Fun Summer Read

I had the opportunity to review Robin Jones Gunn's Sisterchicks in Wooden Shoes! and I thoroughly enjoyed every page of this book.

When a mammogram result comes back abnormal, midlife mama Summer Finley makes a snap decision to relegate fear to the back burner and fulfill a lifelong dream. Summer heads for Holland where she meets up with tulips, wooden shoes, and her best friend, Noelle.

Pen pals since fourth grade, Summer and Noelle have never met face-to-face. Through decades of heart-level correspondence, they have sustained a deep friendship. A week of adventure helps both women trade anxiety for a renewed and deeper trust in God. When Summer confides in Noelle about the abnormal medical report, Noelle finds the freedom to share a long-held heartache, and both women discover they needed each other more than they realized.

Robin Jones Gunn is the best-selling and award-winning author of over seventy books, including the Glenbrooke, Christy Miller, Sierra Jensen, Katie Weldon, and Christy and Todd: The College Years teen series. The Sisterchicks® series has sold more than 300,000 units, bringing her total sales to more than 3.5 million books worldwide. A Christy Award winner, Robin is a popular speaker, both at home and abroad, and is frequently interviewed on radio and on television. http://www.robingunn.com/ http://www.sisterchicks.com/

Robin does a great job of presenting an entertaining story but I also felt challenged along the way. How would I live my life differently if I knew everything might change with one simple test result? Do I really trust God with abandon or do I hold things back from Him? I came away from this book wanting to find the little glimpses of heaven that God reveals to us each day if we will just slow down and notice them. Like the fields upon fields of dazzling tulips Summer had the oportunity to see with her own eyes. Or the experience of visiting Corrie ten Boom's home where she and her family risked their lives to save Jews during WWII. If you are stumped on what to grab before heading to the pool this summer, this book is for you!

And if you want a free copy of Sisterchicks in Wooden Shoes!, tell me one of your funniest memories with the "sisterchicks" in your life. Please post your story in the comments to this post. That way we can all enjoy! And on Monday, June 22nd, I will announce the winner. Make sure to include your email address so I can contact you if you are the lucky lady. Can't wait to hear your stories ladies!

The Unexpected on a Sunday Morning

As church planters, there are many unexpected things we try to prepare for and troubleshoot before they happen on a Sunday morning. For example, volunteers not showing up in the children's ministry or the sound system not cooperating. But we had a first a few weeks ago. Six inches of snow and a town unprepared.

Many natives have told me they do not anticipate snow season being over here until after Easter Sunday but apparently someone forgot to tell the city snow crew that sage bit of advice. While out running errands the week before our unexpected snow storm, I drove by the "snowplow barn" and they had already taken the snowshovels off the front of the trucks. Whoops!

Needless to say, we woke up Sunday morning to a blanket of white snow and an unplowed roads. It took Mike a good 45 minutes to just get out of our driveway. And our snowblower would not work because the snow was too wet and heavy. We ended up arriving at the school 30 minutes late for setup because the roads were treacherous. Though it really did not matter because the school had just begun clearing their parking lot. We could not even get our trailer up to the door to unload!

At this point, I was really questioning why we were even attempting to have church that morning. But most of our set-up crew had already arrived and the consensus of the group was to forge ahead. So we did! Due to such a late start (we could not get into the trailer until an hour before worship began), we decided to do a much more intimate, stripped-down Sunday morning. We only pulled out the screen and the projector leaving the sound equipment and children's ministry supplies still packed away inside the trailer. I quickly called another mom and asked her to grab a few toys, some crayons and some coloring books before she left the house. Figured something for the kids was better than nothing at this point!

You know what was so crazy, that morning ended up being one of the coolest Sundays yet. Mike ended up preaching because we did not have the DVD of the sermon, Jarrett did an acoustic set for worship and the kids set up camp in the back of the gym on a PE mat and were amazingly well behaved. Oh and 3/4 of our regular attenders showed up!

I was so humbled by the time we had cleaned up and headed home for the afternoon. I was not sure if the morning was worth pulling together but God clearly showed me that He is able to accomplish his purpose no matter the unexpected situations that come our way.

On The Move

The life of a new church means you are often on the move. Our baby is only three and a half months old and we have already had our second Sunday in our third location.

