I Serve a Show-Off

I must confess (again) that I am a logical individual the majority of the time. When presented with a challenge I tend to gravitate toward the “strategize and plan” method of conquering it. I lay out action plans to arrive at my goal and worry when things don’t line up the way I think they should.

God has once again shown me how that method of ‘controlling’ and doing things in my own strength is not His way.

You see, I believe that God is inherently a show-off (in a good way) … mostly just because He can and because He likes to remind us He is the one in control – not us. This whole church-plant thing is certainly more under His control than ours. And for that I am grateful.

So … back to the good news!

We recently (by an act of God) acquired a building in which to meet. {See previous post} Randy graciously allowed us to meet while Pastors were in town and extended that offer into the month of March. At the end of March, James was scheduled to meet with him to negotiate monthly payment, etc. for the building.

We looked over what little bit of finances are coming in on a monthly basis – needless to say it didn’t take long and determined what we could do at this point toward the mortgage. Mind you it was pitifully shy of the full $1700 per month and James admitted he felt embarrassed to even make the offer. (Let me put into perspective for you how HUGE a step of faith this is to even pursue this. In ALL of last year, our church offerings totaled $3400 (yes, for the YEAR!). Ummmm … that’s only 2 months at $1700 – LOL — but I digress.)

Naturally we will be putting insurance on the content of the building and taking over the utilities, but beyond that we were woefully inadequate in what we could pay. But he offered to Randy what we could with a promise to revisit it in 6 months. God-willing we could increase it at that point.

Randy told James that he felt our offer was too high. WHAT??? Too high? Did he really just say that?  Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around?

As it shakes out, Randy wants to allow us time to build finances toward a down payment on the property so that it can be transferred into our name as soon as possible. So … he wants us to take care of utilities, upkeep and improvements, insurance as planned, and begin to sock cash away for the down payment on the property.

WHAT A BLESSING!!

So many emotions are running through us right now and so many thoughts – which I’m sure will be blogged about, but one overriding desire is for God to bless Randy with more than he can hope, think, or imagine! (Eph 3:20)

God has used Randy and Acts III to bless us and our prayer is that as he sows that mortgage payment into Brookstone, that God will pour back to him and Acts III in such huge amounts that they can’t even calculate the exponential ROI that comes from this act of generosity.

Please join with James, myself, and the members of Brookstone in praying for Randy and Acts III. Pray Luke 6:38 over them. Pray that God will bless him.

“A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Now … isn’t God good?

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Compassion and Confessions

Ok … it’s confession time, ya’ll. I am skeptical and borderline cynical a good deal of the time ~ especially when it comes to large non-profit organizations. My family gives to needs all the time, but our funds are generally given to projects, missionaries, and people that we know and trust. We give to places we KNOW are “good ground” and where we feel certain the money is spent where they say it will be spent. (I believe being a good steward of your finances is essential.)

Typically we don’t give to large organizations even if they present a good reason to do so. Case in point – Compassion International.

I’ve known about Compassion, in some form or another, since my early Christian days. I’ve always been moved by their compelling imagery and heart-wrenching stories of need, but never enough to sponsor. That’s where my cynicism kicked in. I didn’t trust that my money would actually get where they said it would. That my hard-earned cash would not benefit some needy child in a faraway land but would instead pad the pockets of some well-to-do corporate fat cats.

I felt certain that the stories were elaborated on or contrived altogether in an attempt to prey upon the inherent generosity of Americans. I hoped that it was not the case but never was able to prove it one way or the other so I refrained from giving.

(Now, before you go sending hate mail, please keep reading)

I must commend Compassion on their latest series of PR genius! Have you heard of the Compassion Bloggers? If not, let me introduce you to what I believe is the most brilliant and strategic move on behalf of Compassion.

Compassion Bloggers

The concept is simple: take normal, everyday Christian bloggers and place them in the middle of Compassion projects around the globe. Provide internet access and let them blog, tweet, and twitpic their way through foreign lands. All the while presenting doubting Thomases like myself with a real face on the needs while reinforcing the authenticity of Compassion’s programs. Now … I still can’t say for sure because I’ve not personally seen Compassion in action, but I will confess this has stripped me of my cynicism where this organization is concerned.

My favorite part of this?? The fact that I already ‘knew’ some of these bloggers because I already followed their blog. They aren’t, from what I can tell, on Compassion’s payroll and aren’t benefiting from these trips – except to help spread the word about what Compassion is doing.

So … are you ready to see them in action?

