Losing Life

God Gave Me Chairs

In the month before our move to KC people started giving me chairs.  3 great chairs from Mike Emmert of Count the Cost ministries...they are wonderfully comfortable chairs and fit into my decor perfectly.  6 outdoor chairs from Brent Foulke of Stadia for my deck.  6 Dining room chairs from Lori and Jim Cooke for my new dining room.  These chairs were all gifts and they were all brand new.  I am thinking that God is expecting that I will be having lots of visitors.  And if the first 10 days in this house is indication of what the next few years will be like, God's provision of chairs is right on time...HE is SO FAITHFUL.

Here are our visitors over the last 10 days:

1. My parents...who helped us move here.
2. My sister Judy, and her husband Jeff and my niece Lindsey, who helped us paint.
3. Troy's Parents Val and Gene who stayed for 4 days and did lots and lots of work around the house.
4. A neighbor, Penny, who came over to bring a whole meal.  Lasagna, two salads and bread sticks.  Delicious.  AND she has a 5 year old daughter who Judiann has played with now...twice!
5. Troy's brother, Mark, wife Lisa and daughter Kaylee and boyfriend Zac...we ate the neighbors lasagna dinner on our patio.
6. Another neighbor, Jeff...who stopped by the garage to say hi and Troy said... "wait a minute, do I know you?"  The answer was yes, Jeff and Troy had just met several weeks ago when Troy and Dave consulted with his church Good Shepherd United Methodist Church about multi-site.  Then Jeff brought his wife by later with brownies.
7. Sharon Stockton of Northland Mission Church with cake and flowers welcoming us to the Northland.
8. The painter who came to give me an estimate who, as it turns out, is huge into church planting and was part of a church plant here in the Northland called North Heartland Community Church.
9. Kent and Cherilyn our new best friends in the Northland.  Kent has helped us over the months in so many many ways.  They own a coffee shop nearby called A Cup Above.  We are discussing ways to partner with the coffee shop which is really a ministry.... more to come on that. Very exciting stuff.
10. Gretchen and Cliff brought us the worlds best homemade cookies. We met them at NACC in July.  They brought over their two delightful kids...who immediately got into our hearts.  They live very close to us.

So come and see us, we definitely have enough chairs.

More on Birds and Bees conversation

Judiann is cracking me up!  She is continuing to process what we call in our family "the life secret"  It is a "secret" because you are NOT suppose to tell your friends about it....only their moms and dads are suppose to tell them....NOT you.  Here is a part of the conversation.

"Who told YOU about it?" 

"My Mom."

"Who told your mom?

"I don't know"

"What if nobody ever told anybody, there would be no babies." 

"People would figure it out.

"So a lot of people I know have done 'that', like David and Julie and Shawn and Lindsey?"

"yep" (insert look of shock on her face here.)

"Why are we having this conversation in public?" (we were at Wendy's) 

"Nobody can hear us."

(looking around at all the parents with kids):  "So all these people have done that?" 

"Yep."

"Do Jake and Mitch know?"   

"Yep, I told them a long time ago."

"I am going to tell them again, maybe they forgot."

"Oh, trust me, they haven't forgot."

Maybe I shouldn't share this private conversation for all the world to see...but it was just too funny.  AND, she doesn't yet read blogs...AND none of you will say anything to her... RIGHT?  And if she had it her way, I think she would come right out and have this conversation herself with just about any of you (even though I have advised her to the contrary).

It all started because we were thinking about getting  Guinea pigs for pets  (to avoid getting a dog) and someone said, be sure to get two girls so you won't have babies.  Judiann is thinking that having two girls increases the likelihood that you will have babies cause only girls have babies.   So later, Judi asks me do you have to have a boy AND girl Guinea pig to have baby Guinea pigs?  So I say, "yes."  And she says, "Are people like that?"  I say, "they are"  and the conversation is off and running.

Parenting note:  I have now had the privilege of sharing this conversation with all three of my children.  And none of them had heard it anywhere else first.  It is such a privilege as a parent to be the one who tells them first.  Catch them young, they are not embarrassed...just completely and utterly shocked.  Telling them young and first communicates several things: 

1. you can talk to me about anything
2. "it" is normal
3. "it" is good
4. God has rules about "it" for our joy and protection.

Why did I choose to tell them when I did?...simple... they asked.  Well, two out of the three asked, the other one was never going to ask, so we just had to tell him before he heard it elsewhere. 

Progress

• A day without tears!
• My first spot on new carpet
• There are pictures on the walls
• My non-cell phone rang
• Judiann had a play date
• We have a dinner date with new friends on the calender for August
• There was mail in my mailbox
• I celebrated a 10 minute drive to the airport with no traffic at 6:00am on a Friday morning....seriously 10 minutes from the time I left my house to the terminal.
• I painted the kitchen wall chalkboard black...it looks awesome!
• I laughed out loud lots of times today...mostly at Judiann while we were having an impromptu "birds and bees" conversation.  She asked if you have to go to the hospital to "do that."  And of course being the sharp mathematician that she is, she quickly added up that I had "done that" 3 times.  To which I completely wimped out and just said, "yep."