Here is a little history. Our first location was a high school. When we launched this past November, we knew the school was planning construction for Spring 2009 that would require us to look for a new location within the first five months. We used their "Black Box Theatre" (quite literally one big black box from floor to ceiling) for worship and the cafeteria for the kiddos. We folded up their lunch tables and created three classrooms for the children. Surprisingly, it worked really well!

Now, here were some of the obstacles we faced while meeting there. We found out the week before our launch that we could not have food or drink, meaning No Coffee, outside of the cafeteria. Initially, we had been told we could have food and beverage in the lobby area but I guess they changed their minds. Bummer. And they had decided we could no longer use the main entrance to the school. We had to come in through a side entrance and down a long hallway. Not very visitor friendly. Oh, and did I mention the huge weekly price tag? Ah, the life of a new church.

Our second location was at an indoor waterpark/resort hotel. There were several Sundays on the calendar when the high school would not be available to us and the first of these Sundays we found ourselves using the conference rooms at Key Lime Cove. To be honest, this location was ideal for the kids. We had two empty, enclosed, carpeted rooms. It was nice to have an actual room with four walls! We just brought in our brightly colored floor foam squares along with the toys and we had an instant nursery and preschool area! Now the room we used for the adults was not quite as conducive. It was long and narrow and not exactly sound friendly. But you can do anything for a week, right?

Our third and current location is an elementary school right down the street from the high school. My husband had driven by this location about the same time he checked out the high school. But at the time, he did not feel like it would be as an ideal location for us as the high school. Funny, now that we have been in the elementary school for two weeks, most everyone agrees it is a much better fit for us. For one, we can use the main entrance which has a nice lobby area where we have our coffee table set up. Can't miss the coffee now! The gym we are using for worship is right off of the lobby area and the kids are just down the hall. We are using another gym for the elementary school kids. Here is what I think is so cool about it-because it is an elementary school-there are kid friendly murals painted on the walls of the gym! Love it! And we have sectioned off another hallway for the nursery and preschool classes which is not ideal but it works.

The biggest obstacle we have faced here is making the gym equipped to handle a full band. We wanted to get pipe and drape but we did not have several thousands of dollars in our budget to spend. But God provided! Another church who had met there in the past but is currently meeting in a movie theater had all their pipe and drape in storage and has graciously allowed us to borrow theirs until we can purchase our own. Thanks Life Church! Oh, and did I mention a much more budget friendly price tag? This was a major reason we moved this month rather than April. And the fact the high school was unavailable three out of the four Sundays in April.

Ah, the life of a new church. Being mobile is just one of the many obstacles that you will face as a church plant. It will require you to be creative, to be flexible and to think outside of the box. But it has been so neat to see two different schools and a waterpark resort transformed into places where lost people can find hope. And to be honest, they looked better than I could ever have dreamed!

If you have already launched, I would love to hear about your location(s) and how you adapted it to fit your church environment.

What's on Your Shelf?

I'll be honest. As time has gone by, I have become less and less a fan of the whole New Year's resolution thing. I guess because I don't like failure (who really does) and most years my resolutions are rarely accomplished. So I did not make a resolution this year BUT I have been challenged the past few weeks to reassess those rectangular items stacking up on my nightstand.

So what books are on my shelves? Well, there are quite a few novels, most of them are Christian fiction, with an occasional spiritual growth book scattered here or there. Please know I do not want to belittle novels. There are many good ones at the local bookstore and I have learned much from those I have read. But God has been working on my heart. He has been revealing to me how I have replaced my spiritual growth reading with novels. I'm ashamed to say many times this means I have put aside my Bible to pick up the current novel I'm enraptured with.

Now how does this apply back to me not to make a new year's resolution? Well, in some ways I have but I hope this is a "new me" resolution that will last for more than just 2009. First of all, I have gone back to the first love letter ever written to me, the Bible. My personal reading time begins with my Lord and Savior. Secondly, I don't want to say, "I'm going to read X amount of non-fiction books over the next 11 months (is it really February already?)." I feel like I'm just setting myself up for failure. But I do want to expand my horizons and influence my perspective. And I believe one of the greatest ways for me to do this is through what I choose to read.