I first learned of the Compassion Bloggers prior to their India trip. Pastor Pete Wilson and Anne Jackson, both from Nashville, went along on this trip. I followed their adventure closely and learned that Compassion was more than fancy celebrities hawking hope-deprived faces on the TV screen. It was folks, real folks, folks I ‘knew’, seeing for themselves the work of one company and then allowing us to peer over their collective shoulders as they tagged along with Compassion.

Since then, there have been other teams that ventured to El Salvador and most recently to Kenya.

Some of the posts that caught my attention are listed below. Most deal with the Mathare Slum – a huge slum in Kenya where Compassion ministers to children. I urge you to read through them and then further explore the blogs linked at the bottom of this post. I should warn you though, before you proceed, please grab some tissues or at least read this where free-flowing tears won’t get you fired.

Read about Eliud and the Mathare Slum in Kenya. Posted by Brad Ruggles
You can see the rest of his Kenya posts here: http://www.bradruggles.com/category/kenya-trip/

Next is a post from We are THAT Family. I’ve been following her blog for awhile for other reasons, but was thrilled that she was part of Compassion Bloggers for the Kenya trip as well.

Read her post about Mathare here and then the rest of her Kenya posts here, but please, please read about Makena and Ephantus –her sponsored children – and the day she spent with them.

The other bloggers are new to me. Here are some highlights:

• Great pictures of a Masai village were on MckMama’s blog (look through all her posts about Kenya – the images are amazingly beautiful)
• Her husband’s post about Mathare Slum
• More amazing photography at This is Reverb. Read all his Kenya posts here: http://www.thisisreverb.com/category/compassion-kenya-2010
• Kent Shaffer writes for Church Relevance and has some great videos, photos, etc. Check them all out here: http://churchrelevance.com/tag/compassion-international/

Last but not least, look at the photos from Keely Marie Scott – the official photographer for the group. Here is her set from the Mathare Slum:

http://www.keelymariescott.com/2010/03/08/this-world-is-not-our-home/

Here are all her shots for Compassion: http://www.keelymariescott.com/category/compassion-international/

To Recap:

I’m moved by these stories and pictures of a place I may never see and people I may never know. God knows them and walks among them daily. Compassion is making a difference, of this I am certain.

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Church Progress Report

When last I reported on things here in Savannah, God was opening several doors where a church building was concerned. A lot has transpired since then and I wanted to catch you up.

First, within a week of that Cloud 9 moment, James was in a pretty severe accident on I-95 just over the state line in South Carolina. Because he was also towing his War Eagle fishing boat, there wasn’t a panel of that truck that was unscathed. Mercifully, he walked away from a near head-on collision with a semi.

And financially, thanks to God, fantastic friends, and insurance policies, we came out better than seemed possible.

He still cringes when we drive into Jasper County, but for the most part that incident in our lives is behind us!

So, we went from that extreme high to an extreme low within seven days!

From there, things returned to normal and we set about to working with the church that had opened up their hearts (and doors) to us.

Back to the Home:

Around the first of this year, things changed and we once again began to meet in our home for services. Just a few short weeks later, we learned that the church building where we had been meeting was no longer used for services.

To shorten a REALLY long story, when our Pastors and several of the church members from Nashville came to town for Josh’s Marine Corp Graduation, we knew there would not be enough room to meet in our home for church services. James approached the men who owned the now vacant church building and they agreed to let us use the building for those two services.

Just prior to Pastors arrival, James met with them again and they offered for us to meet in the building for the month of March as well.

Let me pause right here for an aside. These men – Randy McEwen and Michael Dant – have been such a tremendous blessing to us. They are in charge of Acts III Global Ministries. They operate several successful thrift stores in the South Georgia area as the mainstay of their domestic ministry. The international missions portion of Acts III ministers extensively in Malawi and includes an orphanage that they founded, built, and administer. God blessed them on a recent trip to Malawi and has cleared the way for even more ministry abroad. There truly is no way for us to repay them in the natural for all they have done for us. So, I will ask you to please remember them in your prayers!

Latest Developments:

The story doesn’t end there! When Pastors were here we discussed the building at length with them and are now pursuing a contract on renting the building long-term. The rent alone is $1700 per month and with a fledgling ministry that was going to be a stretch – to say the least. James met with them yet again to discuss terms. As James began to explain our situation, Randy stopped him mid-stream. He told James that his landlord recently renewed his contract on the thrift store and that his rent typically went up each renewal, plus he had common fees to pay. Randy went on to say that God had blessed him because the rent went down instead of up. Come to find out – it went down by $1700 per month!!

