Why Can't We All Get Along?

I am going to jump into the political side of things for a while.  I consider myself an independent on most everything.  I don't follow people blindly or because they align with a couple of my beliefs.  I live my life as a Christians but believe that we are all sinners and need God's love.  I believe what I believe because of years of searching myself, scripture and listening to God.  I know that people don't agree 100% with me, even within my own church or denomination.

What is Going On - Part 3

We have had a rough 7 months and we still aren't sure where we are going.  I landed a part-time position at Epworth UMC as their Director of Family Ministries.  I am working under a great pastor named Bill who, funny enough, isn't Methodist but is leading a Methodist Church (that is a post for another day).  He has great knowledge of the church and is my mentor in the UMC Licensing process.  He has a heart for reaching the lost and doing justice.  He has brought this church through some major tough times.  I am glad to be working with and learning from him.

What's Being Going On - Part 1

I know, I know, it has been a long time since I have blogged on this site.  My life has been super crazy and I just haven't felt the need to write anything.  I have a ton of ideas saved up and I am hoping to take another crack at this blogging thing.

I wanted to use this first blog to catch people up on what has been going on in my life.  This will probably take a few blogs, so please be patient.  The focus of this blog will probably change also.  I will talk more about that later.


So what has been going on....

Over the last 18 months the life of our family has been a very crazy roller coaster.  In March of 2011 we resigned from our position from Platte Woods UMC after almost 5 years of ministry.  This is a decision that we felt God was asking us to make and after some needed push we did it.  In our arrogance, we thought finding another position would be simple, unfortunately it wasn't.  We looked for 7 months before we made the move to Newburgh and accepted a position at Newburgh UMC.  

We were super excited about this move because we believed the church and staff were a good fit for us.  We saw huge potential in the youth group and knew that this could be a long term position for us.  Unfortunately, after just 3 months we were asked to resign for what was told us as "chemistry" between the leaders and I.  I was floored.  I had no idea this was coming and never expected it from this church.  We knew that 3 months isn't long enough to get started much less make any significant progress but we accepted the reality of it and decided to move on.


So once again, less than a year later, we were on the look out for a new position.  Again we thought there would be a quick resolution and we had a few bites right off the bat, but nothing came of it.  We looked for youth ministry positions as well as secular work because we weren't sure that we wanted to move our kids after being here only 4 months.

We began to question God and how he could move us to a new location only to lose our job in 3 months.  We had no idea what the plan was or where we would end up.  The idea of moving again scared us because we had no financial means of doing it.  We had already uprooted our family once that year and didn't want to do it again.  We had no idea what God was wanting from us...

Suggestions for Parents: Building a Family Ministry

I am going to finish up this blog series on Suggestion for Parents by talking about how our ministry (or what was ours) is doing family ministry. The original thoughts on this series came when I was still doing youth ministry, so all the thoughts that follow are based on the ministry at Platte Woods UMC