A Journey in Ministry!

Where to start?

I want to tell everyone of this Journey. This journey that my wife and I have been on together this last couple of years! A journey towards ministry! Incorrect, a journey OF ministry!

You might want to grab a snack and a drink, this is going to be a long one!

Let's start with around Christmas of 2007. My wife and I had grown very stagnant at the church we were attending quite frankly so much that I had quit going altogether. I know really, me not at church. It even seems weird to me now that I look back at it. Anyways, I had quit going and Diana had been attending off and on at Dove, and some with her Dad at Northeast as well. I was not interested in any of it, but was still wanting to go to church.

At Easter of 2008 our friends Danny and Sarah Simpson invited us to Center Pointe Church in Goshen. So we went. It seemed like the pastor was talking right to us, we immediately felt like we were called to at least hear the messages. So we decided to meet with Ray and Melissa and move towards becoming members of the church. We dove into serving, Men's group, hanging out with people, serving in any area we could. It was going great. Had been for quite awhile an in the summer of 2009 I stepped down from serving full time for a multitude of reasons, none of which really make much sense now, because in doing so I only let the devil get a small victory! Well, you live and you learn! By Christmas of 2009 we were once again feeling very stagnant at church! Then comes our 1st family vacation to Florida to see my Momma. We had all these plans of spending everyday at the beach, and visiting the zoo and all kinds of other crazy things, but God had a different plan. As we went to visit my mother, we obviously went and checked out her church with her. They had a special guest in to lead their Christmas worship service (you may have heard of Beckah Shae on Klove or Star 93.3, she is amazing!!!!!!) and man was the Spirit of God every hopping in this place, and we needed it. Needless to say, we ended up spending about 90% of our "vacation" with my Mom's church family! We had an awesome time and came back from Florida so refreshed in the Holy Spirit! It was much needed to!

We came back and since we had withdrawn from several roles at our church we had in the process offended some people which was never the intent! So we wanted to mend some fences, but this was not accepted very well.

The night I will never forget is when Diana and I had been asked by someone in leadership to come out for a little get together and hang out, we were asked by the couple hosting it not to come! This devastated Diana! She was really upset and in tears for quite awhile. I mean how could we be coming of this high of the Holy Spirit coming back from Florida, and things turn out the way they were turning out? It just didn't really add up to either of us! So that evening with like $8 in our checking account (we were broke when coming back from vacation LOL) we went to McDonald's (hence the Golden Arches in the pic above).

We had went up, ordered some food for us and the kids, sat down and discussed how we were going to handle things in our life regarding church, and moving on. We both had felt very rejected and both had mentioned never stepping foot in another church at that point, but as we were packing up to leave the most MIRACULOUS thing occurred! Out of nowhere, this Man and Woman came up to us, and asked if they could pray for us! Weird!!!! We were already in the car! Diana and I didn't even notice these people inside, so we aren't really sure where they came from, but this lady prayed for us. She prayed specifically that we were going to be used to Minister! For God's ministry! We thought, how can that be after tonight? Is this lady nuts? She then pointed to me, and said God has a specific plan for you in a ministry role!! At that point all I could think was, Did my Mom send you here to mess with me? LOL, or am I on Candid Camera? LOL.

That was January of 2010. We spent most of last year looking for a church! We visited between 15-25 church's during that time, praying that God would put us where we cold SERVE AGAIN!! I love serving, my wife loves serving, and the best thing of all MY KIDS LOVE SERVING! I have a 15 year old and an 8 year old that would give you the shirt off their own back. How amazing is that! They both have such BIG hearts for God, and for advancing His Kingdom through servitude! I love it!!!

So for those of you who read my blog or my are just my Facebook friends, if you haven't noticed or seen it, my wife and I have found a new Church home! More importantly a phenomenal church family! Our Small Group is amazing! The Youth Group is amazing! The Children's Minister is amazing! I LOVE our Pastor! I LOVE our Worship Pastor (even though he and his brother are not Buckeye fans)! We are quickly making tons of new friends. God is doing amazing things at Elevation Community Church! AMAZING THINGS!!! 11 people were baptized yesterday, one of which was my Mother-in-Law. Which was an amazing blessing to be able to be there and support her in that decision, and to be able to get up and announce it to the church for her! God is soooooooooo GOOD!!!

After all that is said! I will close with this. I may not be an actual minister, BUT I have had many people the last couple of weeks come up to me and tell me that my blog is uplifting to them in the middle of their tough weeks, or people are just coming up to me and saying that they love my blog and it is blessing them.

I love the feedback people, I really do. I speak TOTALLY from a souled out, surrendered, and humbled heart that only happens because of the Grace of God!

I believe this is my Ministry! I will continue to use this tool and many of my other attributes to advance the Kingdom of God.

If life is a game of Chess than I am glad that I have the most powerful piece in the Universe, The King of Kings (and yes Craig, you can quote me on that!) ;-)

Oh yea and I hope I don't get sued for using their logo like this!