are attending a 7 week financial management course at our church. We have been for two weeks and feel like it will be really good for us. The reason I'm blogging about it here is that it gave us an opportunity to experience the joy of giving. The instructor gave four people $25 each to help someone in need and tell them that they were giving them God's money out of love. We were not the people picked, but when I was talking with one of the girls who was picked she said "I have no idea what to do with this" I said "I know who I would give it to, but it is your choice" I explained that I would give it to Clair's brother and his girlfriend who are trying very hard to make a living and care for their infant son. God is totally working on them and I know they could use the help and love. Well, that was on Sunday and then yesterdy, Thursday, this girl was at my house and Clair was talking about her brother and told a story about how all they had for dinner one night was 1 can of tuna that they shared. I was really hoping that she still had the money and would give it to them. She did still have it and we were able to send Clair over to his house with not only $25 but also some extra formula we had, some dinner, and a 5lb bag of potatoes that I had sitting around. When Clair gave it all to him he just kept saying "Clair, someone loves us and they don't even know us" I was so happy to hear that the message was received perfectly! He said that he could go buy dinner and some diapers for his baby because they only had 2 left. I was so blessed to be a part of this, and our prayer is that this family would see God's love through us and start coming to church and to Jesus! This best part is this is not the only story we have about giving either. Last night was our life group, and one of our friends said she still had her $25 to give away and wasn't sure who to give it to. Jared said ask Whitney I'm sure she has someone in mind. The first person who came to mind was a girl from our group who just started coming last week, and just as I suggested her she walked in the door. I didn't know what she had been through this week, but I just felt like she could use it. Throughout life group she shared about her increadibly hard week and told us that she has a son who has a very scary medical condition and he needs medication for it. She had the money for the Rx and rent in her purse, but it was stolen at work! So after group Jared and I and the family who had the $25 to give prayed over her and then they gave her the money, but they also added another $50 to it. This wonderful girl was weeping because she had not felt God's love so stronly for a long time. I wish you all could have been here for this awesome night! I love stories like this. Not only have I seen people blessed this week, but we have been tremendously blessed ourselves. As you may know all of our travel expenses are paid in FULL! Thank you to those who have given to us! Praise be to God!

New Church and Life Groups

It has been quite a while since I've posted on this site. There are many reasons, but definitely not from the lack of God moving in our lives...quite the opposite actually. I just have to say I LOVE where God has us right now! For four years we have prayed for Christian couples/friends to fellowship with on a regular basis and now we finally have that prayer answered. Don't get me wrong we have made two great relationships with friends here, but we never got together on any sort of regular basis. Since we have started attending/leading this new church called the Lion's Den (referring to the scripture in Revelations) we have TOTALLY felt God's presence, purpose, and design for what he wanted "the church" to be in the first place. We prayed long and hard about switching churches because we really did and do love SHEC, but we always felt held back or limited there. We are not the sit-in-church-and-do-nothing types, so we felt like our gifts and talents were being wasted. This has really opened the door and I mean wide open for us to be used. Jared accepted the head deacon position and we are leading a home meeting called Life Group. These groups are designed to be more than a bible study. They are meant to train up disciples. We go through questions and scripture that are based on the previous Sunday's message and most of the time we get off track but in a good spiritual way. We have had six or so meetings each with a different feel to it. Some are very in-depth serious spiritual conversations, and some are light hearted praise reports all the way through. The great thing about them though is it doesn't just stop there, we are all responsible to one another throughout the week. We hold each other accountable, and I mean actually do the tough job of calling people on things and really helping out when needed. I had to do that with a friend of mine in the group last week. It was good practice of going to a person in love and guiding them back to a path of life and not destruction. In this case it had to do with a person joking way too often and harshly about her spouse in front of others. It went very well, and led to reconciliation between the two of them. This week I received a challenge from the same girl to step outside of my comfort zone. I had said I'm good at talking about God and faith with believers, but I have a hard time doing so with non-believers. Well, she asked if I would pray about pushing myself by serving in a soup kitchen or something with her and witnessing. This is great because I would probably never push myself like that without prompting. This is just such a good evidence of how God desires for us to fellowship and lift each other up. We have had many people checking in on us and vice-versa. Our assistant pastor had a wonderful analogy for this the other day. He showed us a 1x4 board and how easily it can break under pressure, this is how we are, fairly strong but under a hard blow we can not take it on our own. Then he taped four boards together and said this is how we are when we band together with other Christians, we can't be broken. Part of the vision for this church is based on the book Church is a Team Sport by Jim Putman. This is a GREAT book and would recommend you all read it! If you or your church wants to grow and disciple people this is a great guide. This church is moving and growing. We have already gone from meeting in our pastor's home in August with 60 or so people interested to having our brand new building packed out with over 200 people. Within one month of being in our new building we had to go to two services. I'll try to post more as we go, but I'm so excited to see what God has planned for this church