I am amazed looking over the past year in our lives and how God is working and growing in our lives and family. Some of you reading this won't understand, but I see God's hand in each step that we have taken in faith-obeying and following Him.
About 2 years ago Sam started listening to a program on the radio called Walk in the Word with James MacDonald out of the Chicago area. His teaching transformed our lives! For the first time in a long time we heard teaching/preaching straight from the Bible, not someones opinion or rabbit trail about what they think the Bible says or twisting it for their belief, but what it says verse by verse. So, we started being challenged about what he had been told our whole church life that preachers like this were "false teachers" not teaching what the Bible says, etc...I could fill in a lot of different things I have heard said over the years (not important). So as we started learning and comparing his teaching with the Bible we were discovering that not everyone who isn't independent baptist is wrong. Just because someones opinion or the way they do something is different, doesn't make them wrong. However, I am not writing this post to argue with anyone, just to share my heart and where God is leading us at this point. I have no harsh feelings about where God had us before and am thankful for how God worked used that in our lives.
We were introduced to Harvest Bible Fellowship which has a training center for church planters. Our hearts have always been in church planting and our desire has been to plant a church here in the USA, but never felt adequately prepared to do so. We began praying about this opportunity, however we knew that where we were serving at the time wouldn't agree with our decision and wouldn't provide a avenue to really apply for a spot in the training center. We thought God was leading us to another church at the time, but that fell through, which was obviously the Lord! We landed at Grace Church the first Sunday we had free and found a breath of fresh air. We had heard of church like this, but for the first time were experiencing it ourselves. In the meantime we were still just praying for God to provide a job for Sam and at that point had pretty much put the training center idea at the back of our minds. About 2 months ago, my dad shared his heart with Sam and told him if his illness was holding Sam back that he really thought he should apply and see how God would lead. So, after 2 years of praying and waiting to apply he sat down and started the process. This application was not like a little job application where it asks you a few short questions and that's it. It took Sam about 4-6 weeks to fill it out and to get through everything. Not only did you have to fill out the application but you also had to have reference forms filled out that were very thorough and even I (as his wife) had to fill one out. This training center is very intensive and they only accept less than 10 men to train over a 9 month period. So, he completed everything he needed to do, included a preaching/teaching CD of him and sent it off. Honestly, the skeptic that I can be at times thought OK, you might hear back from them but I just don't know. So, he gets a call the day they receive it in the mail!
Where are we today with the process? After talking a bit back and forth over the last month they are flying Sam to Chicago next Saturday (the 7th)-Wednesday (the 11th) for him to participate in Harvest University which is Mon-Wed, but also for Sam to observe and become more familiar with the ministry there and for them to get to know him more. This is just the beginning and we have no idea where this will go and how God will lead. This is very exciting for us and Sam is stoked about getting to go to this conference! Please continue to pray for our family and how God will use us.
About 2 years ago Sam started listening to a program on the radio called Walk in the Word with James MacDonald out of the Chicago area. His teaching transformed our lives! For the first time in a long time we heard teaching/preaching straight from the Bible, not someones opinion or rabbit trail about what they think the Bible says or twisting it for their belief, but what it says verse by verse. So, we started being challenged about what he had been told our whole church life that preachers like this were "false teachers" not teaching what the Bible says, etc...I could fill in a lot of different things I have heard said over the years (not important). So as we started learning and comparing his teaching with the Bible we were discovering that not everyone who isn't independent baptist is wrong. Just because someones opinion or the way they do something is different, doesn't make them wrong. However, I am not writing this post to argue with anyone, just to share my heart and where God is leading us at this point. I have no harsh feelings about where God had us before and am thankful for how God worked used that in our lives.
We were introduced to Harvest Bible Fellowship which has a training center for church planters. Our hearts have always been in church planting and our desire has been to plant a church here in the USA, but never felt adequately prepared to do so. We began praying about this opportunity, however we knew that where we were serving at the time wouldn't agree with our decision and wouldn't provide a avenue to really apply for a spot in the training center. We thought God was leading us to another church at the time, but that fell through, which was obviously the Lord! We landed at Grace Church the first Sunday we had free and found a breath of fresh air. We had heard of church like this, but for the first time were experiencing it ourselves. In the meantime we were still just praying for God to provide a job for Sam and at that point had pretty much put the training center idea at the back of our minds. About 2 months ago, my dad shared his heart with Sam and told him if his illness was holding Sam back that he really thought he should apply and see how God would lead. So, after 2 years of praying and waiting to apply he sat down and started the process. This application was not like a little job application where it asks you a few short questions and that's it. It took Sam about 4-6 weeks to fill it out and to get through everything. Not only did you have to fill out the application but you also had to have reference forms filled out that were very thorough and even I (as his wife) had to fill one out. This training center is very intensive and they only accept less than 10 men to train over a 9 month period. So, he completed everything he needed to do, included a preaching/teaching CD of him and sent it off. Honestly, the skeptic that I can be at times thought OK, you might hear back from them but I just don't know. So, he gets a call the day they receive it in the mail!
Where are we today with the process? After talking a bit back and forth over the last month they are flying Sam to Chicago next Saturday (the 7th)-Wednesday (the 11th) for him to participate in Harvest University which is Mon-Wed, but also for Sam to observe and become more familiar with the ministry there and for them to get to know him more. This is just the beginning and we have no idea where this will go and how God will lead. This is very exciting for us and Sam is stoked about getting to go to this conference! Please continue to pray for our family and how God will use us.