Amy Colon, a fellow church planting wife and blogger, did a similar post and shared some of her favorite reads over the past year. She made a few suggestions that I plan on picking up but I would love to know what some of your favorite books have been? It can be anything from spiritual growth to church planting to strengthening your marriage. I want to know, what's on your shelf?

Going To "Other" Church

Two weeks after we moved into our rental last April, we turned around and headed back south to the National New Church Conference in Florida. Awesome conference by the way! I strongly encourage anyone even entertaining the idea of planting to go. Anyway, I had signed up for the track geared toward spouses of planters and during one of the sessions, the speaker mentioned a book called “My Husband Wants to be a Church Planter…So What Does That Make Me?” Also, a great resource and a must read for all wives of church planters. As soon as we arrived back in northern Illinois, I logged onto their website and requested a copy of my own.

So I’m reading along one afternoon and get to the chapter about how church planting impacts your children. I’m immediately intrigued because I myself was a PK (preacher’s kid) and many of the principles I began reading about could easily apply to families in established ministries as well. But then I began to wonder about my family’s current situation. How will our planting this church affect my almost 2 year old daughter? Right now she has the friends that I choose for her, she goes where I go and she eats what I make for dinner. My thought was, she will probably just go along with it and know no different. But I was amazed at how quickly her toddler mind started understanding what has happening.

Early in June, our core group began meeting together on Wednesday evenings at the local township center. Without realizing it myself, Sarai figured out the difference between where we were going to church on Sunday mornings and where we went to “church” on Wednesday nights. The already established North Point Harbor Campus, where we were attending on Sundays, became know as “brown church” in her mind and the township center was now “other" church. And even now that we have launched the Warren Campus of North Point and are meeting in a local high school, Sarai will inform me enthusiastically on Sunday mornings, “Go to school, go to 'other' church, learn about Jesus.” Her little mind gets it!

Like a majority of plants, we have to set up our children’s area every Sunday morning. We are currently using the cafeteria of the high school for our children’s ministry. The tables are raised and arranged into rows to make classrooms and we bring in foam floor squares to brighten up the area and make it more kid friendly. Sarai and I arrive every Sunday morning at 8 to help get things set up and ready to welcome the children and their families. After just a few times of watching mommy set up and tear down the nursery and preschool classrooms, I noticed Sarai involving herself in the process. She will help me set out the squares and once they are together, she knows which bins have the toys in them. She will begin pulling toys out of them and arranging them on the brightly colored mat. Then when it’s time to clean up, she puts the toys in the bins I set out and pulls apart squares to be stacked in a pile and loaded onto the trailers. My mommy heart is overwhelmed with the pride I feel for Sarai and her willingness to help me every Sunday.

She may not fully understand why exactly we go to all this work on Sundays, but she does know this school is transformed into a church where she will learn about Jesus. And that’s all that really matters to me. Don’t underestimate how much your kids can be involved in this new body of Christ that your family is pouring their life into.

May I Have A Side Of Self-Pity Please?

So I had one of “those” days Tuesday. You know the kind of day where the world seems against you. My day began by answering the phone. Another friend is pregnant, and I am not. It took us almost a year to get pregnant with Sarai and I had promised myself I would not become impatient this time around. But five months into the “trying process” and I’m already on edge. First on my “to do” list was dropping off the car at Sam’s to have the tires rotated around 10 a.m. My sweet friend Mary Beth had agreed to pick me up so we could take our girls to the story time hour at our local Borders Books while my car was unavailable. Should have been easy enough right? As I walked up to the woman at the car center, she apologetically informed me that they were shorthanded today and would need 2 hours to rotate my tires. No big deal I thought. She said she would call me when my car was done. Mary Beth and I would just take our girls to grab a bite to eat after Borders to kill time. So I gave her my information, handed her the key to my Honda Accord and met my friend in front of the store.

My morning was off to a decent start. The girls had a blast at Borders and we had a yummy lunch at Panera Bread. By this time it was noon and still no call from Sam’s. So being the money conscience women we are, we decided to go wander through the dollar bins at Target. Dangerous I say! By the time we found the checkout line at Target, it was 12:45 and I was hoping Sam’s had just forgotten to call me. Arriving back at the auto center two and half hours later, I learned my car had just been taken into the garage and it would be 30ish minutes before all four tires would be securely back in place. We were well into naptime so I thanked Mary Beth for a nice morning and sent her home to put her 2 year old down. An hour later, I was finally driving home with my own very tired 2 year old. I had survived the morning.