Randy then told James for us to let him know what we could pay and that because God had blessed him so, he wanted to pass that along to us. We will be meeting with him soon to sign papers and solidify the lease. We still know that we are dependent on God to grow the church and meet the financial obligations, but Brookstone Community Church now has a place to meet (that isn’t residential).

We praise God for His blessings and the generosity of Acts III. Please be in prayer as we take these next steps toward what God has here for us.

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The BIG Announcement

Ok … how to begin this post?

Well, I suppose I’ll start at the beginning in case anyone out there needs to be brought up to speed.

My husband is a Pastor. For 14 years we lived and served in Nashville, Tennessee. Last June we were sent to Savannah, Georgia, after much prayer and confirmation from our Pastors to plant a church here.

A couple of months after arriving we began a Bible Study with some of James’ co-workers, and then in January we started meeting as Brookstone Community Church with regular church services in our home each Sunday. Attendance has been steady and we’ve seen some visitors come and go, but we knew it wouldn’t be long and we’d need a place to meet.

It’s been really tough, spiritually speaking, to make any headway. The divine connections we experienced when we first arrived seemed to all but stop and we seemed to face dead ends at every turn.

Prayer and Fasting

About six or seven weeks ago, we got serious about things and started meeting with the Marrie’s once a week to pray and fast for our situations – both personally and for the church.

Almost immediately we felt a renewed sense of peace – even if we weren’t seeing things change – and we continued to pray and fast each week.

Four Weeks Ago

I’d say approximately four weeks ago, on a Saturday, James was headed into work and I was headed to a Girl Scout meeting. On a “whim” James stopped at a small, country church when he saw someone outside mowing the lawn. He’s been looking to meet other Pastors in the area for friendship and network purposes. So, he was delighted to discover the man at the building was one of the men in charge at the church.

Long story very short … this gentleman and another man had started the church as a ministry extension from a local thrift shop in order to minister to the needs they saw daily in that shop.

James and he struck up a friendship and they have been going to lunch almost weekly since then.

The Offer

I’m leaving a LOT of details out and for the sake of brevity, I’ll just cut to the chase.

Out of the kindness of his heart, he offered the use of their church building for our services!

The church is small but ample as a starting point. It has a small sanctuary that will seat about 80-85 in the current configuration. It also has two classrooms and a multi-purpose kitchen/meeting area.

The plan: to have early morning services and to have mid-week services on Thursdays.

So, we now have a place to meet. Pretty awesome, huh?

James sat down today at lunch to hammer out the details for our meetings …

(Cue late-night infomercial voiceover)

“But wait, there’s more.”

Did I fail to mention that neither of the men who started the church believed they were to Pastor the church?

Indeed that is the case. Both of them have professed they are otherwise gifted and have been filling in until a pastor could be located. Enter a third man, who joined them about six months ago as interim pastor.

He and his family travel about an hour each direction on Sundays so that he can pastor the church here. He believes he is to start a church in his hometown but is tending to the needs here in the meantime.

Stepping out in Faith

Long, long story again cut very, very short …

As James prepared to sit down to discuss details regarding our services, they sat down with very different intentions.

By the end of lunch, plans were underway to, in their words, “pass the baton” to new leadership and to lock, stock, and barrel, merge with us and become Brookstone Community Church!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rather than us joining them, they would like to turn things over to us and become one church.

WOW!!

There’s still a lot of legal things to be worked out but as of Sunday, James will be preaching there each Sunday from now on and one of their men will continue a Discipleship class for mid-week services during the transition time.

It’s all SO MUCH to take in right now, but this truly was NONE of our doing and completely, 100% God’s.

Many times over, the men who started the church have stated that maybe they were able to build it up so that another could take it. They even referenced the Old Testament story about King David and how he wanted to build a dwelling place for God {the Tabernacle} but all he was able to do was gather the materials in preparation for another.

We know that unless the “Lord builds the house” we labor in vain here, and we are acutely aware that He is what it will take to pay the mortgage on the building and to maintain any type of forward motion. BUT, we trust that He started this thing and will surely see it through to completion.

It feels like we are a train on a track and God is the locomotive. We can’t go anywhere under our own power but He has sent us on the ride of our life!

The Unfolding Story

I can’t wait to share with you all that is sure to come in the weeks ahead. I’ll be sure to post pictures and acquaint you with the church family as well.

We’re excited and deeply humbled at the same time. Exhilarated giddy-ness mixes with somber awareness of the task at hand. We can’t wait to see what God has in store!

*Please continue to pray ~ In fact, this blog is merely a means to share basic info. If you want to join with us in prayer for this endeavor, please email me (or send a Facebook message) and I’ll add you to our email list.

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