The Church Planter's Wife

Well I have done it...I have started my own blog. I may be ten years behind on things, but, I found recently that my facebook status updates were too long and probably a little bit on overload with information about Northstar Community Church and what we are doing day after day.

I know my blog title for some may incite feelings of frustration as though I do not have a personal identity of my own. Really I've just always liked the book "The Pilot's Wife" and that's the inspiration of my title. Along with that, the rare nature of what John and I are doing has a massive impact on my daily life. Not to say that  our ministry overshadows other important aspects of my world, but it is an all consuming task to do something like starting a new church. In many ways it's similar to opening any business one is passionate about, it's an all day, every day thing. You find yourself eating it, drinking it, breathing it, sleeping it and starting all over with it again the next day. There are some days that I sit back and think "wow, I cannot believe we are living our dream! What an amazing heritage we will leave in this community and for our family. This is the best "job" ever!" and then there are the days where I wonder what in the world we have taken on!

I will be very honest in this blog about some my journey and the things we have gone through in planting a church. There have been amazing days, days of the miraculous happening, days of God's favor in our lives and in our church. Then, there are days where I have compared my feelings to this scripture in 2 Corinthians 1:8-11

" ^8-11We don't want you in the dark, friends, about how hard it was when all this came down on us in Asia province. It was so bad we didn't think we were going to make it. We felt like we'd been sent to death row, that it was all over for us. As it turned out, it was the best thing that could have happened. Instead of trusting in our own strength or wits to get out of it, we were forced to trust God totally—not a bad idea since he's the God who raises the dead! And he did it, rescued us from certain doom. And he'll do it again, rescuing us as many times as we need rescuing. You and your prayers are part of the rescue operation—I don't want you in the dark about that either. I can see your faces even now, lifted in praise for God's deliverance of us, a rescue in which your prayers played such a crucial part"

That was the verse that described my personal sentiments the week we were supposed to move into Coon Rapids. John had been sent by ambulance from the Dr's office to the hospital for fear he had a pulmonary embolism which can be very fatal. We were supposed to be moving in two days, our two year old was teething, and we were under a lot of strain. Most people would say "move another weekend" which would be logical. However, as a church planter you are completely dependent on other church's and people's support to start your church and John had every weekend until December booked to be out of town for fundraising. There was no way we could wait two more months to move. I felt like a women very pregnant with a dream (our church) taking on the weight of the world that weekend. I am sure my husband felt even worse, but I can't share how it was for him. All I know is this,as I sat at his hospital bed inundated with concerns for my husband's life, concerns for the medical costs we couldn't afford (part of church planing involves basically investing your total lives savings and not taking a paycheck so that was a big worry) and wondering if it would be better off if something bad did happen to us and we'd have to just avoid going further with what we knew God had definitely called us to. It was that intense for us.

The best part of  the story is this- we have some amazing support out there. I called two people, a women from our ministry in Chicago who literally has set aside days to be in prayer for us and our church and asked her to begin to pray. I also called Pastor Carlos in Chicago, he's always going to be our Pastor and he can handle my raw emotions. I'd worked at our church with him and John for five years and there had been a few moments where my emotional side had reared it's ugly head (imagine that!) and since he's a New Yorker and a man of prayer he could handle it! So, I cried to both of them about our woes, felt sorry for myself, and asked them to help pray me through it because I just didn't have the strength that day. They did.

When we got to our rental home in Coon Rapids (after my husband got lost for over an hour with the moving truck-remember, he's not familiar with all of MN territory) we found ourselves greeted by some of the most amazing members of our launch team, family and friends. John and I put our happy faces on and our amazing support group helped us far more than we expected or deserved. I am sure they sensed our level of exhaustion, and as amazing example of the Christian life they selflessly spent their Saturday taking care of us, moving us in and unpacking everything while we tried to help with the little reserves we had left. By the end of the day we were mostly unpacked. By the end of the week we were completely done and looked like we'd been there for months.  That story, my friends, shows the way the body of Christ was intended to operate. It shows the beauty of people whom we've just reconnected with or just met doing things for us that some folks wouldn't do for a close family member. That's the love and selflessness of Jesus being on full display for us and now for all of you reading this. And this is why I love the church as much as many oppose it-because when operating at it's full potential, in health, in an attitude where it's not about one's self but the needs of those around us, it is one amazing picture of the love of God.  That's the kind of church we want to be at Northstar, and that's the kind of lives we are daily striving to live now before we ever open the front doors.

Regardless of the challenges we've gone through or the blessings we've received while doing this, we know it is what God has called us to do and we are thankful he is using US! I am sure there are many other people that would be just as capable (if not more) of doing what we're doing but maybe they just didn't have the cajones (yes, I said it, I do use that word from time to time and since it's in Spanish you may not know what it means!) to put it all on the line like we are.

Many people have asked us, why does this matter to us so much? We could easily have taken other opportunities that presented themselves and do an"easier" form of ministry (that technically is an oxymoron that we already know doesn't exist in any church). Our simple explanation is this-we feel like we have a once in a lifetime chance to do something we are passionate about, with freedom of expression to do "church" as we feel it should be done, and in a way that we believe will be a great ministry outlet for many other people that are just like us out there. People who have real issues, real fears and real pain. We want a chance to introduce them to the real God that helped us, and still guides us daily, through many of the same life issues.  There are lots of spiritual stories and reasons why we feel to do this, times of prayer where we've felt God moving, but those sound all so impractical to many people. Yet when you state the practical facts-that we are starting a new church in a town of 67,000 people that has a small handful of churches (6) and none that are representative of the style of ministry we want to do-we see a problem that needs a solution. We believe our church will be a place of refuge, of finding God and his help in navigating through this life that is never simple or easy. So that's about it in a nutshell.

I am very excited to use this blog as a place to share the very real, honest, vulnerable day to day things that we are experiencing-the good and the bad-while going through this journey of starting a new church. If anything, it's going to be a great outlet to process all of this "new" stuff that we are learning and going through every single day of our lives.