Mom vs. the Dot: Making it COUNT!

In high school, I had a friend who was a foreign exchange student from Germany.  She told me that church in Germany was only for the very young or the very old.  Many churches were empty, abandoned.  She even told me of a church that had been turned into a climbing center for fitness enthusiasts.  I couldn't believe it!  That sounded so unreal, and that was in the 1990's.  Sadly, this is becoming the norm for many churches in our part of the country.  So many churches are dying and closing their doors. During the summer just before our move, we visited one of the churches my husband went to ask a boy.  It was a tiny country church that his dad pastored when he was young.  Counting our family, I think there were 9 people in attendance.  I had never been to a church that had so few in the pews! After the service, we visited with my husband's old friends, and the wife of the couple pulled us aside.  Tearfully, she explained how...

The next step in my plan was to clean up the remaining two classrooms and make them ready for use.  Praying as I worked.  Praying for kids to fill the classrooms.  Praying for teachers to step up.  Praying for young families to come to the church.  Praying for my husband as the leader and shepherd of this new (to us) church.  Praying for the church members to be receptive to changes and additions.  Prayer for God to work in this community and in this church. To continue the story, we freed up the stairways to the classrooms.  Old furniture that clogged the stairs?  Gone (with my hubby's help, of course.  Some of that old church furniture is HEAVY!).  Couches that clogged up one classroom?  Tried to sell them on Craigslist.  No dice. I needed someone who wanted the couches and could haul them out by themselves.  Our people couldn't do it.  The town's youth center accepted the couches and picked t...

This started out as a daunting task and a crazy leap of faith. Since then, God has given blessing after blessing, and many awesome answers to prayer. So here we were, in this age-old building with a congregation with 1 or 2 people in their 50's and the rest of them upward of 60's, 70's, 80's...we even have a woman that is now 103 years old!  She comes almost every Sunday, bless her heart! I decided to weather "big church" with my kids that first Sunday, armed with activity bags.  I put coloring books, crayons, markers and marker boards and some little characters in each bag, thinking it would occupy them for an hour.  My girls did fine, but my boy wanted nothing to do with sitting still and being quiet, thank you.  I brought lollipops, but that didn't last too long.  Only 10 minutes or so into the service, my 3-year-old was army-crawling under the pews.  I was mortified.  Here we were, trying to make a good first impression, and he was bein...

This part of our story began in the fall of 2014, when we traveled to see this small town church.  We were to take a tour of the building and meet the head of the staff-parish relations committee.  We didn't know what we were walking into, but we had been told that this church had stagnated and was "dying," but the members want it to become a growing, prosperous church again. It was interesting that we took a tour of the church, guided by one man, and we were to make a decision on whether or not my husband would take on the challenge of pastoring this church...before we met anyone else who attended it. I don't know about you, but typically, when deciding whether or not to make a church my home, I need to meet the people who go there.  Call me crazy, but I want to know if I can get along with them.  To make a home with them.  To make friends! We left the kids with their grandparents and braved the tour together. First impression:  Lift chairs ins...

For over a year, I have written this blog and loved doing it!  Most of the time, I'd rack my brain to come up with something interesting to write about, or I would recall conversations with friends that might have contained some of today's parenting issues. Today, I have decided to start a small series on what I do with my week - when I'm not homeschooling, running errands, or housekeeping. The majority of my "free" time is spent working on things for our church.  I don't know how common this is for many people, but it will give you a peek through the window of a pastor's wife/stay at home mom/homeschool family's lifestyle.  Interesting or not, here it goes! I personally think this is tremendously interesting and amazing because of God's answers to prayer and His work in our lives and in the life of our church.   His hand at work is undeniable. And so, I'd like to write about our personal experience with one of the many churches i...

The story of The Dot. My husband was teaching the youth group at our church a year or two ago, and he used an illustration that struck me.  Startled me, really. At home, he asked me to locate some rope to use for his illustration.  We had a coil of clothesline in the basement, so I brought that up.  He grabbed a black Sharpie and prepared to head out the door. "What are you doing with the rope and marker?"  I had to know. It's for an illustration tonight.  I'll tell the teens to visualize this rope running along the walls of the youth room, and all the walls of the church.  Then it continues forever - there is no end. Next, I'll have a volunteer come up and make one dot on the rope with the black marker.  This, I will explain, represents their entire time on earth.  The rope is eternity and that little black dot encompasses every moment we have here on earth. Puts things into perspective, doesn't it? I began to think of things I ...