But the afternoon was just beginning. Sarai was now overtired and fought her afternoon nap, I spent way too long on the phone with Sprint trying to get an explanation for why we were being charged for a service included in our plan, and our electricity went out just as I was beginning to put the meatballs together for spaghetti. My patience was on empty. Thankfully we have a gas stove. I lit a few candles and continued to work on dinner. But my mood was sour. About this time the Holy Spirit gently began prodding at my bad attitude but I clearly did not want to listen. The power came back on and we made it through dinner. I cleaned up the kitchen and began working on a new cookie recipe while my husband put our daughter to bed. Once Sarai was down, he joined me in the kitchen so we could share the events of our day. One topic led to another and we ended up having a rather heated conversation. Oh, and my cookies ended up being way more work than they were worth. I was frustrated, I was tired, I was ready to crawl into my bed and pretend the day had never happened.

After semi-resolving our conversation, Mike wandered down to the family room and I headed upstairs to our bedroom to find my PJs. The Holy Spirit wanted to talk to me again because as I washed my face, I started thinking about people who most likely had a much more difficult day than me: my friend whose husband recently lost his job; the family who lost everything in a house fire; the couple who was told they cannot become pregnant. “Not now!” I remember thinking. I was enjoying my pity party! But as I crawled under my warm down comforter and let the stillness surround me, I heard Him talking to me again. “Be still and know that I am God.” “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice!”

How many times today had I asked God to be a part of my frustrations? Umm, none. How many times had I stopped and asked for His patience and understanding. Umm, not once. Lord, I'm so sorry. My day could have been so different if I had let You help me find the joy in the curveballs thrown at me. Satan is on the prowl and he is looking for any way to distract us. As church planter’s wives, our days will inevitable involve many highs and lows but if we don’t allow God to be a part of both, we will become tired and frustrated just like I was today. I pray the next time my day does not go how I would have planned, I will be still and ask Him to show me how to rejoice through it all. I’m still a work in progress and I’m thankful He isn’t finished with me yet.

Windows

As I sit at my desk three days before Christmas looking out the window at the clear blue sky and crisp white snow, I'm struck by how much my life has changed in just a year. One of the biggest changes being all this snow outside my window! Charlotte, NC only got this kind of snow once in the seven years we lived there but it is quite the norm here in northern Illinois.

Last winter, my husband and I knew God was leading our family into the wild world of church planting but where He was taking us or when we might get there was still unknown. This winter, we have found ourselves in Gurnee, IL where we have already had a month of services at the Warren Campus of North Point Christian Church. Last year, I would never have dreamed of living just north of Chicago, yet now I'm in love with not only the area but the people here as well.

Last winter, we were living with friends because our home had sold before it was ever put on the market. This winter, we are settling into our new home that has truly been a blessing from God. A year ago, I said good-bye to some of my best friends while wondering if I would every have relationships like these again. Now God has opened up so many new doors for relationships then I every thought possible.

Last Christmas, I was still adjusting to having a toddler who could walk. Not only does she walk now, but she talks in full sentences! Last winter, being that we lived in Charlotte, I could have gone outside in a light coat. Now I wouldn't dare go outside without my wool coat, scarf and gloves on!

But most importantly, I did not fully understand how God could stretch my faith in just 12 months yet I'm amazed at how much I have grown in my relationship with Him.

This past year has been a whirlwind for our family from moving halfway across the country to being a part of this new church work but through it all, God has shown me again and again how much He loves me, how much He cares about the little things, and how much bigger his picture for my life really is. The verse that has encouraged me the most this past year is one I memorized back in elementary school, but this year it has finally found its way to my heart. Jeremiah 29:11 reads, "'For I know the plans I have for you', says the Lord. 'They are plans for your good and not for disaster, to give you a hope and a future.'"

In many ways, my life this past year has not been what I would have expected. But then again, as a church planting wife, it usually isn't and I would not want it to change one bit. As you look through the window of this past year, how has your life as a church planting wife been different then what you had anticipated and what has God taught you through the unexpected things?