JOY!

A break from boxes. Sweet! 

The Sequel

I hate seeing any good book or movie come to an end.  That is how I am feeling about my life.  The Chicagoland part has come to an end and I really hate to see end...really.  I am grieving.  I am crying at every little thing, but it is a good cry.  Like the very sweet part of a movie and it is so good you can't believe it and you cry about how nice and real and good it is.  That is me today....and yesterday and the day before and probably tomorrow. 

I daydream about waking up in the morning and there are no boxes and my house in Naperville is just like it was a few months ago and I am making pancakes in my old kitchen and the living room is a disaster...as usual.  I go out to get the morning paper in my pajamas and get embarrassed because someone I know drives by and honks a hello...and the street is busy and my easy bake oven is still small.

But God is good and faithful.  My new oven is bigger. My new street is quieter. 

So here's to the Kansas City sequel, which I expect to rival the original...  But I AM wondering when the crying will stop....

Planting Pregnant

Last January I attended CCC's Reproducing Church Experience.  As part of the experience we were asked to write down our dream on a napkin....(the napkin part is a longer story for another post).  I sketched on a napkin a reproducing church (of course, that is all I know having been part of CCC going from one site to 8 sites in Chicagoland, growing from 700 to nearly 5,000 people as well as seeing the Newthing Network form out of CCC and plant 5 churches and bring in many more affiliate churches)  So of course, what else am I going to sketch on my napkin?  But after a conversation with Pat Masek something shifted.  I went from thinking we will plant a church that "hopefully" reproduces to thinking we will plant a church that is "pregnant."

A church that plants "pregnant" will have two or three church planter apprentices from day one.  These apprentices will be trained to become the next campus pastors or church planters helping the church go multi-site in the first 18 to 24 months.

Sounded like a great idea, I got really excited about it.  I mean after all my goal is to use all the resources and gifts God has given me in this lifetime and trade them for helping as many people find their way back to God as possible.

So Troy and I began to construct a plann for planting "pregnant."  All of it sounded very doable.  The most difficult part was going to be finances.  For a new church, being able to pay multiple staff is challenging enough, and then to add the full-time salaries of 2 or 3 more people seemed nearly impossible.

How to overcome this obstacle?  Hmmm...God would have to show up big time.  Not only would we need to find capable leaders who shared our passion for helping people find their way back to God, but they would also have to be people who would be willing to raise their own support...for three years!  Yikes.  That was never going to happen, we thought. 

So we prayed about it.  If it was God's idea, God would provide.  Here we are 7 months later and we have 3 such capable, visionary, gifted and very brave leaders who are joining ReachoutKC as campus pastor apprentices. 

Please pray for these people who are stepping out in faith to make the move to KC.  Nate, Josh and our mystery guy who will be public shortly with his decision.  Check out Nate and Jill's story here.

I was seriously in denial....

about how much stuff I have!

Triple Play

Even though he has not yet packed a box, Troy rocks! He is having many many conversations this week about ReachoutKC inviting people to partner with our team to save lives in Kansas City.  I have been a part of a few of these conversations, and they are truly a God-thing.  It occurred to me that every time someone says YES to using their resources in a missional way, it is a TRIPLE PLAY.  Here's how:

• ME:  My faith increases.  God truly does own the cattle on a thousand hills and he does prompt people to give to His mission.
• YOU:  The people who give are blessed.  Their generosity to the Jesus mission keeps them placing value in people instead of things.
• THE PEOPLE OF KANSAS CITY:  People who we don't even know yet are going to find their way back to God.

Wanna play?  ReachoutKC.org is now accepting online contributions.

Gimme a Break Troy

In step with my friend Jon who regularly keeps it real for his brother Dave, I have to keep it real for my partner in life and ministry.

Is this post a manipulative way to get me and the kids to continue to do ALL the work? 

THAT was fun.

Our ReachoutKC team had so much fun this week at the North American Christian Convention.  Just as I suspected, God has assembled a really good team who like each other and have lots of fun together.  We talked with hundreds and hundreds of people about the new church in Kansas City.  Check out what Troy says about the convention.

Not only did the team have fun hanging out together, but they did an awesome job connecting with people...really awesome.  They were motivated, encouraging, easy conversationalists, vision casters, and very, very cool.  I LOVE this team. 

An added bonus, Troy's brother Mark (who came expecting to just hang out and ended up working really hard) was there and helped us out tremendously throughout the week, then he was joined by his other brother Tim and our niece Alyssa, both who helped greet people and put 3,000 follow-up cards on 3,000 chairs in 35 minutes.  THANKS everyone!