What a great day! For those that don't know, we have been part of an exciting new venture. Brian and I have been working in the youth at Walnut Ridge for the past year. We have made some really great friends amongst the other youth workers (15 of us even got together every Monday night for Bauer Hour - 24 reference for those not "in the know"). Rodney, the youth pastor, and his wife, Laura, became some of our closest friends, so when they started talking about God moving in their lives about planting a church, we asked, "Where do we sign up?" That was back in April. We met all summer in the home of one of the core team and have just been working hard toward getting this church off the ground. Today was day one, and it couldn't have gone better. God is so good! Not only did He meet our needs (and I'm not just talking financially), but God has provided above and beyond. We have 20 families (our core team) that have stepped up to say, "We are all in!" It has been amazing to see what community we have built just over the summer amongst the core team. Today, we had our first service. We are meeting for the next year in the Midlothian Conference Center - and it is perfect! So, the core team was disbursed to work behind the scenes this morning (in children's, preschool, etc). Anyway, all that is to say that our faithful group was busy working (we are at one service for the time being) and so we were a little nervous about the service being kind of empty with all of us working elsewhere. But no! We had over 127 souls in the worship service. It was awesome. Everything went smoothly without a hitch. My only regret is that we didn't get to see the service. I was working with the 3-5 year olds and let me tell you...there is a reason I am a middle school teacher! It is amazingly hard to convince children that don't know you to sit down and learn anything. I was happy when we got through the Bible story - pretty successfully - and our prayer time consisted of them thanking God for their toys. Believe me - that was huge! Just getting them to stop playing with the toys long enough to be thankful was a trial! Brian was working in the children's area. It was so funny too because people kept coming up to me after church and saying, "Wow! Your husband was so good with the kids." I know he can be quiet and somewhat reserved but put him on a field or around kids and you see a whole different side of him. To say it was a great day would be such an understatement. How good God is!
Check out the church's website at: http://www.stonegate-church.com
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